Prime Target (G1)

This article is about the Generation 1 episode. For the live-action film series book, see Prime Target (book).

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...This pretty much speaks for itself.
"Prime Target"
Production code	700-50
Production company	Sunbow Productions
Airdate	November 14, 1985
Written by	Flint Dille Buzz Dixon
Animation studio	Toei
Continuity	Generation 1 cartoon continuity

The big-game hunter Lord Chumley begins hunting Autobots, and he's gunning for Optimus Prime.

Synopsis

Over the Arctic, Oktober Guard One is flying an experimental jet, when it is suddenly speared by a submarine under the ice. She ejects, but the plane is captured. It turns out that the plane was stolen by Lord Chumley, a game hunter, who tells his manservant Dinsmoore that he needs one more thing to complete his collection... the head of Optimus Prime.

"Dinsmoore, I believe the Autobots are about to suffer a series of unfortunate events!"

Heading into town, Tracks and Bumblebee spot Blitzwing and Astrotrain and head after them. However, it is actually a trap set by Chumley. Back at the Autobot base, the Autobots are watching a soap opera which is interrupted by a news broadcast about the theft of the plane. Apparently, the Soviet Union is accusing the United States of America of the theft, which the United States denies, and the two countries are ready to go to war. Having not heard back from Bumblebee and Tracks, Prime orders the Autobots to search for their friends. However, Chumley has devised several traps for the Autobots and manages to capture Jazz, Beachcomber, Grapple, Blaster, and Inferno, the latter of whom sends a message to Prime about the capture. Not wanting to risk the others, Prime orders the Autobots to return to base.

And you thought Hasbro safety tests were tough.

While they regroup, Cosmos sends a message to Prime, saying that he's found the missing bots, who are being held in (poorly designed) traps intended to prevent them from escaping. Chumley himself contacts Prime and requests his presence. Pissed at seeing his friends tortured, Prime overloads Chumley's screen and orders the Autobots to remain at the base.

However, Megatron has been keeping an eye on the events and feels that Chumley, though a flesh creature, may be useful...especially since he's done more in two days than Megatron has done in two years, which Starscream takes the time to point out. Unaware that Chumley is only after Prime, Megatron sends Blitzwing and Astrotrain (surprise, surprise) to make a deal between Chumley and the Decepticons.

Arriving at Chumley's castle, Prime finds himself in a "well researched" mock-up of Cybertron. He unleashes a monster on Prime, but Prime is able to defeat it. Heading down a corridor, Prime finds a young woman imprisoned, but leaves. Blitzwing investigates, and gets trapped in a goo-net intended for Prime, much to Astrotrain's irritation. Finally, Chumley sends out a mechanical scorpion, but Prime is shot in the back by Astrotrain and apparently killed. Furious that his prize has been ruined, Chumley takes the Decepticons prisoner and defuses their energy weapons.

Blackarachnia's debut was not the most glamorous.

Knowing that Prime is alive, Bumblebee sends their coordinates to the Autobot leader, who enters the castle. A mechanical spider is dispatched, but Prime destroys it and heads into Chumley's control room. Dinsmoore hides in a tank while Chumley frees the Decepticons on the promise that they'll fight the Autobot. Instead Astrotrain and Blitzwing go after Chumley to "See how he likes being hunted." The Autobots are freed by Prime, and Blitzwing and Astrotrain retreat after realizing that they are unarmed. Chumley is left at the mercy of Prime.

The Autobots return the plane to the Soviet Union, with Chumley strapped to its nose. The world thanks Optimus Prime for his efforts in solving the mystery.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Tracks (4) Bumblebee (5) Blaster (9) Grapple (10) Beachcomber (11) Jazz (12) Optimus Prime (13) Inferno (14) Windcharger (15) Huffer (16) Ironhide (17) Warpath (18) Hoist (19) Cosmos (20) Mirage (21) Prowl (24) Bluestreak (25) Ratchet (26) Wheeljack (27)	Blitzwing (7) Astrotrain (8) Megatron (22) Starscream (23)	Oktober Guard One (1) Dinsmoore (2) Lord Chumley (3) Hector Ramirez (6) Soviet sentry (28)

Quotes

Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?

"She's a lovely specimen, Lord Chumley, but, there's a frightful international row brewing over it."
"Ahhh. These things blow over... Remember the Boer War?"
"Painfully, sir."
"Oh, yes, well. Everybody else has forgotten it."

—Dinsmoore and Chumley are older'n hell, apparently.

Don't you stand at attention when you're watching your stories?

News Announcer: "We interrupt 'As the Kitchen Sinks' for this special news bulletin."
Jazz, Blaster, Beachcomber and Grapple in unison: "Awwwwwwwww..."

—The Autobots do not like to miss their soaps.

"Ah hah. Here comes the robot now. Dressed as a semi-truck. How very punctual!"

—Chumley

"Amazing. A booby trap that actually catches boobies."

—Optimus Prime says "boobies".

"Bah! Impenetrable! Blitzwing, how do you get into these messes?!"

—Astrotrain vainly tries to free Blitzwing

"Decepticons! Trust them to spoil the hunt."
"Yes, sir. Just like the Humane Society, in a way."

—Chumley and Dinsmoore

"Smashing! Simply smashing!"

—Chumley does his best Nigel Thornberry impression.

Chumley: I say, old chaps. If I free you, will you fight Optimus Prime?
Astrotrain: Trust us!
Chumley: There he is, lads! Ha ha! Give him a good thrashing!
[Astrotrain immediately tries to stomp Chumley]
Astrotrain: See how you like being hunted!
Chumley: But—you said—
Blitzwing: Never trust Decepticons, flesh creature!

—Chumley gets a lesson in Decepticon ethics.

Notes

Continuity notes

Not afraid to interrupt the Autobots' soaps, even if means a variable voltage harness to the face.

• The Oktober Guard are a Soviet special operations force from the G.I. Joe cartoons and comics.
• The newscaster the Autobots observe on television is Hector Ramirez, a crossover character who originated in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and went on to appear in numerous other Hasbro/Sunbow cartoons.
• Several of the Autobots are revealed to be fans of an Earth soap opera entitled As the Kitchen Sinks. Clearly, they've been away from Cybertron too long. Even better, they all groan when it's interrupted.
• Beachcomber carries enough change with him to pay a tollbooth.
• Tracks and Bumblebee are on a "supply run". Sounds like they've ventured into Central City!
• Points to this episode for keeping track of Optimus Prime's shoulder wounds–they appear very consistently after his battle with the dragon. They even become a plot point, as the robot scorpion uses them to grip Prime with its claws.
• Optimus Prime is quick to discount the possibility of the Decepticons being behind the theft of the experimental jet, despite them previously stealing human tech. (And they would do so again.)

Real-world references

Using a hyper-advanced alien supercomputer to watch a soap opera may seem funny to you, but you're using more computing power than got us to the moon to look at this of all things.

• The plot of the episode appears to be loosely based on The Most Dangerous Game.
• There was a 1914 silent film called Lord Chumley. It probably didn't have Autobots in it.
• Dinsmoore was apparently alive for the Second Boer War. At least, we're assuming it's the second one, since the first one happened in the 1880s. If he was alive and could remember that one, he must be some sort of super human.
• Chumley boasts of having hunted Javanese tigers... which were actually hunted to extinction by the late 1970s. Bastard.
• The show As The Kitchen Sinks the Autobots were watching is a reference to the show As The World Turns.
• Chumley bears some resemblance to Major Minor from Snagglepuss cartoons (even down to having a head plaque ready for his next target), just hugely more resourceful and effective.
• The news report refers to the capturing of the Soviet jet as the highest point in US-Soviet tensions since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Stop dragon my heart around.

• There is a real-world legend of a dragon that lives in Borneo. Specifically, it dwells on Mount Kinabalu... which seems to be referenced indirectly when Lord Chumley talks about having studied "the Kibularu tribe in lower Sontanga... or was it the Sontanga tribe in lower Kibularu?" ("Sontanga" is also suspiciously close to "Sintang", another part of Borneo.)
  • Moreover, Flint Dille, who co-wrote "Prime Target", had a large hand in the development of Sunbow's Inhumanoids series, which featured another reptilian monster from Borneo in the form of Sslither.
  • There is an actual Bornean lizard species called the Kinabalu crested dragon, but it has never been known to reach Autobot-threatening sizes.

Animation and technical errors

• A large number of sound effects are missing or oddly truncated throughout the episode. Inferno smashes his way into the burning building without any smashy-smashy-type noises, and a second later his wrist communicator is snipped off in total silence. Prime shoots a bear trap with only about a fourth of his usual blaster sound effect; a second later he throws open a castle gate, which only makes half of a clang.
• Likewise, there are a few lines of dialogue present in the episode's shooting script that are dropped from the final version. This in and of itself is hardly unusual, except in one instance, an odd technical glitch results. In the script, after Prime flattens Chumley's robotic scorpion, Chumley entreats Astrotrain to "help [his] machine to its feet," and Astrotrain replies "Certainly!" In the finished episode, however, Chumley's request is removed but Astrotrain's response is not, leaving the Decepticon randomly saying "Certainly!" for no apparent reason.
• And finally, quite a bit of the scene editing is disjointed, cutting from place to place almost at random.
• Coloring errors:
  • One of Tracks' missile launchers is blue instead of white as he and Bumblebee walk up to the crowd in the city.
  • When Optimus Prime and the Autobots at HQ first transform, Optimus' headlights aren't colored white (they're the same red as his body).
  • One of Jazz's fenders is blue instead of white after he's captured.
  • Mirage's missile is colored black instead of white as he listens to Cosmos' broadcast.
  • After he first lands at Chumley's castle, one side of Blitzwing's helmet is yellow and the other side is purple.
• The collective groans of the Autobots at their interrupted soap don't match any of their actual voices.
• A billboard urging viewers to "Don't drink and drive" has a second message to "Don't fly drive".
• When the fire hose/tentacle trap ensnares Inferno it's shown breaking off his wrist communicator twice.
• When Optimus signals the Autobots of the change in plans, his cab is shown to have rear windows (it's probably a layering error where the front windows got copied).
• During the scene when Chumley contacts Optimus at the Autobots headquarters, both Inferno and Jazz can be seen standing next to Optimus even though earlier, they got captured by Chumley.
• When Chumley watches Optimus through his telescope as he approaches the castle, it appears as if Optimus is "driving" through the in the sky. While it might seen that the error here is that no ground has been drawn in, if you look closely, Prime is actually "wearing" an Autobot jetpack, affixed to the top of his trailer, with jet-exhaust effects and all—he really is supposed to be flying in truck mode! The real error in this scene is the display of Prime on Chumley's monitor which has no sky or ground, and just show Optimus floating in a purple background—plus the absence of any scene that shows him landing, as the very next shot shows he has already done. In addition, the non-descript purple background on Chumley's large screen is shared by the sky outside the window, making it seem like the castle itself is moving.
• After Prime frees himself from the net, the net and chain both vanish between shots.
• Blitzwing and Astrotrain's mouths don't move as they speak their lines while approaching the beartrap.
• "Don't you know it's dangerous to play with poison, Mrs. Blackwidow?" Optimus Prime means venom, not poison.
• When Blitzwing says "Never trust Decepticons, flesh creature", Chumley mouths along. A few seconds later Blitzwing says "Look out, the Autobots are free!" in Astrotrain's voice.
• The Russian guard drops his rifle in surprised reaction to something in front of him... then turns around to find the missing jet behind him.

Continuity errors

• Oktober Guard One received a sonar reading from beneath the ice while flying over in her jet. Sonar doesn't work that way.
• Any other cartoon (or real-life) jet would have completely exploded either upon being struck, or upon smashing nose-first into the ice.
• Why is footage of the "top secret Russian jet fighter" being shown on the American nightly news?
• It looks like Blaster is simply "transformed" by the billboard hands (how they knew to do this to him specifically is a mystery; and how did they make him change size?). Why doesn't he transform back when Chumley grabs him?
• Chumley's devices seem to change from "capture" to "kill" about the time Prime recalls the Autobots to base. Both Windcharger and Huffer narrowly escape traps that seem likely to inflict major damage, at the very least (an onrushing train and a drill descending from a streetlight, respectively).
• Appearing/disappearing Autobots:
  • Jazz and Inferno are briefly seen at the Ark when they were actually captured by Lord Chumley. Jazz is Warpath's height.
  • Some of the Autobots freed by Optimus Prime aren't the same ones that were captured: Ironhide, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Prowl, and Bluestreak bust into Chumley's control center along with Prime. Jazz and Bumblebee are there too (correctly), but what happened to the others who were captured (Tracks, Beachcomber, Grapple, Blaster and Inferno)?
• Both Tracks and Beachcomber seem to be in traps that they could easily escape from.
• When Bumblebee radios Prime, the blades swinging at him conveniently disappear.
• Speaking of Bumblebee, the dialog implies that he and the others are running out of energy... yet they seem pretty lively when charging the Decepticons at the end!
• Optimus walks into a spiderweb that's right in front of him.
• Because it's a crazy-huge castle, we can forgive some of the usual scale issues that let Transformers walk around inside human buildings–but Blitzwing and Astrotrain fly out of what must be one massive window opening.
• Though obviously scripted for comedic effect, it beggars belief that the Autobots were actually able to drop the jet off without the Russian soldier noticing.

Trivia

"You can pretend I'm Scorpia! I've even got a little screen."

• Grapple's voice is much higher and more nasal than usual in this episode, presumably an attempt by Peter Renaday to distinguish him from Lord Chumley, whom he also voices.
• Chumley is one of the most outlandish characters in the entire series. He seems to be insanely rich, while having access to scads of ludicrous technology:
  • He deploys some unfathomably improbable traps and devices. The most hilarious are a pair of giant hands that come to life from a billboard to fold up Blaster into his tape deck mode (somehow forcing him to shrink at the same time). The list also includes a giant fully-animated mechanical scorpion that is impervious to Optimus Prime's laser fire, some sort of instant-hardening liquid which is also impervious to Astrotrain's blaster, a giant mechanical black widow, a self-animating energy net, a "holographic projection rifle" that projects fully-animated 3D images of Astrotrain and Blitzwing running through alleys and streets, complete with sound effects; giant mechanical tentacle arms (which can somehow be transported by a comparatively tiny forklift), a tube/hose/thing that is smart enough to wrap itself around Inferno and snip off his communicator, and a set of heavy steel girders which can assemble themselves into a cage while in freefall.
  • Furthermore, he's somehow worked quite a few of his traps and gadgets right into publicly-owned infrastructure. A suction clamp comes snaking out of a toll booth; a giant drill comes out of a street lamp while clamps emerge from a manhole; and railroad crossing gates descend at his command.
  • In addition to all the crazy technology he uses for recreational purposes, he's seen to own a submarine, a sprawling clifftop castle (with what looks like an abandoned oil refinery right next to it), a fully operational steam locomotive, a custom-modified car wash, an apartment building (which he casually burns), a veritable fleet of flatbed and other trucks, a heavy construction crane (and presumably the entire construction site where it's located), a taxi cab, a fire truck, and a barge.
  • He also has the money to build a replica of part of Cybertron just to hunt Optimus in.
  • Chumley's hunting and history includes:
    • Hunting Javanese tigers
    • Hunting a rhino in the veld
    • Stalking a dragon-thing through the interior of Borneo
    • Study of the "Kibularu tribe in lower Sontanga... or was it the Sontanga tribe in lower Kibularu?"
  • Seriously. What does this guy do for a living??

Foreign localization

German

• Title (Generation 2 dub): "Jagd auf Prime" ("Hunt for Prime")
• Original airdate: July 23, 1994

Italian

• Title (dub 1): "Il cacciatore" ("The Hunter")
• Title (dub 2): "Bersaglio Optimus" ("Target Optimus")
• Original airdate: ?

Japanese

• Title: "Target wa Convoy" (ターゲットはコンボイ, "The Target Is Convoy")
• Original airdate: July 4, 1986

Mandarin

• Title: "Zhànlìpǐn Qíngtiānzhù " (战利品擎天柱, "Booty Optimus Prime")
• Original airdate: ?

Russian

• Title: "Tsel nomer odin" (Цель номер один, "The Target Number One")
• Original airdate: ?

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

LaserDisc

1995 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.
1999 — The Transformers — Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.

DVD

2001 — The Transformers — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2: Vol. 6 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 3: Series 2.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers — Volume 05: Stagione Due Parte Terza (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 — Transformers — Season Two: Part Two (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2009 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume Two: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2011 — The Transformers — The Complete Original Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume Two: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers — The Classic Animated Series (Metrodome)

External links

• Episode Dossier at The Cybertron Chronicle