Kremzeek!: Difference between revisions
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"Oh, here comes that sinking feeling..." | "Oh, here comes that sinking feeling..." | ||
:—'''Optimus Prime''' on seeing a multitude of Kremzeeks | :—'''Optimus Prime''' on seeing a multitude of Kremzeeks | ||
"Sleepy." | |||
:-Giant '''Kremzeek''' after his energy was drained. | |||
==Notes== | ==Notes== | ||
Revision as of 22:09, 15 January 2012
| This article is about the Generation 1 cartoon episode. For the electrical life form that first appears therein, see Kremzeek. |
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 "Kremzeek!" is pretty much his whole vocabulary. | |||||||||||||
| "Kremzeek!" | |||||||||||||
| Production code | 700-47 | ||||||||||||
| Production company | Sunbow Productions | ||||||||||||
| Airdate | December 27, 1985 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | David Wise | ||||||||||||
| Animation studio | Unknown Filipino animation studio | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Generation 1 cartoon continuity | ||||||||||||
An electric pest annoys everyone. Including the viewers.
- Japanese title: パニック・ザ・クレムジーク! (Panic the Kremzeek!)
- German Generation 2 title: "Elektro-Schock" ("Electro-Shock")
- Italian title: Kremzeek!
Synopsis
At Decepticon Headquarters, Megatron is working on some electrodes for the Decepticons' new energy magnet. When Starscream comes to complain that it's taking too long, an energy-based lifeform which calls itself Kremzeek jumps from Megatron's experiments and begins wrecking all their gear. Megatron is impressed, thinking that Kremzeek will make an effective weapon against the Autobots. Temporarily containing it in a circuit trap, Megatron has Thrust take them to the Autobot base, where they deposit Kremzeek.
Optimus Prime is bewildered to see the sparking box on the security monitor. The box soon breaks open, releasing Kremzeek, who goes on a rampage, shorting out Jazz and Hoist. Sparkplug tries unsuccessfully to catch the critter in his hands, only to get zapped. While Kremzeek continues to wreak havoc, Sparkplug fetches an insulating compound and coats Optimus with it. The compound proves to make the Autobot immune to Kremzeek's attacks, and they quickly coat Blaster, Inferno, and Bumblebee as well. Unfortunately they realise too late that Teletraan I is still vulnerable, and watch as Kremzeek enters the computer, causing it to broadcast strange warnings to the rest of the world. Finally Teletraan I shorts out, and Kremzeek rides Sky Spy's transmissions to another location... Japan.
Meanwhile, the Decepticons have detected the success of their plan, and Megatron decides it's time to deploy the energy magnet.
The remaining active Autobots take Omega Supreme to Japan, but the massive mechanoid is shorted out on arrival by Kremzeek, crashing on the beach. Kremzeek then jumps onto a train, which Optimus chases along the tracks in his truck mode. Eventually the train reaches the city and stops, unleashing Kremzeek on an unsuspecting population. He wreaks havoc in an arcade, then enters Shibuya Manufacturing Corporation. Within the company's factory area, the Autobots meet Dr. Sōji Yoshikawa, who theorizes that radio waves might affect the creature. Blaster works his magic, but Kremzeek marches straight through the radio waves and enters the Autobot. Blaster tries to fry Kremzeek with his own energy supply, but Yoshikawa's warning that this isn't a good idea comes too late, and a veritable plethora of Kremzeeks begin shooting out of Blaster's chest.
As they rampage around Japan, the Autobot leader theorizes that a large energy source could draw the Kremzeeks together and reunite them. At the Decepticon base, the energy magnet is ready, and the Decepticons first target a passing warship. Back in Japan, the Autobots have finished preparing a tower to absorb the Kremzeeks, but one manages to slip inside Blaster. When the remaining Kremzeeks are reunited, they merge in a massive form and begin a rampage through the city. Inferno unsuccessfully tries his fire-retardant foam on the beast, which simply flings it back at the Autobots.
Megatron activates the energy magnet, drawing the world's energy sources to the Decepticon base. As the Autobots begin to feel the effects of the loss of energy, Prime realizes that this whole thing has been a distraction by Megatron. That leads Blaster to think of a plan: Why not let the Decepticons deal with Kremzeek? They lure Kremzeek, who is getting sleepy from the energy drain, to a radio tower, causing him to be beamed to the energy magnet, destroying it as the Decepticons flee. Its destruction ceases the energy drain and the city has power again.
The Autobots take a boat out to the energy magnet, where Yoshikawa theorizes that they could disperse Kremzeek's energy, which would kill him. Despite Bumblebee's objections that killing him is wrong (What the Hell is wrong with you, 'Bee?) Prime causes Kremzeek to disperse. Returning to the mainland, Blaster admits that he sort of misses Kremzeek...at which point the solitary Kremzeek that jumped into him earlier jumps out, and the pursuit begins again. Sadly (or thankfully), there's no time to see what happens next.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
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Quotes
"Yes, Kremzeek! You will be my ultimate weapon against the Autobots."
- —Megatron displaying how desperate he was getting by that point.
"This isn't the time for jokes, Sparkplug!"
"What joke? I'm savin' ya!"
- —Optimus Prime and Sparkplug Witwicky
"Alert! Alert! Evil Martian flangoes have invaded supermarkets across the planet. They have come to steal Earth's ammonia."
- —Teletraan I's funniest line in the series.
"Choco rations down 2 grams! Doubleplusungood!"
- —Teletraan I's second funniest line in the series.
"Choo choo!"
- —Kremzeek upon seeing a train. Apparently, he can say something else.
"There's a creature made of pure energy... in there."
"You crazy?"
- —Optimus Prime and Dr. Sōji Yoshikawa, the latter of whom is as dubious of the episode's plot as the target audience.
"Yo, Prime! What do we do when we catch that weirdo?"
"We'll worry about that when we catch him!"
"You mean you don't have a plan?"
"Who's had time to think of a plan? Hang on!"
- —Blaster and Optimus Prime
"Oh, here comes that sinking feeling..."
- —Optimus Prime on seeing a multitude of Kremzeeks
"Sleepy."
- -Giant Kremzeek after his energy was drained.
Notes
Animation or technical glitches
Generally speaking, this is one of the worst-animated episodes from the first two seasons. The frame rate is choppy, the coloring is bland, and often the characters' heads are drawn larger than they should be. Most of the time, the characters' mouth movements don't match what they're saying. On the audio side, Megatron's voice is missing the metallic modulation in nearly every scene (the line "We will drain this planet dry!" is a good example), and Blaster's is over modulated to the point where it's sometimes hard to understand what he's saying.
- When Jazz is attacked and shorted by Kremzeek in the first act, his few lines are done by voice director Wally Burr rather than Scatman Crothers.
- When Optimus Prime says that they have to "insulate the other Autobots" and then surveys the casualties, Jazz is shown without his characteristic hood stripe (or any headlights to speak of, for that matter).
- Scale issues abound in this episode. For instance, as the Autobots head towards Omega Supreme to board him, and Sparkplug turns around to run back into the base, Sparkplug's nearly the same size as Bumblebee.
- As the Autobots chase Kremzeek out of the subway and onto the street, the Japanese population has suddenly turned caucasian. This occurs again at the movie theatre.
- The sign outside the video game arcade appears to be a horrific mishmash of Japanese katakana and English letters. Instead of spelling "game arcade" as "ゲームアーケード", it is spelled as "Ｋ゛ームアーＫード" with a dakuten (the tiny quote mark) over the first K as if to make it a G-sound as it does when used in kana. Mixing Japanese and foreign characters is a tremendous no-no. Additionally, the "ア" character appears to be very poorly formed, or just mirrored. It is uncertain whether this episode was animated by Toei or the as-yet-unknown Filipino studio. If the episode was done by Toei, then such slaughtering of the Japanese language is especially bizarre, considering Toei is a Japanese studio.
- Alternatively, since "Game Arcade" is a pretty boring name for an arcade, the sign could be a stylized name for the arcade itself, as the "K" is a clever pun.
- The arcade sign, when shown again as the patrons are fleeing, looks nothing like when it was originally shown. In fact, it looks to have a Korean character as well as a Kanji "出" (Out)
- When he says he doesn't have a plan, Optimus' bumper is red instead of gray. This happens again just after he hits the train.
- When Kremzeek smashes the televisions, they are gray and later change to red.
- When Optimus has the idea to head to the nearest power station, the front of his cab section is slanted severely inward (it should be flat).
- Whilst on the command bridge of the Energon Magnet, on at least two separate occasions, Starscream's mouth is replaced with three lines that look like a mouthplate animation. However, when he speaks, his mouth returns.
- Also, Soundwave's Decepticon insignia is missing during those sequences on the command bridge.
- When Optimus yells "Hit him with all you got, Inferno!", Inferno is extremely huge.
- When Blaster notes that he's low on power, his helmet is entirely red, then entirely gray, then a mix of the two over the next few shots.
- When Optimus shoots Kremzeek, the top of his helmet is gray instead of blue.
- When the Autobots are about to disperse Kremzeek, Bumblebee's Autobot symbol is missing.
Continuity errors
- Megatron rides inside Thrust to drop the box holding Kremzeek into Autobot headquarters. Since when can Megatron fit inside Thrust? And where on Thrust is the huge circular window he's sitting next to? We saw in "Megatron's Master Plan" that an ordinary human fits into Dirge's cockpit, and Thrust shares Dirge's basic alternate mode.
- Jazz is the first Autobot incapacitated by Kremzeek, yet we see him walk into the same room fresh as a daisy with Ratchet just a moment later.
- If Sparkplug's insulating foam prevents Kremzeek from getting inside the Autobots, how did he get inside Blaster on two separate occasions?
- Once again, human buildings are easily entered by Autobots, and human-sized control panels are used by them (their fingers should be too big to hit individual buttons!
- When Blaster is retuned by the doctor to capture Kremzeek, he instantly changes to his boombox mode in the next frame without going through the animation for it, making it appear as if a small chunk of the episode was cut out. Strangely, despite that, you can still hear Blaster's transforming sound effect.
- On that note, why didn't Kremzeek cause Blaster to short-circuit?
- The traffic intersection Kremzeek is causing havoc at is shown as a right-hand traffic system; in Japan cars drive on the left.
- If Kremzeek is pure energy, why wasn't he pulled to the energy magnet along with the rest of the energy in the city?
- As the Autobots rush off to the power station, Dr. Yoshikawa is forced to jump and hang on to Prime, instead of being let in the cab. This is in stark contrast to how he treats other humans like Spike.
- Just after losing power, Blaster comes up with the idea to zap Kremzeek over to Megatron's energy magnet. First, how does he know Megatron is causing his energy loss? Second, how does he know what Megatron's invention is called (he refers to it by it's actual name)? Third, how did that energy tower have electricity when every other building in the city was being drained?
- Finally, what exactly was that thing Optimus shot Kremzeek with, and how did they build it so quickly?
Transformers references
- This would not be the end of Kremzeek. He would return again as an Easter egg in the Dreamwave continuity and Kiss Players, not to mention having a small cameo in Transformers Animated. Sam Witwicky even has a little Kremzeek figurine on his desk in the Transformers movie comic adaptation. His image would also decorate the floor of Megatron's palace AND a soda can(?) of Starscream's in the The Reign of Starscream movie sequel comics series.
- Kremzeek shows various emotions, experiences exhaustion and pain... he is a very sentient being. Yet Prime seems to forget his motto, i.e. that "Freedom is right of all sentient beings" when he gives the execution order. His reasoning is that "He doesn't belong on this world", yet he took the effort to blast the Morphobot plants back into space, and we know that Krezeek can be contained in a circuit trap box (i.e. long enough to be put in a space ship). Is he discriminatory against energy-lifeforms?
Real-world references
- A sign advertising a distinctly Godzilla-esque monster movie called Hojoni is seen in this episode.
- A sign advertising KIRIN beer is seen in this episode.
- Given the location and size, the "antenna" is likely the Tokyo Tower.
- The white and green trains the Autobots encounter when they first arrive in Japan are the Shinkansen "Bullet-Trains", specifically the "0 series", which no longer operate today, but were the main trains in use at the time.
- Shibuya is one of the major wards in Tokyo.
- An overly large Mount Fuji is shown along with the Tokyo skyline at sunset.
- US Naval Warships are shown operating off the cost of Japan. Aside from active war zones, Japan houses the largest deployment of US military personnel outside of the US.
Trivia
- When Teletraan I is scrambled by Kremzeek, he first babbles the above line about ammonia being stolen, then proceeds to start speaking in Newspeak a la George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
- Certain set pieces of this episode were recycled from the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode "Day of the Machines", including the creation of Kremzeek (it was a little more involved in the Masters of the Universe episode), his transmission to the Autobots, and the final scene of Kremzeek messing up the Decepticons' base. Writer David Wise is known for reusing his ideas and set pieces, and recycled the main plot of this episode wholesale for an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, "The Big ZIPP Attack", and the Mighty Ducks episode "The Zap Attack".
- Japanese spoken in the episode (very badly pronounced):
- The rather masculine female the conductor runs into: "Hey, watch it."
- Guy with the Walkman: "What in the world?" (with a *very* heavy accent)
- People coming out of the theatre: "I've never seen such a stupid movie."
Home video releases
- 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)
