Hector Ramirez
Hector Ramirez is a journalist... in a looser sense of the word. Vapid and easily bamboozled, he nevertheless marches on in his attempts at investigative reporting, full of a misguided bravado that frequently puts him into unnecessarily dangerous situations. Still, thanks to a combination of weaseling and dumb luck, he has managed both to stay on the air and not get himself killed—discounting the time he was turned into a fifteen-foot-tall living zombie, at any rate. He got better.
Fiction
The Transformers cartoon
- Voice actor: Frank Welker, John Stephenson (English), ? (Japanese)
After the evil Lord Chumley stole a top secret Soviet jet, the blame was placed on the United States. Hector Ramirez appeared on TV, commenting on the new hostilities between the US and the Soviet Union erupting from this incident. Prime Target
Animated cartoon
In the 22nd century, Hector's great-nephew, Lester Black, carried on his work. The AllSpark Almanac
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Notes
- Hector Ramirez was writer Buzz Dixon's parody of the infamous "journalist" Geraldo Rivera. Ramirez was originally conceived as a returning character in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, but would go on to appear in other Hasbro- and Sunbow-created shows, including Jem and the Holograms and, most prominently, Inhumanoids (voiced by Neil Ross in all of those appearances).
- Although the character is not named on screen, Buzz Dixon claimed in an interview to have included Ramirez in a Transformers script, and "Prime Target" is the only episode that fits the bill (given that Dixon's only other script was "Carnage in C-Minor"). The fact booklet released with Pioneer's Transformers 2010 DVD box set (written by Hirofumi Ichikawa) identifies the newscaster as Ramirez (and explains the character's significance to oblivious Japanese viewers).
- Although the basics of Ramirez's physical appearance remain consistent, the details vary considerably between the shows he has appeared in, and sometimes even within them.
- G.I. Joe first depicted him with a thin moustache and black hair parted to the side in "Twenty Questions", then depicted him with a bushy moustache and grey hair parted to the side in "The Traitor, Part II", then went back to his original design for his subsequent appearances in "Not a Ghost of a Chance", "Sins of Our Fathers" and storyboards for G.I. Joe: The Movie.
- Jem depicted him with a thin moustache and black slicked-back hair in "One Jem Too Many".
- In Inhumanoids he sported a bushy moustache and black hair parted to the side.
- His appearance in Transformers is mostly consistent with his Inhumanoids appearance, having a bushy moustache and hair parted to the side, albeit his hair is brown rather than black.
- Ramirez later appeared in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero seasons produced by DiC, in the episodes "Injustice and the Cobra Way" and "Cobra World" (voiced by Alvin Sanders). However, while his name appeared unaltered in newspaper text in "Injustice...", all spoken dialogue had it changed to "José Riviera" for reasons unknown (presumably because Sunbow may have claimed ownership of him).
- Outside of the cartoons, Ramirez appeared in one issue of Devil's Due Press's G.I. Joe comic, Issue #40, where he was blown up in a taxi cab by Cobra after delivering sensitive information to Joe Colton.
- When Lester Black first appeared in the Animated cartoon, some fans speculated that he might be an Animated version of Hector Ramirez. Model sheets revealed Lester's real name, dispelling the notion, but The AllSpark Almanac stepped up to the plate and forged a connection anyway!
