Carnival
This article is a featured article, and considered to be one of the most informative on this wiki.
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 Meet Mr. Penguin, Mr. Bear, and Mr...er...Squidhead? | ||||||
| "Carnival" (Ōsawagi) "Carnival: Clamor" | ||||||
| Production code | TF: A-07 | |||||
| Production company | TV Tokyo, NAS | |||||
| Airdate | October 11, 2002 (English) 21 February 2003 (Japanese) | |||||
| Writer | Ryō Motohira | |||||
| Director | Osamu Kamijō | |||||
| Animation studio | Actas Inc. | |||||
| Continuity | Unicron Trilogy | |||||
A fair is a veritable smorgasbord.
Synopsis
The kids puzzle over why the Mini-Con in the panel recovered from Antarctica hasn't emerged yet. When High Wire tells them it's sleeping, Carlos tries to think of ways to wake it up. Alexis suggests they leave it to wake up naturally and do some cleaning while they're waiting. Meanwhile Optimus and Hot Shot are watching Red Alert fix equipment. Hot Shot asks Rad and Carlos to pass him a huge spanner, which turns out to be too heavy for them to lift. This is apparently just Autobot humor. Hot Shot returns to work, and the kids realize there's not much they can do to help.
Up on the Moon, Demolishor clumsily gets in Megatron's way, earning a reprimand and the scorn of his fellow Decepticons. He then stumbles through the base hull, causing more damage. Disgusted, Megatron tells him to get lost.
Meanwhile, Rad and Carlos are growing bored. Carlos suggests some fresh air at the science carnival and the pair sneak out with their Mini-Cons while Alexis and Sureshock are occupied at the computer. Sparkplug spots them leaving. The two kids cruise through the fair, riding on their transformed Mini-Cons, who naturally want to have some fun too. As the kids are telling the Mini-Cons they can't transform in public, they overhear some children talking about robots and spot Sparkplug, Longarm and Jolt, who have followed them from the base. High Wire and Grindor transform and join their fellow Mini-Cons, much to the dismay of Rad and Carlos, but it seems the crowd is just assuming that they're products of the laboratory which set up the fair. Soon the Mini-Cons are enjoying the carnival, even taking part in a parade.
Also at the carnival are Fred and Billy. Fred spots the strange robots following Rad and Carlos around and tells Billy they should check out what's going on. Meanwhile Rad, nervous at how long the Mini-Cons have been out in public, suggests they return to return to base, and High Wire and Grindor transform to vehicle mode—observed by the spying Fred and Billy, who subsequently become convinced there's something going on.
The children at the carnival are upset when Carlos tells them the Mini-Cons are going back to "the lab". Billy and Fred turn up armed with a net and rope in order to capture one of the robots, which Fred believes are invading aliens, but while the pair are arguing, their quarry escapes. The Mini-Cons scatter through the carnival, causing chaos and confusion.
Laserbeak leads Alexis, Sureshock and Hot Shot to the carnival, and Rad and Carlos are soon on the end of a scolding. Fred and Billy have cornered Jolt, but a trio of children prevent them from making the capture. As Billy makes veiled threats, the children run off in fear—but only because Hot Shot is right behind Fred and Billy. The pair hug Jolt in fear, and the Mini-Con transforms to copter mode, carrying them high into the air before they bail onto a hot-air balloon. Rad asks Hot Shot to get the duo down, and the Autobot borrows a tennis-ball cannon from one of the sideshows. After using it to burst the balloon, he stunt-jumps, transforming in mid-air to catch Fred and Billy and, with Jolt's help, fly them to safety. The small children who watch him land are extremely impressed. Rad, Carlos and Alexis make Fred and Billy swear not to tell anyone about what they've seen, and Hot Shot takes the Mini-Cons back to base.
Sometime later, Rad and Carlos are being lectured by Alexis, who tells them again they should be cleaning. Rad is impressed by the amount of repair work the Autobots have gotten done to the base... which apparently includes a computer console that lights up at Carlos's touch. As the two boys watch, an image of the same Mini-Con that's currently lying dormant appears before them, and is then joined by two more similar robots. The three come together and are replaced by the image of a sword, but the picture promptly sputters out and disappears before the boys can get a good look. Neither is sure exactly what it means...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Mini-Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
Carlos: "Hey, I got an idea! OK, let's scare it! That'll wake it up for sure."
Rad: "So how you gonna do that?"
Carlos: "Huh, good point. Wait, I got another idea! How about we throw a bucket of water on it!"
Alexis: "Great plan! While we're at it, why don't I throw a bucket of cold water on your head too?"
Carlos: "Come on, Alexis; I was just pulling his leg!"
Alexis: "Hey, nothing like ice water for clearing out the cobwebs. So next time you're woken up from a comfy sleep by some ice-water in the face, remember who thought of it first!"
- —The kids debate how to wake up Jetstorm.
"Huh? It's them! Billy! Billy Billy Billy Billy Billy Billy."
- —Fred subtly attempts to attract Billy's attention.
"They're getting away! What do we do?"
"I'll give you one guess."
"'K, to the hot dog stand!"
"We're going after them! Come on, ya goof."
"Aw, well I tried."
- —Fred and Billy.
"Better get out of the way while you can, otherwise something terrible might happen to ya. Like maybe... this robot will destroy the Earth!"
"You've been watching too much TV. Besides, everyone knows that red robots are always the good guys."
"OK, OK! So maybe it wasn't a good example!"
- —Fred matches wits with a small child and loses.
"No! Please! I'm allergic to chromium."
- —Billy fleeing from Hot Shot.
"My therapist was right—seventy dollars an hour does work out to mere pennies a day."
- —A random passerby on seeing a giant flying robot.
Notes
Differences with Micron Legend
- In Micron Legend, it's revealed the purpose of the carnival is to celebrate the founding of the Cosmoscope Laboratory. The point about Rad having an obligation to be at the festival is a detail added in Armada.
- As the civilians admire Sparkplug, Jolt, and Longarm, a point lost in the Armada dub is that they think they're robots made for doing household chores. Beforehand, when Rad and Carlos first spot the Mini-Cons, they say each of the Mini-Cons' names and the young kids in the crowd say it's cute the way the Mini-Cons talk.
- As Rad, Carlos, and their Mini-Cons watch the parade, Armada has Carlos translate Grindor's beeps as him expressing a desire to take part in it ("go into showbiz"). In Micron Legend, Grindor is merely commenting on how interesting the human world is, to which Rad responds that it's more interesting to Transformers. Rad's sentiment is the same in Armada, but with an additional remark that he thinks the Transformers themselves are more interesting than the parade.
- In Micron Legend, Billy says he just washed the shirt Fred smears ketchup on himself; in Armada, this is changed so that his mom did it.
- Before Billy and Fred decide to follow Rad and Carlos, Micron Legend features an oddly-paced moment where the pair, in complete silence, look off into the distance at... nothing. Armada tries to compensate for this by adding an extra line from Billy, who says "I don't see nothin'!" which is certainly accurate, but a bit of non-sequitur.
- In Micron Legend, when trying to convince the group of younger kids that the Mini-Cons need to go, the boy tells Carlos he can't understand how they feel because the latter is not a kid. The kids also accuse Rad of lying about the bots needing sleep because according to them, "Robots don't need sleep!"
- In Armada, after Rad, Carlos, and the Mini-Cons make a run for it, Fred suggests that he and Billy go to the hot dog stand. Micron Legend has Fred saying he and Billy ought to give up before Billy gives chase; instead of complaining about needing food and his blood sugar, Fred declares he hates running.
- Billy is silent after Jolt falls out of the popcorn maker in Armada while he announces finding Jolt in Micron Legend.
- Armada has Carlos make a pop culture reference before telling Alexis, the one he says has all the ideas, to think of a way to round up the Mini-Cons. Micron Legend has him ask Alexis what he and Rad are supposed to do since they've already tried everything they could.
- Rather than threatening the kids as he does in Armada, Micron Legend has Fred say something that makes more sense in context. He says even though Jolt hasn't done anything bad yet, who's to say that he won't in the future and then gives his example of Jolt destroying the world. In Armada, the kids accuse Fred of watching too much TV since according to them, "Everyone knows that red robots are always the good guys"; in Micron Legend, they think it's foolish to believe a cute robot like Jolt could do such an awful thing.
- In Micron Legend, as the panicked Fred tries to bring Billy's attention to Hot Shot crouching behind them, he describes the Autobot as Jolt's "parent." Billy scoffs at the idea, pointing out that that's impossible because robots aren't mammals! Armada changes this to just have Fred refer to a "giant" robot, and Billy not buying it.
- In Micron Legend, Hot Shot playfully threatens Billy and Fred; in Armada, he asks them if he's interrupting anything. In Armada, as Hot Shot reaches toward Jolt, Billy makes an offbeat comment about being allergic to chromium.
- In Armada, Hot Shot says he can't shoot down Billy and Fred's balloon because he can't use his ammo; in Micron Legend, he doesn't have a gun to use.
- When the boy playing with the cannon tells his mother about Hot Shot, his mother asks what he's talking about, but Armada adds lines like him making the TV reference that Carlos made earlier to describe Hot Shot spinning the cannon around his fingers. Then his mother makes a blasé remark about believing him and tells him to let her wipe his nose.
- The bystander who sees the flying Hot Shot is silent during his first scene in Micron Legend, but has a few lines of dialogue in Armada added as an internal monologue about his therapist being right. When he reappears a moment later with his friend, and they see the Transformers roll past, the friend asks for the therapist's number; a move taken by Armada to deliberately replace the Micron Legend dialogue from this scene, which sees the man's friend think he might've been overworked and drunk, only to then think he could use a drink himself when he sees the same sight. During the latter scene, the man's name is revealed to be Sam in Micron Legend.
- Once their back on the ground, Armada has Billy suggesting that Fred come up with the ideas from now on but Micron Legend has him
- Before leaving with the Mini-Cons, Armada adds two lines for Hot Shot: the first being him telling the kids to stand back so they don't get hurt, and the second is about not all bots being created equal. He only tells the kids to stay out of trouble in Micron Legend.
- In Armada, Rad says he sometimes wishes for a normal life in his ending monologue, but in Micron Legend, he mentions how he and Carlos were unable to understand the importance of the image of the dormant Mini-Cons combining into a sword at the time.
Continuity notes
- The pile of stuff Alexis orders Rad and Carlos to clean up is the camping gear they brought into the Autobots' base last episode.
- The Autobots recovered the still-inactive Mini-Con panel from Antarctica in "Soldier." Rad and Carlos are able to recognize the computer image of the Mini-Con within from when it appeared above the panel in the same episode.
Real world references
- Hot Shot watches Spaghetti Westerns.
- When Sparkplug is racing through the funfair, we are briefly offered a glimpse of a young blonde girl eating a fish. Though appearing to be nothing more than a generic crowd filler, Micron Densetsu Year Book 2003 explains that she's actually a very involved homage: her appearance was designed after the title character of the Japanese comic strip Sazae-san, but with blond hair. The fish she's got in her mouth is a nod to the fact that the names of the strip's main characters were derived from sea creatures and other sea-related concepts. She'd make another Easter egg cameo in the Kre-O manga story "Wheeljack's Bizarre Invention! Optimus Power Up!?"
- When Carlos asks Alexis if she wants him to "click his heels together three times," it's a reference to Dorothy clicking her ruby slippers together three times in The Wizard of Oz.
Continuity and plotting errors
- The Armada dub swaps Grindor and Sureshock's names for the whole episode—an error that will frequently occur all through the series, suggesting perhaps that their names had been swapped in some internal documentation.
- While mocking Demolishor, Starscream calls Swindle "Grid", his Japanese name.
Animation and technical errors
- As Megatron demands to know what Demolisher is doing, his lips don't move when he says "Move it!".
- When Demolishor apologizes for getting in Megatron's way, the Trans-Accelerator he's just dropped is colored tan, like part of his legs, instead of grey.
- When Rad and Carlos talk to the group of kids, Grindor's skateboard mode is suddenly shorter than him, compared to being as tall as Carlos a few scenes ago.
- Carlos' disappearing and reappearing sclera.
Trivia
- The kanji 祝祭 would normally be pronounced as "shukusai", while "oosawagi" is used for the kanji 大騒ぎ.
- A couple of days have passed since "Soldier".
- This was the last season 1 episode to be aired in Germany—the station skipped all following episodes and continued with "Remorse" the following day. The kids will never notice you know.
Foreign localization
German
- Title: "Karneval" ("Carnival")
- Original airdate: 9 December 2003
Hungarian
- Title: "Robotparádé" ("Robot-parade")
Polish
- Title: "Festyn" ("Picnic")
French
- Title: "Carnaval" ("Carnival")
Korean
- Title: "축제의 날" ("Festival Day")
Home video releases
- DVD
2003 — Transformers: Micron Legend — Volume 2 (Columbia Music Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2003 — Transformers: Armada — Vol:02 (Universal)
2004 — Transformers: Armada — Season One: Part One (Rhino Entertainment)
2005 — Transformers: Armada — Triple Collection (Universal)
2008 — Transformers: Armada — Bumper Double DVD Collection (Universal)
2008 — Transformers: Armada — Volume One (New KSM) — English and German audio.
2014 — Transformers: Armada — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
