The Transformers (cartoon)/cast
As The Transformers progressed over its four main seasons, characters would often come and go in the blink of an eye, while others stuck around for the majority of the show's length. As this show was made to sell toys to the audience, new characters were constantly being introduced to keep relevant products on-screen. For the purpose of this list, we have included every named Transformer and computer/robot or recurring human and alien in the cartoon, whether their name was explicitly said, or was given after the fact via retcon. As with other cast lists for American Transformers shows, the characters' English voice actors are listed, including those who only subbed in for an episode or two. Rather than listing every single character that appeared per season, each season's list only has the newly introduced characters present.
Season 1
The first season primarily revolves around the Ark and Nemesis crews after landing on Earth and waking up in 1984. As the season progressed, the introduction of toys from the 1985 lineup started to make their appearance. This season also had recurring humans working alongside the Autobots and Decepticons.
Season 2
"Ah, Prime, we're gonna need a bigger camera..."
"Darn, looks like we may have to lose a few of our numbers."
The second season greatly expanded the cartoon's cast and focused more heavily on character-driven stories, with many characters getting their own "spotlight" episodes. With the new additions of figures sold in the 1985 lineup of toys, it practically doubled the original amount of characters that were seen in the previous season.
(New characters only)
The Transformers: The Movie and Season 3
- For more on the movie, See: The Transformers: The Movie.
1986 was the year Hasbro decided to wipe a clean slate and advertise the new molds that they had solely created. Thus the movie was made, killing off a lot of older season one characters in the then-future year of 2005, in order to pave the way for their new products that were hitting store shelves. The new cast of characters introduced in the film also became the focus for future stories. The third season, set mostly in 2006, added even more characters on top of the movie's cast, with the addition of Citybots, new combiners, new Minibots and more Triple Changers.
The introduction of new antagonists, the Quintessons, also expanded further on the mythos. It was revealed that the Quintessons were the creators of the original robots that would later evolve into the Transformers and they managed to hold onto their roll as secondary antagonists throughout the entire duration of the third season. This is even longer than the four episodes Doctor Arkeville managed to hold onto in season one! It was very rare for secondary antagonists to hold a larger roll in the story as most episodes stuck to a one-off or stand-alone structure. This often left most secondary antagonists with a very short-lived spotlight as the Decepticons were the show's main focus.
(New characters only)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Main Cast
Others |
Main Cast
|
Autobot Allies
Others
|
Computers
Others
|
* Denotes a character who previously went unnamed during the show's original run but was later named in other forms of fiction established by publishers such as; Fun Publications, IDW Publishing, Ask Vector Prime or various forms of media released in the Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity.
Season 4
Lastly, season four aka "The Rebirth" was set in late-2007, after the return of Optimus Prime. This season is unique in that it was only three episodes long! With how short the season ended up, most characters from the 1987 lineup that weren't the main focus of the story, only got roughly 90 seconds of screen time each. The introduction of the Headmasters and Targetmasters were this season's sole focus. The addition of Targetmaster partners for main characters from the 1986 lineup was possibly the leading reason as to why this decision was made and even Arcee, who never had a toy made for her, became a Headmaster to keep her relevant with the changes made to her fellow teammates.
While this season felt like a fairly rushed conclusion to the show, it certainly didn't hold back on showcasing a whole new cast of characters with various new abilities.
(New characters only)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Nebulons | Hive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Others
|
Others
|
|
|
|
Notes
- As mentioned under each list, a lot of characters went unnamed during production and generally had reference names used for the animators and writers to go by when creating the episodes. Some of these names became public knowledge through old scripts and storyboards, while others were sometimes credited using those names for any dialogue they may have had.
- Over the subsequent years, many writers of comics and books have taken to using some of the unnamed characters in their stories while retroactively giving them proper names and even in some cases, personalities, far beyond what was shown on screen. Among the unnamed characters, there were some that were given fan-names and even subgroups like the Rainmakers, that had these fan-names later become canon through Hasbro/Takara, Ask Vector Prime and media produced through BotCon and the Transformers Collectors' Club.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Denotes a voice actor who subbed in for the main voice actor of the character.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 Denotes a character who previously went unnamed during the show's original run but was later named in other forms of fiction established by publishers such as; Fun Publications, IDW Publishing, Ask Vector Prime or various forms of media released in the Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity.
Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "s2", but no corresponding <references group="s2"/> tag was found
