Blast from the Past

Professor Sumdac upgrades a trio of animatronic dinosaurs from a local theme park, but the creatures develop minds of their own and become rampaging Dinobots, bent on destroying the Autobots.

"When they open Disneyland in 1936, nothing worked". "Yes, but John, when Pirates Of The Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists".

Stats

• Written by:
• Directed by:
• Original airdate: January 12, 2008

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans

Other notes

Transformers references

• The island Prowl takes the Dinobots to may be a reference to Dinobot Island.
• Grimlock's robot mode looks very much like G1 Grimlock's with a few changes.

Real-world references

• The entrance of Dino Drive is remarkably similar to the entrance of Jurassic Park in the movie of the same name, and music reminiscent of the Jurassic Park theme can be heard during some of the Dino Drive scenes.

Miscellaneous trivia

• This marks the first time the Dinobots have been used in a Transformers TV series since Generation 1. There is much joy.
• The Dinobots' color schemes are lifted directly from the Generation 1 cartoon, with some minor variations. This is most obvious in Swoop's torso being blue, rather then the red featured in Generation 1 Swoop's comic and toy incarnations. The Diaclone version of Generation 1 Swoop's toy likewise had a blue chest, so this is possibly an homage, but is more likely coincidence.
• Unlike Generation 1, the Dinobot's alt modes match up more closely with how dinosaurs are depicted in the fossil record (less sluggish, more mammal/bird-like, Grimlock bent over horizontally, no bow-leggedness, etc.). There was still a lack of feathers before they were de-skinned, though. (However, since it's doubtful T. Rexes had a feather covering like smaller therapods, and pterosaurs only had down, it's not really an issue)

From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.