Jeffrey Scott (writer)
Jeffrey Scott (May 7, 1952–) is an American writer. His extensive resume of writing credits goes back to the 1970s, and includes a mix of television scripts, movie scripts, and series pitches. Shows that he's done work on include the Super Friends franchise, M.A.S.K., Dungeons & Dragons, Muppet Babies, and James Bond Jr.
During the development of the original cartoon series, Scott wrote a production bible and the script for a pilot episode entitled "A Robot's Best Friend Is His Dog" as part of a larger effort to sell the series to network television; his website[1] credits Transformers as being done for "Marvel Productions/CBS", suggesting that the CBS network was the company who would have received the pitch. Scott's bible included original female Transformers characters (apparently by network request), and a pair of young human allies named Eddie Fairchild and Matt Conroy.
Instead, the decision was made to syndicate the series, and following the production of a three-part pilot mini-series, Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins were hired as story editors and wrote a new production bible. They reviewed Scott's work, but chose to drop the female characters (given that they were not part of the toyline), and—after some deliberation—also rejected Matt and Eddie in favor of continuing with Spike and adding the character Chip Chase. However, the names Eddie Fairchild and Matt Conroy were eventually recycled for a pair of characters from Transformers: Animated.
In an interview on Rhino Entertainment's release of the third season of the cartoon, writer David Wise recalled Scott's involvement with the early development of the cartoon, as related to him by Malek. The description of Optimus Prime as "an Abraham Lincoln" was mistakenly attributed to Scott, when it had in fact originated with Jim Shooter's franchise-defining original treatment for the Transformers brand.
