The Transformers (cartoon)

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Specifics: Title card from Season One opening credits (the slanted version), Decepticon Headquarters, a shot with a lot of cast members.

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In space, no one can hear your trumpets go Dah-NUN NUN NAHHHHHH!

More than any other of the many media which Transformers have invaded in the past 20+ years, it is The Transformers, the original cartoon that ran from 1984 to 1987, which captured the imagination of children and children-at-heart worldwide.


Overview

Depleted of energy... aside from the power source that lights up the entire core of the planet.

The cartoon (along with the Marvel comics) set up the basic story of Transformers that most other incarnations were to follow: two warring factions of robots on the planet Cybertron leave in search of resources. The factions crash-land on Earth and, millions of years later, begin their battle anew in Reagan-era America and across the globe.

Once established, the cartoon rarely took any steps to upset its status quo. Plots generally centered on a Decepticon plot or invention of the week, which would be used to gather energy or Defeat The Autobots FOREVER!!, and the Autobots' efforts to stop the plan. Most of the time the Decepticons were forced into retreat, and the Autobots drove off victorious. At most, a new character or team was added to one side or the other. Plots became a bit less formulaic during Season 3, though character death and true plot upheaval remained a rarity.

Through its 98-episode run this series took viewers around the globe and to many strange places and times: across the alien Cybertron, the Earth's prehistoric past, the Earth's then-future of 2005, the Metropolis-like society of Nebulos, and more. It is not the best animated series ever to air, but it stimulated viewers with its concept at the time, and continued to do so in the years to come.

Production

Nobody on Earth noticed this for thousands of years.

Writing and distribution for this series were handled as a joint effort by Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions. Animation was produced overseas, primarily by Toei and AKOM.

The original 30 or so characters were heavily modified from their toy designs for aesthetics and ease of animation. Among the artists involved in the original designs are Shōhei Kohara and Floro Dery. Other known production artists include Dell Barras, who worked on second season backgrounds.

Story editors for the series included Flint Dille, Marv Wolfman, and Steve Gerber. Episode scripts were written by a large array of freelance writers. Writers notable for writing numerous episodes include Donald F. Glut and David Wise.

The series was animated on an enormously rushed schedule, due to the need to get episodes on the air in synch with the toys appearing on shelves. That, combined with the vast number of characters and the difficulties involved with the overseas animation process, resulted in a cartoon that is notoriously riddled with animation errors and other mistakes. The producers were often aware of these mistakes, but tight deadlines left them no time to correct them.

My toy's so great, I bought one myself!

Another byproduct of the rushed production is that the show tends not to be very self-referential. Continuity between episodes is minimal, with most acting as self-contained, standalone stories, though a few Season Two and Season Three stories did build on previous episodes. Within each season, the addition of new characters is the only common change to the status quo.

Mistakes or not, the show is fondly remembered by many fans for the high quality of its voice acting. Indeed, many characters, lacking any significant plot developments or screen time, were brought to life solely by their unique voices and inflection styles. Voice direction for the series was provided by Wally Burr, notorious for driving his performers to the limit. One of the performers in his stable, Susan Blu, would go on to work as voice director for Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and Transformers Animated.

Looks safer than flying United.

The sinister voice of Victor Caroli provided narration for the entire series, most commonly heard on the commercial break bumpers: "The Transformers will return after these messages!" Caroli's voice also provided occasional introductory narration, recap segments for multi-part episodes, and the Secret Files of Teletraan II segments which ran before the credits of Season 3.

In addition to the show's iconic theme song, Transformers featured a great variety of background music, composed by Robert J. Walsh. Walsh had previously worked on the G.I. Joe cartoon, and many of those pieces were reused for Transformers. Many new pieces were composed as well, many incorporating the melody of the show's theme song. Walsh composed new music for 2nd and 3rd seasons, each in a different style, further distinguishing the three main seasons from one another.


Episodes

These episodes are listed in production order rather than original airdate. In a few instances, this means that episodes are not in the correct chronological story order, the specifics of which are noted in their own articles. Note that Season 3, in particular, suffers from this—the Rhino DVD release of the season reordered the episodes in question so that they were in order, but also reordered many episodes that did not have any placement problems, throwing off the whole shebang. Conversely, the R2 Metrodome release of the season just reorganized the problematic ones.
For further information, see: List of Generation 1 episodes

Season 1

Remember those dinosaur guys? Man, they were awesome.

The first season is primarily set on Earth, with a few excursions to Cybertron. It started with the 1984 toys as its characters, and introduced the early wave of 1985 toys as it progressed -- the Constructicons, Dinobots, Insecticons, and Skyfire.

  1. More Than Meets the Eye, Part 1
  2. More Than Meets the Eye, Part 2
  3. More Than Meets the Eye, Part 3
  4. Transport to Oblivion
  5. Roll For It
  6. Divide and Conquer
  7. Fire in the Sky
  8. S.O.S. Dinobots
  9. Fire on the Mountain
  10. War of the Dinobots
  11. The Ultimate Doom, Part 1
  12. The Ultimate Doom, Part 2
  13. The Ultimate Doom, Part 3
  14. Countdown to Extinction
  15. A Plague of Insecticons
  16. Heavy Metal War

Season 2

Didn't they make Optimus Prime play soccer or something once? Man, that was dumb.

The very long second season greatly expanded the cartoon's scope and cast. The second season tends to feature more character-driven episodes than the first season, with many characters getting their own "spotlight" episode. It also features a recurring theme of the Autobots assimilating Earth culture, such the Autobots playing basketball and football and even watching a soap opera. Excursions to alien civilizations popped up occasionally as well. The second season also saw the introduction of concepts and characters that would spread out to other fictions, including the mystic Alpha Trion, the ancient Vector Sigma supercomputer and its circuit key, and the first appearance of Female Transformers within official fiction.

The second season also marked a move from weekly airings (usually on Saturday mornings) to a "stripped" show, aired Monday through Friday, either in the morning or afternoon. Some markets also scheduled it in conjunction with daily episodes of G.I.Joe.

Season Two breaks down very roughly into three segments:

  • The first dozen episodes feature (primarily) the Season 1 cast.
  • A large second batch of episodes brings in the remainder of the 1985 toys.
  • The final ten episodes introduce the four combiner teams that formed the early entries in the 1986 line.


  1. Autobot Spike
  2. Changing Gears
  3. City of Steel
  4. Attack of the Autobots
  5. Traitor
  6. The Immobilizer
  7. The Autobot Run
  8. Atlantis, Arise!
  9. Day of the Machines
  10. Enter the Nightbird
  11. A Prime Problem
  12. The Core
  13. The Insecticon Syndrome
  14. Dinobot Island, Part 1
  15. Dinobot Island, Part 2
  16. The Master Builders
  17. Auto Berserk
  18. Microbots
  19. Megatron's Master Plan, Part 1
  20. Megatron's Master Plan, Part 2
  21. Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 1
  22. Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 2
  23. Blaster Blues
  24. A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court
  25. The Golden Lagoon
  26. The God Gambit
  27. Make Tracks
  28. Child's Play
  29. Quest for Survival
  30. The Secret of Omega Supreme
  31. The Gambler
  32. Kremzeek!
  33. Sea Change
  34. Triple Takeover
  35. Prime Target
  36. Auto-Bop
  37. The Search for Alpha Trion
  38. The Girl Who Loved Powerglide
  39. Hoist Goes Hollywood
  40. The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1
  41. The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 2
  42. Aerial Assault
  43. War Dawn
  44. Trans-Europe Express
  45. Cosmic Rust
  46. Starscream's Brigade
  47. The Revenge of Bruticus
  48. Masquerade
  49. B.O.T.

Intermediate

Then they like, killed him in the movie. Man, that was awesome.

The Transformers: The Movie is in continuity with the cartoon series, occurring 20 years after the end of Season 2. It was the single biggest turning point for the series, and remains controversial. The movie saw the introductions of Unicron, the Quintessons, and the Matrix of Leadership, all of which would play important roles in Season 3. It made radical changes to the show's premise, killing off many characters and introducing new ones -- a shock to young viewers who were used to their heroes driving off into the sunset at the end of every adventure.

Despite its unconventional place in the cartoon canon, it remains the best known representation of the cartoon series among fans.

Season 3

They didn't make any more cartoons after the movie. Yeah, the movie totally killed Transformers.

Season 3 transformed the whole premise of the show. Gone were the two teams stranded on Earth, along with many of the characters that composed those teams. In their place was a galaxy-spanning tale of battles on alien worlds. With the Autobots in firm control of Cybertron, the Decepticons, though still a threat, were somewhat reduced as villains; new enemies in the form of the Quintessons were introduced. Plots often centered on the ultra-powerful citybots, Metroplex and Trypticon.

Season 3 has a mixed reputation. It contains some of the most mistake-laden episodes of the entire franchise ("Five Faces of Darkness", "Carnage in C Minor", the introduction sequence at right) most of which can be laid at the feet of AKOM. But some of its episodes are among the best as well, both in animation and scripting; "Dark Awakening", "Chaos", "Webworld", and "Dweller in the Depths" are all heavy fan favorites.

Late in Season 3, as in Season 2, the forerunners of the 1987 toy line were introduced: the Terrorcons, Technobots, and Throttlebots, and (very briefly) Slugfest and Overkill. The season concluded with the resurrection of Optimus Prime, spurred on by a massive campaign on the part of fans, who were displeased by his death and subsequent "evil" resurrection.

  1. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1
  2. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2
  3. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 3
  4. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4
  5. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5
  6. The Killing Jar
  7. Chaos
  8. Dark Awakening
  9. Forever is a Long Time Coming
  10. Starscream's Ghost
  11. Thief in the Night
  12. Surprise Party
  13. Madman's Paradise
  14. Nightmare Planet
  15. Ghost in the Machine
  16. Webworld
  17. Carnage in C-Minor
  18. The Quintesson Journal
  19. The Ultimate Weapon
  20. The Big Broadcast of 2006
  21. Fight or Flee
  22. Dweller in the Depths
  23. Only Human
  24. Grimlock's New Brain
  25. Money is Everything
  26. Call of the Primitives
  27. The Face of the Nijika
  28. The Burden Hardest to Bear
  29. The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 1
  30. The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2

Season 4

They kept making the toys? But weren't those like, the ones that couldn't transform or something?

How the truncated Season 4 came about remains a mystery, though presumably the short version is that Hasbro pulled out its funding support. Whether anything further was ever planned is not known; see Urban legends about Transformers for more.

As is, the "season" consisted of a single three-part episode, that somewhat hastily brought in thirty or so new Transformer characters as well as Nebulan partners for 22 of them, and attempted to provide a satisfactory conclusion to the series as a whole.

  1. The Rebirth, Part 1
  2. The Rebirth, Part 2
  3. The Rebirth, Part 3

Japanese release

With the success of Transformers proven by Hasbro, Takara elected to cut short their plans for a new Diaclone line in 1985 and import the Transformers toyline and cartoon instead. To play catch-up with Hasbro markets, Takara combined the first two years of toys and cartoon into one series, which was given the rather ostentatious title of "Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers". Although two episodes out of these sixty-five were cut ("Attack of the Autobots" and "Day of the Machines"), an additional nine clip episodes were produced, bringing the total number of "Fight!" episodes to seventy-two. However, all of these additional episodes are summarized episodes ("the reviewing episodes") featuring segments from the first and the second seasons without any newly-created scenes.

The list of the summarized episodes in Japan:

14. Birth! The Transformers
55. The Endless Fight
56. The Desperate Struggle on the Dinobot Island
57. Devastator, the Giant Soldier
58. The Desperate Struggle without an End
69. The Biggest Crisis of Earth
70. The Quest of Cybertonium
71. Stunticons Versus Aerialbots
72. The Rebellion of the Combaticons
Note: The numbers are the airing order in Japan.

In 1986, after the release of the Scramble City OVA (but not The Transformers: The Movie, which was not released in Japan for several more years) the series was rebranded as "Transformers 2010". All thirty episodes from the third season were dubbed for 2010, and two new clip episodes were produced, bringing the total to thirty-two.[1]

"The Rebirth" was not broadcast in Japan, in favor of producing brand new series to continue the story of the animated continuity, beginning with The Headmasters. In later years, however, "Attack of the Autobots," "Day of the Machines," and "The Rebirth" were all released on laserdisc.

DVD Releases

Kid Rhino (US)

  • Transformers First Season Collector's Edition
  • Transformers Season 2 Part 1
  • Transformers Season 2 Part 2
  • Transformers Season 3 Part 1
  • Transformers Season 3 Part 2/Season 4

Madman Entertainment (Aus)

  • Transformers Collection 1 - Season 1
  • Transformers Collection 2 - Season 2 Part 1
  • Transformers Collection 3 - Season 2 Part 2
  • Transformers Collection 4 - Season 3 Part 1
  • Transformers Collection 5 - Season 3 Part 2
  • Transformers Collection 6 - Season 4
  • The Best of Transformers Generation 1
  • Transformers Generation 1 - Complete Collection

Maverick Entertainment (UK)

  • Transformers - Original Series, Vol 1 (Season 1, episodes 9-13)
  • Transformers - Original Series, Vol 2 (Season 1, episodes 1-6)
  • Transformers - Original Series, Vol 3 (Season 1, episodes 7, 8, 14-16)
  • Transformers - Complete Original Series (complete Season 1)
  • Transformers - Five Faces of Darkness
  • Transformers - The Rebirth

Metrodome (UK)

  • Transformers - Season 1
  • Transformers - Season 2 Part 1
  • Transformers - Season 2 Part 2
  • Transformers - Season 3 & Season 4
  • Transformers - The Complete Generation 1 Collection
  • Transformers - Generation 1 Bumper Special
  • Transformers - The Classic Episodes

Note

  1. ↑ The number "2010" was originally added into the title in order to make the audiences feel more futuristic. However, the number "2010" eventually became the year when the story took place in.[January, 2008]
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