Child's Play (episode)
| This article is about the episode of the Generation 1 cartoon. For issue #35 of the Marvel US comic, see Child's Play (issue). |
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 Aron soon realised he was addicted to collecting Robot Heroes. | |||||||||
| "Child's Play" | |||||||||
| Production code | 700-43 | ||||||||
| Production company | Sunbow Productions | ||||||||
| Airdate | November 7, 1985 | ||||||||
| Written by | Beth Bornstein | ||||||||
| Continuity | Generation 1 cartoon continuity | ||||||||
The Transformers find themselves on an alien planet where they're no bigger than toys to the inhabitants!
- Japanese title: チルドレン・プレイ (Children Play)
Synopsis
At a baseball stadium on Earth, the Decepticons are setting up a space bridge, over the objections of the humans. Megatron decides to let his troops have some fun: Thrust fires baseballs at people from his cannons, Soundwave and Skywarp play catch (using a human), Ravage chases a player around the field, and Starscream starts grabbing people in jet mode. The unwholesome family fun is ended when the Autobots arrive. As Optimus Prime and the Autobots attack, Perceptor tries to run a scan on the space bridge, but Megatron shoots the controls. However, Optimus Prime, Perceptor, Bumblebee, Inferno, Smokescreen, Soundwave, Ravage, Thrust, and Starscream are within the space bridge's confines at the time, and they are sucked into a portal along with the energon cubes. As Megatron laments the loss of the energon (and fails to notice the bright side of Optimus and Starscream probably being dead), the space bridge self-destructs. Ironhide leads the remaining Autobots back to the base, hoping that Teletraan I can figure out where the others were sent.
Meanwhile, the lost Transformers awaken to find themselves somewhere else. All of a sudden, a large sphere lands atop Starscream. Then a monster attacks, chasing Soundwave. Thrust tries to fly away, but lands in a body of water. Also, Ravage is caught by some plant life. Convinced the Decepticons are no longer a threat, Optimus has the Autobots load the energon into his trailer, and they roll out. They find a building made of relatively poor materials, only to discover something quite shocking: They're in the bedroom of a gargantuan alien child.
The boy, Aron, places Starscream, Soundwave, Ravage, and Thrust in a small bowl, while Nitro (his pet and the creature that was chasing Soundwave) smells the Autobots. As Aron tells him to stop, the Decepticons escape. Thrust is tied down with a piece of string, Ravage is chased down like a mouse and locked in a small cage with a rodent-like pet to run on a wheel (how embarrassing), and Soundwave is locked in a toy box. Starscream manages to hide in the small toy building and sees the Autobots. Naturally, Screamer fires his null-ray at the energon, causing a fire. Starscream is quickly recaptured, and Inferno douses the fire. Optimus introduces the Autobots to Aron, when the boy's parents arrive. Hiding the Autobots in a desk drawer, Aron shows the Decepticons to his parents. However, Aron is also compelled to show the Autobots.
The Transformers are taken to a lab, where scientists intend to dissect them (starting with the Decepticons). However, Aron steals the Autobots away, with the authorities in pursuit. Aron hides behind a trash can, dodging his pursuers, but a local bully named Marty comes along. The Autobots hide within a trashcan, and Marty wanders off. Meanwhile, Ravage has picked his locks and frees the other Decepticons. Aron is still being chased by the authorities, so he intends to hide the Autobots at his house. However, Optimus tells Aron that they have to return to Earth, a planet far from this one. Aron wonders if he could see it through his telescope, and Perceptor happens upon an idea. However, Soundwave has overheard them.
The authorities spot Aron, so the Autobots decide to escape by traveling to Aron's house through the sewers. The Decepticons see the Autobots and follow them below. As the two groups fight it out within the sewer, a wave comes along. (Let's not ponder what the wave is made of.) The Decepticons hightail it out, while the Autobots ride the wave in a teacup. Escaping out through a drainage pipe, the Autobots head to Aron's house.
Using Nitro as a way into Aron's room, Perceptor explains that they can use the energon, along with modifications to his light cannon, to propel them to Earth through the telescope. Once he's ready, however, the Decepticons arrive and grab Bumblebee. Starscream orders Optimus to let them pass, and just as the Autobot leader is prepared to let them go, Nitro pounces, freeing Bumblebee but allowing the Decepticons to escape back to Earth...and land right in a lake filled with alligators. Back on...whatever Aron's planet is called, Aron suggests using his toy rocket ship to go home. Perceptor is able to modify it for interstellar transport, and the Autobots depart, with Optimus telling Aron that whenever he looks into the sky, he'll be seeing them.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Skywarp, think fast!"
- —Soundwave playing catch with Skywarp...using a human.
"Strike three, Megatron. You're out."
- —Optimus Prime, umpire.
[The Decepticons return to Earth, landing in a lake]
Thrust: This isn't the type of welcome I had in mind.
Starscream: Who cares, as long as there aren't any green monsters around.
[Alligators converge and attack the Decepticons]
Starscream: AHHH! GET THESE THINGS OFF OF ME! AHHHH!
- —Starscream just can't win.
Smokescreen: A rocket ship!
Inferno: A toy rocket ship.
Perceptor Well, anything's worth a try. With some modifications to the propulsion core—
Optimus: Perceptor, just do it.
- —Perceptor exhausts Optimus Prime's patience.
Notes
Animation or technical glitches
- Megatron's opening lines ("Since the humans are so eager to play, this stadium will make a perfect space bridge. Why don't you accommodate them?") don't quite flow together, as if something got cut after the first part of the first sentence, or as if the first two clauses should be switched around.
- Thrust gets Optimus Prime's laser sound effect when he's firing baseballs from his arm guns.
- When Skywarp flies up to catch the human Soundwave just threw, he is colored like Starscream.
- Though both of the people Starscream picks up at the baseball game are male, one of the voices screaming for help is distinctly female.
- As Starscream is flying around, the stands keep switching back and forth from being completely full to completely empty.
- As Optimus arrives at the stadium and transforms, his trailer simply vanishes into thin air, with Inferno appearing in its place.
- Starscream's face is the same dark gray as his helmet after he's crushed by the giant ball, rather than its usual light gray.
- Thrust makes no transformation noise after he's swatted out of the air by the cat creature.
- The Autobots driving across Aron's floor are moving incredibly slowly.
- The Autobots make the "wrong" transformation noise (descending pitch) as they arrive at the "building" and convert to robot mode.
- As Inferno knocks on the "building"'s walls, the intended comedic effect of the wall falling and hitting him and Perceptor is animated as if it were a tidal wave bursting through the wall. After about 1/2 of the "metallic clang" sound effect, the scene instantly cuts to the Autobots walking along as if nothing happened.
- Starscream has Skywarp's colors when Aron drops him in the glass jar. And again when Soundwave joins him. And again as he and Soundwave break out.
- Starscream swats Ravage aside after Aron drops him in the jar, but Ravage just hangs in mid-air, unmoving.
- As Soundwave is being dropped into the cylinder, some parts of his head are white when they should be dark blue.
- As the Decepticons fly over the city, Starscream's face is obscured by his left arm blaster. But since the view is from the right, the blaster should be behind his head. The layers are corrected when the shot is re-used a few scenes later, as the Decepticons hunt for Aron's house.
- Like Thrust before him, Starscream gets Prime's laser sound effect when he fires on the Autobots inside the building set.
- In fact, nobody gets the right sound effects. Ravage has the same 1950s-sounding blast effect used all over the place in "The Search for Alpha Trion" (when he, uh, fires lasers out of his missiles.) So does Prime when he blasts the sewer rat. Inferno gets a Decepticon sound effect when he blasts Starscream in the sewer.
- The spinning animation of the razor the aliens try to dissect Ravage with is screwed up. While there are clear spinning effects on the side of the blade, the teeth around the edge remain motionless.
- As Optimus reaches the sewer and finds Starscream standing atop the pipe he's coming out of, a number of odd things happen: He grabs at Starscream, who stands motionless, and his hands disappear as though they're meant to be blocked by something. Then he starts falling spontaneously, and a moment later a giant half-drawn leg kicks him. It seems as though this shot was meant to be animated with a different background.
- As Perceptor is knocked down by Soundwave, the rim of his chest is grey instead of white.
- As Inferno rushes to save Bumblebee, the water has not been animated around the characters, thus making them look like half-robots floating in midair.
- Flying Autobots: The Autobots emit a rocket sound effect as they leap from the tea cup, as if they had flight capabilities.
- As the Decepticons fly to Aron's house, Starscream is colored like Thundercracker.
- The Autobots are supposed to be running toward Nitro, but they aren't actually shown to be moving forward.
- Smokescreen's head crest is colored blue instead of yellow as Bumblebee asks about the cubes.
- When Aron removes the energon cubes from his drawer, his head and left arm disappear.
- As Inferno blasts the energon cubes, his energy beam isn't given a proper glow effect; it's colored black instead.
- Bumblebee vanishes from the shot as the Decepticons flee from Nitro.
- Starscream is colored like Thundercracker (again) as they fly up to the light beam.
- As the alligators approach the Decepticons, the back of Starscream's head is the same light gray as his body, instead of its usual dark gray.
- The alligators of the lake the Decepticons landed in are unnaturally huge. They seem as big as Starscream, who is over twenty feet tall, mind you.
- As the Autobots board the rocket from Aron's hands, the cell layering is completely screwed up. The Autobots just appear out of nowhere in Aron's hands. Bumblebee appears to be growing right out of Aron's skin. Prime walks past the rocket rather than into it, then phases through its skin to enter it (there's no actual hatchway shown.) Nitro also phases through the rocket to lick Bumblebee, and both of them sit there, half-submerged in the rocket. Wow!
- The audio seems to slow down for a second as the rocket lifts off.
Continuity errors
- Although continuity sets this directly before "The Gambler", the next episode broadcast was "Quest for Survival". Strange, that is.
- Nobody thinks to flee in a panic when the stadium is taken over by giant evil alien robots?
- Thrust confidently declares that "one of my missiles can stop anything!", while firing his... lasers.
- Awful convenient that the Transformers landed on a distant alien planet where the locals speak English. There's not the slightest attempt to explain how the two races can instantly communicate. Then again why were the Autobots able to instantly speak english themselves?
- Why doesn't Soundwave shrink when he transforms inside Aron's cylindrical box? He'd have been undetectable!
- The Aliens recognize the Autobots' alt-modes; strange that they have the same vehicles as we do.
- A representative of Aron's seemingly modestly-advanced civilization decides that, to figure out where the Transformers came from, they'll have to cut them open? They thought of this before, say... asking them?
- The physics of Perceptor's improvised space bridge seem a little dodgy. For one thing, shooting energon cubes usually causes them to blow up; in fact, that's exactly what happens earlier in the episode. Second, there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for channeling their energy into the telescope, or for controlling when the beam launches. Third, could that dinky little telescope really be reliably sighted exactly on Earth, a small (and moving!) planet that's a minimum of several light years away?
Continuity notes
- << Brawn vs. Soundwave: Round 4 goes to Brawn. Tally: Brawn 3, Soundwave 1. Final winner: Brawn!
- Perceptor demonstrates his rarely-used ability to roll along as a giant vehicular microscope.
- When the Decepticons are flying through the air, Ravage is shown to be "running" next to them. So cute.
Other notes
- Somebody must have been killed when Thrust knocks the huge and explosive scoreboard into the stands.
- Right before Brawn throws him, Soundwave appears to be... stomping on one of the bases?
- Optimus forgets to name Smokescreen when he introduces the Autobots to Aron. Smokescreen doesn't seem to mind. In fact, Smokescreen barely speaks in this episode and disappears at times. Perhaps the writers held him back in light of his upcoming starring role in "The Gambler"?
Home video releases
- VHS
2000 — The Original Transformers — Volume 12: Size Matters (Rhino Entertainment)
- Laserdisc
1995 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.
1999 — The Transformers — Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
- DVD
2001 — The Transformers — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2: Vol. 5 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 3: Series 2.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers — Volume 05: Stagione Due Parte Terza (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 — Transformers — Season Two: Part Two (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume One: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
