Money Is Everything (episode)
| |||||||||
 Ew, gross! | |||||||||
| "Money Is Everything" | |||||||||
| Production code | 700-109 | ||||||||
| Production company | Sunbow Productions | ||||||||
| Airdate | November 17, 1986 | ||||||||
| Written by | Carla and Gerry Conway | ||||||||
| Animation studio | Toei | ||||||||
| Continuity | Generation 1 cartoon continuity | ||||||||
Marissa Faireborn and the Technobots are drawn into a Quintesson deal when they meet Dirk Manus.
- Japanese title: ブラックマネー (Black Money)
- German title: Das liebe Geld ("The Beloved Money")
- Brazilian title: Dinheiro é Tudo ("Money Is Everything")
Synopsis
Out by the Moon, the trader ship Lazy Sue is under attack by Hun-Gurrr, who is very hungry. The ship's pilot, Dirk Manus, calls for help. The EDC sends Marissa Faireborn out to assist, with Scattershot and Strafe backing her up. Unfortunately, Strafe gets confused and shoots down the Lazy Sue, while Scattershot is grabbed by Hun-Gurrr (good choice of backup there, Marissa). Faireborn calls Autobot City, and Nosecone, Afterburner, and Lightspeed head out to help their comrades. The other three Technobots manage to drive off Hun-Gurrr.
Manus, unseen, buries something near his ship. He introduces himself, hitting on Faireborn, who is a little flustered. Manus claims that Hun-Gurrr may have attacked due to his discovery of a Quintesson base near Saturn. He offers a deal: pay his fee, he gives up the Quintessons. The Technobots form Computron, who concludes that they should repair the ship and pay the fee. However, Faireborn decides to keep Manus nearby, which Manus uses as an excuse to take Faireborn out dancing.
Later that night, Manus heads out to what he buried, and contacts his clients—the Quintessons. Apparently, the Quintessons sent Hun-Gurrr to ambush Manus, who now demands triple his original payment, or they don't get the Recreator. The Quintessons are concerned about the Technobots, but Manus decides to lead them into an ambush. Unfortunately, Faireborn overheard everything, and points her blaster at Manus. Unfortunately, Manus has a microblaster of his own, which he uses to disarm her, then ties her up.
The next morning, Scattershot, Lightspeed, and Strafe fly off with Manus, who is calculating his profits. Heading towards Saturn, the Technobots are attacked by Abominus. The three Technobots are shot down by the Decepticon combiner, who then goes for the Lazy Sue. However, coming over the Quintesson base, Abominus separates into the Terrorcons. Rippersnapper and Cutthroat are upset by this; the Quintessons installed an automatic timer which forced them to separate. Manus shows the Recreator to the Quintessons, who decide to test it on Blot. The Recreator dematerializes Blot, then reforms him. Manus explains that the device also cured Blot of any injuries he may have received. Impressed, the Quintessons agree to pay Manus. However, Manus places a small device on the Recreator before leaving.
As it turns out, that was a wise move, for the Quintessons gave him mimic dust instead of real gold. Manus activates the device he implanted on the Recreator, a micro-nuke, only to discover that the Quintessons have placed a bomb on his ship, which goes off... while the Quintessons flick Manus's mini-bomb away from the Recreator. A triple cross!
Manus survives the crash, only to discover that the Technobots did as well, and they're quite angry. As he protests his innocence, Manus shouts to look behind them. Lightspeed says that old trick won't work—and is the first to be shot by the Sharkticons. The Technobots bring a set of thorny vines down on the Sharkticons, but their escape is cut short when they reach the edge of a cliff. Fortunately, Nosecone and Afterburner arrive and drive off the Sharkticons. Marissa's ship arrives, and she jumps out, uppercutting Manus. Marissa advocates leaving him to rot, but Manus warns them about the Recreator. Even though their injuries prevent them from becoming Computron, the Technobots decide they have no choice but to trust him. After a little trudging through the forest, Marissa is grabbed by a vine. Manus jumps to her rescue, getting a reward when he steals a kiss—and her weapon. Now with a hostage, the Technobots are forced to surrender to Manus.
At the Quintesson base, Manus attempts to renegotiate his contract. Marissa is disgusted, then horrified when Manus uses the Recreator to vaporize the Technobots. Just as the Terrorcons decide that she'd make a good lunch, Manus reforms the Technobots, the Recreator having healed their injuries. They promptly transform into Computron. As Computron and Abominus duke it out, Manus reveals to Marissa that he brought the Technobots there so that they could be healed. He just didn't tell them because he wanted their reactions to be real. Computron detects the timer placed on Abominus, and fires a blast, causing Abominus to separate. Now facing a pissed Autobot combiner, the Terrorcons fly off, while the Quintessons retreat.
On Earth, the EDC decides to let Manus leave with the Lazy Sue, without any reward. Marissa is seeing Manus, but Lightspeed arrives, saying that the currency the EDC confiscated has been stolen. As Marissa assumes it's Manus, he takes another kiss, then takes off. Marissa, however, says they shouldn't bother pursuing him. On his ship, Manus discovers that the money he stole is mimic dust. But instead of being upset, he merely laughs, impressed that Marissa outsmarted him.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Quotes
"Sorry, Faireborn, if you weren't who you are, and if I weren't who I am, maybe we could have had something special. But—we'll never know, will we?"
- —Dirk Manus. What a gentleman.
"Saturn's rings...I can't believe I'm finally out here."
"Say something, Lightspeed?"
"Daydreaming, Strafe. Or maybe I should say 'stardreaming'."
"Uh-huh."
- —Lightspeed's hopes and dreams aren't very interesting to Strafe.
"Mmmbleah! Blot feel sick."
- —Blot doesn't take well to being germ-free.
"Slimy worm-fingered creep."
"Unlikeable dry-skinned biped."
- —Dirk Manus and the Quintesson to themselves after the Recreator transaction.
"A triple cross! While I was planting a bomb on the Recreator, they planted one on Lazy Sue! This stinks!"
- —Dirk Manus understates his situation.
[SMACK!!]
"What was that for?"
"Want a LIST?!"
- —Dirk Manus gets slugged by Marissa Faireborn.
"Hun-Gurrr hungry. Growr!"
"Growr?! Rip metal. Eat food!"
[scuffle ensues]
- —Hun-Gurrr and Sinnertwin, masters of witty riposte.
Notes
Animation and technical errors
- Lightspeed's Autobot symbol disappears in several shots throughout the episode (it's easy to tell when, as it's located on the white part of his chest).
- Computron's mouth moves along with Marissa's partially off-screen description of the giant robot's computational power.
- When Computron is speaking to Faireborn and Manus (after doing his calculations) his left arm is missing a section, making it look like his left underarm is floating in the air.
- The first shot of Dirk and Marissa on their "date" shows Dirk sitting with a blonde. Marissa is brunette!
- There's also four plates in that shot, but in the closeup their table is empty.
- When Dirk and Marissa dance, her necklace is missing.
- When Dirk Manus is haggling with the Quintesson over video phone, he ends the call before actually ending the conversation with, "Just to show no hard feelings, I'll throw them in for free."
- When Lightspeed gets shot by Abominus in space, his face is colored completely red.
- As Marissa and two Technobots leave Earth to chase after Dirk, Afterburner's dialogue sounds muffled (as if in a radio conversation) during a reaction shot of Dirk (who's next to the Quintesson base by now).
- After Dirk delivers the Recreator, the shot of him returning to his ship has the Quintesson talking without its mouth moving.
- When Dirk discovers the mimic dust, the box its in sort of floats to the ground and stays there at an angle.
- The Sharkticons who get trapped in the vines transform into alt mode without the sound effect. When we see them turn back into robots, the sound effect is cut off a bit (as also happens when Afterburner transforms a few shots later).
- When Marissa confesses her love for Dirk, she literally holds her hand in the air, as if waiting to be grabbed by the killer vines (which happens in the next shot).
- When Dirk kisses Marissa, her facial expression doesn't change. He's kissing her teeth!
- After one of the the Quintessons orders the Terrorcons to stop Faireborn, the head of Cutthroat's bird mode is colored the same as his wings.
- When Computron defeats Abominus, Cutthroat is colored like Blot (purple and blue).
- In the last shot of Marissa on the Quintesson base, she's missing her lipstick.
- When Dirk escapes in his ship, the shot is missing Marissa and Lightspeed.
- The next shot has Lightspeed's chest in gray instead of white. Also, his Autobot logo is drawn with "eyes" in the wrong place.
- The mimic dust Marissa left for Dirk doesn't actually turn into dust when he grabs it.
- Dirk and Marissa have tans in most shots, but a few (like when Dirk kisses Marissa) have their faces much lighter.
- The Recreator's colors and shape change throughout the episode. Early on it's white and small, later it's big and gray and sometimes has green sections on it.
Continuity errors
- The Technobots are shown glowing with energy (that looks like the glowing type of energon we've seen before) when they first form Computron. They didn't do that in their first appearance.
- The Terrorcons were last seen under Galvatron's command. Does he rent them out?
- Dirk throws Marissa into a cactus, but there's no blood on her back in subsequent shots. That EDC uniform is tough!
- With hundreds of Autobots on the roster, why would half the Technobots stay behind on Earth? Wouldn't it be tremendously inconvenient if they were attacked by Decepticons and couldn't unite? What, Tailgate and Wheelie weren't available?
- Strafe turns into a spaceship, and yet when he's flying, he's in robot mode. Surely it would be faster to transform and do that?
Continuity notes
- Scattershot mentions that they're "still new here". The Technobots were created just an episode or two earlier, a few weeks in the show's time frame.
- Marissa Faireborn states that the Quintessons et al. are hiding out on Titan, which was previously shown in "The God Gambit" to be populated by an indigenous race of humanoids.
Trivia
- Dirk plants the nuclear nullifier on the Recreator right in front of the Quintessons. No wonder they were able to disable it!
- Given how effective he is in this episode, one wonders why the heck Lightspeed isn't the one leading the Technobots.
- The animation style randomly changes at a few scant points from standard animation to the more stylized type used on "Call of the Primitives", implying that some scenes may have had to be redone by a different studio or something similar. This is most immediately visible after the final commercial break, during the scene where Lightspeed yells, "Strafe! Shoot there!"
- This is the only episode in Season Three where none of the major characters (Rodimus Prime, Springer, Galvatron, etc.) appear.
Home video releases
- Laserdisc
1999 — The Transformers: 2010 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
- DVD
2001 — The Transformers: 2010 — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2004 — The Original Transformers — Season 3 Part 2 & Season 4 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 3 and Season 4 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 5: Series 3.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers — Season's Three & Four [sic] (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2010 — The Transformers — Seasons Three & Four: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
