Transformers Hall of Fame
Starting in 2010, Hasbro has begun honoring important characters and creators from the long history of the franchise. At BotCon 2010, they honored five characters to be inducted into the Hall of Fame: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream, and the fifth character determined by fan vote, Dinobot.
The inaugural creators inducted include: Bob Budiansky, Peter Cullen, Yoke Hideaki, and Kojin Ohno.
Each year more Transformers characters and creators will be added to the Hall of Fame. 2011's characters are Ironhide, Ratchet, Soundwave and a fourth to be determined by fan vote.
Nomination process
The nominations began with various Transformer fan sites (including this wiki) polling their members for five names to submit to Hasbro. Hasbro then tallied these results to present the fandom with five final choices on which to vote.
2010
On May 3, 2010 Hasbro began announcing the final nominees, leading up to the fan vote on May 10th. The fan vote was limited to one vote per day, until voting ended three weeks later on May 28. Each of these nominees were presented with all new bios (which interestingly tended to conflate multiple versions of the characters and were not averse to creating new backstory points as well).
2011
Voting on the final nominies began on Transformers.com on Wednesday, April 13th.
Nominees
2010 nominees
WINNER: Dinobot! (Holy scrap!)
2011 nominees
Hall of Fame Ceremony
2010
The Saturday night of BotCon 2010 was allocated to a Hall of Fame semi-formal dinner. After a short cocktail dinner period (read: cash bar), Primus package attendees filled into a large auditorium with several dinner tables assembled in front of a stage with cardboard standees of Optimus, Megatron, Starscream, and Bumblebee. Two large screens magnified the stage's events to those further away.
The robot and human inductees were introduced by a combination of video testimony and personal introductions by Aaron Archer and Greg Lombardo. One by one, clips were played and testimonies given, and human inductees came onstage to receive their reward and give a short speech.
The Fan Choice robot nominees had animation clips from across various franchises set to a piece of appropriate music. (For example, Grimlock's clips were set to the "Godzilla" theme.) After these were all introduced, Dinobot was announced to be the winner of the Fan Choice nominees. Before attendees filed out for the evening, a keepsake print with the names of all the inductees was distributed.
2011
Notes
2010 notes
- Soundwave's bio retconned his cassette partners into Mini-Cons, and restated an earlier retcon that they were also Deployers. It also revealed that he had deleted his emotions for more efficient information processing. Additionally, Soundwave's bio also included Revenge of the Fallen Soundwave's weakness to "too many sonic booms" from the Cyber Missions.
- Grimlock's bio is largely based on his comic book personas, rather than the dumb, childlike version from the original cartoon. It also revealed that his vocal quirks are the result of damage caused by Scorponok.
- Jazz is now Optimus Prime's best friend from before the war, plus the Transformers Animated aspect of him training to be a Cyber-Ninja is added.
- Shockwave's bio offers no real surprises, but it spells "intentions" wrong.
- The release of Transformers: Exodus reveals that several of these bios (particularly Soundwave's and Jazz's), were almost certainly written with the new continuity of the novel in mind. This was later confirmed in the July 2010 Hasbro Q&A.
- Dinobot's entry was originally posted with no bio, but one was quickly added afterward. The final sentence is a grammatical mess. (Seriously, try to diagram that puppy.)
- Bob Budiansky's initial response to being in the Hall of Fame was "boy, this sounds really bizarre", followed by being flattered. When he came to the ceremony with his family, he found himself being treated "like royalty". [1]
- Quite honestly, nobody seriously expected Dinobot to win the fan vote. David Willis created a tongue-in-cheek campaign for him, with the central joke being that Dinobot wasn't going to win because he wasn't a 1980s character.
2011 notes
- Erector was a popular choice in 2011's website polling because his name reminds people of boners.
- Grimlock's 2011 profile asserts that before the Great Exodus, he was part of the Lightning Strike Coalition, and were rebuilt into the team known as the Dinobots after being captured by Shockwave.
- Erector's profile is amazing. He's a former member of the Constructicons who was kicked out of the team for not being green. He had no choice but to join the Autobots, and he was instrumental in providing a diversion to help them flee the battle of Tyger Pax. A creative genius, he created the Armada Laserbeak Surveillance System and Real Gear Quick Action Weaponry.
- Waspinator's profile says his name before taking on a beast mode was Wasp.
