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 Waspinator.
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 nominees began on Transformers.com on April 13, with the bios for each nominee being revealed on that same day..
Nominees
2010 nominees
WINNER: Dinobot! (Holy scrap!)
2011 nominees
WINNER: Waspinator! (Double holy scrap!)
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 filed 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 human inductees were introduced first, with a combination of video testimony and personal introductions by Aaron Archer and Greg Lombardo, who were dressed up all snazzy. One by one, clips were played and testimonies given, and human inductees came onstage to receive their trophies and give a short speech.
The robot inductees were each given a short montage of clips from across various franchises, set to a piece of appropriate music. Then the five Fan's Choice nominees were featured with their own music-video montages, with a buildup to the winner... Dinobot! A second montage for Dinobot then played, most notably using clips from "Code of Hero", which had been conspicuously absent from his nomination video.
- Optimus Prime: "What I've Done" by Linkin Park
- Bumblebee: "The Best" by Joe Esposito
- Megatron: "Seek and Destroy" by Metallica
- Starscream: "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins
- Jazz: "Holding out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler
- Soundwave: "I Love Rock n' Roll" by Joan Jett
- Shockwave: "Final Countdown" by Europe
- Grimlock: Godzilla theme
- Dinobot (nomination): "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns 'N' Roses.
- Dinobot (winner): "The Touch" by Stan Bush
Naturally, the videos put up on the website do not use any of those songs (except for "The Touch"), instead using generic music Hasbro would not have to pay licensing fees for.
Before attendees filed out for the evening, a keepsake print with the names of all the inductees was distributed.
2011
The human inductees were Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay.
Notes
- The "characters" in the Hall of Fame are not "characters" in the same sense as in this wiki. They are more like "character names, and the cross-continuity character concepts behind them". For example, the "Optimus Prime" in the Hall of Fame is considered to encompass all the major Optimus Primes from all continuities — G1, Robots in Disguise, the Unicron Trilogy, the live-action movies, Transformers Animated, Transformers: Prime, and others, all considered as "one character". The Hasbro-provided bios for Hall of Fame members and nominees are thus generic in spots (describing any of the characters of that name fairly well), while mentioning specific elements from the current "Aligned" continuity in others. This deliberate ambiguity is alternately fascinating and maddening, particularly when it's applied to characters who do not otherwise exist in the Aligned-verse.
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...alot of his haters refuse to believe he was voted for any other reason then a "Dick Joke".
- Grimlock's 2011 profile asserts that before the Great Exodus, he was part of the Lightning Strike Coalition, the members of which were rebuilt into the Dinobots after being captured by Shockwave. This refers to no known story, and may prefigure events of the Aligned Continuity, as some of last year's profiles did.
- 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.
- The Hall of Fame banner that was outside the Pasadena Civic Auditorium during BotCon 2011 depicted Ratchet with inverted shoulder colors. While ostensibly done to avoid the legal wrath of the Red Cross organization, it suggests that Ratchet has either suddenly become Christian and/or decided to align himself with Switzerland.
