The Transformers (cartoon)

This article is about the cartoon series. For other uses of The Transformers, see Transformers (disambiguation).

The Transformers

“	...we feel action should be emphasized over plot—especially avoiding any complicated story lines—to ensure the success of this series with its intended viewers.	”
—Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins, Transformers story editors, Marvel Productions internal correspondence [1]

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

More than any other of the many media which Transformers have invaded in the past 30 years, it is The Transformers, the original cartoon that ran from 1984 to 1987, which captured the imagination of children and the young-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

The Decepticon undersea base. Note that it is neither pineapple, rock, nor tiki head.

Writing and distribution for this series were handled as a joint effort by Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions. Animation was produced overseas, by Toei, AKOM, Tokyo Movie Shinsha (supposedly) and an unknown studio from the Philippines.

Nobody on Earth noticed this for millions of years.

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 Dick Robbins, Bryce Malek, 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 sync 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.

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 later go on to work as voice director for Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Transformers Animated and briefly Transformers: Prime.

The sinister voice of Victor Caroli provided narration for the entire series, most commonly heard on the commercial 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. 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.

The show also originated the concept of the iconic "symbol flip" serving as a transition between scenes, a tradition carried on by some of the later series.

Episodes

For further information, see: List of The Transformers episodes

These episodes are listed in "production order", the order in which the episodes were actually approved and written, rather than the order in which they aired on television. 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. Arranging the episodes in airdate order would not solve this problem, and so, as fans have done for as long as there have been Transformers episode guides on the internet, TFWIKI.Net adheres to production order, in preference to simply making up a chronological order of our own (any attempt at which would be arguable at best).

The different DVD companies which have released the series down the years have at times presented the episodes of each season in a different order that adheres to neither production nor airdate, sometimes to improve any chronology errors evident in the production order, and other times for no apparent reason. No two English-language DVD releases of the series by different companies have placed all 98 episodes in the same order. Metrodome stuck closest to production order, only making changes for chronology reasons (and sometimes not even then), while other licensees have strayed from this order to varying degrees. Season 1 has consistently avoided reorganization (as production order is actually the correct story order), but Season 3 is a victim of continuous restructuring that sees its episodes presented in a wildly different order with each release.

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 (with some exceptions), and introduced the early wave of 1985 toys as it progressed—the Constructicons, Dinobots, Insecticons, and Skyfire.

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 (not to mention time travel, miniaturization, and battles against undersea creatures). 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 (like WPIX in New York, which also aired Beast Wars when it ran in syndication, and became an affiliate of the WB network, which would originally air the Cybertron cartoon).

Season Two breaks down very roughly into three segments:

The first thirteen episodes feature (primarily) the Season One 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.

"Autobot Spike"
"Changing Gears"
"City of Steel"
"Attack of the Autobots"
"Traitor"
"The Immobilizer"
"The Autobot Run"
"Atlantis, Arise!"
"Day of the Machines"
"Enter the Nightbird"
"A Prime Problem"
"The Core"
"The Insecticon Syndrome"
"Dinobot Island, Part 1"
"Dinobot Island, Part 2"
"The Master Builders"
"Auto Berserk"
"Microbots"
"Megatron's Master Plan, Part 1"
"Megatron's Master Plan, Part 2"
"Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 1"
"Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 2"
"Blaster Blues"
"A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court"
"The Golden Lagoon"
"The God Gambit"
"Make Tracks"
"Child's Play"
"Quest for Survival"
"The Secret of Omega Supreme"
"The Gambler"
"Kremzeek!"
"Sea Change"
"Triple Takeover"
"Prime Target"
"Auto-Bop"
"The Search for Alpha Trion"
"The Girl Who Loved Powerglide"
"Hoist Goes Hollywood"
"The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1"
"The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 2"
"Aerial Assault"
"War Dawn"
"Trans-Europe Express"
"Cosmic Rust"
"Starscream's Brigade"
"The Revenge of Bruticus"
"Masquerade"
"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 (in the then-futuristic year of 2005). 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 cast, 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 city-bots, 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 left) 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) the cassettes 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.

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 it 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.

The previous three seasons each feature fully original opening credits. For Season 4, however, the opening credit sequence is a mishmash of existing animation, combining high-quality animation sequences from some of the 1986 and 1987 toy commercials with segments of the Season 3 opening credits, which were of a visibly different art style.

Season 5

Season 5 did not feature any new episodes, but rather consisted of 15 episodes from the previous seasons and The Transformers: The Movie broken up into five episodes, for a total of 20 episodes. New opening and closing footage was added to each episode, which portrayed an animatronic puppet of Powermaster Optimus Prime meeting regularly with a live-action human named Tommy Kennedy to tell him old Transformers stories.

Sci-Fi Channel

From 1995 to 1997, the Sci-Fi Channel began airing reruns of The Transformers on their early morning cartoon programming blocks, Cartoon Quest and Animation Station. Unfortunately, due to longer commercial slots and/or shorter show times, the decision was made to edit the cartoon down. Sometimes this was done in comparatively harmless fashion, but other times the flow of scenes and even the plot suffered.

In one of the most notorious edits, two lines from Grapple and Inferno in "Masquerade" ended up smooshed into a single nonsensical jumble: "Time to add fire torobably hate myself in the morning, but—"

Japanese release

In Japan, The Transformers was broken apart into 2 separately branded shows:

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers

File:Japanese tf logo.jpg

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers (戦え! 超ロボット生命体トランスフォーマー, Tatakae! Chō Robotto Seimeitai Transformers) began airing in 1985, consisting of the North American season 1 and 2 episodes. Although 2 episodes out of the original 65 were cut ("Attack of the Autobots" and "Day of the Machines"), an additional 9 clip shows were created, composed entirely of re-used footage taken from various episodes, bringing the total number of Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers episodes to 72. The 2 missing episodes were later dubbed in 1990 and released straight-to-video, then retroactively added to the series episode list, boosting its official count to 74 episodes.

The additional clip shows are as follows:

14. "Birth of the Transformers!"

55. "War Without End"

56. "Desperate Battle on Dinobot Island"

57. "Devastator, the Giant Warrior"

58. "Neverending Struggle"

69. "Earth's Greatest Crisis"

70. "Seek the Cybertonium"

71. "Stunticons vs Aerialbots"

72. "Mutiny of the Combaticons"

The broadcast order of the series was significantly reworked, with most of the episodes featuring Skyfire being pushed to the end of the run (presumably owing the character's shaky status as a Bandai toy in Japan). Contrary to what would be sensible, this did not involve correcting any of the chronological errors present in the original order; in fact, it even created some new ones. The pack-in booklet included with the laserdisk and DVD sets from Pioneer feature a "narrative viewing order" list.

Perhaps most notoriously, the episodes were edited before their broadcast in Japan. These edits were made not for content, but for length so that the show could accommodate longer opening and ending sequences. The combined length of the U.S. opening and ending sequences was about 1 minute and 10 seconds. The combined length of the Japanese opening and ending sequences, however, was about 2 minutes and 20 seconds. This resulted in roughly 1 minute and 10 seconds of content being cut from every single episode.

The translation in terms of script and story was faithful in regards to the original English version (the same cannot be said of the translations of Beast Wars and onward). However, the dub was at times rushed and had its own unique errors, primarily in terms of matching the right voices and names to the characters on screen. Some examples of character identification mistakes include "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3", in which it is Thundercracker who requests permission to teleport and attack Ironhide, and "Divide and Conquer", where Starscream voices the teleporting Seeker rather than Skywarp (as a result, to Japanese viewers, it appears as though teleportation is a trait inherent in all Seekers and not just Skywarp). One of the worse examples would come in "The Master Builders", as Megatron orders Blitzwing into battle, though the jet is clearly Ramjet (Ramjet is even dubbed with Blitzwing's voice).

Although primary characters such as Megatron, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, etc., had consistent actors, the dub was extremely loose in terms of casting its secondary characters. Bluestreak, for example, had no less than seven different actors portray him over the course of the series (though Kōki Kataoka is typically credited as his "standard" voice actor). By the looks of things, if a secondary character only received one or two lines in a given episode, then whatever actor was on hand in the studio would be called in to play them, consistency be damned.

Additionally, the Japanese dub of Transformers was geared toward a younger audience than the original English version. While the dialogue and stories remained faithful in localization, the episodes received extensive narration from Issei Masamune. The additional narration was relentless to the point of becoming play-by-play commentary. The narrator would constantly describe what was happening on screen, summarize scenes and dialogue immediately after they were seen or spoken, and generally just provide needless asides such as "And then!" "Suddenly!" and "Meanwhile!" This was done to help the younger Japanese viewers follow along with the story, though later domestically produced Japanese Transformers animation would not include such excessive narration.

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers aired on various local Nihon TV affiliates and as a result, some episodes were preempted in some areas ("The Golden Lagoon", for example, only aired in the Kansai region, while "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide" aired in every region but the Kansai region). The opening theme was "TRANSFORMER" by Satoko Shimonari and the ending theme was "Peace Again" also by Shimonari.

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers 2010

File:2010 logo.jpg

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers 2010 (戦え! 超ロボット生命体トランスフォーマー 2010, Tatakae! Chō Robotto Seimeitai Transformers 2010) began airing in 1986, consisting of the North American season 3 episodes. All 30 episodes were dubbed for Transformers 2010 and 2 additional clip episodes were produced, bringing the total to 32 episodes.

The additional clip shows are as follows:

29. "Daniel's Adventure"

30. "The Desperate Struggle of Justice"

As with Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers, Transformers 2010 considerably reordered the sequence of episodes. However, rather than restore the narrative order (as the North American broadcast had jumbled up the story arcs), the Japanese broadcast actually made things worse. And as with Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers, Pioneer's laserdisk and DVD sets for Transformers 2010 include a "narrative viewing order" list in the pack-in booklet.

Transformers 2010 received the same editing treatment as its predecessor, losing scenes to make room for the longer title and credits sequences. Likewise, it received all the excessive narration and was prone to the same rotating cast members and character identification hiccups. In regards to the latter, it could become especially problematic when the narrator was the one misidentifying the characters (in "The Burden Hardest to Bear", the narrator mistakenly identifies Wildrider and Dead End as Runabout and Runamuck).

In addition to the extensive narration to hold the viewer's hand, Transformers 2010 also received brand new text captions which had not been often utilized in Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers. These captions would appear on screen to designate locations (be they planets, countries or cities) and to identify new characters whenever they first appeared (including both names and functions). The Secret Files of Teletraan II segments were also reworked; some were dubbed, some were dropped and some brand new ones exclusive to Transformers 2010 were created.

The release of The Transformers: The Movie was delayed in Japan and was not available between Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers and Transformers 2010. To help viewers acclimate to the new status quo, explanatory material was published in the pages of TV Magazine, describing the events of The Movie as the "Unicron War" and summarizing vital events from the film (such as Optimus Prime's death, Rodimus Prime's ascension and Megatron's upgrade into Galvatron). The Movie would eventually be released straight-to-video in 1989.

Like Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers, Transformers 2010 was broadcast on various local Nihon TV affiliates, resulting in preemptions in certain areas ("The Face of the Nijika" for example). The opening theme was "TRANSFORMER 2010" by Shō Hirose and the ending theme was "WHAT'S YOU" also by Hirose.

Transformers: The Rebirth

The season 4 episodes of The Transformers were not originally broadcast in Japan, with Takara instead electing to produce a brand new series to continue the story of their animated continuity: The Headmasters. However, all 3 episodes were eventually released straight-to-video in 1996 as Transformers: The Rebirth (トランスフォーマーザ・リバース). The episodes received their much-belated Japanese television broadcast in 2007 on Cartoon Network Japan.

To differentiate "The Rebirth" from the Japanese continuity of Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers, the episodes were released under the American The Transformers branding. To further this distinction, the dub used standard English-language names and terminology for the most part ("Hot Rod" was not changed to "Hot Rodimus" and "Kup" was not changed to "Chear", for example) while maintaining the Japanese-exclusive names for the more high profile characters ("Convoy" was not changed to "Optimus Prime", for example).

Only three actors from Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers and Transformers 2010 returned to voice their respective characters: Tesshō Genda (Optimus Prime), Seizō Katō (Galvatron) and Issei Masamune (narrator). Every other cast member was replaced with a soundalike, to varying degrees of success. The voice direction for these episodes was conducted by Shōzō Tajima.

Home video releases

Main article: The Transformers (cartoon)/home video

Notes

While answering a letter from a fan in the letters page to issue 146, the Grimlock from the UK Marvel Comics revealed that he totally knows all about The Transformers cartoon series. He claims the Marvel Comics depict the events as they actually happened and the cartoon is fictional.[2]
Looking at the production codes of the series reveals some choice tidbits:
- The series pilot, "More than Meets the Eye", was produced under a set of different production codes, as it was created before Transformers was expanded to become an ongoing series. After the pilot, the episode production numbers begin afresh with "700-01" ("Transport to Oblivion"), and proceeded in order until the end of the first season, with "700-13" ("Heavy Metal War"). At the beginning of the second season, it seems the production codes were adjusted to account for the three parts of "More than Meets the Eye", as they take a jump forward to "700-16" with "Autobot Spike". This, of course, is mathematically wrong-o, as "Autobot Spike" is the seventeenth episode, not the sixteenth.
- B.O.T., the final episode of season 2, was production code 700-64, while Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1, the first episode of season 3, was production code 700-86. The reason for this jump is unknown.
- There is no episode with production code 700-111. Grimlock's New Brain was 700-110, while Call of the Primitives was 700-112. The reason for this omission is likewise unknown.
Twelve episodes were released as audio adventures by the German company Karussell Musik und Video (featuring dialogue from the German dub of the cartoon by Polyband with new background music from Karussell's own library), a common practice at the time.

Cartoon writers are a sneaky lot, and quietly put references to G.I. Joe, another show they were working on at the same time, into The Transformers. Daina of the Soviet Oktober Guard ("Prime Target"), Flint as Marissa Faireborn's dad ("The Killing Jar"), and an elderly Cobra Commander ("Only Human") all appear. We also see journalist Hector Ramirez, who appears in everything Sunbow was doing at the time.

External links

1985 net.comics review
Aaron Marsh's Transformers Episode Guide — Including variants and repackagings
Transformers on Facebook - Includes information on Matrix of Leadership Box Set