Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Celebrating the pre-movie episodes of Transformers (and the Gobots, too), now with ongoing TF profiles

TRANSFORMERS: HOIST GOES HOLLYWOOD - Written by Earl Kress

The last episode before the introduction of the new combiner teams, and it stinks. Viewers are given a toxic mixture of toothless show business satire, weak plotting, a spotlighted Autobot who works better in small doses, bad animation, and a jarring scene where Megatron pretty much disembowels Starscream (of course, he's none the worse for wear in future episodes.)

GOBOTS: THE GIFT - Written by Karen Willson and Chris Weber

The first of a loose trilogy of episodes where the opposing camps of GoBots find a near-omnipotent organic sentient in their midst, this one is the very definition of mediocrity. Even when the cosmic being basically dies at the end, there's no real reason given for us to care. Pure filler.

TRANSFORMERS: THE KEY TO VECTOR SIGMA (Part 1 of 2) - Written by David Wise

Megatron finally wises up to the fact that the Decepticons could use a few members who transform into cars and trucks, and so the Stunticons are born. But they need to have personalities imprinted on them by Cybertron's most powerful computer, Vector Sigma, located within the lower levels of the planet. The Autobots follow, but fail to stop the Decepticons from stealing the key to activate Vector Sigma from Alpha Trion. So they decide to even the odds by building some flying Autobots. Meanwhile, humans in the Transformers universe prove to be reliably stupid when the Stunticons attack a military base and are mistaken for Autobots. That's pretty much the whole first part of this lumbering, poorly animated two-parter -- pure set-up. Unfortunately, the payoff in the second part will be even worse.

GOBOTS: TERROR IN ATLANTIS - Written by Francis Moss, from a story by Jeff Segal, Kelly Ward, and Francis Moss

An embittered scientist leads an expedition of Guardians and humans to find the legendary lost continent of Atlantis, but he turns out to be working with the Renegades, who end up setting loose mythological monsters. Schlocky in a good way, with fast pacing that doesn't let you catch your breath long enough to linger over the plot holes, as well as some of the best animation of the show's entire run -- the colorful monsters in particular seem to have had extra time and care spent on them.

TRANSFORMERS: THE KEY TO VECTOR SIGMA (Part 2 of 2) - Written by David Wise

Alpha Trion sacrifices himself to re-activate Vector Sigma, allowing the Autobots to successfully imprint personalities on the Aerialbots -- there's Silverbolt (voice of Charlie Adler), the reluctant yet sensible leader, Slingshot (Rob Paulsen), a cocky loudmouthed jerk whose contempt for the humans they must protect is shared by the other three: Air Raid (also Rob Paulsen), Fireflight (Jeff MacKay), and Skydive (Laurie Faso), none of whom are particularly distinctive, although Air Raid will go on to have a couple of notable moments in Season 3. What kills this episode is not the inevitable confrontation between the Aerialbots and Stunticons, which has a satisfying surprise twist and could have been saved if the animation had been decent. No, what is to blame is a totally arbitrary development regarding the key to Vector Sigma: it turns organic matter to metal, and Megatron decides to turn the Earth metallic, one tree at a time (I kid you not.) All in all, a below-average two-parter.

GOBOTS: THE LAST MAGIC MAN - Written by Mark Young

The second and worst of the omnipotent humanoid trilogy, showcasing a stereotypical Native American shaman who seems to have been meant to be enigmatic and ambiguous, but ends up coming off as unsympathetic and downright stupid. Having Scooter be the one who becomes attached to him adds insult to injury.

TRANSFORMERS: MASQUERADE - Written by Donald F. Glut

An extremely schematic plot -- Megatron sends Stunticons to steal objects; Autobots capture Stunticons; Autobots use holographic disguises to impersonate Stunticons and learn what Megatron wanted the objects for -- that is partially redeemed by some nice touches. The latter include: stalwart Optimus Prime clashing with boastful Motormaster (voiced by Roger C. Carmel), the reaction of Dead End (the most interesting Stunticon by far, voiced by Philip L. Clarke) to Tracks's flying ability ("A flying car! How droll!"), and Starscream being one step ahead of Megatron for a change. Nothing spectacular, but fun enough viewing.

GOBOTS: BRAXIS GONE BONKERS - Written by Mark Zaslove, from a story by Steve DeKorte, Jeff Segal, and Kelly Ward

Dr. Braxis has been a recurring human character since the GoBots pilot episode, a scientist of questionable morals who keeps falling in and out with the Renegades. Even though Braxis is voiced by the great Rene Auberjonois (his voice acting as DeSaad in Super Friends was superlative), a little of this character goes a long way. So making him the focus of an episode is doomed to failure. Braxis's sanity appears to have gone past the point of no return since his last appearance, making him singularly obnoxious (and deeply unfunny, to boot.) Otherwise, the plotting is decent and the action sequences aren't bad at all, making this episode something of a missed opportunity.

TRANSFORMERS: TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS - Written by David Wise

A charity marathon car race from France to Turkey includes a team of Autobots, who are there to protect the arrogant and selfish racer Augie Cahnay from the Decepticons, who covet the special metal his car's engine is made of. Megatron sics the Stunticons on the Autobots, leaving a great deal of wreckage and only Tracks, Bumblebee, and Bluestreak to save the day. At the end, it's Augie who saves the three Autobots through a near-fatal stunt, proving that he's not such a bad guy after all. Not a great episode, but a must-see for fans of Tracks and Bumblebee (I'm a fan of both characters.) Loses points for the Middle Eastern stereotypes in the early scenes, though.

GOBOTS: INSIDE JOB - Written by J. Larry Carroll, from a story by Jeff Segal, Kelly Ward, and J. Larry Carroll

Basically the GoBots version of the great Transformers episode "Microbots." Here, a Guardian shuttle in deep space has been invaded by shrunken Renegades, with intention to commit sabotage, so Leader-1, Turbo, and Van Guard shrink themselves and give chase through the ship's systems. Those scenes are decent enough, but the scenes of Scooter having to think fast when full-grown Renegades also board the ship are tedious and meandering. Overall, I find this episode unsatisfying.

TRANSFORMERS: WAR DAWN - Written by David Wise

Towards the end of Season 2, there were a scattered handful of episodes which anticipated (with varying degrees of success) the darker and more violent direction the series would take with Season 3. Here we have the Aerialbots tricked by the Decepticons into time-travelling nine million years into the past, the end of the Golden Age of Cybertron and the beginning of the Autobot-Decepticon War. There they save the life of a naïve young robot named Orion Pax, who is rebuilt into none other than Optimus Prime. Despite the bad storyboarding, designs, and animation, it's reasonably clever and satisfying, as long as you don't have any problems with Orion/Optimus acquiring instant gravitas and leadership skills as soon as he's rebuilt.

GOBOTS: ELEMENT OF DANGER - Written by Gordon Bressack

The last and, indisputably, the best of the omnipotent humanoid trilogy. This time around, the godlike being is Astral, a female alien (drawn to look rather sexy by 80s cartoon standards) who tricks Scooter into taking her place in the crystal which had been her Earthly prison. Once free, she demonstrates an infinite capacity for absorbing energy blasts, as well as flight, telekinesis, and so much more. She's not particularly likeable, but her regal haughtiness and unwillingness to suffer fools gives her a certain appeal (to certain viewers at least, and I include myself among them.)

TRANSFORMERS: COSMIC RUST - Written by Paul Davids

A suitably ominous and atmospheric opening, which shows a deep-space Decepticon mission gone wrong, promises more than the episode ultimately delivers. The Decepticons bring the "cosmic rust" of the title with them back to Earth. After kidnapping Perceptor and using a concoction of his to cure Megatron of the rust, they infect all of the Autobots with the rust. Very intense and dark for a while, but the unwritten rules of 80s TV dictate that the status quo must be restored by the end. Still quite shocking for its time, and certain scenes hold up well.

GOBOTS: MISSION GOBOTRON - Written by Eric Lewald, from a story by Jeff Segal, Kelly Ward, and Eric Lewald

A firm fan-favorite which I've always found somewhat overrated. While it's undeniable that the action sequences are plentiful, well-executed, and intense, the plot never quite comes together satisfactorily. It seems to have been meant as a grand finale for what turned out to be the only season of the show. However, the end result is basically an all-too-typical (if slightly above-average) Guardian-Renegade dust-up. One Guardian, the appropriately named Man O'War, insists that the Guardians can only defeat the Renegades by sinking to their level. Leader-1 disagrees, but his alternative plan pretty much adds up to baiting the Renegades at great risk to civilian GoBots, and the resolution relies on Cy-Kill being even more reckless and foolish that usual, which doesn't quite convince me. By the end, Man O'War has unconvincingly come around to Leader-1's way of thinking, and the Guardians act as if the war has reached some kind of turning point, but Cy-Kill and the Renegades have all escaped and regrouped at Rogue Star, vowing to get even. Disappointing, and it's understandable why a few more episodes aired after this one.

TRANSFORMERS: KREMZEEK - Written by David Wise

Complicated special-effects animation caused production delays on this episode...and it was not worth the wait. The offbeat episodes tended to be either brilliant or abysmal, and this one is most definitely the latter. The Decepticons create an annoying imp made of pure electrical energy (his entire vocabulary consists of the nonsensical title word) and sic him on the Autobots. Soon only a few Autobots are left standing, and they end up chasing the imp all over Japan. At the climax, he gets giant-sized, but sacrifices himself to stop the Decepticons' latest scheme. The Autobots get all drippy, saying they miss the little guy, and it turns out there's still a sentient piece of him bouncing around. Excruciatingly bad and deeply unfunny.

GOBOTS: "ET TU, CY-KILL!" - Written by Eric Lewald & Mark Edens, from a story by Jeff Segal, Kelly Ward, Eric Lewald, and Mark Edens.

A seemingly routine battle ends up triggering a flashback to when Cy-Kill was a Guardian (!) and the audience discovers how he ended up betraying the Guardians, as well as the origins of Crasher and Cop-Tur's loyalty to him, why Guardian Councilor Zeemon can't convert to vehicle mode, and how Turbo joined the Guardians. This is a good episode, but it would have been better if Cy-Kill had had a more definite character arc -- even as a Guardian, he is arrogant, greedy, and looking out mainly for himself. Still, the plot thread of a broken friendship between Leader-1 and Cy-Kill is effectively done, and the episode ends on a note of cautious hope.

TRANSFORMERS: STARSCREAM'S BRIGADE - Written by Michael Charles Hill

Exiled from the Decepticons, Starscream finally seizes the day and forms his own private army, the Combaticons: Onslaught (S. Marc Jordan), Swindle (Milt Jamin), Vortex (Johnny Haymer), Blast Off (also Milt Jamin), and Brawl (Tony Pope). Their objective, of course, is to gain Starscream the leadership of the Decepticons. If this episode doesn't come quite as close to perfection as the similarly themed GoBots episode "The Third Column", it's still very good. True, the animation and storyboarding could be better, and there are still traces of the juvenilia the series was trying to shed at this point (as I've claimed before, I think Transformers was the first American-produced cartoon that tried to mature along with its young audience.) But Starscream is exceptionally crafty here, and the Combaticons have the most vivid personalities of any of the new combiner teams.

GOBOTS: THE GOBOTS THAT TIME FORGOT - Written by John Loy

An exceptional episode, definitely in my personal Top Five. This is the only one where neither Cy-Kill nor Crasher nor Cop-Tur appear, and it's all the better for it. The plot, as good as the very best earlier episodes of GoBots, finds Scooter boldly if somewhat foolhardily deciding to investigate a mysterious S.O.S. from one of the lower levels of GoBotron. What he finds is an isolationist GoBot community, run by the tyrannical Gunnyr, who, along with his lieutenant Bug Bite, possesses the conversion ability denied the rest of the community. The signal has come from Dart, a rebellious member of the community whom Leader-1 and Turbo meet when they follow the trail left by Scooter, who is being held captive by Gunnyr until he convinces one of his captors, Ace, that there's a better world out there waiting for him. Basically, everything works here, from animation quality to story beats to action, but the most pleasant surprise is how rich in characterization this episode is -- even Scooter comes off well! More than any other episode, this late-in-the-series entry makes me wish there had been a second season of GoBots.

TRANSFORMERS: THE REVENGE OF BRUTICUS - Written by Larry Strauss

Even though it picks up exactly where "Starscream's Brigade" left off (Starscream and the Combaticons stranded on a distant asteroid), this storyline is not officially a two-parter. But either way, this is my favorite of the late-in-the-series episodes, and definitely in my overall Top Ten. For most of the running time, it's intense, action packed, breathlessly paced, surprisingly dark, and well-animated by the low standards of the later episodes. This time around, the Combaticons are dead set on exterminating Autobots and Decepticons and humans alike, giving it a welcome unpredictability. Only the ending, where the status quo is reset to where it was before "Starscream's Brigade", disappoints.

GOBOTS: THE SECRET OF HALLEY'S COMET - Written by Lane Raichert

By this late point in the series' run, the quality level was generally reasonable. Which makes this episode a glaring exception. Bad science, bad animation, bad pacing, and bad plotting all add up to a must-skip entry.

TRANSFORMERS: AERIAL ASSAULT - Written by Douglas Booth

A strictly by-the-numbers episode, with a similar plot to my favorite episode, "Make Tracks", but with the end results not coming even close. In place of NYC, we have a fictional Middle Eastern country where the Decepticons' human agents are stealing jet parts; in place of Raul, we have a very annoying street urchin boy (whose grating voice is performed by a female voice actor, Mona Marshall); and in place of Tracks, we have two of the Aerialbots. Bizarrely, this episode actually aired BEFORE "Starscream's Brigade"/"The Revenge of Bruticus", even though the Combaticons are in it. That little continuity blip is more interesting than anything about the episode itself.

GOBOTS: GUARDIAN ACADEMY - Written by Mark Young & Lane Raichert, from a story by Jeff Segal, Kelly Ward, Mark Young, and Lane Raichert

An all-around solid entry, with a refreshing emphasis on characterization. True, the Guardian in the spotlight, Tri-Trak, is a familiar character in genre fiction (the impulsive hothead who needs to learn to be a team player), but no less effective for that. As with the stronger GoBots episodes, the plot is strong: of the two teams of new Guardians being trained for active duty, one team always ends up in trouble because of Tri-Trak, while the other team are Renegade spies plotting to kidnap Zeemon, the head of the Guardian Council, at the graduation ceremony. For a change, Leader-1 gets it exactly right when he says at the end that being good at what you do does not always necessarily mean always going by the book. The only real flaw here is that Cy-Kill is obviously being voiced by someone other than Bernard Erhard, which is distracting yet forgivable.

And so, we come to both series' respective final episodes of the 1985 season:

TRANSFORMERS: B.O.T. - Written by Earl Kress

Three obnoxious high school whiz kids end up, through a series of contrivances too tedious to detail, building a little robot containing the personality circuits of the Combaticons' most aggressive and destructive member, Brawl. Inane, horribly inane, and played for laughs that never come, with the Combaticons downgraded from bad-asses to buffoons. A terrible way to close out not only Season 2 but the whole Phase One of Transformers.

GOBOTS: QUEST FOR NEW EARTH - Written by John Loy, from a story by Jeff Segal, Kelly Ward, and John Loy

A strong final entry for the series, unless you count the cheaply-produced movie "GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords" (I don't.) The loose ends involving the GoBots' humanoid progenitors, the noble Last Engineer and the evil Master Renegade, are neatly tied up as the Guardians foil the Renegades' attempt to sabotage the Earth's colonization of a deserted planet. This is especially refreshing since the Master Renegade had to turn stupid to be defeated back when he was introduced in the "GoBotron Saga" five-parter. Here, both humanoid characters come off exactly as they should, a stalwart hero and a despicable villain. True, the GoBots themselves take something of a backseat to them, but I think that's forgivable.



There you have it, a total of 130 episodes of some of the very finest in animated mechanical mayhem. As for my question when I began this thread, where I wondered which of the two series I would end up feeling more positive about by the end: it's Transformers by a mile. I've owned DVD copies of the entire Transformers series for over a decade now, and still enjoy more episodes of it overall than of the GoBots. Really, the only two advantages that GoBots would seem to have over Transformers are the closer-to-equal gender representation and the tendency for stronger plots. But those advantages are sunk beneath the weight of too many mediocre-to-bad filler episodes of GoBots, whereas even a lot of the weaker Transformers episodes have their redeeming qualities (character, character, character.)

I hope you've all enjoyed these reviews, and I also hope that now that the reviews are over, maybe more people might chime in with reminisces about both series.

And what I hope the most is that this thread has encouraged people to either revisit one or both of these series, or watch them for the first time.

Welcome back, been a while. I have decided to use both of my Transformers cartoon threads to post new profiles of the Transformers characters, picking up where Legion Worlder Kid Prime left off in this thread:

http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=194809&page=2

To bring a sense of closure to KP's profiles, here's my profile of the one character from what might be termed the "Phase One Transformers" whom KP did not do a profile of:

http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=910064#Post910064

My profiles will more or less follow the same basic format as KP's, except that I am also listing each character's voice actor at the end. I also have a different style of writing than KP, which hopefully will not be too jarring.

Finally, I have decided to add a "Bonus Bite-Sized Profile" to the first 36 profiles, each one covering TF characters already profiled by KP, in the same order as in his thread. Just my way of adding my two cents/tuppence.


HOOK



Alliance: Decepticon

Function: Surgical Engineer

It has to be said up-front that Hook is, for all his faults, an extremely industrious 'bot, which is probably why (nominal) Constructicon leader Scrapper values him and the other four put up with him. He brings a perfectionistic precision to any job he does, even the smallest and least important jobs -- and he never hesitates to state how very proud he is of that fact. Because Hook is also arrogant, pompous, haughty, supercilious, and brutally frank. Borderline regal, I find Hook quite iconic (if a bit stereotypical) in his Quasi-Britishness, what with his unwavering stiff upper lip attitude (hence the plummy accent, delivered faultlessly by Hook's British-born/Canadian-and-American-raised voice actor, Neil Ross.) And, in one of many TF bits throughout the series' run which could be interpreted as coded LGBT references, his voice temporarily takes on a slight effeminacy in one scene from "The Master Builder" as he compliments Autobot Grapple (who is being played for a fool by his alleged new allies, the Constructicons, but they haven't yet shown their true colors at this point in the episode), on Grapple's abilities as a builder ("Fabulous.") Then, too, it could be argued that the stiff-upper-lip Brit stereotype is by its very nature coded to signify deeply repressed, and possibly unconventional, desires.

Hook's voice actor: NEIL ROSS (other notable voice acting roles: Keith, "Voltron (Lions)", Pidge, "Voltron (Lions)", Jeff, "Voltron (Vehicles)", Chip, "Voltron (Vehicles)", Shipwreck, "G.I. Joe", Dusty, "G.I. Joe", Buzzer, "G.I. Joe", Monkeywrench, "G.I. Joe", Leoric, "Visionaries", Ace McCloud, "Centurions", Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, "Pryde of the X-Men", John Rambo, "Rambo: The Force of Freedom.")

BONUS:

OPTIMUS PRIME

Bite-Sized Profile: Tough enough that he need never advertise it. That, to me, is Optimus Prime, and the very best that any true warrior can be, in a nutshell. Totally secure about himself, ever-wise, compassionate, even tender when the need arises. But make no mistake, he is *the* most bad-ass of the Autobots, and woe to anyone, Decepticon or otherwise, who tries to deny any sentient being their basic freedoms on Prime's watch. I think it's also worth noting that Prime's voice actor, Peter Cullen, has been very forthcoming about how much an influence his late older brother Larry Cullen was on his characterization of Optimus Prime -- not only were Larry's life experiences as both a soldier (he saw combat in Vietnam), and later as a fire chief, invaluable inspiration to Peter, but also, right after Peter won the role of Optimus, Larry bluntly told him that only Hollywood heroes come on too strong, and real heroes known when to dial it down. The rest was history.

Optimus Prime's voice actor: PETER CULLEN (Other notable voice actor roles: Venger, "Dungeons & Dragons", Tank, "Challenge of the Gobots", Pincher, "Challenge of the Gobots", Commander Hawkins, "Voltron (Vehicles)", Royal Advisor Coran, "Voltron (Lions)", King Alfor, "Voltron (Lions)", The Offscreen Narrator, "Voltron (both 1984 series)" Cindarr, "Visionaries", The Red Skull, "Spider-Man (1981)", Felix Faust, "Super Friends/Galactic Guardians", Eeyore, "Winnie the Pooh," Monterey Jack, "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers", Mario, "Saturday Supercade")

SCRAPPER



Alliance: Decepticon

Function: Engineer

The Constructicons' team leader, sort of. Hook quite clearly deputized for him in the present-day scenes from the episode "The Secret of Omega Supreme," but Scrapper still had quite a presence in that episode, clearly relishing the taunting bon mots he spat out at Omega Supreme. Which leads me to conclude that Scrapper was feeling especially frustrated at that particular time, and realized that he needed a temporary break from the burden of leadership, to be just one of the 'bots for a short while. But I digress. And even so, taking charge seems to come naturally to Scrapper, because he can get quite bossy at times. Sneeringly contemptuous of humans, as recall the very first line he speaks, in his very first appearance, in the Season 1 finale episode "Heavy Metal War." ("*Rrrright*, stupid human! We drive *ourselves!*") Scrapper also tends to sound suspiciously like second-tier G.I. Joe villain Major Bludd with a sore throat (they do both have the same voice actor, Michael Bell.) Like Hook, his attitude often borders on the regal, which is probably another reason why Hook is Scrapper's designated Number One.

Scrapper's voice actor: MICHAEL BELL (Other notable voice acting roles: Lance, "Voltron (Lions)", Sven, "Voltron (Lions)", Krik, "Voltron (Vehicles)", Zan, "Super Friends", Duke, "G.I. Joe", Xamot, "G.I. Joe", Major Bludd, "G.I. Joe", Scrap-Iron, "G.I. Joe", Allstar Seaworthy, "Snorks", Plastic Man, "The Plastic Man Comedy Adventure Show", Grouchy Smurf, "The Smurfs", Handy Smurf, "The Smurfs")

BONUS:

MEGATRON

Bite-Sized Profile*: Unlike his arch-nemesis, Optimus Prime, whose backstory is well-documented, Megatron is a true 'bot of mystery. And I think it's better that way than if the series' writers had gone the cheap route of trying to explain what past traumas turned him into such a monster. OTOH, it could also be argued that Megatron is ultimately something of a generic OTT pantomime villain -- a blustery, pompous, bombastic, over-dramatic, overbearing bully whose bubble ends up being burst at seemingly every turn, and who never learns from his mistakes -- but for two important factors. One is the relish with which the great voice actor Frank Welker attacked the role of Megatron, arguably doing more for the character than the series' writers ever did (and, for the record, I feel exactly the same way about Megatron's & Welker's Gobots counterparts, Cy-Kill & Bernard Erhard.) The second, and most crucial, is what I consider two of the few genuinely good scenes in the overrated "Transformers: The Movie": first, when he brutally zaps a dying-but-defiant-to-the-end Ironhide, right after sneering, "Such noble nonsense", the other right after Optimus Prime's "One shall stand, one shall fall" challenge to him; no longer holding back as in the past, Megatron beats the grease out of Optimus Prime, and though Prime gives as good as he gets (and Hot Rod's impulsive stupidity is what really ends up getting Prime killed), these scenes firmly put to rest any doubts as to Megatron being a villain worth his salt. Appropriately, with nowhere for the character to be taken from there, a dying Megatron is reformatted by Unicron into Galvatron (my feelings about this are a whole other discussion, and I will address them if and when I do a Galvatron profile.)

Megatron's voice actor: FRANK WELKER (Other notable voice acting roles: Darkseid, "Super Friends/Super Powers/Galactic Guardians", Dr. Claw, "Inspector Gadget", Brain the dog, "Inspector Gadget", Zeemon, "Challenge of the Gobots", Scooter, "Challenge of the Gobots", Rest-Q, "Challenge of the Gobots", Blaster, "Challenge of the Gobots", Wild Bill, "G.I. Joe", Copperhead, "G.I. Joe", Torch, "G.I. Joe", Bobby Drake/Iceman, "Spider-Man & Amazing Friends", Dynomutt, "Dynomutt", Jabberjaw, "Jabberjaw", Hefty Smurf, "The Smurfs", Occy, "Snorks", Tooter, "Snorks", Grandpa Wentworth, "Snorks", Coily, "Saturday Supercade", Ugg, "Saturday Supercade", Wrongway, "Saturday Supercade", Ray Stantz, "The Real Ghostbusters", Slimer, "The Real Ghostbusters", Uni, "Dungeons & Dragons", Fred, "Scooby-Doo")




*Yes, I'll admit that one is a little too big to be called "bite-size." It kind of got out of my control. Mea culpa. I do love me a well-characterized villain, though.

I notice the art differs between Hook and Scrapper. The latter is unfortunate because it omits his other form.

I guess you're right, Lardy. I honesty didn't think about it much at the time. Except for a few favorite characters (and Hook *is* one of them), I tend not to put a lot of thought into selecting the images. Also, I'm not much of an image-hunter, as attested to by my numerous failed image searches I've posted about in the past.

Sorry if you felt let down, Lardy, but like I said, there's only a few favorites that I'd really go that extra mile for.

Hope that won't keep you from continuing to check out this thread, though. There's lot of fun stuff to come.

Nah, I just liked that first image and how it made me connect exactly which Constructicon he was. I was a casual fan of the original cartoon and was just at the age where I was (mostly!) over toys. It was difficult for me to follow Transformers and G.I. Joe, though I was interested in both, because they both ran either just as I got home from school or shortly afterward. Conflicts included naps, homework and VCR-taped episodes of soap operas my mom had me addicted to.

Aha. I see. Thanks for clarifying, Lardy.

Soap operas rock! And forget Mr. Nobody's disdainful off-the-cuff remark in Grant Morrison's "Doom Patrol" run, Latin American soaps are the awesome-est!! IMHO, you don't even have to be fluent in Spanish to enjoy the best ones.

My TV animation viewing peak was from about age 12 to age 14. That's part of the reason why I consider the 1986 seasons of Transformers (the controversial Season 3) and G.I. Joe (Season 2) to be "my" seasons, because I came in while the earlier seasons and mini-series were already in reruns. The 1986 seasons (whose Ecuadorian premieres were delayed by roughly one year, give or take a month) were the ones where I got in at the ground floor. That alone made them special to me.

Also, and I've kind of already said this in the Post-Movie TF thread (where I do plan to post profiles of at least some of the characters introduced in the animated movie and in Season 3), but I think, in 20/20 hindsight, I was the perfect age for the Post-Movie direction. When I'd watch reruns of TF Seasons 1 and 2, I'd often grit my teeth and fidget, because the violence tended to be too soft-edged and the stories often felt too fluffy (I do now value many of those Pre-Movie episodes far more than I did at the time, Lardy, not unlike your own renewed appreciation for classically-styled vintage superhero comics.)

Then came Season 3, and I was all, HOLY SH*T!! Dark and moody futuristic space-opera settings; Galvatron the psychotic drama-queen violently blowing up an outer-space Earth outpost WITH HUMAN BEINGS STILL INSIDE OF IT; Galvy's Number One, Cyclonus, looking like the devil himself and exuding a similarly wicked charm; Springer the state-of-the-art Autobot bad-ass, with his take-no-bullsh*t attitude and his smart mouth; and action sequences which were quite viscerally violent by the standards of that time!! And although roughly half of the Post-Movie episodes were cheaply animated in Korea, plus the token female Autobot, Arcee, tended to come off as a cipher (she showed a lot more spunk in the 5-part Season 3 premiere, "Five Faces of Darkness" than in any later episodes, or, for that matter, the movie.), the scripts usually rose above the animation, and at least there *was* a recurring female Autobot, not like the first two seasons, where a potentially interesting band of female Autobots only appeared in *one* episode out of *sixty-five*, and were promptly forgotten about. Good times, though, good times!!

But by the time I was 16, and my parents and I moved to the States, I had already been over both cartoons and toys for a while, and I couldn't get into any of the then-current cartoons being offered (IIRC, the late 80s/early-90s Post-Toy-Cartoons/Pre-DCAU offerings were nothing special; I vaguely remember there being a lot of funny animals at that time, whom I'd turned my back on right around the time my age first went into double digits.) I did get into "Batman: The Animated Series" around the ages of 18-19, but that was really the last time I truly enjoyed an all-ages adventure cartoon. In recent years, I've gotten into a lot of anime, but only of long-past-their-first-run series, such as the original Gundam, and America's favorite one of the Gundam reboots, Gundam Wing. Love that GW theme song: "Just wild beat, communication..."

And for quite a while, I hungrily sought every DVD of 80s cartoons I could get my greedy little mitts on, until it became obvious that the only ones that had truly stood the test of time, for me personally at least, were Transformers and Gobots, and to a lesser extent, Voltron, Centurions, Dungeons & Dragons, and maybe a handful of others I'm forgetting ATM.

Yes, there's just *something extra-special* to me, a real je ne sais quoi, about alien robots who turn into cars, jets, beasts, what have you, and live only to blow up each other to bits over and over again. I've given up trying to rationalize it, I just know what I love.

Well, I was very into the GI Joe toys and comic book before the cartoon ever started. I remember being disappointed in how much cheesier the cartoon was than the comic, but I still found the cartoon decent at times. I stuck with the comic into the 20s and sometimes revisited it after the drop, like when they delved into Snake Eyes' background.

Transformers I discovered completely from the cartoon. I probably bought around the first maybe 6-10 issues of the comic but never liked it much. I never got the toys at all. But there's always been a germ of interest in the property as a whole.

I never saw the animated movie until over a decade and a half later (which made season 3-onward confusing to me) when my older son had us rent it. He's been interested in the various animated series lately and laments that the original is not available on Netflix.

Yeah, that was a little before my time. I must have been about 8 years old around then, and I was still all about funny animals and all manner of Hello Kitty and Snoopy merchandise. I didn't get into what might be called the "rough stuff" until about four years after that. Ah, the joys and sorrows of changing bodies and raging hormones...in a word, confusion. And anger, lots of anger. "But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..." So succinct, yet so true. Sing it again, Bob!! But I digress.



The "G.I. Joe" cartoon...WHEW! Funnily enough, my friend Matt and I were enthusiastically, and sometimes sardonically, reminiscing about it just a few weeks ago, in a chatroom, for close to a hour. I could go on and on about its pros and cons for several times longer than that!

I first saw it at a much more impressionable age than you. My gateway episode was the 2-parter "The Synthoid Conspiracy", written by my heroine Christy Marx. It was perfect timing in hindsight, because Scarlett was the spotlighted star of that episode*, and it also had one of the show's creepiest, most visually trippy premises -- it's the one where Cobra creates synthetic clones of several high-ranking U.S. military men, as well as one of Duke, for the expected sinister purposes. When all the clones melt at the end, I was shocked and grossed out, but at the same time, I was *totally* sold! And, like I said, when Season 2 premiered several months later, I was an eager-beaver Joe recruit if there ever was one! But about 12 years ago, when I got the DVDs collecting the three opening mini-series and all of Season 1, I was *shocked* at how bad a lot of the episodes were! Not even "funny bad", just painfully demonstrated that a lot of what looked "realistic and serious" at the time looks ridiculous and silly with 20/20 hindsight.

At least some of the episodes that were good then are still good even now -- "Countdown for Zartan", another Christy Marx episode; "Memories of Mara", Buzz Dixon's 2-parter "The Traitor"; the aforementioned "The Synthoid Conspiracy", and a few others that have slipped my mind ATM.

I cut Season 2 a lot more slack because of its special place in my fangirl heart. And while some of the new characters were utter cheeseballs (I'm looking at you, Life-Line) and several scripts were just as lame as the earlier ones, there did seem to be a concerted effort to make the series at least *a little bit* more grounded than before. That was probably on Buzz Dixon's part; he'd story-edited the last few Season 1 episodes when they fell behind schedule, and he was promoted to sole story-editor for Season 2; Buzz had Real Life military experience, and I think he did manage to slip as much genuine grit and saltiness into the cartoon as he could get away with at that time. Oh, and Zarana, Zartan's spitfire of a little sister, was effin' *awesome*!! Her VA, Lisa Raggio, had to have been one of the most underrated talents in that field, doing at least a dozen different accents and dialects, each and every one priceless!!

Then "That Damned G.I. Joe Movie" ended up going DTV and pretty much killing the whole franchise, even though the comic book continued for a few more years. Not a good way for things to end, not good at all.



Heh. Yeah, of all the characters they dropped the ball with in the TV cartoon, Snake Eyes was Exhibit A. :rolleyes:

The comic book's writer, Larry Hama, once said half-seriously that Scarlett, Storm Shadow, and Snake-Eyes were his very own Krazy Kat, Ignatz Mouse, and Officer Pupp. Clearly, he had his priorities, and the cartoon's writers had very different ones. Apples and oranges, really, although upon reflection, what really made it inevitable that I'd favor the cartoon was the simple fact that by the time the cartoon reached Ecuador, about two years into the comic's run, there had been a moratorium on American comic books and assorted other imports placed by an idiot President named Leon Febres Cordero, who I could tell even as a grade-schooler was bad news for the country.



I had quite a few of the toys. I had almost a complete set of the Autobot full-sized cars from both the 1984 and 1985 waves -- I think the only ones I was missing were Ratchet, Skids, and Bluestreak. I remember I also had the giant Autobot named Metroplex! *Metro-effin'-Plex!!* Can you tell I was a spoiled only child?

Kinda interesting, too, in hindsight, how garishly they were painted. Bright candy colors, almost girly in a few instances! That alone, to me, explains a *lot*.

I have never, *ever* liked *any* iteration of the TF comic books. IMO, Simon Furman, who wrote the UK stories almost from the start, and took over the US comic for its final two dozen issues, is one of *the* most overrated comic book writers who ever became a demi-star by writing a licensed toy comic. And don't get me started on the obnoxiously vocal, misogynistic and homophobic fanboys who live, eat, and breathe the TF comics, while regarding the cartoons, and the original in particular, as unworthy of giving even the time of day. Put it this way -- even when I found out a few years ago that Flint Dille, who wrote my beloved 5-part Season 3 cartoon episode "Five Faces of Darkness", was co-writing a TF comic mini-series, I *still* refused to read it!



I'll get into the animated movie in detail once I reach the profiles of the characters who were introduced in it, but in a nutshell, all the scenes I like, including the two I mentioned in my Megatron bite-sized (HA, who am I kidding?) profile, happen in the first 30 or so minutes.

Regarding your opinion that the Post-Movie episodes are confusing and hard to follow if you haven't already seen the animated movie, I guess I was a non-linear thinker even at age 12, because I didn't see the movie 'til I rented it on VHS in 1990, four years after it came and went (very quickly) in a handful of (mostly U.S.) theatres, but I hadn't had any problem following the Post-Movie episodes. Now that I'm thinking about it, by that time I was already so deeply into the TF cartoon mythos that I just filled in the blanks in my head (and, if I do say so myself, a lot of the stuff I came up with myself turned out to be better than the movie, but, like I said, I'll get to posting details about that at the proper time, and not before.)

Lastly, you've reminded me that one reason I've never gotten much into streaming any TV shows, other than the ones available on YouTube or at the various networks' own sites, is the way that the classics keep moving from one place to another, and often end up lying around unseen and unavailable for years on end! And some people still wonder why I'd rather spend money on DVDs than on streaming services?? :rolleyes: Your son has my full sympathies. And might I suggest saving up some money for the still-in-print TF cartoon DVDs? Just a thought.



*I always preferred Lady Jaye to Scarlett, though. Scarlett was the one who had rebelled against her mother's efforts to make her a proper Southern lady, preferring to roughhouse with her brothers, and who grew up into a total guy's girl...to the core. Lady Jaye didn't have any kind of backstory in the cartoon, or even (as far I'm aware) in the comics, but I've inferred for a long time, by reading between the lines, that she'd had a sophisticated upbringing and a good education, and she had originally gone to study at a fancy acting school, but decided that there was just too much fire within her for glorified make-pretend...yeah, one day I'm gonna write a Lady Jaye fanfic for sure.

Hm. I've mostly been a fan of the first few waves of the GI Joe characters, probably because that's when I was so into the toys. Once characters like Serpentor and Sgt. Slaughter were brought in, things definitely took a turn for the wonky and pretty much drew me out of the universe. The cartoon definitely impressed me with the smart and tough Lady Jaye and the swarthy and funny Shipwreck, among a few others. I think they were even among my last figure purchases as my yen for toys was facing its dying embers. But I'm still a Scarlett & Snake Eyes, etc. leaner at my core when I think about the property.

And back to the Constructicons--I've always thought that they were a little too cool to be Decepticons and should have been Autobots in my mind. Not that Decepticons lacked for coolness--their alternate forms were generally more impressive, overall--I guess it's because Autobots tended more often to be road vehicles than did Decepticons.It also might have been because of the initial ambiguity in their first appearance.

And it's not that Season Three was confusing to me exactly, but there was always that kind of mystical status of the never-seen movie and exactly what had happened to so many well-known characters, especially Optimus. Yeah, from the context and mentions, you knew that he and others were dead, but not having gotten to see it for myself, it was like having a big missing piece of the story that kind of left a vacuum in its wake.

Fair enough. I do have to chuckle at the mention of Serpentor (whose voice actor, Dick Gautier, I pity because he's never going to live down that "Cobra-la-la-la" crap from the animated movie. But at least his solid VA work in TF s3 as Rodimus Prime, and his recurring live-action role as Hymie the Robot in the 60s classic "Get Smart", will always outweigh the bad.) Also, I once read an interview with Buzz Dixon where he basically said that Serpentor was totally forced on him by Hasbro, and that it killed the plot that he'd already intended for the s2 premiere, where the Joes and Cobra would both have sent small teams across the globe to hunt down the man who came up with the original philosophy which had ended up being twisted and perverted by Cobra into their evil manifesto. That would have been awesome.

Sgt. Slaughter (listed in the show's VA end credits under his real name, Bob Remus, interestingly enough), never bothered me that much, except for whenever he'd show super-human resilience. :rolleyes: But at least he was only seen about three or four more times after the 5-part Season 2 premiere, and I thought he was fun to watch in his OTT blowhard way (can anyone say the same about Serpentor?)

And, to reiterate, while I recognize Season 2's shortcomings, I still think there were plenty of nice character-driven touches to partially compensate (I'm thinking in particular of Beachhead's blunt, take-it-or-leave-it, hard-ass attitude, Leatherneck & Wetsuit's salty "Marines-versus-Navy-Seals" banter covering up their grudging mutual respect, and of the aforementioned Zarana, who actually ended up falling in love with one of the Joes, Mainframe, and he with her, although, sadly, that subplot was left unresolved when That Damned Movie killed off any hope of a third season.)



Glad to hear that. Though I already described in detail how j'adore the awesome Ms. Alison Hart-Burnett (Lady Jaye's real name, as given in her toy-package specs,) reading that part of your post has really made my morning. Thanks, Lardy.



Shipwreck was adorable, sort of a more articulate but equally good-hearted Popeye. And, although it's been mentioned a lot less in pop-culture discourse than I wish it was, his real name was Hector Delgado, which made him one of the first non-stereotypical Latin American characters in American pop-culture whose race was never brought up as an issue. BTW, Buzz Dixon has said more than once that his favorite Joe was Shipwreck.



Again, fair enough. I just think it's a pity that most of the first wave of Joes, not unlike most of the first-wave Autobots in the TF cartoon, got shafted in their treatment in the Joe cartoon. Scarlett herself was one of the lucky few, and I think it bears mentioning that Dixon's predecessor as Joe showrunner, Steve Gerber (yes, *that* Steve Gerber), had to go toe-to-toe with Hasbro to keep both Duke and Scarlett on the show once Season 1 proper started, because Hasbro had already discontinued their toys by that point (and I'd imagine the same probably applies to most of the other first-wave Joes, though Gerber didn't mention any of the others.) I give Gerber a lot of credit for that.



Good observations, and I'll get a lot more into what you just described very soon in the remaining four Constructicon profiles. For the moment, I'll just mention that the Autobots' mind-enslaving of the Constructicons in the episode "The Core", while creepy and disturbing on the one hand, could be considered proactive and shades-of-gray on the other, and that it would indeed have been interesting if the Constructicons had changed sides for an extended period of time, just one of many instances across the TF cartoon's run where it had ideas that were too far ahead of their time to be accommodated by the all-episodes-as-stand-alones/status-quo-reset-at-the-end rules of 80s cartoons.



I can see where you're coming from, but I personally felt gutted and let down, because I had built the movie up in my head as something far more sophisticated than what it turned out to be (and again, I'll get into the details just before the profiles move from this thread to the Post-Movie thread. A good place to get a taste of what's to come would be to re-read my Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan review, where I bring up the Transformers/Trek comparisons, and that era of the cartoon in particular, for a considerable portion of the post.)

BONECRUSHER



Alliance: Decepticon

Function: Demolitions

If Morrissey had been born in the early-mid 70s instead of the late 50s, I think Bonecrusher would have been his favorite Transformer. Bonecrusher is a rough 'bot through and through. He's damn good at what he does, and he enjoys it maybe a little too much, especially when he strikes fear into the hearts of innocent humans and causes them to away from the collateral damage he creates, whether it's caused in the heat of battle, or simply from him tearing down a building without a care for safety measures. No doubt about it, Bonecrusher is destructive aggro personified. He's also wholly unsentimental, and downright hostile to displays of anything even resembling sentiment (recall the episode "The Core," where the Constructicons are about to embark on a mission they might not return from, and Scavenger tells the others words to the effect of "It's been nice knowing you," and Bonecrusher growls at him, "Don't get drippy.")  And yet, I can't really bring myself to outright hate Bonecrusher. He's not really a bully, because bullies are driven by insecurity, confusion, sociopathy, and cowardice.  Bonecrusher, OTOH, doesn't even know the meaning of words like "angst" or "neurosis." It's more like he just is what he is, and that's all that he is.  But while Popeye's unambiguously on the side of the angels, Bonecrusher is not.  I think it should also be noted that in the early part of the flashback from "The Secret of Omega Supreme", the pre-brainwash team of builder robots unaffiliated with either the Decepticons or the Autobots only numbers five. Then, after their forced conversion, they number six in all.  Looking over the episode's footage carefully, with the help of the pause and slow-motion functions, I came to the (admittedly fan-wanky) conclusion that Bonecrusher, the meanest, most thuggish, and most brutal of the Constructicons, only joined the team after they had already been reprogrammed, and may have even already been a Decepticon sympathizer who did not require reprogramming.  If the latter is the case, then Bonecrusher may have also been partly responsible for singling out the particular team of builders who were selected for the brainwash.

Bonecrusher's voice actor: NEIL ROSS (For other notable voice roles, see HOOK profile above.)




BONUS:

IRONHIDE

Bite-Sized Profile: Though his rank as Optimus Prime's Number One means that he often plays the Bad Cop to Prime's Good Cop, Ironhide's not quite as mean as he looks. Like his leader, he is secure enough in himself to be able to know when to hold back, and even when to be compassionate, though he's harder-shelled and much less demonstrative than Prime. One of my favorite archetypes (usually, but not exclusively, seen in the Western genre) is that of the ornery ol' cuss whose heart, despite the harshness that he's experienced for as long as he can remember, has secretly retained just enough softness for him to genuinely care about decent folk. And Ironhide, with his credible Southern drawl (as convincingly enunciated by Peter Cullen) reminds me of one of the best examples of that archetype, Woodrow Call, from prose novelist Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove" saga, and particularly Tommy Lee Jones's portrayal of Call in the TV miniseries adaptation of the first novel (anyone else still remember when Jones was a solid, reliable character actor, before the movie-star fame from the success of "The Fugitive" movie turned him into a self-parody?)

Ironhide's voice actor: PETER CULLEN (For other notable voice roles, see OPTIMUS PRIME profile above)

That. Exactly.

In my head it was built up to be the greatest thing ever. I mean, who at that age wouldn't be fascinated to know that there was a cartoon movie in which most of the characters you'd known had been either killed or altered beyond recognition?

Many kids, I think, have a fascination with morbidity as they try to comprehend the reality of death. To see that explored in some way in the media that has been built to entertain you is very alluring. Knowing characters had died in the X-Men, for example, is a significant element of what drew me to the book at the time along with there being a character, Wolverine, in their ranks who had few or no qualms about taking lives.

Maybe if I'd seen it as a kid, I'd feel differently, but as it happened, it's hard to see the animated Transformers movie as anything more than a cheesy letdown after all of that build-up in my head. But it still had a couple of powerful moments, so it easily ranks above the Michael Bay crap. (I think the only thing the Bay flicks ever did really well--besides retaining Peter Cullen as Optimus--was the sequence in the third film, I believe, in which a skyscraper in Chicago is attacked.)

Very well said, Lardy. TFTM is certainly better than the Bay-barf TF movies, but it still barely even *hints* at what could have been, if they'd stayed faithful to the character interactions which had been the TV cartoon's greatest strength.

I also take issue with some of the demi-stars who were part of the voice cast of TFTM. Now, Eric Idle as Wreck-Gar, I'm fine with that. Orson Welles, as Unicron, does his usual schtick acceptably enough. Lionel Stander as Kup and Robert Stack as Ultra Magnus don't really bother me, but I stand by my belief that their Season 3 successors, respectively John Stephenson and Jack Angel, outdid them thousandfold; Stephenson in particular really seemed to get into playing Kup -- his spotlight episode, "Chaos", is my comfort-food Season 3 episode.

But Judd Nelson as Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime sounds like he's got one eye on his paycheck and the other on his cocaine dealer. And, having been raised on Frank Welker's Season 3 psycho-drama-queen Galvatron, I fucking hated the glorified-Unicron-stooge, easily-defeated-by-Rodimus, boring and stiff TFTM Galvatron! None of the above is any reflection on the late, great Leonard Nimoy, who I feel was simply miscast; in fact, I'd have loved if Nimoy had instead been cast as Cyclonus, but then that would have necessitated the movie writers treating Cyclonus and Scourge as anything other than ciphers (for the record, I'd have also loved it if Oliver Reed had been cast as Scourge, and my dream choice for Galvatron would have been none other than Vincent Price!!)