Is there anything cooler than giant robots? Maybe dinosaurs and dragons, but fortunately Transformers also has dinosaurs and dragons, automatically making it the coolest thing in the whole world. What started out as a cheaply made animated show to sell toys, the Transformers is now a multi-billion dollar franchise. The entire franchise centers on the classic formula of good vs. evil, Autobots vs. Decepticons. After the initial breakout success of the original Transformers TV show, which has since been lovely dubbed as Generations 1, there have been several TV shows based on the robots.
Many young children (mostly boys) grew up watching a variation of the Transformers cartoon shows. Personally, I grew up with the Unicron Trilogy of the Transformers TV shows; those set of shows meant so much to me as a kid that it made me a fan for life. With so many different shows based on the different kinds of transformers, there are a lot of hidden details that people tend to overlook or forget. The franchise is over thirty years old, and within that timeframe, there have been a lot of interesting tidbits of focus around the numerous TV series.
This is why we are now going to go over the 25 Shocking Things You Didn’t Know About Transformers Cartoons. From Generation 1, to Beast Wars, to the Unicron Trilogy, we will be going over the most surprising facts about the various the TV shows based on the Transformers.
25 Japan Always Gets The Best Toys
What would eventually become the Transformers actually started out as a series of different Japanese toys that were owned by the same company. Takara of Japan had several different lines of toys in their catalogs during the 80s. Two of them were called the Diaclone, and Micro Change. Both sets of toys featured robots transforming into real-world objects. Hasbro, a leading developer in the US, saw potential in the toys.
Hasbro decided to buy the American distribution rights for both the Diaclone and Micro Change toys. They decided to combine the two set of toys to form a new brand. The brand would be called Transformers, and it would end up becoming one of the most successful toy brands in the world. The Transformers line of toys would release in the US in 1984. The first TV show would start airing that following September.
24 Marvel Hero Optimus Prime
Hasbro recognized that the toys had unique designs and could be a hit with children. The only issues were the names. The toys that would one day end up being Optimus Prime and Megatron were initially called Battle Convoy and MC13 Gun Robo P38 U.N.C.L.E in Japan. Safe to say, these names were terrible, so Hasbro decided to come up with new names and backstory for all the toys.
Hasbro asked the then editor in chief of Marvel Comics, Jim Shooter, to come up with a compelling backstory for the characters. Another Marvel writer and editor, names Bob Budiansky, was also in charge of writing all the biographies for the character that came written with every toy. Both Shooter and Budiansky would come up with the names and terms of almost every character and setting of Transformers. This includes naming Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Cybertron, the Transformers home planet. Marvel Comics were also publishing the original Transformers comics during the 80s, even having the Transformers crossover with their Marvel heroes.
23 Guess We Better Roll Out
Peter Cullen is the original voice actor for Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. A prolific actor since the 80s, Cullen is also well-known for providing the voice of Eeyore from Winnie-the-Pooh. Eeyore is the depressed donkey, always saying something gloomy. It’s almost the complete opposite from the heroic Prime in the classic cartoon.
Peter Cullen would be the voice of Prime in most media, most notably the live action movies and the Transformers: Prime TV shows (and sequels to Prime). Other actors who voiced Optimus Prime are Neil Kaplan, David Kaye (Transformers Animated), and Jon Bailey (Transformers: Combiner Wars). Garry Chalk is Optimus Primes’ second most common voice actor; Chalk voice Optimus Prime in all three of the Unicron Trilogy shows, as well as providing the voice of Optimus Primal in Beast Wars and Beast Machines. Even though Chalk will forever be my Optimus Prime, Cullen’s Prime is without a doubt the quintessential voice of Prime.
22 I’ll Get You Next Time, Optimus Prime!
Frank Welker, the voice of the evil Megatron in the original series, is one of the most prolific voice actors of all time. Having gotten his start with shows like The Jetsons and Scooby-Doo in the 60s, Welker has performed in nearly every iconic cartoon series since then. He is Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget and has provided voices for characters in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Dexter’s Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Gargoyles, Ducktales, G.I. Joe, The Real Ghostbusters, and countless others.
He’s been the voice of Fred Jones from Scooby-Doo since the very first series, and still voices the character to this day. Welker has also been one of Megatron’s more consistent voice actors, having voiced him in the original show, Transformers: Prime, and several video games. He also voices a great many other transformers in the original show, including Soundwave.
21 The Starscream Commander
G.I. Joe and Transformers have a lot in common. They are both owned by Hasbro, they both had hit TV shows in the 80s, and their toys have sold millions. While one show is about a military group and the other is focused on alien robots, there have been some crossovers. The comics have had the G.I. Joes and Transformers face off against each other several times. Cobra Commander, the leader of the Cobra terrorist organization, also guest starred in a season three episode of the Transformers show (“Only Human”).
Fans noticed that Cobra Commander has an eerily similar voice to the Decepticon Starscream. It turns out that both Cobra Commander and Starscream had the same voice actor at that time. Christopher Collins, also known as Chris Latta, was the voice of both characters. Collins was known for some unusual behavior, sometimes having to be bailed out of jail for unknown reasons. Collins passed away in 1994 from a cerebral hemorrhage.
20 Shut Up, Blurr!
Blurr was the fast-talking, blue Autobot introduced in The Transformers: The Movie. He transforms into a futuristic car and is well remembered by fans for how fast he talks. While some believed that his audio was simply sped up, in reality, his voice actor was actually speaking that fast. John Moschitta Jr., Blurr’s voice actor, held the Guinness World Record as the World’s Fastest Talker. He had the ability to speak about 586 words a minute. He was well known outside of Transformers for his FedEx and Micro Machines commercials. His record would later be surpassed in 1990 by Steve Woodmore. Moschitta would reprise the role of Blur in Transformers: Animated, the 2007-09 cartoon series.
19 Transformers: Animated Had A Lot Of Generation 1 References
With the first Transformers movie out and the end of the divisive Unicron Trilogy, fans were clamoring for a new type of Transformer show. Transformers: Animated was released at the end of 2007, the year the first live-action Transformers movie came out. In many ways, it was a return to form with the series, after several years of the series going through its Anime phase.
Animated was a loving tribute to classic Transformers, with many Easter eggs and cameos from Generation 1. Spike, Carly, and Daniel Witwicky, the human leads of OG Transformers, make several background cameos throughout the show. The Animated version of Soundwave temporarily became a tape recorder, just like his G1 counterpart. Most notably, however, is that Weird Al Yankovic, famous musician and parodist, voiced the transformer Wreck-Gar in Animated. Weird Al did a song for the original Transformers: The Movie, where Wreck-Gar first appeared in – the role of Wreck-Gar was a reference to his song “Dare to Be Stupid”.
18 Some Die So That Others May Live
As mentioned, The Transformers: The Movie was known for how volatile it was, especially compared to the TV show. Most fan favorite Transformers from the first two season of the show met their end in the film, including Optimus Prime, Starscream, Ironhide, Ratchet, and several more. The large causality rate in the movie was because those characters’ toys were going to be discontinuing, and Hasbro wanted to use the movie to cleanse the pallet clean and start fresh with new characters and toys. The move was controversial, to say the least, with Optimus Prime’s death being the most vocal.
Parents sent letters in droves to the animation studio that produces the show about how traumatic the movie was towards their young children. Children openly wept for Optimus’ death – the backlash was so intense that the writers of TV show chose to bring Optimus back to life in the season 3 finale. Meanwhile, G.I. Joe was preparing to have its own movie. G.I. Joe: The Movie was originally going to end with the death of Duke, ostensibly the lead of the show. When Hasbro started receiving the complaints about Optimus’ death in the Transformers movie, they force the writers of G.I. Joe to spare Duke.
17 A Rather Confusing Ressurection
Season three of Transformers, which was a direct continuation of the movie, was not nearly as popular as the first two. The change of direction, both in tone and cast, weren’t as popular with fans. The death of Optimus Prime was still hanging over the show, so Hasbro made the decision to bring back the beloved leader of the Autobots. You would assume that for such momentous occasion in the series, that the writers would craft a carefully constructed story about the resurrection of the greatest Autobot who ever lived.
However that did not happen, instead, the writers made a series of episodes that made no sense. First, Optimus Prime was originally resurrected as a mind-controlled zombie, who tried to lure the Autobots into a trap. He ends up getting back control of himself, and sacrifices himself when his ship explodes.
Except, apparently his ship didn’t explode, at least not right away, and several human astronauts rescued him before the explosion. While the explosion was instantaneous in the first episode, somehow the astronauts had enough time to save Prime. Optimus Prime was also a rotting zombie in the original episode, somehow his body was perfectly fine in the later episodes.
16 An Explanation Never Aired
Beast Wars was a popular variation of the Transformers in the 90s that focused on a group of transformers that turn into different beasts rather than vehicles. The show lasted for three seasons, and has a fairly satisfying ending, with most major plot points resolved. One plot point that was not properly explained was the heel turn of the clone Dinobot. You see, the original Dinobot was an honorable transformer, who had a very noble death protecting ancient humans in season 2.
In season 3, Megatron cloned Dinobot, lacking the honor of the original, so he was more merciless. He shared a spark, pretty much the souls of transformers, with another transformer called Rampage. When Rampage died in the series finale, somehow the old Dinobot persona started forming inside the clone. It is never properly explained in the context of the finale how the old Dinobot’s personality ended up in the clone. Apparently, there was a never-produced episode of Beast Wars that explains how Rattrap, a comrade of the original Dinobot, was able to plug in the core consciousness of Dinobot into the clone. The plan does not bring back the original Dinobot, however, it does explain the clone’s change of heart in the series finale.
15 Sylvester Stallone Has “The Touch”
One of the most popular scenes in all of Transformers is the moment in The Transformers: The Movie when Optimus Prime rides in and faces against an army of Decepticons alone. It is one Prime’s most heroic moments and ends with a mano-a-mano moment with Megatron himself. “The Touch” by Stan Bush plays during the scene, adding in more awesomeness to Prime’s moment of glory. “The Touch” is one of the most popular songs from the franchise–in many ways, it better exemplifies what Transformers is than any other piece of music that the franchise ever produced.
So it is strange that when Stan Bush wrote the song, he was thinking of a completely different movie. Bush wrote the song with the movie Cobra in mind. Cobra is a forgotten action flick from the 80s starring Sylvester Stallone. So all the lyrics in “The Touch”, including “It’s in the mighty hands of steel”, was really about Stallone than any Transformer. In fac, Stan Bush never even heard of the show before the movie, and now “The Touch” is one of his more popular works because it was in Transformers.
14 Bumblebee Lost More Than His Voice
The Autobot Bumblebee is one of the franchise’s most popular characters. Besides Optimus, Megatron, and Starscream, Bumblebee is one of the franchise’s leading characters. Yet, even though he was a major character in the original show, and the current set of movies and cartoon, there was a time that Bumblebee was not in any Transformers products. That is because Hasbro failed to trademark the Bumblebee name for toys, so in the 90s and most of the 2000s they couldn’t use the name Bumblebee on any transformer products.
Common attributes and characteristics of Bumblebee, like generally being younger than most Autobots and being primarily yellow, would be shared with newer characters created during that time period. Cheetor, from Beast Wars, was the Bumblebee replacement during that time. Hot Shot from the Unicron Trilogy was originally going to be called Bumblebee, but they couldn’t get the rights for the name at the time. Now Hasbro has the rights to use the name Bumblebee again. The character is now a major player within the live-action films, and the recent set of Transformers TV shows. He is now slated to have his own spin-off movie.
13 One Emmy Is Better Than None
Despite the popularity of the entire franchise, the Transformers series has never really been seen as award-winning series. There are occasional nominations for technical awards, with Beast Wars being one of the few shows in the series to have actually won an Emmy. Beast Wars won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Animation in 1998.
While many people now find the CG animation for Beast Wars to be unwatchable, at the time, the CG animation was actually pretty revolutionary. The animals looked and moved the way they would in real life. The facial expressions, especially on Megatron, were full of personality. The smooth plastic look that early CG shows had at the time works within the context of Beast Wars, as all the characters are supposed to be robots with metal skin. Despite the fact that the CG is very outdated now, it is still impressive considering the time it came out.
12 The Lacking Depth Of The Destructicons
Constructicons were a set of Decepticons that first appeared in the season one finale of the original Transformers. They were the first Transformers to be able to merge together to form into a bigger Transformer. In their case, when the Constructicons joined together, they became the robot Devastator. The origins of the Constructicons are a major point of confusion with fans, as there are many inconsistencies within the show explaining their origin. In the first season, Megatron claims he and the other Decepticons built them on Earth.
Then, in season 2, it is revealed that they actually come from Cybertron. They even built a whole city on the planet. In season 3, during a flashback, it is shown that Constructicons helped build Megatron. Unless there is some Back to the Future time travel going on, it doesn’t make sense for Megatron to build the Constructicons in the present, and to then have them built him in the past. This, and Optimus Prime’s resurrection, weren’t the only inconsistencies in the show. They were just the most glaring and problematic.
11 They Couldn’t Transform The Box Office
The Transformers: The Movie had a modest budget of six million dollars, which was chump change for the franchise at the time. Toy sales alone were around a hundred million dollars a year during the series’ peak. Despite the film releasing (arguably when the TV show was the most popular) in August 1986, the movie was a flop. Possibly due to poor marketing and a lukewarm reception from critics, The Transformers: The Movie only grossed 5.8 million at the box office. For a long ti, e the movie was seen as the series’ first major blunder.
It eventually developed a cult following, particularly among fans of the franchise. Since the film was first released, the movie has been re-released on VHS and DVD multiple times. Shout! Factory just released a 30th-anniversary Blu-Ray in special steelbook cases. Fans now acclaim the movie for its dark tone, 80s animation, soundtrack, the main villain Unicron, and Optimus Prime’s last stand against Megatron. The movie has now been praised by fans as being the best Transformers movie, even possibly surpassing all the live action movies.
10 Japan Gets All The Best Sequels
The original Transformers TV show ended with season 4, which was simply compromised of a three-parter called Rebirth. Ironic title, giving the fact that Rebirth ended up not being the new beginning for the Transformers stories, and instead, was the end of the show. The Japanese studio that was producing the toy line, Takara, decided to continue the show in the Japanese only series called Transformers: The Headmasters. Ignoring the events of Rebirth, the Japanese series took the franchise in a new direction. Headmasters were then directly followed by Transformers: Super-God Masterforce, Transformers: Victory, and Transformers: Zone.
When Beast Wars was airing, Japan decided to dub it to be more humorous and less dark. Because the second season of Beast Wars was shorter than the first, Japan decided to wait after the third season so that they could combine seasons two and three as one season. As they waited, however, they decided to produce their own cel-animated show called Beast Wars II. Taking place in the far future, the Japanese series was even more lighthearted than the dub for the original Beast Wars. Beast Wars II had a sequel called Beast Wars Neo.
9 Optimus Prime Fetches A Prime Price
A lot of the original Transformers toys from the Generation 1 line are hard to come by. The original toys were primarily marketed and sold to young children. Most young children don’t care about the resale value of toys. Most children just bought the toys and open them up as soon as they can. Not only that, kids also rarely took care of their toys. Careless younglings were constantly breaking parts, and sometimes whole toys would be lost due to neglect.
Fortunately, there are some Generation 1 toys that survived to the modern day and some are worth a pretty penny. However, getting a sealed toy is almost impossible. A factory sealed version of the original Optimus Prime toy is the most expensive toy from the original line of Transformers. It is worth over 10,000 dollars on eBay.
8 The Roster Is Smaller Than You Think
Due to the “wiping the slate clean mentality” the writers took in The Transformers: The Movie, the latter half of the original show featured an almost completely different cast than the first half. Hardly any characters from the first two seasons had major roles in the last two. In fact, only eight transformers appear in all four seasons. The eight transformers are Optimus Prime (his resurrection occurred towards the end of season 3), Bumblebee (who was renamed Goldbug towards the end of the series), and the six Constructicons.
Depending on who you ask, however, there can arguably be more characters that appeared in all four seasons. Megatron turns into Galvatron in the movie, and he remains a main villain up till the very end. Spike Witwicky, the main human companion, has also appeared in all four seasons. Appearing in all four seasons also doesn’t mean that those characters appeared the most in the entire show. Bumblebee was reduced to mostly cameos and guest stars in season 3 and 4, and the same goes for the Constructicons.
7 Some Things Never Change
The main reason the Transformers TV shows exist is to sell toys. The first cartoon killed off most of the main cast in order to bring in new characters (AKA showing off new toys for kids to collect). Beast Wars may have had a far more complex storyline than previous cartoons, but the writers of the show were still under the whim of the toy manufacturers to advertise new toys. Though Beast Wars never killed off most of the cast like what the original series did, many characters did perish and were substantially replaced during the span of the show.
Fortunately, the toy manufacturers created all-new models for many original characters; these new models were labeled as the transmetal forms. The writers then came up with an in-show reason for how all the characters morphed into their new transmetal versions. Not only did this allow the writers to keep most of the same characters since the first episode, it also meant the show was still advertising the latest model of toys. By the end of the show, almost every character since season one had gone through some short of metamorphism. Only Waspinator and Rhinox remained completely unchanged since the first episode to survive the entire show. Inferno is another character who appeared later on in season one and never gained a new form.
6 Frenzy And Rumble, Or Rumble And Frenzy?
The animation for the original Transformers TV show was cheap. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the show. Many characters would be poorly animated, and there would be a lot of coloring errors. The voices would at times not match the lips of the characters, and there are a ton of continuity mistakes. The Decepticons Frenzy and Rumble were probably the biggest victims of the shows unprofessional animation.
You see, Frenzy and Rumble were blue and red respectively, as toys. Yet in the show, their colors were reverse – Frenzy was now red and Rumble was blue. This created one of the biggest confusions from that generation of fans. Fans of the show were so upended by the reverse coloring that they came up an abbreviation to help them figure out who was who on the show. The acronym was FIRRIB, which stands for Frenzy is red, Rumble is blue.
