The Transformers (TV series)
The Transformers is an animated action-adventure sci-fi children's television series that originally aired from September 17, 1984, to November 11, 1987, in syndication
based upon Hasbro and Takara's Transformers toy line. The first television series in the Transformers franchise, it depicts a war among giant robots that can transform into vehicles and other objects.
The series was produced by Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions in association with Japanese studio Toei Animation for first-run syndication. Toei co-produced the show as the main animation studio for its first two seasons, having been tasked with creating and finalizing animation models, designing transformation schemes, storyboarding some episodes, and general direction. In the third season, Toei's involvement with the production team was reduced and the animation services were shared with the South Korean studio AKOM. The show's supervising producer was also AKOM's founder. The fourth season was entirely animated by AKOM. The series was supplemented by a feature film, The Transformers: The Movie, taking place between the second and third seasons. This series is also popularly known as "Generation One", a term originally coined by fans in response to the re-branding of the franchise as Transformers: Generation 2 in 1992, which eventually made its way into official use. The series was later shown in reruns on Sci-Fi Channel and The Hub / Discovery Family.Production background
The Transformers toyline and animated series were inspired by the Japanese toyline, Microman by Takara. In 1980, the Microman spin-off, Diaclone, was released, featuring inch-tall humanoid figures able to sit in the drivers' seats of scale model vehicles, which could transform into humanoid robot bodies the drivers piloted. Later still, in 1983, a Microman sub-line, MicroChange was introduced, featuring "actual size" items that transformed into robots, such as microcassettes, guns and toy cars. Diaclone and MicroChange toys were subsequently discovered at the 1983 Tokyo Toy Fair by Hasbro toy company product developer Henry Orenstein, who presented the concept to Hasbro's head of R&D, George Dunsay. Enthusiastic about the product, it was decided to release toys from both Diaclone and MicroChange as one toyline for their markets, although there were eventual changes to the color schemes from the original toys to match the new series.
By 1984, U.S. regulators had removed many of the restrictions regarding the placement of promotional content within children's television programming. The way was cleared for the new product-based television program. Hasbro had previously worked with Marvel Comics to develop G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero for a three-pronged marketing scheme–the toyline, a tie-in comic book by Marvel, and an animated mini-series co-produced by Marvel's media arm, Marvel Productions, and the Griffin-Bacal Advertising Agency's Sunbow Productions production house. Given the success of that strategy, the process was repeated in 1984 when Hasbro marketing vice president Bob Prupis approached Marvel to develop their new robot series, which Jay Bacal dubbed "Transformers." Marvel's Editor-in-Chief at the time, Jim Shooter, produced a rough story concept for the series, creating the idea of the two warring factions of alien robots; the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons. To flesh out his concept, Shooter called upon veteran editor Dennis O'Neil to create character names and profiles for the cast, but O'Neill's work did not meet with Hasbro's expectations, and they requested heavy revisions. O'Neill declined to make said revisions, and the project was turned down by several writers and editors approached by Shooter until editor Bob Budiansky accepted the task. Hastily performing the revisions over a weekend, Budiansky's new names and profiles were a hit with Hasbro, and production began on a bi-monthly four-issue comic book miniseries, and three-part television pilot.
Both the comic and cartoon would wind up continuing for years beyond these short-term beginnings, using Budiansky's original development work as a springboard to tell the story of the Transformers in very different ways from one another, forming two separate, unrelated continuities for the brand out of the gate. Japanese designer Shōhei Kohara was responsible for creating the earliest character models for the Transformers cast, greatly humanising the toy designs to create more approachable robot characters for the comic and cartoon. His designs were subsequently simplified by Floro Dery, who went on to become the lead designer for the series, creating many more concepts and designs in the future.Plot
This series focuses on the Transformers, split into two warring factions: the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons as they crash land on Earth and continue their eons-long conflict there.Characters
Broadcast history
The three-part pilot miniseries first aired in the United States in September 1984. The story follows Optimus Prime's heroic Autobots and Megatron's evil Decepticons as they leave their metallic homeworld of Cybertron to search for new sources of energy to revitalize their war efforts, only to crash-land on Earth, where they remain entombed and offline for 4 million years. Awakening in the year of 1984, the Decepticons set about pillaging the energy sources of Earth, while the Autobots—aided by human father and son duo Sparkplug and Spike Witwicky—attempt to protect the new world on which they find themselves. The miniseries concludes with the Decepticons believed dead after their space cruiser is sent plunging into the ocean depths, while the Autobots prepare to return to Cybertron.Season 1
The 13-episode first season, commissioned and produced before the pilot miniseries aired, was broadcast between October and December on Saturday mornings. Story-edited at Marvel Productions by Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins, the season begins with the revelation that the Decepticons have survived the events of the pilot and follows them as they set about constructing a "space bridge" to teleport resources back to Cybertron. A loose story arc centered on this technology spans the season, culminating in "The Ultimate Doom", a three-part episode in which the Decepticons teleport Cybertron itself into Earth's orbit. The paraplegic computer expert Chip Chase joins Spike and Sparkplug as a new human ally for the Autobots. The season also introduced several new characters from the upcoming 1985 product line in advance of their toys' release including Skyfire, the Dinobots, the Insecticons, and the first "combiner" team, the Constructicons, who are able to merge into a giant robot, Devastator, whose introduction was set alongside a climactic one-on-one duel between Optimus Prime and Megatron that served as a part of the season finale.Season 2
Forty-nine further episodes were commissioned for the show's second season in 1985, bringing the total up to the "magic number" of 65 required to move the series into weekday broadcast syndication. Compared to the first season, Season 2's stories are more episodic, with many of them able to air in whatever order networks chose. Episodes would often spotlight individual characters or groups of characters as a means of promoting their toys and later in the season, the lore of the series would be expanded on as the history of Cybertron and origin of Optimus Prime were discovered and significant cartoon-original characters like Alpha Trion and the first female Transformer characters were introduced. A new recurring human cast member was also added in the form of Spike's girlfriend Carly. Partway into the season, the remainder of the 1985 product line was introduced, mostly through the two-part episode "Dinobot Island." These new characters, like the first year cast, were largely derived from Takara's Diaclone and Micro Change lines, including new Autobot car and mini-vehicles and Decepticon jets and the giant Autobot sentinel Omega Supreme and Decepticon "Triple-Changers" Astrotrain and Blitzwing. To expand the line, however, Hasbro also licensed several toys from other companies, including Takara's Japanese competitor, Bandai. Legal complications that arose from incorporating the first of these, Skyfire, into the first season resulted in the character quickly being phased out early in Season 2 and meant that none of the other Bandai-derived characters featured in the series. Toward the end of the season, the first 1986 product was introduced into the series: the Aerialbots, Stunticons, Protectobots and Combaticons, four combiner teams based on an unmade Diaclone line that was aborted in Japan in favor of importing the Transformers toy line itself. To promote these new toys even further in Japanese markets, a single Japanese-exclusive episode, Transformers: Scramble City, was released direct-to-video in spring of 1986.''The Movie''
The gap between seasons two and three was bridged by The Transformers: The Movie, which was released to theaters in the summer of 1986. Set 20 years after the second season, in the year 2005, the film featured the deaths of many characters, including Optimus Prime, clearing away all the discontinued products from the 1984 and 1985 toy lines and introducing a new cast of the characters designed for the film, who were then made into toys for the 1986 range. Young Autobot Hot Rod used the power of the Autobot talisman known as the Matrix of Leadership to become the new Autobot leader Rodimus Prime and defeated the world-eating robot planet Unicron who recreates Megatron into Galvatron while Skywarp, Thundercracker, Shrapnel, Kickback, and Bombshell are reformed as Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps.