robots in disguise!

 Cybertron. The planet in which the Transformers originated. The “Steel Planet”.

Iacon Hub City is its capital, which the Autobots call home. The Decepticons are based in Kaon. Other places of interest are Perihex, Antihex, Uraya, Polyhex, Vos, Tarn, Nova Cronum and crystal city (destroyed).

In the Beast Wars saga, Cybertropolis replaced Iacon as the Autobots’ base.

In the original cartoons, Cybertron is a small planet used by the Quintessons to make their assembly line of workers and soldiers. In time, the workers and soldiers rebelled, with the workers becoming the Autobots and the soldiers, the Decepticons.

Cybertron is metallic on the surface, but go deeper and you’ll find the rocky interior. Its gravity is light enough for humans to walk with ease and Cybertron posesses an atmosphere.

The planet also plays to an assortment of fauna, namely, ant-droids, bolt-bats, cyber-ducks, dynametal ducks, electro-toads, glitch-mice, guineapigatrons, helio-hamsters, hydro-weasels, photovoltaic pussycats, retro-rats, robo-rats, sheepacrons, titanium moose-bots, turbo-foxes, zap-mice and robotopossums.

         I know you can’t get enough of Transformers info, so here’s some short facts not as unknown as the more accessible details on the Transformers mania.

          1. Do you know why Skyfire’s cartoon appearance is drastically different from his toy versions? This is because at the time, Jetfire was a “borrowed” mold of an already released toy from rival company Bandi. Thus, the Skyfire cartoon sketches were greatly modified to avoid unnecessary legalities.

          2. Cliffjumper’s original name wasn’t “Cliffjumper” – it was supposed to be “Blow-out” because of his tendency to suffer from blown tires.

           3. In the cartoon series, Voice Director Wally Burr occasionally filled in for voice actors who were unavailable for certain episodes. For example, he provided Thundercracker’s voice in Episode 2.41 entitled “War Dawn”.

          4. The character of Autobot Skyfire was based on a Transformers toy named Jetfire, who in turn was a copy of the design of the SDF Macross/Robotech VF-1S Valkyrie jet/robot. To avoid any legal issues, the character’s name and design was changed.

5. After the movie, Optimus Prime wasn’t supposed to return to the series, but a public outcry demanding his return surprised the producers and resulted to them reliving the character.     

As we all know, the legendary animated show the Transformers is a trilogy of the tales of warring gigantic robots that has the abilitites to transform to animals and vehicles. But do you know how it all began?

This robot-cum-automobile infested show was originally animated by Toei Animation studio in Japan, but when it was initially shown in the United States, that fact was unknown. Most records show that the initial airdate is in September 1984, this was when it was launched as a part of the ongoing series. It is assumed that the show aired some time during the previous spring or summer of that year.

The pilot episode revealed Optimus Primes Autobots and Megatrons Decepticons in removed from their world (Cybertron) and transplanted in present-day Earth, where they battled for the resources that would take them home. The series was concluded with the Decepticons defeated and the Autobots poised to return to their homeland, but this was somewhat ambiguous as the show was picked for round of shows where the Autobots somehow decided to stay and protect the Earth for further Decepticon invations. After the season was aired, thirteen further episodes were delegated for the first part of the mini-series. Following the popularity of the show, the pilot episode was re-launched with the title “More Than Meets the Eye.” The show ran from September to December of 1984, and the first season served as base for important new concepts that would persist through the rest of its run. An examples of such is the Decepticon space bridge. The show also featured the debuts of several new characters that would available in the toyline the following year - the Dinobots, Jetfire , the Insecticons and the Constructicons.

With the Transformers rapidly gaining a following crown, a second season was created to purposely get the series into syndication, and therefore consisted of a mammoth 49 episodes, which brought it to the required number 65. The first season functioned in a way that each episode had it’s own story but still with an over-all sense of continuity, thus requiring that they be chronologically. Season two’s rather dashed-line approach to syndication proved to be more popular since they could be watched in any order that networks chose to air them in. These episodes often highlighted single characters and develop their character more, something that the second season needed that because they launched a lot of new characters. The conclusion of the second season revealed four combining teams of Autobots and Decepticons: Aerialbots, Stunticons, Protectobots and Combaticons, each team can merge into a single super robot.

The setting of the 1986 Transformers movie was adopted for the third season of the series. The series was aired in September of 1986 and ran until November of that year, picking up right where the movie’s events had left off. Flint Dille, the story editor, added a strong sci-fi orientation to the story. The visuals of the season proved to be a hit, but when fifty percent of the seasons episode were produced by Korean animation studio AKOM, who delivered lacklustre visuals and abundant animation errors, these together with the vague direction, different animation and new cast of characters all ultimately contributed to the show’s failure. Most of the Transformer fans wanted Optimus Prime to return to life after his big-screen demise. The production team of course gave in to these demands, and Prime was brought back in a two-part denouement that aired in Feburary of 1987.

A fifth season aired in 1988, which was packaged as the ”best of” collection of the series. It included 15 episodes from the original series, along with Transformers: The Movie edited into a further five episodes.