The Transformers (TV series) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Transformers
Genre	Science fiction Action Adventure
Created by	Hasbro Takara
Developed by	Dick Robbins (seasons 1-2) Bryce Malek (seasons 1-2) Flint Dille (season 3) Marv Wolfman (season 3) Steve Gerber (season 3)
Directed by	Nelson Shin
Voices of	Frank Welker Peter Cullen Christopher Collins Corey Burton Dan Gilvezan
Narrated by	Victor Caroli
Composer(s)	Johnny Douglas Robert J. Walsh
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	98 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Joe Bacal Margaret Loesch Tom Griffin
Producer(s)	Gwen Wetzler Nelson Shin John Walker George Singer Gerald Moeller Kenichi Morohashi Atsushi Shimizu Tim Spiedel
Animator(s)	Toei Animation (seasons 1–3) AKOM (seasons 3–4)
Running time	23–24 minutes
Production company(s)	Sunbow Productions Marvel Productions
Distributor	Claster Television (United States) Sunbow Productions International (Internationally)
Release
Original network	First-run syndication
Audio format	Stereo
Original release	September 17, 1984 (1984-09-17) – November 11, 1987 (1987-11-11)
Chronology
Followed by	The Headmasters (Japan) Transformers: Generation 2 (U.S.) Beast Wars: Transformers (Canada)
Manga
Written by	Masumi Kaneda
Illustrated by	Ban Magami
Published by	Kodansha
Demographic	Children
Magazine	TV Magazine
Original run	May 1985 – July 1987

The Transformers is an American animated television series which originally aired from September 17, 1984 to November 11, 1987 in syndication. The first of many series in the Transformers franchise, it was based upon Hasbro's Transformers toy line and depicts a war among giant robots that can transform into vehicles and other objects.

Co-produced between Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions for first-run syndication, animation for the series was done by Japanese studio Toei Animation, and later South Korean studio AKOM. The series was supplemented by a feature film, The Transformers: The Movie (1986), taking place between the second and third seasons.

This series is also popularly known as "Generation 1", 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, The Hub and Discovery Family. It is also the first installment in the Generation 1 cartoon era.

Production background

The Transformers toyline and animated series were inspired by the Japanese toyline, Microman (an Eastern descendant of the 12-inch G.I. Joe action figure series) 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 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.

Supplemental sequences

Each of the first three seasons of the series featured its own tailored opening sequence, featuring completely original animation and a unique arrangement of the theme tune. Additionally, the third-season premiere "Five Faces of Darkness" had its own specialized opening, depicting events that occurred in the mini-series. The fourth season, however, did not feature any new animation in its opening sequence, instead combining together footage from the third season opening and various clips of animation from 1987 toy commercials; likewise, the fifth season featured commercial animation mixed in with footage from The Transformers: The Movie. Both used the season three musical arrangement.

The series featured a distinctive scene transition that saw the Autobot and Decepticon symbols "flipping" from one to the other, accompanied by a distinctive five-note refrain. This transition technique became a hallmark of the series, and was used throughout the entire four-year run. Commercial breaks were segued into and out of using commercial bumpers featuring brief eyecatch-styled original animation with a voice over by series narrator Victor Caroli.

A set of five proposed public service announcements were created to be tagged onto the end of episodes from the second season of the series, re-using the scripts from similar PSAs created for sister series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, complete with the catchphrase "...and knowing is half the battle!" These were never actually aired on television, but eventually appeared as bonus features on various DVDs and video games. For the third season, episodes were tagged with "The Secret Files of Teletraan II", a series of short featurettes that used clips from the show and new narration from Caroli to provide histories for the Autobots, the Decepticons, the Quintessons, and other subjects.

Japanese release

In Japan, the first two seasons of the show were collectively released as Fight! Super Robot Life-Form Transformers (戦え！超ロボット生命体トランスフォーマー, Tatakae! Chō Robotto Seimeitai Toransufōmā), then rebranded as Transformers 2010 (トランスフォーマー2010, Toransufōmā Tsūōwanō) for Season 3, with all seasons aired on Nippon TV. Following the conclusion of the third season, the Japanese opted not to import "The Rebirth", but instead created a series of new animated shows to continue the story, beginning with Transformers: The Headmasters in 1987, and continuing into Transformers: Super-God Masterforce in 1988, Transformers: Victory in 1989, and the single-episode direct-to-video OVA Transformers: Zone in 1990. Supplementary manga written by Masami Kaneda and illustrated by Ban Magami ran alongside each series in Kodansha's TV Magazine.

VHS, Betamax, and DVD releases

In the 1980s, episodes from the first and second seasons as well as the third season's "Five Faces of Darkness" and "Return of Optimus Prime" were released on VHS and Betamax by Family Home Entertainment.

Between 1995 - 1999, Canadian home entertainment company Malofilm (later renamed as Behaviour Distribution) released several episodes of the series on VHS, and some under the Transformers: Generation 2 name. None of the Malofilm VHS cover art was specifically related to the contents of the episodes either, as they were all various segments of promotional art related to the 1986 spin-off animated feature The Transformers: The Movie.

Region 1

Seasons 1–4 were released on DVD in the U.S. by Rhino Entertainment Company/Kid Rhino Entertainment (under its Rhinomation classic animation entertainment brand) (a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner) (a division of Warner Music Group) between April 23, 2002, and March 9, 2004. Due to degradation of the original 1-inch master tapes, some sections of the Rhino Entertainment release use earlier incomplete animation, often introducing errors, such as mis-colored Decepticon jets, Skyfire colored like Skywarp, missing laser blasts, or a confusing sequence where Megatron, equipped with Skywarp's teleportation power, teleports but does not actually disappear. This version also added extra sound effects that were presented in the remixed 5.1 surround soundtrack, but not present in the original broadcast version.

In 2005, Rhino lost the rights to distribute Transformers on DVD. The license was subsequently acquired by Sony Wonder (a division of Sony BMG). Sony Wonder announced in October 2006 that they would re-release the first season of the series in 2007, with the other seasons presumably following. In June 2007, Sony BMG dissolved Sony Wonder and moved the label to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, without releasing any DVD sets.

In May 2008, Hasbro re-acquired the rights to the Sunbow library of shows, including Transformers.

In March 2009, Shout! Factory announced that they had acquired the license from Hasbro to release Transformers on DVD in Region 1 with Vivendi Entertainment. They subsequently released The Complete First Season on June 16, 2009. Season Two Volume One was released on September 15, 2009. Season Two Volume Two was released on January 12, 2010. Seasons Three and Four was released together in one set on April 20, 2010. These releases corrected most of the newly introduced Rhino animation errors, but this was necessarily accomplished by using lower quality sources taken from the original broadcast master tapes. Rhino's added sound effects were discarded in favor of a sound mix more faithful to the original mono audio.

On October 20, 2009, Shout! Factory released the complete series in a box set for the first time in Region 1. This set, dubbed Transformers: The Complete Series - The Matrix of Leadership Collector's Set, features all 98 remastered episodes along with all new bonus features.

Region 2

Maverick released Season 1 in the U.K. in 2001. Three individual volumes were released (though the episodes are in the wrong order), a box set of the three disks, which included a fourth disk containing bonus features, and one volume of Transformers: Generation 2 with five episodes that had the Cybernetic Space Cube graphics added. They also released a volume of Transformers: Takara, which included the first six episodes of the Asian English dub of Transformers: The Headmasters.

Metrodome Distribution released Seasons 1–4 in the U.K. between November 17, 2003 and October 11, 2004. Their first release was a budget-range DVD of the Transformers movie, released through Prism Leisure. The seasons were released in four box sets: Season 1, Season 2 Part 1, Season 2 Part 2 and Seasons 3–4. Notably, Season 2 was released first by Metrodome because Season 1 had been released by Maverick. Metrodome's releases use the remastered production masters, which originated with the Rhino release of the series (and contain all the inherent errors). Additionally, they include Magno Sound & Video's 5.1 audio (with added sound effects), but use a modified version of their 2.0 track.

Region 4

Madman Entertainment released the four seasons in six box sets in Australia and New Zealand (Region 4): Season 1, Season 2.1, Season 2.2, Season 3.1, Season 3.2 and Season 4.

They later released the remastered Shout! Factory version of Transformers in the same volume arrangement as the American release. In 2007, Madman Entertainment released a 17-disc complete collection box set.

Other releases

A collector's tin box set was released in Asia by Guangdong Qianhe Audio & Video Communication Co., Ltd. under license by Pexlan International (Picture) Limited. The set includes the entire series, The Transformers: The Movie, a set of full color postcards, a rubber keychain and a full color book (graphic novel style) which serves as an episode guide. While the book is almost entirely in Mandarin, the chapter menus contain English translations for each episode. The set is coded as Region 1.

In July 2009, Transformers G1 Season 1 (25th Anniversary Edition) was made available for digital download via the PlayStation Network's video store in the United States for $1.99 per episode.

On October 10, 2010, The Hub (formerly Discovery Kids, later Discovery Family on October 13, 2014) started airing the original episodes of the Transformers G1 series on the network.

See also

In Spanish: The Transformers (serie de televisión) para niños