The Transformers

Ah, what a gem this was and still is! Sixteen years later, this series still has not lost its sparkle. This is due to the obvious care that was put into this production. Kudos to the animators for successfully animating a slew of WAY cool transforming robots (which, I am sure, is not very easy to do). Kudos to one of the best voice casts ever assembled for a production for bringing the characters wonderfully to life. (The cast list reads like a miniature "Who's Who" among voice artists.) Special thanks must go to Frank Welker, who brought Megatron (among other characters) wonderfully to life. And then, of course, there was the Autobot leader who became so beloved by kids everywhere that he rose to the status of genuine icon for many a child: OPTIMUS PRIME. Now, I liked "Beast Wars" and thought that Gary Chalk was good as Optimus Primal, but the one TRUE voice of the REAL Optimus Prime will ALWAYS belong to Peter Cullen. They could not have gotten (nor will ever get) a person so perfect for the role as him. He brought both gentle warmth and fearless commanding to Prime, and those traits are what made him last, in my opinion. Here's hoping the series will continue to do the same.

For me, TRANSFORMERS is a cultural thing. It's larger than the '84 TV show and taps right into childhood. It's like the '89 Batman where I can't separate that period sentimentalism from the actual thing. I sit down and watch this, and I'm plugged back into the formative years. It's kinda funny to think of the show as an adult because it was the direct result of the early '80s FCC deregulation, paving the way for half-hour toy commercials as kids' programming. But that's the Lisa Simpson in my head talking. Hasbro's campaign worked, and I've been a fan for 30 years . . . even with the show's dodgy production values and toy line that was both overly complicated (I was constantly referring to the instruction manual) and inconsistent with the animated characters.

But the show worked its magic on me with a vengeance. And there are certainly bigger fans out there than myself. People who've spent years collecting the various iterations, series and live-action movies. But if we're talking the G1 stuff, I'm all over it. And there are other shows from that time that were better produced, but none that hit as precisely as this one. That link between TRANSFORMERS and being a kid is ironclad.

8/10

Transformers, for me were the coolest toys as you could actually do something with them, hey they transformed. The cartoon was a very good compliment to said toys. It followed the story of the Autobots who were good and the Decepticons who were well not good. They raged most of their battles on earth and the show was at its best during the first season and parts of the second season. The ones that occurred after the movie were pretty good, but then I thought the headmaster and target master miniseries that would mark the end of the Transformers generation one was very weak as it was nothing but one big toy commercial and featured many Transformers that were never introduced before playing a rather large role. My favorite episodes usually involved the Decepticons called Constructicons. Six robots that formed the super robot Devastater. They were my favorite toys as a kid and I actually still have them. The show was not without other problems than just the weak ending. A lot of problems stem from problems with the plot and origins of some of the robots. Apparently, they didn't think a kid could remember how a robot was introduced so they created a new origin. Such as Devastator. Clearly introduced in season one as being created on earth they would in a later episode show them having been on Cybertron and they were good guys no less. Also, it was clearly shown you could make a new transformer on earth, but in later episodes it was shown you had to use a special device to infuse them with personality. Still, the problems were not enough to steer me away from this cool cartoon.

I love this series, it was a childhood favourite and I still am a fan of it. The animation is decent enough with the odd understandable inconsistency, with the robots wonderful to watch and the backgrounds and colours quite bold and fitting. The music is great, memorable while with an essence of complexity in some of the orchestration, the narrative is cool and does justice to some outstanding if simple story ideas. The writing is intelligent and humorous, in short enough to satisfy anybody who watches the show, and the characters are some of the memorable characters in a cartoon series for me, especially Megatron and Optimus Prime. This is helped hugely by a top notch vocal cast with Frank Welker and Peter Cullen born for their roles. All in all, an excellent cartoon that has something for everyone. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Transformers is the greatest cartoon show ever made. The toys were outstanding. It makes the cartoons of today look like trash. The first seasons of Tranformers were the pinnacle of childrens entertainment, with supercool characters and awesome well built toys. Even the toys make the toys of today look like garbage. The toys hand a lot of die-casted parts. The cartoon had a good straight-forward plot. Everything went well until the movie where they killed all the best autobots and subsequently killed the transformers, afterwards the show was never the same and the toys started becoming all cheap plastic with simple designs. But the glorydays overshadow the dark. Transformers will forever be immortalized in the hearts of millions.

10/10