History WesternAnimation / TheTransformers

* UnreliableIllustrator: While the series was never exactly the pinnacle of quality animation, there were several episodes that had a '''''much''''' lower level of quality control compared to the others. Worst offenders include most of season one, "Enter The Nightbird", "Child's Play", "Kremzeek!", "Starscream's Brigade", "B.O.T.", "Trans-Europe Express", "Triple Takeover", "Nightmare Planet", "The Burden Hardest to Bear", and all of AKOM's episodes[[note]]with "The Core", "The Five Faces of Darkness" and "Carnage In C-Minor" as standouts[[/note]].
** Several episodes, like the above-mentioned "Kremzeek!" and "Triple Takeover" further compound this by not being animated by either main studio and using completely different model sheets for several characters.
** YourSizeMayVary was a common example of this in play, with characters and settings often changing sizes from shot to shot. Like most things, it got worse during the AKOM-animated episodes.
** Some of Studio Ox's illustrations, specifically the ones drawn by [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:GestaltTrioTVMagazine.jpg Shin]] [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:StudioOxHumongousCityCommanders01.jpg Matsuo]] would veer this way.
** The Season 1 episodes "Roll For It" and "S.O.S. Dinobots" were particularly bad with how often the color schemes were screwed up, and how the art shifts in style between the 1970s Toei style, the more standardized look of the series, and a more overtly-stylized anime look between not only scenes, but individual shots. While later Season 1 episodes by the [[Creator/AshiProductions same]] [[Creator/NakamuraProductions animators]] have similar issues, they're not as excessive in comparison. This is only exacerbated by the Rhino releases of these episodes; which show that they could have been much worse than the final broadcast airings.
** While several episodes would have scenes without proper shading and only flat coloring, "Webworld" stands out as the only episode to have this be a near-consistent trait.
** Given that more than a dozen companies worked on the show (Toei, AKOM, and their contractors, as mentioned at the top of the page), it gets a bit mind-bending at times. More so when it looks like more than one team is working on a given episode, and the art shifts dramatically from poor, to decent, to good.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Seasons 1 and 2 were largely silly, escapist affairs. The movie and season three had several established characters brutally killed off. Many episodes of the third season featured characters like Galvatron, Rodimus and Kup facing their flaws ("Webworld", "The Burden Hardest to Bear" and "Chaos") and catacylsmic battles on desolate worlds with the fate of all existence resting on the shoulders of the Autobots.

** The Season 1 episodes "Roll For It" and "S.O.S. Dinobots" were particularly bad with how often the color schemes were screwed up, and how the art shifts in style between the 1970s Toei style, the more standardized look of the series, and a more overtly-stylized anime look between not only scenes, but individual shots. While later Season 1 episodes by the [[Creator/AshiProductions same]] [[Creator/NakamuraProductions animators]] have similar issues, they're not as excessive in comparison.

* OffModel: While the series was never exactly the pinnacle of quality animation, there were several episodes that had a '''''much''''' lower level of quality control compared to the others. Worst offenders include most of season one, "Enter The Nightbird", "Child's Play", "Kremzeek!", "Starscream's Brigade", "B.O.T.", "Trans-Europe Express", "Triple Takeover", "Nightmare Planet", "The Burden Hardest to Bear", and all of AKOM's episodes[[note]]with "The Core", "The Five Faces of Darkness" and "Carnage In C-Minor" as standouts[[/note]].
** Several episodes, like the above-mentioned "Kremzeek!" and "Triple Takeover" further compound this by not being animated by either main studio and using completely different model sheets for several characters.
** YourSizeMayVary was a common example of this in play, with characters and settings often changing sizes from shot to shot. Like most things, it got worse during the AKOM-animated episodes.
** Some of Studio Ox's illustrations, specifically the ones drawn by [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:GestaltTrioTVMagazine.jpg Shin]] [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:StudioOxHumongousCityCommanders01.jpg Matsuo]] would veer this way.
** The Season 1 episodes "Roll For It" and "S.O.S. Dinobots" were particularly bad with how often the color schemes were screwed up, and how the art shifts in style between the 1970s Toei style, the more standardized look of the series, and a more overtly-stylized anime look between not only scenes, but individual shots. While later Season 1 episodes by the [[Creator/AshiProductions same]] [[Creator/NakamuraProductions animators]] have similar issues, they're not as excessive in comparison.
** While several episodes would have scenes without proper shading, "Webworld" stands out as the only episode to have this be a near-consistent trait.
** Given that more than a dozen companies worked on the show (Toei, AKOM, and their contractors, as mentioned at the top of the page), it gets a bit mind-bending at times. More so when it looks like more than one team worked on a given episode and the art shifts dramatically from poor, to decent, to good.

** "Webworld" has the Decepticons try to give Galvatron some professional help. This time, the Autobots barely appear at all.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Seasons 1 and 2 were largely silly, escapist affairs. The movie and season three had several established characters brutally killed off. Many episodes of the third season featured characters like Galvatron, Rodiumus and Kup facing their flaws ("Webworld", "The Burden Hardest to Bear" and "Chaos") and catacylsmic battles on desolate worlds with the fate of all existence resting on the shoulders of the Autobots.

--->"There will be no war today, Optimus Prime. You have earned Galvatron's respect."

** [[ExpositoryThemeSong "Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons"]]

* ConvenientlyEmptyRoads: In the episode B.O.T., the Combaticons are shown driving down the street of a city side-by-side, with no sign of any traffic at all. This is especially notable since two of their members Vortex and Blast-Off transform into a helicopter and a '''space shuttle'''. It's also convenient that when the Combaticons encounter the Protectobots, they can freely combine into Bruticus and Defensor without risking anyone on the streets. This is especially notable because generally firefights between the Autobots and Decepticons take place ''away'' from metropolitan areas where there normally isn't any traffic anyway (e.g. military bases or temporary base camps). [[note]]It should be pointed out that B.O.T. is widely considered the absolute worst episode of ''any'' Transformers cartoon '''ever''' due to things like a nonsensical storyline and various animation errors.[[/note]]

* {{Expy}}: Skyfire, who started off as a [[Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross VF-1 fighter]] in his toy commercial before being changed for legal reasons.

** Optimus Prime to a certain extent, as some of his more fatherly tendencies (i.e. joking around, playing basketball with his teammates, snarking at Megatron) melted away by the time of the movie, making him a stern, serious figure who rarely used contractions. This has become the modern depiction of Prime in most series since.

* AlienLunch: In "Starscream's Ghost", [[HeelFaceTurn Octane]] has gotten a job transporting junk for the Junkions. Galvatron sends a Scuxxoid to plant a bomb on the transport ship, and it explodes. The destruction of the ship doesn't kill Octane, however, and he's rescued by an alien vessel. The passengers are eating something that has visible [[EditorialSynesthesia steam]] wafting to Octane's nose, and he clearly doesn't like the smell at all.
-->'''Octane:''' Sheesh, what have you been eating?
-->''Alien (speaks alien language and offers some nasty-looking chunky purple food in a bowl)''
-->'''Octane:''' Oh, gee, thanks, n-no, never mind, I just want to be taken to Autobot City, where it's safe!

** Then there's Galvatron. ''The Movie'' presented him as genuinely dangerous, killing Starscream with a single shot, royally messing up Ultra Magnus and successfully stealing the Matrix, and very nearly killing Hot Rod. The only things capable of subduing him are the Matrix and Unicron; to a regular Transformer, he's virtually unstoppable. After ''The Movie'', he became a babbling maniac who usually serves as a bigger threat to his own soldiers than to his enemies, and his firepower was greatly diminished. In general, the post-movie episodes treat Galvatron as a walking punchline who manages to actually fail more spectacularly on a regular basis than Megatron ever did. This is justified by his brain circuits being damaged between the movie and the third season - it's hard to be a serious threat when you literally can't think straight.

* MentalFusion: This is what the gestalts are. The combined form is not just a mental, but physical joining. However, unless the participants are ''very'' compatible with each other, they generally are not good for much other than DumbMuscle (Predaking and Computron are the only ones who might be aversions, at least as portrayed on the show), since any thoughts the combined form has can only be something all the components agree on.

* EvilOverlord: Zarak is a Nebulan who tries to conquer his planet Nebulos and also sets his sights on Cybertron,

* FailedASpotCheck: Plenty due to LimitedAnimation or directional hiccups. Two infamous are "Desertion of the Dinobots where Ironhide and Blaster failing to notice Soundwave[[note]]Ironhide supposedly is able to detect Decepticons, but Blaster fails to notice Soundwave ''in front of him''[[/note]] and Brawn fails to notice Laserbeak ''on his shoulder'' in "Divide and Conquer".

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: The Dinobots are a sub-set of Autobots that have dinosaurs as their alt modes.

** The Season 1 episodes "Roll For It" and "S.O.S. Dinobots" were particularly bad with how often the color schemes were screwed up, and how the art shifts in style between the 1970s Toei style, the more standardized look of the series, and a more overtly-stylized anime look between not only scenes, but individual shots. While later Season 1 episodes by the [[Creator/AshiProductions same]] [[Creator/NakamuraProduction sanimators]] have similar issues, they're not as excessive in comparison.

** Given that more than a dozen companies worked on the show (Toei, AKOM, and their contractors, as mentioned at the top of the page), it gets a bit mind-bending at times. More so when it looks like more than one team worked on a given episode.

* PlanetaryRelocation: The three part episode "[[Recap/TransformersG1TheUltimateDoom The Ultimate Doom]]" has Megatron succeed in creating a space bridge large enough to teleport Cybertron to Earth to harvest Energon from the gravitational conflict formed from Cybertron being in orbit around Earth. The worst part? He managed to get Optimus Prime to complete the teleportation by convincing him that [[SadisticChoice Cybertron would be destroyed instead of Earth if the process isn't completed]].

* PublicServiceAnnouncement: 5 of them were produced, based off the ones used in ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero'', but never aired. They were ultimately shown the light of day with the release of the Rhino DVD boxsets.

** The Mayor in "Megatron's Master Plan, Parts 1 and 2" is hesitant to believe the Decepticons' hoax of claiming that the Autobots are the real villains and even allows Spike to try and prove the Autobots' innocence.
** Optimus several times over but especially in "Traitor". He calmly dismisses Cliffjumper's accusations of Mirage's treachery until proof can be given, and when it seems Mirage truly ''has'' turned against them, he is savvy enough to suspect outside forces before condemning him, allowing Ratchet to inspect and discover one of Bombshell's cerebro-shells controlling him.
** In "A Prime Problem", in spite of everyone clutching the IdiotBall in terms of recognising Optimus' behavioural patterns, Ironhide is at least savvy enough to insist an ImpostorExposingTest before turning on one of them, foiling Megatron's plan to have the Autobots shoot the real Prime.

* SandWorm: While the Dweller is an EldritchAbomination, it is also a sand worm. It has the body of a worm, can travel ridiculously quickly despite its size, endlessly pursues prey, and is able to track them without them being the creature's line of sight due to being able to sense energy.

* VillainousGlutton: The Insections tend to have an obsession with eating a lot, though since they're robots, they tend to eat metal, energon, and oil rather than food.

* VillainousUnderdog: Due to the cast of characters being formed [[MerchandiseDriven on what toys were being sold on the shelves]] rather than narrative stakes, the Autobots actually outnumber the Decepticons in season 1, since more "good guy" toys were sold than "bad guy" toys. The Cons only had Megatron, Soundwave and his cassettes, the Seeker trio and the Reflector trio initially. At least in Season 2, while still having less toys (and therefore unique characters) than the Autobots, the Decepticons' numbers were bolstered by a CloneArmy of Insecticons which were replaced by [[{{Mooks}} the Sweeps]] during Season 3.

** Both Ultra Magnus and Cyclonus respect each other as fellow warriors. Cyclonus actually saves Ultra Magnus from the ignonimious end of being pulled into a black-hole in "The Killing Jar" because ''"Warriors such as you and I should meet their end in battle."''

* OffModel: While the series was never exactly the pinnacle of quality animation, there were several episodes that had a '''''much''''' lower level of quality control compared to the others. Worst offenders include most of season one, "Enter The Nightbird", "Child's Play", "Kremzeek!", "Starscream's Brigade", "B.O.T.", "Trans-Europe Express", "Triple Takeover", "Nightmare Planet", "The Hardest Burden to Bear", and all of AKOM's episodes[[note]]with "The Core", "The Five Faces of Darkness" and "Carnage In C-Minor" as stand outs[[/note]].

** The Season 1 episodes "Roll For It" and "S.O.S. Dinobots" were particularly bad with how often the color schemes were screwed up, and how the art shifts in style between the 1970s Toei style, the more standardized look of the series, and a more overtly-stylized anime look between not only scenes, but individual shots.
** While several epsiodes would have scenes without proper shading, "Webworld" stands out as the only episode to have this be a consistant trait.
** Given that more than a dozen companies worked on the show (Toei, AKOM and their contractors, as mentioned at the top of the page), this becomes a little more understandable, but also a lot more glaring[[labelnote:*]]especially if it looks like an episode was handled by more than one animation team or studio[[/labelnote]].

''The Transformers'' was the first ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' cartoon, part of the ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1'' franchise. It premiered in 1984. The writing and distribution of the series was handled by both Marvel Productions and Creator/SunbowEntertainment. Animation was done by Creator/ToeiAnimation and a few other (uncredited, just like its [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero sister series]]) studios, including Creator/{{AKOM}} in their first project, Creator/SeiYoung, some [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Unknown_Generation_1_animation_studios unknown studios]] and several feeder studios[[note]]including Creator/DaiWon, Sam Young, [[Creator/ProductionGrimi Shin Won]], Creator/TransArts, Creator/AnimeR, Lensa Film, Creator/AshiProductions, Creator/NakamuraProductions, Creator/KanameProductions, Creator/StudioLook, Studio No. 1, and possibly Creator/StudioJunio. With Studio OX for illustration work during the series' initial Japanese release[[/note]]. AKOM's animation was generally worse than Toei's.

** The episode "Roll for It" includes some [[BilingualBonus Japanese text]] from the production crew. Roughly translated, it reads "to "Gah, I need a woman. Ain't there any hot babes around? Let's call it a day, get home quick and hit the sack. Hey, Habara, did you pop your cherry yet?[[note]]lost your virginity[[/note]] Let's go hit a Turkish bath[[note]]a kind of brothel[[/note]] some time"." This is the sort of thing that warrants a [[http://www.tvguidelines.org/resources/TheRatings.pdf TV-PG]] (USA) or [[[[https://www.cab-acr.ca/english/social/antiviolence/icons_manual.shtm PG]] (Canada) rating, rather than the TV-Y7/G it got.

''The Transformers'' was the first ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' cartoon, part of the ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1'' franchise. It premiered in 1984. The writing and distribution of the series was handled by both Marvel Productions and Creator/SunbowEntertainment. Animation was done by Creator/ToeiAnimation and a few other (uncredited, just like its [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero sister series]]) studios, including Creator/{{AKOM}} in their first project, Creator/SeiYoung, some [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Unknown_Generation_1_animation_studios unknown studios]] and several feeder studios[[note]]including Creator/DaiWon, Sam Young, [[Creator/ProductionGrimi Shin Won]], Creator/TransArts, Creator/AnimeR, Lensa Film, Creator/AshiProductions, Creator/NakamuraProductions, Creator/KanameProductions, Creator/StudioLook and Studio No. 1. With Studio OX for illustration work during the series' initial Japanese release[[/note]]. AKOM's animation was generally worse than Toei's.

** Most of the time, Wheelie always speaks in rhyme! The [[Wiki/TFWikiDotNet Transformers Wiki]] [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wheelie_(G1) had quite]] [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wheelie_(SG) a bit]] [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wheelie_(Animated) of fun]], and [[SelfDemonstratingArticle made all the lines on his page rhyme]] (every single one)!

** Starscream later does the same to Unicron in Season Three. However since Unicron is severely damaged and in no power to disapline unruly surbodinates anymore, Starscream actually gets away with conning him.

** Megatron handily demonstrates this why trope applies to him in "The Triple Takeover"; not just anyone can take on a [[TheStarscream scheming lieutenant]], two Triple-changers, and a rampaging Combiner all at once and come out on top, after all.

* NoPowerNoColor: Tornedron sucking out the energy from characters and objects turns them gray.

** After the HatePlague was cured in "The Return of Optimus Prime", the entire planet really should have been in shambles, with a bare minimum of tens of millions dead and practically everyone suffering from some kind of physical injury, many serious or permanent. Then there's the mental and emotional trauma of having gone through an event like that, which would further slow efforts to rebuild and get on with life. To say nothing about how universal the plague itself was over the course of the story, quite possibly affecting dozens, if not hundreds, of inhabited planets.

''The Transformers'' was the first ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' cartoon, part of the ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1'' franchise. It premiered in 1984. The writing and distribution of the series was handled by both Marvel Productions and Creator/SunbowEntertainment. Animation was done by Creator/ToeiAnimation and a few other (uncredited, just like its [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero sister series]]) studios, including Creator/{{AKOM}} in their first project, Creator/SeiYoung, some [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Unknown_Generation_1_animation_studios unknown studios]] and several feeder studios[[note]]including Creator/DaiWon, Sam Young, [[Creator/ProductionGrimi Shin Won]], Creator/TransArts, Creator/AnimeR, Lensa Film, Creator/AshiProductions, Creator/NakamuraProductions, Creator/KanameProductions and Creator/StudioLook. With Studio OX for illustration work during the series' initial Japanese release[[/note]]. AKOM's animation was generally worse than Toei's.