History YMMV / TransformersGeneration1

** The Dinobots. There's no question they're all dumb, but they were threatening in the first two seasons. Ever since the movie, while still strong, they would be relegated to comic relief, moreso Grimlock who became a comedic sidekick to the rest of the season 3 Autobots.

** Optimus in "The Rebirth", where he comes off as a bit of weary old man and never really engages in battle like he did before. The bad part about this is that it could've easily been worked into a character arc, with him being shaken by dying and coming back. Except the season 3 finale beforehand had Prime get over it and save the day all but singlehanded in one of the show's biggest [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome Awesome Moments]], so there was no longer any excuse. Even more pathetic, this means that Prime lost control of Cybertron within just one episode of having it, while the far less experienced Rodimus retook it in the movie and held it for the entire prior season. [[note]]Had the show continued, Optimus would've been upgraded into a Power Master, so perhaps such a character arc was planned.[[/note]]

* ValuesDissonance: Yeah, see if a fictional arab nation called "Carbombya" is getting on TV these days.

* FanDislikedExplanation: Very few like the explanation that ''Unicron'' was built by Primacron, a simple alien scientist. It's been since retconned to oblivion in most G1 material and practically no adaptation uses this origin. However, starting in the 2010's, the origin story has been making a comeback due to Hasbro deciding to get rid of all multiversal singularities (including Unicron), meaning that the story is canon again and ''ComicBook/TransformersUnicron'' used the alien scientist creates Unicron story (though much more tragic in the comics) while Primacron serves as an antagonist in the Japanese G1 web mangas.

** In "Hoist Goes Hollywood," Hoist and several other Autobots get to be in an action movie. Unfortunately for them, the human characters initially take precedence over their bit parts, the director makes changes to the Autobots to make them look more alien, and there's a good deal of pyrotechnics in the movie. [[Film/{{Transformers}} Sounds familiar.]]

** Rodimus Prime admits to dreaming about Optimus. His own voice actor (jokingly) claimed the character was gay, despite many incarnations of the character being romantically-linked to Arcee.

** Starscream being resurrected by Unicron and then being blasted into space is the last we see of him. One favorite fanfiction topic has Starscream returning and creating trouble for Galvatron, or creating his own Decepticon splinter faction.

* MoralEventHorizon: Megatron famously crossed it in the movie when he killed Optimus, though one could he say he crossed it far earlier with the Robo-Smasher (aka. the device he used to horrifically brainwash the peaceful Constructicons into Decepticons and destroy Crystal City). For Blitzwing at least, the deal with the Quintessons was the point of no return for Galvatron.

** Hasbro attempted to [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:G1toy-UnicronprotoHasbro.jpg create a Unicron toy]] after the movie in which he his planet body ends up taking a third of with with weird arms and long legs (then a MythologyGag toy created by the company [=Super7=] was made in 2023). Then in 1988, [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:Grandgalvatron.jpg Galvatron creates what is possibly the funniest designs]] in ''Transformers'' history.

** Octane's original toy bio states that he can't be trusted any further than Megatron can throw Devastator. Come ''WebAnimation/TheTransformersTitansReturn'', and Megatron nigh-effortlessly [[CueTheFlyingPigs throws Devastator on]] ''[[CueTheFlyingPigs massive]]'' [[CueTheFlyingPigs distance]]. Consequently, the original bio now sounds like Octane is one of the most trusted Decepticons around.

** Megatron's gun mode. Was it a great design born from his toy, that turns into a pretty cool weapon for others to use? Or is having Megatron turn into a small gun for others to fire ill-fitting to somebody who's supposed to be the powerful BigBad? It's telling that unlike Optimus, who's almost always reimagined as a truck, Megatron changes radically depending on the continuity, with even his later toys referencing G1 choose a vehicle over a gun. That and the strict toy laws in some countries make it next to impossible to re-release him, since Megatron is a realistic firearm replica, and in Australia, one has to be a registered member of a gun club to even ''own'' a ''Masterpiece'' Megatron.

** In "Prime Target", Optimus Prime comments, "Amazing. A booby trap that actually catches boobies!" If you can stop snickering, it's referring to a stupid person (or rather bot, seeing as its Blitzwing in the trap that was meant for Optimus).

** A longstanding, and still-pervailing in some circles, rumor that it's an anime, not a cartoon. This is often backed up by three contributing factors -- The toys themselves were imports of multiple franchises including Diaclone, Microman and ''Anime/{{Macross}}''; the animation being largely done by Japan, with several noted future names like Creator/SatoshiUrushihara and Creator/MasamiObari as animators; and that several episodes aired before their American release date. In actuality, the series was always American-produced, and simply outsoruced to Japan (with Creator/ToeiAnimation in turn, outsourcing the brunt of the work to Korean comapnies like Creator/SeiYoung) before shifting duties over to Creator/{{AKOM}} by Season 3. Not to mention the fact that other places, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMpSpHUs2U such as the atlantic provinces of Canada]], [[ShortRunInPeru also aired episodes well before their US release dates]]; with the opening pilot storyline dropping almost a week before their official US airdates. Despite this, there's still a healthy BrokenBase about its status, not helped by sites like Anime News Network having it listed among the actual anime of the franchise[[note]]And this is before you take into consideration that ANN documents all entries of the franchise, regardless of if its one of the anime entires, cartoons or even [[Film/TransformersFilmSeries the live action movies]].[[/note]]

** A longstanding, and still-pervailing in some circles, rumor that it's an anime, not a cartoon. This is often backed up by three contributing factors -- The toys themselves were imports of multiple franchises including Diaclone, Microman and ''Anime/{{Macross}}''; the animation being largely done by Japan, with several noted future names like Creator/SatoshiUrushihara and Creator/MasamiObari as animators; and that several episodes aired before their American release date. In actuality, the series was always American-produced, and simply outsoruced to Japan (with Creator/ToeiAnimation in turn, outsourcing the brunt of the work to Korean comapnies like Creator/SeiYoung) before shifting duties over to Creator/{{AKOM}} by Season 3. Not to mention the fact that other places, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMpSpHUs2U such as the atlantic provinces of Canada]], [[ShortRunInPuru also aired episodes well before their US release dates]]; with the opening pilot storyline dropping almost a week before their official US airdates. Despite this, there's still a healthy BrokenBase about its status, not helped by sites like Anime News Network having it listed among the actual anime of the franchise[[note]]And this is before you take into consideration that ANN documents all entries of the franchise, regardless of if its one of the anime entires, cartoons or even [[Film/TransformersFilmSeries the live action movies]].[[/note]]

* CommonKnowledge: Optimus Prime and Megatron use energon weapons to fight, with the former using an axe and the latter preferring a flail. It's ''technically'' true, they did use them... once. But since this one battle is among their best-remembered ones the weapons are iconic enough to reference in later media, which in turn gives the impression they carried them everywhere. The main reason is that the Japanese opening theme used mostly clips from the pilot, which included that battle, leading to it becoming particularly iconic in Japan and the axe and flail being basically mandatory in any collector-grade Optimus or Megatron.

* CommonKnowledge: Optimus Prime and Megatron use energon weapons to fight, with the former using an axe and the latter preferring a flail. It's ''technically'' true, they did use them... once. But since this one battle is among their best-remembered ones the weapons are iconic enough to reference in later media, which in turn gives the impression they carried them everywhere.