[besson3c]

I was *crazy* big into this when I was a kid, and I'm amazed by how many of the characters I still remember. I'm sure there is a Wikipedia page out there listing them all, so you'll have to trust me that this is just operating off of my recollection, but:

Autobots:

original generation:

- Optimus
- Bumblebee
- Blaster
- Hot Rod
- Dinobots (they did not merge to form a larger robot):
- Grimlock
- Snarl
- Swoop
- Sludge ?!
- Omega Supreme
- girl robot (don't remember her name, but there was only one)

Next generation:

- Rodimus Prime
- Metroplex


Decepticons:

original generation:

- Megatron
- Soundwave
- Starscream
- Contructicons (don't remember the names of each of them, I think they transformed into Devastator?)
- Thundercracker
- Insecticons (don't remember the names of each of them)

next gen:

- Tripicon
- Predacon
- Six Shot


We saved up to buy many of these toys, and watched the show religiously. All of these episodes are actually available on YouTube. I went back to watch them all out of nostalgia, and didn't how bad the show really was I remember playing with other kids, arguing over whether the Autobots could fly (in some episodes they can, in others they couldn't)

Any other recovering Transformers cartoon era junkies?

[Waragainstsleep]

Guilty.

Sludge, Snarl, Slag, Swoop and Grimlock were the Dinobots. Girl robot was called Arcee. She and Hot Rod and Blaster and Omega Supreme were second generation or later. (The batches after the first generation sort of blurred together. I think the Dinobots and Insecticons and Constructicons were also later than the 'true' first generation).

There were more Decepticon jets called Skywarp, Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust. Soundwave had tapes called Rumble, Frenzy, Buzzsaw, Laserbeak and Ravage and later Ratbat. You also missed Shockwave. Later but early generations included triple changers Astrotrain, Blitzwing and Octane. Then there was Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge.

There were masses more early Autobots. Cliffjumper, Ratchet, Ironhide, Hoist, Grapple, Trailblazer, Seaspray, Wheeljack, Jetfire (Possibly called Skyfire in the US) Prowl, Smokescreen, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Red Alert, Mirage, Brawn, Cosmos, Inferno, Perceptor, Wheelcharger, and Tailgate. There were more too. I think I'm forgetting plenty.
Then we had Kup, Blur and the Autobot triple changers Springer, Sandstorm and Broadside.

These are all from memory too I'm slightly ashamed to admit. And I could probably go further into the sets that combined into other bigger robots (Aerialbots, Protectobots, Stunticons and Combaticons, Technobots, Seacons and Terrorcons) and beyond.

[Waragainstsleep]

Blaster had tapes called Eject, Rewind, Ramhorn and Steeljaw.

I should add Blaster's Tapes, Swoop, the Predacons, Omega Supreme, Arcee, Trypticon, Ratbat, Blaster, the Sharkticon from The Movie and Sky Lynx were not available in the UK. The original Constructicons were also not available or possibly just very very rare. They were released eventually much later on and then later again in yellow instead of green.

Oh and one of the Insecticons was called Shrapnel.

[-Q-]

Impressive recollection.

Of the originals you listed, the obvious one I see missing is Jazz, the Porche 911 (who was voice by Scatman Cruthers in the cartoon - yes, from memory. ).

[Waragainstsleep]

Having now googled I see that it was Tralbreaker and Windcharger instead of Trailblazer and Wheelcharger. And I did indeed forget many early ones. Jazz and Ultra Magnus being the biggest omissions.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Guilty.

Sludge, Snarl, Slag, Swoop and Grimlock were the Dinobots. Girl robot was called Arcee. She and Hot Rod and Blaster and Omega Supreme were second generation or later. (The batches after the first generation sort of blurred together. I think the Dinobots and Insecticons and Constructicons were also later than the 'true' first generation).

There were more Decepticon jets called Skywarp, Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust. Soundwave had tapes called Rumble, Frenzy, Buzzsaw, Laserbeak and Ravage and later Ratbat. You also missed Shockwave. Later but early generations included triple changers Astrotrain, Blitzwing and Octane. Then there was Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge.

There were masses more early Autobots. Cliffjumper, Ratchet, Ironhide, Hoist, Grapple, Trailblazer, Seaspray, Wheeljack, Jetfire (Possibly called Skyfire in the US) Prowl, Smokescreen, Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Red Alert, Mirage, Brawn, Cosmos, Inferno, Perceptor, Wheelcharger, and Tailgate. There were more too. I think I'm forgetting plenty.
Then we had Kup, Blur and the Autobot triple changers Springer, Sandstorm and Broadside.

These are all from memory too I'm slightly ashamed to admit. And I could probably go further into the sets that combined into other bigger robots (Aerialbots, Protectobots, Stunticons and Combaticons, Technobots, Seacons and Terrorcons) and beyond.

Damn, you made me look silly!

When I read your lists many of these names made me feel "oh yeah, duh! Why didn't I remember that", so maybe I could have recalled more of those, but still, you know your Transformers

I suppose you aren't a fan of Michael Bay either, right?

What I liked about the cartoon was the idea of a whole family of robots each with their own personalities and skills. The Michael Bay Transformers are most generic fighting machines with little to no personality.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Having now googled I see that it was Tralbreaker and Windcharger instead of Trailblazer and Wheelcharger. And I did indeed forget many early ones. Jazz and Ultra Magnus being the biggest omissions.

Maybe I should find us a master list just to see who we missed? It always frustrated me that the toys and cartoons didn't always seem to line up.

Oh yeah, the Gobots sucked.

[exca1ibur]

I remember every single on of those. I might have to watch the Transformers: The Movie (The REAL one), again now. The flashbacks...

P.S. You are right Gobots sucked.

[Waragainstsleep]

Transformers: The Movie still holds up pretty well. Awesome 80s soundtrack too including Weird Al Yankovic. Some of you may not know that Leonard Nimoy provided the voice of Galvatron (among others) and the best trivia fact about this movie is that it was the last one Orson Welles ever made. He provided the voice of Unicron.

I am less angry at Michael Bay than I should be. I don't like what he did with the franchise very much, but I have come to expect Hollywood to churn out crap from decent IP so I knew his efforts would be poor from the get go. One of my biggest complaints about the robots in the Bay movies is they are too shiny. I always liked the idea that they were old and well-used.
Also not fond of the way they can all turn into anything they want anytime they want. Its lazy.
Nothing against the new guy but I don't know why they didn't get Frank Welker back to voice Megatron either.

Michael Bay peaked when he made The Rock IMO which was an awesome film. Bad Boys was also fun. The rest of his work has been a bit meh.

[Waragainstsleep]

All kinds of awesome:

The Touch - Transformers movie clip - YouTube

[P]

Wow - you guys remember way more than I seem to. I think you missed Scorponok (sp?) of the reasonably early ones, as well as those Decepticon triple changers where one form was an animal or monster - although they were fairly late. There was also an Autobot that changed into a motorbike that was also in the movie (in multiple copies, there was a planet of them), but I don't remember the name of the toy.

I could probably rattle off the names of the Aerialbots and Protectobots if pressed. Barely.

[Waragainstsleep]

Scorponok was the leader of the Decepticon Headmasters with little guys who turned into their heads which all came out a year or two post-movie. His head was called Lord Zarak if memory serves.
This also included Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf and Mindwipe and for the Autobots Highbrow, Chromedome, Hardhead and the immensely huge Fortress Maximus (including his head, Cerebros and his head Galen).

You also had Target Masters with little guys who turned into guns. These included re-issues of Kup, Blurr, Hot-Rod, Cyclonus and Scourge. There was one called Trigger Happy, Misfire and my knowledge starts to get a little thinner around these.

There was also Powermasters where the little guys turned into engines. Cue a new Optimus Prime, and a bunch more Autobot cars, plus Decepticons Dreadwind and Darkwing who combined to form a giant plane/spaceship thing called Darkwind. Or Dreadwing. Not sure.

The Autobot bike from the movie was Wreck-Gar (voiced by Eric Idle), leader of the Junkions from the planet of Junk. Bah weep granah weep nini bong! I think there was a generic Junkion toy as well. Quite a rare one though.

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

...the immensely huge Fortress Maximus (including his head, Cerebros and his head Galen)

Galen was a "temporary" Nebulon in the comics. He died and was replaced by Spike Witwicky, who was the older brother of Buster Witwicky. (In the comics, Buster was the token human, not Spike.)

Transformers: The Movie still holds up pretty well.

It really doesn't. It was really rushed. There are fantastic moments with beautiful art and animation mixed with horrible, horrible moments with just gawd-awful art.

The story makes no sense. Why was Optimus permanently dead from a few wounds, but Magnus comes back from being completely blown to pieces? (Of course, the same problem is found in the Bay films, where Frenzy survives decapitation, but Jazz is killed by a much lesser injury.)

I think lots of people are nostalgia-blinded about this stuff. The moronic speech-patterns of Grimlock and Wheelie are way worse than the blacksploitation of Mudflap and Skids in the Bay films.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Oh yeah, the Gobots sucked.

The story and tv show sucked (it was Hanna Barbara, after all), but the toys were sometimes better than Transformers. Gobots were often entirely die-cast metal and well painted, while TFs had little or no die-cast, and lots of crappy stickers instead of paint. I owned both small and large versions of Cykill, and both were much better than any motorcycle TF toy.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Maybe I should find us a master list just to see who we missed? It always frustrated me that the toys and cartoons didn't always seem to line up.

Usually for the better. Somehow, Ironhide and Ratchet have always been favourites, but the toys for those characters were unforgiveably terrible.

I owned many Transformer toys. The biggest I owned was Fortress Maximus, who was too awesome for words. A few fond memories: Mirage (blue race car), Topspin and Twin Twist (spacy-looking vehs that "jumped-started" into robot mode, Skylinx (space shuttle), and two "twin" robots that were blue-green in color, but one changed into a panther and the other into a bird; can't remember the names.

[Waragainstsleep]

You're probably right about the movie and nostalgia. It definitely had some very good points though.

The original toys had more die-cast in them, but it became less and less as time went on and was soon eliminated altogether. Just cost saving I guess.

I believe there is a giant Unicron toy which is the only one similar in size to Fortress Maximus. Both are about the size of a small child. Neither were readily available in the UK sadly.

I actually still have all my Transformers toys. I haven't touched them in years, they are all in a box in my attic but I couldn't bear to get rid of them and I'm happy just knowing they are still there. Probably worth a bit by now. They are all well played with of course and many are incomplete (I did buy a fair few second hand, used to collect them at car boot sales) but still.

[-Q-]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I believe there is a giant Unicron toy which is the only one similar in size to Fortress Maximus. Both are about the size of a small child. Neither were readily available in the UK sadly.

Unicron is on the right:



No, that's not my collection. I think the only thing I have left from my Transformers toys is an original Jetfire.

[Waragainstsleep]

That must be Primus on the left. Forgot about him.

[P]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

The original toys had more die-cast in them, but it became less and less as time went on and was soon eliminated altogether. Just cost saving I guess.

I think the first generation were meant as scale models (originally in Japan) rather than toys, and then they spent as much as it took to copy actual planes and cars and whatnot. The second batch were toys from the start and where made from cheap plastic which broke far too often. After that the plastic was made thicker which made it much harder to accurately emulate real life items, so the focus changed to more futuristic models.

The fact that Megatron was a scale model of a gun made it illegal to sell in some places, which is why they switched him to other models in the later reissues.

[olePigeon]

I remember that the movie had awesome music.

Yeah, like Weird Al's Dare To Be Stupid.

[Waragainstsleep]

I have the OST on CD somewhere.

Stan Bush rocks.

[lpkmckenna]

I thought the techno tunes were cool, but the Stan Bush songs aren't very good IMHO.

[Waragainstsleep]

Not a fan of big hair and fretwanking?

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by hayesk 

Yeah, like Weird Al's Dare To Be Stupid.

Damn straight.

[besson3c]

Why is it that I remember the name Fortress Maximus, but I don't remember ever seeing them in the cartoon? I always wanted them to show more of these big ass transformers including Metroplex and Tripticon...

[Ghoser777]

Fortress Maximus only appeared at the end of the cartoon's run (the whole Headmaster saga).

[Waragainstsleep]

Trypticon was in a couple of cartoons I believe.

Trypticon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Only some of that is familiar to me.

[Waragainstsleep]

I want an energon cube.

[exca1ibur]

"Call of the Primitives" was one of my favorite episodes with most of the big Transformers in it. Also had anime style art work and really stood out.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I want an energon cube.

Go talk to Salty, I think he is an energon
cube.