The Energon Pub

So here's a question for all you cartoon culture gurus out there.

Is there a solid production connection between the new cartoon series Sulgterra (produced by Canadian company Nerd Corps) and TFP? And if so what?
I ask because of a series of odd coincidences.

Remember the Scene in "Metal Attraction" where Arcee explains that a scout must be, "silent but deadly"? Then Miko and Bulk laugh and explain that that has a whole different meaning in Earth culture? Well that episode aired July 9th 2011.
On October 26th 2012 Sulgterra aired the episode "Endangered Species" where the scene was played out in very close approximation with nearly the exact same punchline. It was enough to catch my attention but I would have shrugged it off except the final punchline for the episode was "More than meets the eye."

The the next Slugterra episode, "Mecha Mutiny" (an episode that dealt with the semi living machines that the main characters use for transportation) had a critical scene where the animal shaped Mecha were shown going from "evil" to "good" via their optics changing from red to Autobot Blue. The reason they turned "evil" in the first place was due to contamination of their "hearts" (glowy balls of light at their core. The contamination came from a darkly glowing liquid substance that comes from deep under ground, "Darkwater".
Sound familiar yet?

So the only connection I can find so far is that Asaph Fipke, the creator and writer for Slugterra also was the Associate Producer and Producer for Beast Wars and Beast Machines respectively but I can't find his name in relation to Prime.

So does being on the BW production team give him carte blanche to homage/ripoff TFP?

Is this maybe related to the plethora of Beast Wars references recently in Prime?

Any theories or am I just seeing patterns where they are not...

He, I wouldn't call it rip off, more a homage, even the Prime scene you described, that#s something that's used often.
The other thing is more a homage or nodd, hell Beast Wars homaged something different in almost every episode.
Personally I love it when I watch or read something and I find a TF reference.

Dead Metal wrote:He, I wouldn't call it rip off, more a homage, even the Prime scene you described, that#s something that's used often.
The other thing is more a homage or nodd, hell Beast Wars homaged something different in almost every episode.
Personally I love it when I watch or read something and I find a TF reference.

I suppose you are right. It was a bit of a thrill seeing TF referenced in another cartoon.