The Energon Pub

can somebody please give me and short story off how Transformers where created and introduced to hasbro and how it have ended up like this today please?

I think that would take WAY too long, my friend...

† Sunstorm wrote:can somebody please give me and short story off how Transformers where created and introduced to hasbro and how it have ended up like this today please?

It isint short and I give it to you in a few posts but here you go.

The Transformers revolutionized the toy industry and later, cartoons, comics, video games, and the dreams of teenage boys for decades." (and their perplexed parents).

Toymakers Hasbro and Takara found a way to tap into the fantasies of every child of the '80s, taking toys, robots, guns, and cars, and melding them into one amazing plaything that crossed over almost every demographic. At the height of their popularity in the '80s,Transformers let boys play with dolls and machines at the same time.

Transformable toys were new to American kids — vehicles, action figures, and puzzles all in one. Bozigian's team had lucked into a new play pattern. Something about that degree of control over the toy, about an object that became another object, made it irresistible Transformers were everywhere, and kids couldn't get enough. But where did it start? It's safe to say that, with relatively few dips in popularity, the Transformers have been a part of the global pop culture scene for a quarter of a century.

The toyline that would become the Transformers started with a meeting between Hasbro and Takara at the Tokyo Toy Show in 1983. Hasbro wanted to take the Diaclone and Micro Change toylines of Takara, a Japanese company, and turn them into the Transformers. Hasbro and Takara have subsequently worked together for decades, including up to today, on character creation and concept work for the Transformers franchise. Hasbro, so closely linked to the Transformers that they're credited before the title in the new film,Hasbro markets and sells the toys internationally, though Takara still sells "Convoy" (known better here as Optimus Prime) and the rest of the "Cybertrons" (also known as Autobots) in Japan.

The back story for the Transformers toyline was developed by Denny O'Neill and Jim Shooter, two writers for Marvel Comics at the time. Comic book writer Bob Budiansky was also responsible for subsequent Transformer character names and profiles after O'Neill and Shooter's original concept. Jim Shooter was a writer for DC Comics, created characters for The Legion of Super-Heroes and would eventually became editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics from 1978 to 1987. He helped develop the massive and enduring popularity of the X-Men during the 1980s and also revitalized The Fantastic Four and The Amazing Spider-Man under his watch. It was his connection to Marvel that would help bring Transformers to life in comic books as well as the toy aisle, an essential cross-platform marketing that helped turn the toy into more than just a plaything.

Denny O'Neill is best known for his incredibly influential Batman work (and came up with the name Optimus Prime), and Bob Budiansky helped re-define Ghost Rider before becoming largely responsible for what many fans consider the "prime" era of the Transformers. Budiansky was responsible for a large share of the Transformers legacy after the original back story by Shooter and O'Neill. Budiansky named Megatron, Ratchet, and Ravage, along with writing the vast majority of those awe-inspiring tech spec biographies that inspired every kid's imaginations from the back of their toy packages. Budiansky also developed The Transformers comic at Marvel and would write most of the entire series, which ran for 80 issues, though the title was originally only planned as a four-issue mini-series (the final issue's cover cleverly read "80 in a 4-issue limited series").

The Transformers toys first hit US markets in 1984, and their success was almost immediate. In those early days, kids became obsessed with Megatron, the Decepticon leader, who became a Walther P-38 pistol (gun + robot = immediate boy-toy success), but he wasn't produced again after that initial run because of laws governing toy guns. In other words, if you have an original Megatron that can transform into a toy gun, keep it in its packaging. For those first couple years, Hasbro essentially just remarketed and repainted the already-existing Takara line for the US market and found instant success because of their clever cross-marketing with toys, comics.Still later in 1984, Marvel and Hasbro decided to try launching a cartoon based upon the Transformers comic book and toy line, perhaps to reach a larger audience and/or to compete with the new Go-Bots cartoon/toy line. The cartoon storyline was drastically simplified in order to reach a younger and wider audience, and poor quality writing and animating were thrown together to produce a three part pilot episode, and later an entire first season (in most episodes, characters drastically change in size, color, or voice spontaneously due to fast, poor quality work). It’s hard to say whether the toys brought attention to the cartoon or the cartoon brought attention to the toys, but either way, both quickly gained tremendous popularity.

Before the cartoon even had a chance to hit its stride, the Transformers were already a sudden American success. Hasbro began adding new toys and character to the toy line. In order to do this, Hasbro pulled more toys from Diaclone (ex. Dinobots) and Microchange (ex. Perceptor). Hasbro also obtained licenses from a few other Japanese transforming robot toy lines to produce Jetfire (formerly from the Revell Robotech/Takatoku Macross lines), Omega Supreme (from the Toybox Mechabot-1 line), Shockwave (from the Toyco Gun-Borg line), the deluxe insecticons (from the Takatoku Beetras line), the deluxe autobots (from the Takatoku Dorvak line), and Skylinx (from an unknown to me Toybox line). Most of the toys were then worked into episodes in the first and second season of the cartoon, though there seems to have been a licensing problem with including the Revell Robotech/Takatoku Macross toys in the cartoon. Thus, Jetfire appears as the very different Skyfire, and the deluxe autobots and Insecticons never appear at all.If you were the right age in the mid-'80s, the Transformers were probably popular in almost every medium that you loved, making them nearly unavoidable.


Almost immediately, the TV world became an essential part of the Transformers legend. The classic cartoon started with a three-episode miniseries (later titled "More Than Meets the Eye") in 1984 and introduced kids everywhere to Optimus Prime, Megatron, and the rest of the gang. The classic show not only told cool sci-fi robot stories, but (to the chagrin of many parents) also served as 22-minute advertisements for kids who were desperate to get the toy versions of their favorite cartoon characters. As the Transformers cartoon became an unexpected success, Marvel began taking it more seriously. While neither the plot nor the animation for Season Two improved significantly, blatant animation errors became less frequent and the cartoon was given a better opening theme, with improved music and animation.


Soon after work on Season Two began, Marvel and Hasbro began planning a full Transformers movie in order to better cash in on the new success. The film would introduce entirely new toys and characters, severing Marvel, Hasbro, and Takara from their dependence on old toy lines, though Takara would still design the new Transformers. The only exception to this was the addition of Ultra Magnus, one last Diaclone toy that had previously been passed up (In fact, in early advertisements for the film, Ultra Magnus was still in his original Diaclone colors). However, after the movie had already gone into production, a late decision was made to include much of the unproduced 1985 Diaclone line as part of the 1986 Transformers line (i.e. the merge teams and transforming cities). As a result, a strange situation occurred in which many of these toys were introduced late in the second season of the cartoon, but were not included in the movie (released the following summer).

The original 65 episodes of the cartoon's first and second seasons pretty much defined the Transformers legend for a generation, and it had a catchy enough theme song to become a pop culture classic. ("The Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons...")

In 1986, the line Transformers evolved into something other than simply a repackaging of a Japanese toy phenomenon. That year saw the release of Transformers: The Movie, as far as Hasbro and Marvel were concerned,it was time to milk the Transformers hype for all that it was worth. Transformers the Movie was the first (and arguably last) time that any significant effort was put into a Transformers cartoon. Some of the best animation ever seen in America at the time, combined with fantastic music, well known voice talents (Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy, Erik Idle, Judd Nelson), an adult-oriented script in which characters actually got angry, swore, and died (often senselessly), and the much anticipated final battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron, made a film that simply couldn’t be missed. This was also the first time that background information was given serious attention in the Transformers Universe. The emergence of Unicron, the Quintesson, and the Matrix of Leadership laid the groundwork for a compelling Transformers history and universe that remained mostly consistent through the rest of Generation One, Beast Wars, and Beast Machines.

The movie was a critical and commercial disaster but along with the TV series, it helped redefine what the Transformers franchise would eventually become. One major change was that the vehicles that the Transformers toys turned into became more futuristic in design, instead of the present-day designs of their early incarnations.Transformers The Movie had raised the stakes in cartoon storytelling, but the cartoon series, itself, was not prepared to live up to them.Season three was at least as well animated as the other two and worked hard to maintain and build upon a consistent history and universe, but the stories were weak compared to that of the movie, and the new characters simply couldn’t compare to the now legendary personas from the first two seasons. Added to this was the problem that the new Transformers toys were of an entirely lower quality than the originals. While the majority of the original Transformers toys were often made of die cast metal and/or high quality plastic and transformed into realistic looking objects and vehicles, the new toys were all made of a far cheaper plastic with no metal and looked like poorly drawn “future vehicles”.

Yes the toy linetoys had jumped to the future and, in some fan's minds, this marked the beginning of the end of their initial popularity. Kids liked the idea that any car driving down the road could secretly become an awesome robot and, by moving everything to the future, that novelty disappeared. The TV show followed suit,taking a cue from the movie and picking up precisely where the film left off. It became much more sci-fi driven and marked the end for a lot of Transformers fans.

While the Transformers tried to expand into video games and maintain their popular comic series during the 1980s, the franchise also began experimenting with various spin-off projects. In 1986, Marvel produced a four-issue comic series called G.I. Joe and The Transformers and another quartet called Transformers Universe. Another limited comic series called The Transformers: Headmasters and a three-issue set based on the 1986 film would also hit the market in the late '80s.

The Transformers were quickly losing momentum, so Hasbro and Marvel tried some desperate maneuvering.Season three was supposed to include the return and final death of Optimus Prime in “Dark Awakening,” a troubling episode in which Prime returns from the dead only to lead the autobots into a Quintessan trap and then destroy himself; this time for real. But poor ratings no doubt swayed Marvel into adding the two part episode “The Return of Optimus Prime,” written by comic book writer Marv Wolmen of DC comivc Teen Titans fame, in which Prime Returns from the dead again only half a season later, this time to resume leadership of the autobots.


However, like almost media property that becomes popular overnight,Hasbro overextended the Transformers line over the next few years, Optimus Prime was back but the rest of the cartoon and toy line were still in trouble. A dramatic change was needed, and a new gimmick was Hasbro/Takara’s solution. The new toy idea was Headmasters and Targetmasters, a line of transformers in which the robot’s heads became smaller figures. “The Rebirth” three part pilot episode's for season four was produced. To make this work the script called for the Autobots and Decepticons to wind up on another planet [Nebulon] where the inhabitants of that planet combined with the transformers. An attempted at a fresh start for the show and the toy line with a script that featured an end to the war on both Cybertron and Earth while the show's "Bible" indecates that thew war would then continue on Nebulon in following episode's.Story board's and charter design's have poped up over the years at fan convention's but none of the matiral can be verifided as offical.[:Note that some of the story boards have been signed by some of the show's producer's.]

Other Targetmasters and Powermasters were also designed for the toy line with similar combining concepts, but they were never given much of a chance to surface in the American cartoon. The show was cancelled after “The Rebirth,” and before any more episodes of season four were finished.

The American toy line outlived the cartoon series, continuing until 1990. However, Hasbro continued scraping the bottom of the concept barrel and doing way too much with a simple idea. You could buy sub-groups of Transformers like the Headmasters, Targetmasters, or Powermasters, groups that required separate parts to transform together into one large robot. These various lines would change over the years, but the line that fans found most frustrating was the Pretenders, a line of Transformers that actually contained an action figure inside a shell who could pretend to be human or monster. The line had now moved from vehicle to creature, which would continue across the Transformers mythology through concepts like Beast Wars and a whole line of Pretenders toys (which also extended into limited comic book series).The Transformers even tried to compete with the popular Micro Machines franchise of the time with Micromasters, often seen as the lowest point in the toy's history. In fact, in 1990, Transformers toys stopped being produced, and it looked like the fad was over.

Transformers Headmasters, Powermasters, Targetmasters, Clones, Micromasters, and Pretenders were all considered gimicky toys, often with lousy transformations by most Americans, and Action Masters didn’t transform at all and their gimick was to have transforming side kick's. It seemed that Hasbro/Takara had lost touch with the original transforming toy concept that had made the series so popular. Hasbro,well aware that the American Transformers were in rouble, had begun pulling out in order to avoid further losses.

Toys like God Ginrai (a powermaster), originally designed in Japan with metal, chrome, high quality plastic, and parts that enabled him to take on extra forms, were sold in America as far cheaper, less complete toys. It wasn't long before Hasbro gave up on the American Transformers line entirely. Many American Transformers fans claim that this was the critical point in which Takara began producing better Transformers toys again, and that Hasbro would have made a comeback if it had stuck with the original designs. Fortunately, the show and toy line did much better internationally.

In Japan the show splintered off into it's own stories, following "The Return of Optimus Prime" and after reviewing the script and story board's for "The Headmaster the Rebirth", Takara chose to start creating their own line of Transformers show's.The reason for this move being that they were not happy with the return of Optimus as leader of the way the show was heading with human partner's of these Headmasters.The Producer's felt it was to much like other show's on the air at the time,such as the long running Macross, and that the fan's would pass on the show.

They were also worried that they could'nt make anymore profit on the Convoy [Optimus Prime] mold.The mold had been in on the market since the late 70's and their was a flood of "knock off" for the children to buy that were much cheeper to come by. In late 1986 Production on Transformers Headmasters began at Toei Animation.The characters in their Headmaster universe different in many way's.They began by killing off Optimus Prime [again] and installed Rodimus Prime back in as leader.The Matrix of Leadership was little more then a power source. Unlike it's Western counter part, The Headmasters and Targetmasters were a group of smaller Transformers that had learnd to maximize their power by Transforming it to the head's or of larger body's called "Transtectors. Other differences came about as the show progressed and new characters were introduced to the cartoon,the gestalt team of train's [Raiden],the Monsterbots,Sixshot a Transformers with 6 transformations and many more.The show hit the Japanese tv air ways in July of 1987 and was sucsesfull enough to inspire three other series[ Super God Masterforce,Victory and Zone].

These show's were never import to the U.S. market, but the show was was dubbed into English for Singapore and Malaysian By Star-tv.But it's knowen for it's poor dubbing quality as well as it's miss-naming of key character's.The later dubbing of the Masterforce and Victory did not fare any better when it came to quality and continuity issue's.

But, as they say "you cant keep a good robot down" In late 1993, Hasbro released a Generation 2 line of Transformers, largely just reissuing the already-nostalgic toys from the decade before with some different weapons and accessories and a few new toy mold's. Along with various other changes, Megatron went from a gun to a tank.The toy line lasted two years and expanded to include such new Takara designs as Dreadwing, Laser Optimus Prime (all of which were also part of the continuing Japanese toy and cartoon line, which was always a year behind Hasbro in releasing toys), but most of the toys from this series simply couldn’t compete with the originals. Still, the Generation Two cartoon was the most disappointing aspect of the series. Instead of launching a new cartoon, the decision was made to re-air the original American cartoon with disorienting high tech special effects that interrupted the cartoon at the most inappropriate times. Neither the cartoon nor the toy line ever achieved the popularity of the original series. Generation Two came to an end in 1995. After two years, Generation 2 slowly faded away, even before some planned toys were released. During this same time, Marvel released a twelve-issue comic series based on the Generation 2 concept, but, just like the toys, it never took off.

In 1996, the entire Transformers concept was overhauled, Beast Wars and Machine Wars were released alongside each other but without a cartoon to help it Machine Wars was very short-lived toy line may have been Hasbro's attempt to "catch up" with some of the toys it had missed out on between 1987 and 1993. The toy line consisted entirely of Transformers toys that were produced in Europe, Australia, and Canada after Generation One had failed in America. Optimus Prime for example, was a recolored version of the UK Turbomaster “Thunderclash”. “Starscream” had previously been a UK Micromaster base. The success of the new Beast oriented Transformers may have been responsible for the demise of this potentially succesful toy line.

The Beast Wars concept, where robots no longer turned into vehicles, guns, or tanks, but rather animals. The Beast Wars eventually became a very popular CGI animated series, and the Transformers (sort of) returned for a whole new generation. The idea of animal's transforming had been tried many time's before in the toy line, but this was the first time that the animals actually looked real. For America, it was the first real success Transformers had since Transformers The Movie back in 1986. The American cartoon used sophisticated computer animation and a complex story line to gain fandom, while the toys gradually became more and more complex, both in transformation and appearance. Beast Wars brought in a
whole new generation of American Transformers fans, and offered a very different product (both on screen and in toy stores). For a while, plans were being made for an American computer animated Beast Wars movie, though it never came to be.

At the same time in Japan,Takara was releasing their own Beast Wars show's,Beast Wars the 2nd and Beast Wars Neo, with a toy line to match that bosted new figures such as Big Convoy,Magmatron,Lio Convoy and of Galvatron.

Even with the success of Beast Wars, there was still an allure for transforming machines. Beast Wars gradually evolved into the Transmetals, transforming animals that looked partially robotic, and then into the Transmetal 2s, which took these toys another step further and made the animal forms look like highly sophisticated robots, themselves. In America, Hasbro finally made the jump to Beast Machines, the first and only Transformers line released by Hasbro but not by Takara. The line consisted of toys that were exactly what the name implied: part beast and part machine.But the toy line suffered from poor sales most likly based of the fact that the toys had little resemblance to their characters cartoon counterparts.Many of the characters created as toys never made it on the television series, if that was'nt enough,the transforming plant Botanica from the television series was not made into a toy for any of the related toylines.

Meanwhile in Japan, Takara had lost a substantial amount of money on it's more recent Beast Wars toys, and while Hasbro was releasing Beast Machines and getting mixed reactions, Takara went back to the original crowd-pleasing formula of transforming vehicles and objects with Transformers 2000. Due to financial constraints, only fourteen new toys were produced (the Autobots and Megatron), and the rest of TF2000 was made up of older, repainted Transformers (the Predacons from Beast Wars, the Spychangers and Laser Optimus Prime G2, Ruination and Brave Maximus from G1).

Still, the toys had changed. For better or worse, the fourteen new toys beared little resemblence to the bulky, die-cast Diaclones and Microchangers that first came to the states under the Transformers name. Beast Wars had influenced the making of these toys, yielding believable vehicles that converted into muscular,human-like robots. As for the cartoon, the idea of a new and original Transformers cartoon was declined in favor of dubbing over the Japanese Transformers 2000 series, limiting Hasbro’s ability to depart from the Japanese toy and story lines. This was the first time such a decision had been made by Hasbro since this was also the first time Japan had produced a Transformers cartoon series before them. It was the first American Transformers cartoon that (at least in the American translation) had absolutely no connection to the original 1984 one.


It wasn't until 2003 that what kids of the '80s considered the "real" Transformers returned with the Armada line.Towards the end of the American Beast Machines line in 2000, plans were made by Hasbro for a new story and toy line that would bridge the gap between the increasingly machine-like Beast Machines and the good old fashioned vehicle transformers. Designs(and possibly prototypes) were made, but the demand for the Japanese Transformers 2000 line disturbed Hasbro’s plans, and the new toy line concept was scrapped. Late in 2001, Hasbro began making plans to revive the idea. However, in order to remain consistant with Robots In Disguise, Hasbro decided to remove the beast aspects from these toys and release them as a sequel to RID, which takes place ten years in the future. The final toy designs were made by Takara, as was the cartoon, which was said to incorporate computer animation.However some of the idea's forward to Takara by Hasbro were rejected.Takara had plan's for placing Micron Legend as a continuation of the G1 story line.

The set back's cost them production so they fell back to cell animation.Megatron and Optimus Prime were back, and Hasbro and Takara teamed up again to create one international sensation. The line involved a lot of the early Generation 1 elements including legendary characters like Unicron, along with a new concept, the Mini-Con, a smaller robot who could work with either Autobots or Decepticons.

The sucsess of Armada promted Hasbro to venture into the Comic book market again.Soon two Transformers comic book's were on the shelf's at your comic book store.One based on the Armada toyline,the other based on the ever popular G1 series.The G1 reboot,Prime Directive,was a hit! Quickly out selling other more established comic book's from the top 2 publisher's,such as DC's Superman and Batman as well as Marvel's Spiderman and X-men.The demand for more G1 related comic's grew and not soon enough came War and Peace.The War Within soon followed,written by long time Transformers writter Simon Furman and art from Don Figueroa, the book took the fan's 9 million years into the Transformers past showing the Transformers pre-history in a new light.

Taking notice of the demand for G1 toy's on the internet [e-bay] and wanting to cash in on the G1 craze Hasbro Takara began to re-issue limited editions of the basic favorites: Optimus Prime,Ultra Magnus and Hot Rod [Re-named Rodimus Major] and Starscream. With the success of the limited edition batch, they began planning for other wave's of G1 toys to be released as Toy's R Us Stores exclusive but the future of the line is in question.

The sucsess of Armada also lead to the sequils Energon and Cybertron.Hasbro and Takara also had some sucsess with the PVC and Binatech/Alternators toylines that were based on the G1 toyline.

Witch leads us to the present.On July 2nd, 2007, Michael Bay released his big-budget live-action Transformers movie, developed with Hasbro Inc., which, even before its release, both divided and united hardcore fans. Changes were made to many of the original Transformers models and back stories, but, considering the franchise's various iterations over the years, this incarnation actually seems more loyal to the Generation 1 Transformers than a lot of the fan complaints would have you believe. Yes, Megatron is not a gun and Soundwave has been transformed into a weird little robot creature [the character's name was changed to Frenzy], but writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have also wisely avoided many of the sub-lines like the Beast Wars or Mini-Cons from the toy's history and chose to only use G1 names for all the Transformer character's in the film. In fact, Peter Cullen, who voiced Optimus Prime in the original cartoon series was hired, to reprise his most famous role. It may not be exactly what you imagine when you were ten in the mid-'80s, but it's pretty close and shows that, with all the variation in the history of the Transformers, sometimes what first meets the eye is still the best.

5 posts....


I didn't even know there was a word-a-post limit!

Justicity wrote::shock:


5 posts....


I didn't even know there was a word-a-post limit!

If there is, it's longer than what he assumed it was. I've posted a 16 page word Document into a thread. As an edit. And I can see it fine from two different computers.

If there's a word limit, it's huge, and he didn't need to do 5 posts.

Dark Zarak wrote:

Justicity wrote::shock:


5 posts....


I didn't even know there was a word-a-post limit!

If there is, it's longer than what he assumed it was. I've posted a 16 page word Document into a thread. As an edit. And I can see it fine from two different computers.

If there's a word limit, it's huge, and he didn't need to do 5 posts.

Maybe you guys should have asked why I did it that way before passing jugement or saying that I didnt have to make it 5 post long.

I tryed to make it 1 long post but I kept getting a "No post specafide" messege.

I guess I was taking to long to type in corrections to my spelling [witch I'm sure still needs more corrections] and cross checking names and dates.

Better safe than sad and angry.

The Master Blaster wrote:Better safe than sad and angry.

I'm not sad or angry.....its just I never understood why so many people feel the need to critize and judge the methods of others.

Before I judge someone for doing anything I first ask them what were they thinking before they did it.

It just seems like common sense and common courtesy to ask a person why, and assume that they may have had a good reason for doing things the way they did before critizing them

You must make a entire documentary of the history of how transformers became a trend toyline.

And then we'll be on Page 198 out of 198.

Would anyone actually read it all?

Dude,I think this is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen in a long time.Not only do you keep your facts correct,(bet you had fun looking all that up!),but you give a laymens explanation thats also detailed.As far as the multiple post goes,oh well.I'd like to see anybody else give a shorter version that has a FULL EXPLANATION.Keep on writing!

Bartmanhomer wrote:You must make a entire documentary of the history of how transformers became a trend toyline.

swampflight wrote:Dude,I think this is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen in a long time.Not only do you keep your facts correct,(bet you had fun looking all that up!),but you give a laymens explanation thats also detailed.As far as the multiple post goes,oh well.I'd like to see anybody else give a shorter version that has a FULL EXPLANATION.Keep on writing!

Thank you very much guys but to be honest I got some of the facts I posted from a audio disk that I was givven at a Cybercon a few years back.

Some of the production info I got my hands on when I was working at Marvel comics as a intern in the filing department.