The Energon Pub

Good News for all the Dinobot fans!

Cartoon Network have altered their known schedule for the Transformers: Animated series.

The episode "Total Meltdown" which was supposed to air as Episode 5 on January 12th 2008 has now been replaced by episode 6 "Blast from the Past" to air at the same date and time.

No reason for the episode change has been given, and episode 7 "Thrill of the Hunt" will air following "Blast from the Past" on January 19th, so for the moment it would seem that "Total Meltdown" will be skipped for some time.

Don't forget that you can discuss all things Animated related in our Cartoon and Comics Forum.

Considering how the subject matter from Blast from the Past would resonate with kids, I suspect they have every reason to put that as early in the series as possible. The Meltdown episode, on the other hand, introduces a villain who won't become relevant till much later. Other considerations could be behind the decision, but right off the bat I see reasons that a network would consider the switch a sound decision. I just hope that this doesn't interrupt continuity in character development, since the relationships do appear to evolve over time, and even kids notice character regression.

That's dumb. I see no reason for this... but do we have our first BANNED Transformers Animated Episode?

Oh, great! It's the TF: Cybertron thing all over again. They skipped three episodes and then aired them later with the first two merged as one (but the second was aired as an individual episode later).

I am glad they skipped over the human villian.

Hmmm...confusing. Will it still be relevant as episode 5 or is it being skipped to be played later as a different episode because it is not important to the story? I don't want to miss anything important.

This great, now the dinobot will apear earlyier they supposeally. yes.

the dinobots are coming! the dinobots are coming, i did not know this, this is great!!

NOOOOOOO!!!!!

Not this early!!!!

Figures. They have a smaller than expected viewer turnout, so CN decides to flip episodes around to try and gain more viewers. So sad. But typical of that station. I give it a few more weeks until they start flipping them back and forth and changing airing times.

I had nothing to do with this

(Makes another human villain disappear )

They choose a terrible air date in the first place, 10 a.m. on a saturday, when most people now a days are asleep. Why not like right before toonami comes on?

I wish they'd bump it to a later time slot. There's no way I can wake up that early.

TheMuffin wrote:Figures. They have a smaller than expected viewer turnout, so CN decides to flip episodes around to try and gain more viewers. So sad. But typical of that station. I give it a few more weeks until they start flipping them back and forth and changing airing times.

Do you know what they were expecting and what they got?

SolCross wrote:I wish they'd bump it to a later time slot. There's no way I can wake up that early.

I feel the same way. I caught the last couple minutes of it yesterday and it looked kinda alright.

A- Prowl, he realy doing good by me, plus he uses David Kaye's Megatron voice(whycouldn't he do both Prime and Megs? He's so good at evil!?!)

B- That ski sled that BB did, I use to do something like that with my G1 fig. I'd pull his arms out, extend his legs and have him take off ready to ram whatever was in his way.

So anyhow, I saw on Sunday it shows at 11am. I figured "OK I'll get up for that".

Man it started with some Robin Hood thing, and I went back to sleep.

Now I don't know about some pulled show, but hopefully it's pulled like I hope the rest of this series is so that it can be redrawn!

TheMuffin wrote:Figures. They have a smaller than expected viewer turnout, so CN decides to flip episodes around to try and gain more viewers. So sad. But typical of that station. I give it a few more weeks until they start flipping them back and forth and changing airing times.

have we got the raitings for TF:A yet?

I have to admit, I'm totally uninterested in the human supervillains, and I hope that story arc runs its course soon. I was anxious to get past the next episode so we can see the episode with the Dinobots and then the episode in which we learn about Ratchet's past. While we're getting that, I also don't like that episodes are being skipped over and shown out of order.

What do you expect, they had alot of potential in the writing staff, but skimped to much in the art department.

Even my Nieces and Nephews can't sit through the human parts, and they liked the "other robots" (in other words, past series bots) alot better.

They realy screwed this up. I can understand wanting to take the movie and make it kid friendly, but the imagry in this show is just infantile, which on average, kids don't like(it insults them).

Liege Evilmus wrote:the imagry in this show is just infantile, which on average, kids don't like(it insults them).

QTF!

I've been saying it all along, kids don't like that! Hasbro tried so hard to cater to kids that they ended up catering to no one. Kids are way quicker to dismiss this sort of thing as baby-ish than we are. Wait til they see the supervillains. Kids that remember the Unicron trilogy are going to stare at the screen in absolute shock and disbelief. And it appears that Cartoon Network figured it out has begun removing episodes starring the supervillains. They're desperately trying to save what little audience they have for this trainwreck.

Predacon Rampage wrote:They choose a terrible air date in the first place, 10 a.m. on a saturday, when most people now a days are asleep. Why not like right before toonami comes on?

You're not the target audience. The show is made for children. And children get up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons.

The creators have stressed adamantly that the show is for children.

But who says kids don't like this stuff? I used to wonder how they could, til I got a better look at the crap that used to entertain me as a kid. For pete's sake I used to watch a popsicle stick with googly eyes on Nickolodeon every afternoon. Most young children will watch any cartoon; this one shouldn't really be an exception. I used to get up on Saturday mornings at 7:30am (on purpose) and I watched ALL the cartoons, which were of varying quality.

Uhh...I'm pretty sure they previously said they wanted to please both new and old fans, but that some sacrifices had to be made to please the newer audience.

Moonbase2 wrote:The creators have stressed adamantly that the show is for children.

But who says kids don't like this stuff? I used to wonder how they could, til I got a better look at the crap that used to entertain me as a kid. For pete's sake I used to watch a popsicle stick with googly eyes on Nickolodeon every afternoon. Most young children will watch any cartoon; this one shouldn't really be an exception. I used to get up on Saturday mornings at 7:30am (on purpose) and I watched ALL the cartoons, which were of varying quality.

I remember that stick guy, that was when most of the people I know gave up on Nickolodeon.

As for kids watching anything, Hell I am the personification of that. If it was animated, I loved it. Still, if you wanna know the truth, I could never sit through Hanna-Barbara's crap or Tom and Jerry with the red bow ties.

Saying kids will watch anything would be like saying Elmo's World will work for a 10 year old, when in truth it's ment for toddlers and the stoned 23 year old that had to baby sit his niece

Now my Nieces and Nephews are of a decent young to older age range. I had them all on the phone earlier, and yes I did my proper unclie duties and got them all hooked on mosters and robots from birth.

When I asked them what they thought of new Transformers, they didn't say anything. When I told them I wouldn't get mad, they said they liked some of the robots, but it was still stupid.

Kids have taste, when it comes to Transformers, they are looking for something more action packed and somewhat mature. This show is not delivering on a whole.

Cartoon Network had best start retooling. The writing has alot of potential, but the imaging....

But don't feel to bad Animated, Beast Wars went through the same thing(but on way less of a scale), so go on, learn from them.

On a side note, I realy feel this is a karmatic kick in the ass for once again having staffers blatently saying "tough to the old school fans, this is what we want to do"

Realy, what other franchise keeps doing that!?!

They definitely did some things to please seasoned fans, but it's obvious who they are really going for. I mean, I enjoy the show just fine, but I'm under no impression that they are writing it for my demographic. I just go along with the silliness.

I read somewhere, though, that CN's viewership is like, 25 or 30% adults. Most of that is obviously Adult Swim, but I wonder how many of us actually watch the daytime stuff. I have it on due to a small child, when he is home. He really likes that Chowder show, and I have to admit it is...entertaining.

Edit: Obviously, a ten year old won't watch Elmo, as it's for toddlers. But I bet he'll watch most things for ten year olds. Let's see, when I was ten I watched everything from My Little Pony to Batman:The Animated Series. I had my favorites, and some I didn't like all that great, but the channels barely ever deviated from my cartoons. Some kids will like Animated, some won't, but by default it's gonna be watched.

I think because of the great success of the movie, they thought that any sort of Transformers Cartoon Series would work. Changing the style of art is an odd thing for them to have done, but I'm 100% sure that they haven't exactly lost any children viewers since the last cartoon, Cybertron.

Seriously, when I was a kid on Saturday Morning, i'd watch anything aslong as it wasn't girly and didn't have faeries in it. I never gave a **** whether how bad the cartoon animation was, heck, what kind of kid does? I'm pretty sure a hefty amount of kids were drawn into the Transformers Universe through the movie, and Animated is one thing that'll probably keep them jooked.

I don't why any of us should be concerned about whether or not CN draws in viewers. It's a cartoon series. We the fans, have nothing that can stop it from running, because seriously, what percentage of fans contribute to the people watching Transformers Animated during a Saturday morning? I'm guessing 10% out of all the viewers.