The Energon Pub

The Transformers Collector's Club just sent out the following exciting BotCon update to their members via e-mail.

Here is the latest on BotCon guests:


HASBRO REVEALS TRANSFORMERS HALL OF FAME’S INAUGURAL MEMBERS

TRANSFORMERS Fans May Participate in Selecting One Additional Robot
to Join Hall of Fame’s 2010 Class


Pawtucket, R.I. (May 10, 2010) — After more than 25 years of “MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE” action, Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS) is launching the TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame that will honor those influential in creating and building this iconic entertainment brand as well as actual “ROBOTS IN DISGUISE.”

In 2010, Hasbro will induct four individuals into the TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame who helped shape the global entertainment brand that has spawned popular action figures, comic book series, multiple animated series, video games and two blockbuster live action movies. The inductees include:

Bob Budiansky: While working as an editor for Marvel Comics in 1983, Mr. Budiansky named and wrote the personality profiles for most of the first 20 or so TRANSFORMERS characters. He then became the editor of the very first TRANSFORMERS mini-series, which led to his scripting most of the next 50 issues of the monthly TRANSFORMERS comic book. As he continued working with the brand on behalf of Hasbro, he named and wrote the packaging copy and personality profiles of dozens more TRANSFORMERS, and developed story treatments as new lines of TRANSFORMERS were introduced.

Peter Cullen: Mr. Cullen is a voice actor best known for providing the English voice for the wise and heroic AUTOBOT leader OPTIMUS PRIME in the popular 1980s cartoon series “The TRANSFORMERS” and in the 1986 animated film “The TRANSFORMERS: The Movie”. He reprised the role again in 2007 and 2009 in the live action TRANSFORMERS movies, and will return for the third installment slated for 2011. Additionally, he has provided the voice of five other TRANSFORMERS robots during his career.


Yoke Hideaki: While working at TAKARA TOMY, Mr. Hideaki invented the Micro-Robot segment within the MICRONAUTS toy line, which featured the engineering innovation of transformation in action figures that were no more than 3 to 4 inches tall. TRANSFORMERS characters MEGATRON, SOUNDWAVE and RAVAGE can trace their origins to Mr. Hideaki’s efforts. He acted as liaison between TAKARA TOMY and Hasbro during the early years of their business relationship.


Kojin Ohno: Mr. Ohno started his career at TAKARA TOMY, working on the design of the Microman and Diaclone toy lines, which would later become one of the inspirations for the TRANSFORMERS toy line. Mr. Ohno created SUNSTREAKER, which is considered the first “car to robot transforming toy”. He was also instrumental in the introduction of Beast Wars TRANSFORMERS for the Japanese market. He helped design toys for both live action TRANSFORMERS movies. He takes great pride in being the person who designed the largest TRANSFORMERS toy from Generation 1: FORTRESS MAXIMUS.



Budiansky, Cullen, Hideaki and Ohno will all attend the 2010 TRANSFORMERS convention (known as BotCon) in Orlando, FL and will be officially inducted into the TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame during the festivities on Saturday night, June 26, 2010.


Hasbro will also induct five iconic characters into the TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame. Heroic AUTOBOTS OPTIMUS PRIME and BUMBLEBEE, as well as evil DECEPTICONS MEGATRON and STARSCREAM, will be in the first class of robots honored with admission as chosen by Hasbro’s TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame internal panel of judges.

In addition, TRANSFORMERS fans around the world may visit transformers.com starting today and cast their online vote to select a fifth robot to join the inaugural class.


The ballot of finalists was created with input from several TRANSFORMERS collector fan media sites, which conducted their own online polling to ensure the ballot represented the robots that most resonate with fans. The ballot features SOUNDWAVE, GRIMLOCK, DINOBOT, SHOCKWAVE and JAZZ. Fans may cast votes daily from now until May 28. The winning robot will be revealed at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony at BotCon on June 26, 2010.


First introduced in 1984 by Hasbro and Takara as a toy line, the TRANSFORMERS brand has provided kids with hours of MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE fun with their action figures that convert from robot to vehicles and back again. Legions of boys around the world grew up creating fantastic adventures and battles set on both the planet CYBERTRON and Earth that featured the “good-guy” AUTOBOTS and the “bad-guy” DECEPTICONS. Since then, more than 7500 robots have been introduced, with five receiving the distinction of being in the first TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame class.

For more information on BotCon and everything else Transformers related, always trust Seibertron.com, the ultimate Transformers resource!

Bud got in, but Simon Furman didn't? Budanski barely even remembers the work he did on Transformers. Ah well, he did shape a lot of the personalities of the first Gen guys, though, so I guess it's fair in a sense. Just not fair in the larger sense of the word.

Black Bumblebee wrote:Bud got in, but Simon Furman didn't? Budanski barely even remembers the work he did on Transformers. Ah well, he did shape a lot of the personalities of the first Gen guys, though, so I guess it's fair in a sense. Just not fair in the larger sense of the word.

On the Shout! Factory interviews he seems to remember a lot of the work he did on Transformers, especially when it came to the initial character creation. I actually think Budianksi's early stories were better than anything Furman ever really came up with, I just think Bob ran out of gas after a while and didn't know what to do next. Ratbat leading the Decpticons, like, seriously? However, I feel both of them deserve HOF induction, really.

Never really heard of any of these guys. You gotta be deep into the folklore to actually know the names behind a comic or cartoon. Im not that deep into it. But much respect to all of them for playing a part in creating my childhood passion.

I saw the email in my inbox and though it was about registration.

That's a cruel thing to do, knowing so many people are looking forward to registering "first thing" this week.

Black Bumblebee wrote:Bud got in, but Simon Furman didn't? Budanski barely even remembers the work he did on Transformers. Ah well, he did shape a lot of the personalities of the first Gen guys, though, so I guess it's fair in a sense. Just not fair in the larger sense of the word.

Simon Furman will probably most likely get in next year, which is kind of funny in a twisted ironic sort of way, since he's stated that he he always seemed to be the second guy to write The Transformers for Marvel US, Marvel UK, and Dreamwave anyway; it was only when IDW got rights did he finally get a chance to be the first writer for a Transformers series.

Now if not in by the 3rd year then I'll agree that something is not right.

I think all these guys definitely deserve it. I also think Furman, the guy who did the music to the G1 cartoons, and the janitor to the studio should get into the HoF.

"Hideaki" is his first name, "Yoke" is his surname. Seems Hasbro messed up there (unless they were going for a "last name first name" format, but they still put the "Mr."s with his first name).

I wonder why I did not get an e-mail.

Very disappointed with the list of guests. As for inductees, it does say firsts, not bests.

How do you vote? When I click that link it just takes me to the (rather empty) Hasbro NZ Webpage.

I thought weird al would be at the convention......

I'm happy with this list especially with the inclusion of the Japanese creators. I would've liked to have seen the inclusion of the gentleman who created Convoy but this is a good start. Down the line I'd like to see the individuals from Hasbro, Sunbow, and Lauren/Baccal get their due. I'd think it would be funny to induct GI Joe since it was the money from that line that allowed Hasbro to buy the Transformers.

Besides Peter Cullen I have no idea who any of those guys are...but in a cheesy excuse to use "Furmanism" you what he'll say since he didn't get in?

SHEEEAAAGH!!!!!!

Yeah I know, not funny...

Dread_Wing wrote:How do you vote? When I click that link it just takes me to the (rather empty) Hasbro NZ Webpage.

Yeah, their website is so bad it looks like FunPub designed it. I modified the link to make it more direct, try that out and let me know if you have any firther problems.

--B-- wrote:I saw the email in my inbox and though it was about registration.

That's a cruel thing to do, knowing so many people are looking forward to registering "first thing" this week.

Mr. Savage certainly has had fun toying with us this year, hasn't he?

Can we have this thread sticky-ed or something to the top of the forum? That way I don't have to keep searching for it in order to vote each day. Thank you.

I wish I was going to Botcon but oh well one day...