Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The Transformers - Part 1

After the Federal Communications Commission did away with regulations that prohibited toy companies from broadcasting cartoons based on their products in 1984, The Transformers began with a three-episode miniseries (later titled More Than Meets the Eye) that introduced audiences to Optimus Prime, Megatron and their armies, as they travelled from the metal world of Cybertron to Earth in search of new sources of energy. The final episode ended on an open note, should the series prove popular enough to continue, which it did. A standard season's worth of 13 more episodes were commissioned, expanding the Transformers universe in which the Dinobots, Constructicons and Jetfire (the latter called Skyfire in the series) made their debut. With popularity rising, the second season soon followed in 1985 at a mammoth 49 episodes (in order to bring the total up to 65, for syndication). Dozens of new characters were introduced throughout the season, including the Triple Changers, the combining teams the Aerialbots, Stunticons, Combaticons and Protectobots, and more new Autobot cars and Decepticon planes, while many new ideas and concepts began to establish the history of the cartoon universe.

These 65 episodes were exported to Japan in the same year, where their airing order was restricted and the series was broadcast under the title of Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers. An OVA exclusive to Japan entitled Scramble City was released which cast focus on the combining teams and introduced Ultra Magnus, Metroplex, Ratbat, Trypticon, Blaster's cassettes although it does not perfectly fit into the continuity of the American series due to its different origin story for Trypticon (known as Dinosaurer in the Japanese version).

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