Tooned In: Transformers toys commercials (1984-1985)

September for MeTV Toons just got a bit more interesting. We know that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles begins that month, but they’re bringing along…STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES for weekends. I did not have that on my Bingo Card. I’m guessing it’s Paramount or CBS or whoever now (also who you have to go through to get TMNT), but it being Filmation piques my interest. It’s probably just the IP override that allowed Warner to release the DC Filmation shows, though. But also on weekends…we have a deep Hanna-Barbera cut in Where’s Huddles, and an understated entry in Linus the Lionhearted, which apparently has not been seen in reruns at all.

Now, as promised, we’re returning to the world of advertising, and with commercials that are… more than meets the eye. And for toys for which we almost got a dandy little Saturday Morning cartoon on CBS but fortunately got a more epic syndicated series.

We’ll start with the first 15 minutes or so of this link. Watch along:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg-QxY8bJ3Y&t=10s

Our first look at the Transformers began with ads for the Marvel Comics series. It and G.I. Joe started with these really ambiguous animated commercials where you didn’t know if it was a cartoon, a toy, and then the very end reveals it’s for a comic book. It’s close to the look of the animated series, but you can tell the models are a bit off, especially with black-helmeted Megatron. As he’d often do, Optimus Prime ends the presentation by coming to turn the tide, then fades into the well-known first cover of the original Marvel miniseries. Did I mention that the Transformers get to meet Spider-Man? I don’t think enough people talk about that.

Now THERE’S the toys. And the introduction animation is now combining the Marvel ad with footage from the Sunbow show. Leading to the unintentionally funny moment where you see cartoon Megatron with his proper silver head, then in the very next scene we get black-headed Megs from the comic commercial. Optimus Prime is the headline toy being shown here, as well he should. Only the kids don’t know anyone’s names, it seems. “Autobot commander!” “Decepticon leader!” and all that. Only we never actually see the latter, there’s no Megatron sightings. It’s just Prime and the seeker jets. And those kids! Get used to the part where they lip synch to the digitized “Robots in disguise!” lyric, and their convoluted faces. Like this one, where the kid “sings” while also trying to be like Popeye, apparently.

Next ad starts with stop motion animation of the toys. Same as last spot, only now we get to see Megatron. Elsewhere, I watched a commercial for the Gun Robo Microman line that Megs came from, and am reminded of the other robot guns that were a part of it. Some of these actually got stateside back in the day, I remember my friend having “Browning”. My idea was, and I wonder if some comic or some other purveyor of Transformer deep cuts ever thought of the idea of having the other Gun Robo characters be Megatron’s elite guard?

More stop motion, more Marvel spot animations. Here, we’re spotlighting Starscream and Thundercracker, and Jazz and Sideswipe. Call me crazy, but Starscream seemed plain compared to his blue colored brethren. Skywarp and his black-and-purple color scheme also just seemed cooler. Again, no one is named, and a kid shouts to “get more Autobots!” Yes, parents, if you don’t start forking cash out soon, it’ll be your fault if we’re all overrun by Decepticons! The “robots in disguise” kid gives a Paddington-style hard stare as he lip synchs.

YES! Here’s Soundwave at last! Albeit in lighter colors than his Sunbow form would be. What can be said about him and his cassette minions that hasn’t? Great idea for interaction between toys, as you had a “family” you had to complete. Just wait, Hasbro would do that one better in the next series. RID kid here may be a relative to Kevin Dunn. Trailbreaker and Mirage are being tormented by the “Decepticon Communicator”, I’m guessing the names weren’t set in stone when these commercials were being made. Also, the two Autobot cars happen to be the ones I pinched from one of my classmates. Once again, the “get more Autobots!” call is made to kids at Toys ‘R’ Us, Child World, et al.

It’s 1985, and the Dinobots are here! And by now we’re fully using Sunbow animation/footage, along with the toys getting custom lyrics. They amount to changing “Autobots wage…” to “Dinobots wage…” but the thought is there. RID kid looks like he’s in fear of something.

We take a break from the actual TF’s toys to promote Coleco’s Transformers Power Cycle, with the help of the Marvel-era character designs. It’s one of those plastic tricycles, except flip the front panel and twist the handlebars and you get a robot…sort of? It reminds me more of the vehicle modes of the Gobots, where you still saw their faces. And speaking of which…

There’s this next spot, featuring voiceovers by Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, who basically tell us that only the Transformers are the Transformers, screw all the other changing robot lines! I don’t think it’s out there now, but there was a commercial break for Challenge of the Gobots that hilariously played this ad. And while I’m sure they were targets, there WERE also bootleg Diaclone, Microman, etc. releases at the time. That was how I got Frenzy/Rumble/the blue one. No, never got anyone besides Buzzsaw until I became a collector/retro re-releases. Anyway, this was during the second line which introduced the rubsigns that only Hasbro’s products would use. Including another unique promotion coming up. They were all right, but I always preferred the standard Autobot and Decepticon stickers.

And we arrive at the other prompt to “collect them all”: the combiner teams. Starting with the Constructicons. First, construction vehicles were usually cool to younger boys like myself. Second, the lime green color of the team got your attention. No brainer so far, but then came the real Hook (no pun intended)…the six robots could form the limbs and body of a bigger robot, ala Voltron. Thus we get the Constructicon final form: Devastator. Never mind that he really didn’t hold up compared to what we’d get, both figuratively and literally. I remember it being hard to try and move him without one of the arms falling off, for instance. As a result, Devastator becomes one of those dreaded Moving Bricks, kind of like the LJN WWF figures. As it is, here he’s scary enough for Inferno and Tracks.

Angry Ron Howard sings “Robots in disguise” for Jetfire and Shockwave. Another kid claims “Shockwave will stop him [Jetfire]!” But…I think possible lawsuits from the Macross bunch will do the trick. Interestingly enough, we see Jetfire in his pre-Skyfire form animated in the Sunbow style, so closest we get to a forbidden door.

Another subteam debuts next: the Insecticons. Interestingly, you get a brief glimpse of some yellow robots in the animated portion…meant to be the toy-exclusive Deluxe Insecticons? Animation mistake? Had to be the former, because we know G1 Transformers always paid strict attention to detail! And the Autobots send the Dinobots after them…really? Dinosaurs to fight insects? What bullies!

Spot for the new Autobot cars and Decepticon jets. To differentiate Thrust, Dirge, and Ramjet from the originals, in the cartoon their nosecones are kept up in robot mode, though you could do either with the toys. That’s pretty much all there was to that one.

Oh yeah, time for the Tape Deck Wars to begin, when Rumble brings (in the words of the announcer) “an innocent radio” to Decepticon HQ, but something isn’t right. Soundwave (gets to talk, always a plus): “Autobot intruder!” Rumble: “Where?” Blaster : “…in your pants!” (Yes, he too had Black Vulcan’s voice, I had to…) Alas, Blaster has yet to obtain his own cassette troops, so he has to settle for Optimus Prime as backup. He towers over the Autobot leader too, and if I remember he might be almost as tall as Devastator! I’ve noticed that the kids got less insistent on getting more Autobots at this point, instead the last few ads have mainly just been “CHARACTER!” “CHARACTER will stop him!” Also of note is a disclaimer saying Blaster is “not a working radio.” I think, however, he and/or Soundwave in Japan had a little insert you could use to make them so.

So, the Decepticons have the Constructicons/Devastator, how will the Autobots counter this? With Omega Supreme! Chris Latta/Starscream gets to narrate this commercial for the first in heightening stakes for the big Autobot base robots everyone had to have, culminating in…you’ll see…

Next, Megatron introduces us to the “most evil Decepticons of all,” Blitzwing and Astrotrain, the Triple Changers. So they’re evil because they have two vehicle modes? What kind of ableism existed on Cybertron anyway? Blitzwing almost became somewhat interesting when they teased his exile from the Cons post-movie, but alas, stores weren’t selling him anymore, so Octane was shoved into the runaway role. Don’t feel too bad, because he was one of the best parts of Transformers: Animated. Also, Perceptor is here on behalf of the Autobots, and unlike Blaster, he is touted as a working telescope. I wonder if any of you out there tried to bring him into school to use for science class?

Oh boy…it’s the Jumpstarters. Don’t be fooled how much commercial editing makes them look cool, they’re the Jumpstarters. You’ll get to do those graceful transformations one time out of ten. That said, they’d be right in place with the simpler budget Transformer toys of today with their one-step changes and all.

Now we’re talking again! It’s time for the Minispies! This was how Hasbro introduced the aforementioned rubsign stickers. Huffer and Cliffjumper allow this yellow car they never saw before into The Ark, only for it to try and crack Teletraan’s codes or something. The jig is up when the Autobots arrive and find the stranger in car mode, and reveal the Decepticon insignia. And yes, Cliffjumper means we get Casey Kasem on this ad. F—ing ponderous, man! So, first, yeah, minispies were a series of nondescript, less detailed Transformers cars, smaller than most of the minicar bunch of Bumblebee and friends. Their two defining qualities were: 1) they were motorized, “pull ‘em back and watch ‘em go” toys, and more importantly, 2) they had the rubsigns, but you didn’t know which until you got them and rubbed the sign to find out what side the spies were on. And how you got these Minispies was from buying the 1985 editions of the original six Autobot Minis (Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Brawn, Gears, Windcharger, and Huffer) that would have the extra character included. Hasbro sure knew how to move their merchandise and concepts! Free robots that introduced a change you’d have to use in your storytelling? Sure! But going back to the commercial…I have a lot of questions. Why did the Minispy feel like going back to vehicle mode would prevent suspicion? Couldn’t he turn around quickly and be all, “Oh, hey guys” when the Autobots got back? How did Cliffjumper and Huffer know they had to touch the rubsign to get the truth? Did Optimus brief them about spies running amok (not Runamuck) and warn them about rubsigns? If he did, how come the other minicars didn’t touch the spy when he first arrived? And don’t get me started on the idea of Transformers accosting other Transformers to rub their front bumpers. Imagine if Arcee started her career as a spy! Forget the mass robot death we got in The Movie, they could use the sexual harassment as an excuse to jettison all the old characters! It would be slightly less traumatic to all the young Transformers fans, just a bit less.

The Dinobots ad repeats a few times in the compilation after this. The second of which changes the dialogue to, “You can imagine the Autobots create Dinobots.” Which brings to mind the She-Ra ads where they had to say, “You can pretend!” Because Mattel apparently thought girls have no imagination.

Now we have the same commercials, only with the second season Transformers theme song instead of the original. But OH MY GOD…if the “Robots in Disguise” portions aren’t horrifying enough, they ADD to this by having the kids’ eyes GLOWING while they deliver their lip synched line. Way back when, when Rhino put some of these ads on their DVD sets, they had to blur out the kids’ faces. I like to think it wasn’t privacy issues, it was to keep these sets from getting PG-13 ratings.

We’ll pick up next time with the 1986 line. More combiners, more new characters, and THE MOVIE! Or you can keep watching the video and get ready for my riffing.