CBS Transformers> The Production Notes part 1

I forgot there was a file for notes, but it’s a good thing I checked it before going to the next draft. This file contains feedback from the first draft. It also includes hand written brainstorming thoughts that are hard for me to go over in the same level of detail. For this one you really should download the “notes file” if you’re following along to see what’s in there. All the stuff I’m using comes from The Sunbow Marvel Archive and is worth checking out. Since the brainstorming is the typical random thoughts I’ll skim over it and focus on the collected, thought out notes. Plus those I can copy/paste using Adobe’s free Acrobat reader, with some fixing on my part. These are old documents scanned into the computer. The artifacts on the paper sometimes confuse it.

For this first section we’ll be looking at the first feedback from Hasbro, insisting on how the toys should be translated into animated form. Remember, the toys already existed, so even if Hasbro didn’t stick to their guns (no pun intended) with the lore, the toys still have to reflect what they’ve got on the store shelves. For Hasbro the point is to sell the toys. If you think that’s lame, and that this is ONLY a toy commercial, remember that the show has to make the toys look good enough for the kids who want them. Think of the shows that aren’t based on toys but still have them. The toys help fund the show. The Gundam franchise out of Japan is filled with various “mobile suit” designs because model builders really like building those robotic suit mecha. Megatron was based on a toy for a different TV show. I had a Star Trek role play set with fake communicator and a “phaser” that shot little plastic disks I lost decades ago. There’s a reason we’re still fans of this show so many years later, and all of the other Transformers media that came out, even for those of us who didn’t collect the toys.

I wrote out the article first to see what my word count would be like, giving me an idea on where to break this up. Tonight we’ll be taking a look at the first nine pages of the collected notes by the archiver. That’s the first feedback letter from Hasbro (I hope they don’t still use that number or someone just got doxxed) and the first set of brainstorming notes. What will we learn about the toys and how the brainstorming session went?

The first two pages are a letter from Jim Engle to Mick Feld, dated January 17, 1983. I do not know who these people are. The best I could find about Engle is that he’s in the staff credits for Transformers: The Movie, and that’s more than I could find from Feld. Engle must be part of Hasbro and Feld part of either Marvel Productions or Sunbow Productions, the entertainment wing of the advertising agency Hasbro worked with, Griffin Bacal. This is where we see Hasbro’s notes to Marvel Productions so Jeffrey Scott could write a second attempt. It provides an interesting look at how Hasbro was approaching the lore established in prior media and the packaging.

Just so there is no confusion, please be advised of the following “official” names for each Transformer.
#5700 Autobot Minicar Assortment

#5701 VW – Bumblebee
#5702 Porsche – Cliffjumper
#5703 Semi-truck -(orange) – Huffer
#5704 Sports car – Windcharger
#5705 -van –Truck (olive drab) – Brawn
#5706 Pick-up truck (blue) – Gears

I hopefully cleared up the parts garbled by the file and Acrobat. I had to Gears’ listing by hand. Not being a toy guy outside of collecting the figures (if you want all the deep dive stuff ask TJ Omega), I don’t know the point of the numbers. I do know that Bumblebee will STILL not be called Bumblebee in the next pitch. While others have colors listed, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, and Windcharger are the exception. Bumblebee clearly needed it as Toad while the other two weren’t even mentioned in the original pitch so probably that info would have been important. We do have an audio drama where “Cliff Jumper transforms into a red truck”, which only got the color right. And came with a Cliffjumper that was clearly not a truck. Mistakes happened surprisingly often. The next section should (but probably won’t) answer a feud in the toy versus cartoon community.

#5730 Decepticon Mini Cassette Assortment

#5731 Red Robot and Jaguar – Rumble/Ravage

#5732 Blue Robot and Condor – Frenzy/Laserbeak

There you go. Frenzy is blue, Rumble is red confirmed! Marvel Productions screwed it up. Also, Unicron wins at short distance, the Death Star at long distance, Autobots are both Republican and Democrat depending on the time period and individual Autobot because the Decepticons are communists, tyrants, and bullies because they’re actually the evil ones. You can all go home now.

#5750 Autobot Car Assortment

#5751 Contach I (yellow} — Sunstreaker
#5752 Contach II (red) – Sideswipe
#5753 4-wheel Drive Vehicle (jeep) – Hound
#5754 Ligier – Mirage
#5755 Datsun Z – Bluestreak
#5756 Z Police – Prowl
#5757 Porsche – Jazz
#5758 Vanette (red) – Ironhide
#5759 Ambulance – Ratchet
#5760 Lancia – Wheeljack
#5761 Camper (black) – Trailbreaker

I didn’t repair that wrong. The Countach is written as “Contach” both times in the file. It’s clear even through the “dust”. I guess that tells us what type of Formula 1 race car Mirage is supposed to be. Both Bluestreak and Prowl (and later Smokescreen) are Datsun Zs, but Prowl is the police version they used in Japan. All kids needed to see was a police car. Ironhide is a “vanette”, which I can only assume is the same as a minivan. If you ever wondered what specific model car the Autobots are, there you go.

#5780 Decepticon Plane Assortment

#5781 Silver – Starscream
#5782 Blue – Thundercracker
#5783 Black – Skywarp

This is the cleanest section of the letter, and I still had to replace the “1” with “#”. I guess the colors are technically accurate, though Skywarp has a bit more purple and Starscream is usually known for his red highlights rather than silver body. The only G1 seeker I ever owned from the original line is Dirge, though I do have a classics Starscream. My seeker team is woefully undermanned. (Underbotted?)

#5790 Decepticon Communicator (Cassette Recorder) – Soundwave
includes Golden Condor Cassette – Buzzsaw
#5793 Decepticon Leader – (gun) Megatron
#5796 Autobot Commander (trailer truck) – Optimus Prime

We’ll be seeing in further brainstorming that they really fought against Megatron as a gun, long before the changing toy rules meant releasing a toy gun impossible, especially one based on a real gun. Megatron’s “Micro Change” counterpart was a toy gun set modeled after the one for The Man From UNCLE, an American spy show that was big in Japan. The idea was that he and other robots, including the “Penny Racers” design used for Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, were disguised as a kid’s toy collection, being a spinoff of Microman, released in the US as Micronauts. They were aliens that happened to be action figure sized in our world. We also see that Soundwave, from the same line, is supposed to be tied to Buzzsaw, the condor he came with, though the show and later comic will focus more on Laserbeak for some reason. This is one of those mistakes I talked about earlier.

At the top of the scanned letter is a handwritten note from Bob Budiansky, who came up with the character names and bios because the ones Jim Shooter and his team came up with while creating the backstory were kind of lame. It simply says “this is it!”, meaning he concurred with the information I guess. I don’t know where the Archive got this letter from.

Page three is one of the brainstorming pages added to the file, though it looks like someone wasn’t just brainstorming a Transformers show. Markings that Adobe Acrobat’s free reader won’t translate to text include a mention of “marsupilami”. All Google brings up is the fictional animal from a 1950s Belgium comic you may know from the 1990s cartoon from back when Disney remembered it was an animation studio, or maybe one from the 2000s I haven’t seen. Also is something about Danny DeVito and Reverend Jim, the character played by Christopher Lloyd when both were on the ABC sitcom Taxi. Apparently it’s something Scott wanted Maddy to pursue or Jack Wood or…I don’t know. There’s some nonsense about “Astrosnik”, which must have been another show idea they were looking into. Some outer space show, followed by something about Gremlins, possibly the 1980s movie.

Then we get something Transformers related, extending to the next page. We’ll explore it more later, when thoughts were collected in typed up form. It’s just a jumble of ideas of an “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers” type story (the movie was one of the inspirations for the first rejected concept, which we’ll see later on as well). It notes that Earth has the most available tech for the glowy orb Decepticons to merge with. It goes into further explanation of how the machine takeover works, and if the collected thoughts don’t go over it, I’ll come back to this. This is why I said following this will be easier if you download the file.

The next page has even more brainstorming, but a lot of it is stuff we saw in the final pitch: the idea of modulating their voices in robot mode but for some reason normal ones in vehicle mode, Optimus’ trailer also being a mobile headquarters for giant robots, the need for fuel, making the “VW Beetle” the comic relief, and so on. They really wanted him to be the comic relief for some reason. Look, I defend comic relief characters when needed, but The Transformers got its comedy from human/Autobot cultural interactions and never needed a comic relief character. It wasn’t that heavy. The plans for the second attempt might have needed one since it involved the Decepticons winning, but we aren’t there yet.

There are also notes about Wendy, at one point writing that the name was rejected. Not that we see. Maybe someone got some confused information. It was Duke that had to be changed to avoid confusion with Hasbro’s other toyline, not Wendy. There are also story ideas of Wendy taking VW to a drive-in…did someone at Marvel Productions hate the name “Bumblebee” that much? Were they a DC Comics fan? Another note is the episode from the pitch about Wendy going on a date.

The file goes to the next feedback letter, and this seems like a good place to stop. We’ll go over that and the next set of brainstorming in our next installment.