I said this is how last week’s Peter Cullen and Tim Curry tribute fest should have ended.
Rescue Bots is the outlier in the “aligned continuity”, a poorly named period in Transformers media history as nothing was aligned. Between all four productions–the War For Cybertron and Fall Of Cybertron game series (including a Nintendo exclusive rail shooter Cybertron Adventures, the Hub series Transformers Prime, this show and its sequel Rescue Bots Academy, and Cartoon Network’s Robots In Disguise, nothing really aligned. Timelines were off, Peter Cullen and Frank Welker were the only actors to be on all of them (minus the Rescue Bot shows, as Megatron never appeared, and Academy as the new animation studio replaced the entire cast), and the designs changed between each of them. Basically, Hasbro set up a way to connect everything, and the usual ego trips by the “smarter than the creators” show makers led to them ignoring everything.
Rescue Bots wasn’t even supposed to be part of the Hub’s side of Transformers. Despite Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime again and Bumblebee’s character growth on Prime being reflected in Rescue Bots, including not being able to talk for most of the series, plus the crossovers between this and Robots In Disguise with Sideswipe and Blurr, the preschool show meant to sell the preschool toys was not intended to be part of the series. Since nobody told them, the show reflected its sister series and became canon by circumstance.
As for Tim Curry, he played Doctor Thaddeus Morocco, one of the few human villains in the franchise I actually like. It’s a short list that includes Circuit Breaker from the Marvel Comics, MECH, and Doctor Archeville from the original series. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Morocco wanted all the high tech stuff on Griffin Rock, the new technology testing ground where Optimus Prime set up the last team of Rescue Bots to help them learn about their home and potentially open friendly relations with Earthlings. Until they were ready, they remained robots in disguise, pretending to be new rescue equipment under the care of the Burns family, a team of rescue specialists. Closest to them was Cody Burns, too young to do the rescue work but old enough to help Heatwave, Chase, Blades, and Boulder (named for the animation studio? coincidence?) learn more about Earth and its ways.
Sadly, it was during this show that Curry had his stroke, leading to him having to bow out of season two, leading to Jonny Rees taking over for the rest of the original show, but tonight’s story is from season one. Though Prime and Morocco don’t interact, which would have been a better topper to the memorial tribute, they’re both here for the season finale.
In this two part episode, Griffin Rock’s lead scientist, Doctor Green, finds a secret chamber, but Cody finds a chamber within the chamber, holding a time machine. In part one he and Doc Green’s daughter Frankie, Cody’s BFF, are drawn into the past along with the Rescue Bots. When the past is altered, our heroes, joined by Bumblebee and Optimus in one of the rare stories where there’s actual battle (no guns by the heroes though Morocco’s “Morbots” get to have them…doesn’t seem fair), must spend part 2 trying to correct history. Are the Burns’ still heroes in this time period, and how was Cody not born in this reality when the rest of his siblings were?
Enjoy! And rest in peace, Peter Cullen and Tim Curry.
Part 1: “It’s A Bot Time
Part 2: “Bot To The Future”
Next week, we’re back to the usual random stuff.
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