CBS Transformers: The First Pitch part 1: Backstory

“More Than Meets The Eye” has already released in syndication, but Hasbro wanted to go with a major TV network, as the network would have picked up the costs of the show and they would have a ready station for the show, every network affiliate that carried the network’s Saturday morning programming. CBS was chosen for whatever reason. That’s not a complaint. I just couldn’t tell you why CBS was chosen over NBC and ABC. I don’t recall ABC ever carrying anything from Marvel Productions until 1987’s Little Clowns Of Happytown, VERY loosely based on the line of clown figurines. (I still have my Super Clown.) CBS did have some of their adventure and comedy shows, while NBC did all of their Marvel Comics based superhero shows.

Due to the rivalry between Marvel Productions and Marvel comics mentioned in Chris McFeely’s video, in case you thought animation didn’t trump comics in the media pecking order even back then because it was still TV, Jeffery Scott’s pitch ignored everything they already did in the miniseries and created an entire new concept from scratch than Hasbro had accepted from Marvel Comics’ Jim Shooter and the characters developed by Bob Budiansky. What came out was so far removed from what we know that it feels like an entirely different product from the start. Already this is a bad idea because kids would be trying to reconcile the two concepts. If you don’t think so, adults were still trying to force the comic and cartoon we got into one continuity despite more contradictions than the live-action movies. The comics were eventually forced to use the Floro Dery character models for the comics but the early issues used the toys as how they drew the Transformers.

Thus, the question is whether or not Marvel Productions was as smarter than their comic friends as they believed themselves to be. This portion of our look will have six chapters. The pitch by Scott, completed for February 25th of 1984, is split into backstory, Decepticon character profiles, Autobot character profiles, human character profiles, and something I don’t see enough of in these pitch bibles–sample episodes! We’ll compare them to the actual cartoon during each section, with a wrap-up section that will segue into the second draft. So let’s begin with a look at the story they came up instead of 4 million year old robots activating on Earth to resume their war.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Mystery Men Comics #6

“Now I know how a hamster feels.”

Mystery Men Comics #6

Fox Publications, Inc (January, 1940)

Yes, we return to this comic. For anyone new here, the Tuesday pre-DC slot started as a Blue Beetle slot when the Jaime Reyes version got his own movie. The original Blue Beetle, rookie policeman Dan Garret, debuted in this comic series, but not wanting to do an anthology and just focus on the hero, I moved ahead to his own title…which turned out to be another anthology, just with Blue Beetle front and center. A few different publishers and incarnations followed, with Charlton reimagining Dan’s character before replacing him with Ted Kord, the version DC Comics bought. I had hoped to return to this series, and now here we are. That means hopefully back to the better Dan Garret stories, before the crazy powers, moving to military intelligence during the war, and then back to a cop before Charlton turned him into a magic hero with an extra T in his last name. Break out the Vitamin 2X because the original Dan and company are back in the Spotlight!

[Read along with me here]

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BW’s Daily Video> The Transformers Cartoon Audition Sheets

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Here’s where you can see the sheets for yourself. Don’t forget to stop here for the CBS drafts. We’ll start the first draft tonight.

 

BW Late Nite: How I’d Make A Late Night Talk Show

I went through way too much trouble for an image I’m probably never going to use again. I need to get all my assets on all my programs that I can. Anyway, to set this up I need to go into current events for a moment. I tried to keep it to one paragraph so we can get back to what matters, but due to 2025 being…2025 it still trickles in now and then. Sorry.

For those of you in the archives or don’t follow American late night television, talk show host and former The Man Show and Win Ben Stein’s Money co-host Jimmy Kimmel decided to go conspiracy theorist on his ABC show Jimmy Kimmel Live or whatever it’s called because I never watched it. Days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk during a live gathering at a college with his wife and two young children watching, Kimmel decided that despite all evidence to the contrary the shooter had to be MAGA because he didn’t want to believe “his side” could possibly kill someone they don’t like in cold blood like that. This got Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group, local station owners whose channels include ABC affiliates in different markets, to decide to refuse to air his show and some advertisers said they’d pull their ads from their show. ABC’s response was to indefinitely cancel the show…for one week. I’ve had shorter vacations. Sinclair and Nexstar as of this writing have opted to stick to their guns. Note that I’m writing this on Tuesday night, so any changes I may miss…and this is just set-up to the actual conversation.

I made a joke in the chat of Literature Devil’s Morning Nonsense stream on YouTube that all the complaints of free speech violations by Kimmel’s Hollywood supporters (in light of similar firings on the right, most of which were done on X-Twitter rather than their own shows) meant that if not having a talk show on a major network is a free speech violation (tell that to Tucker Carlson, whose firing from Fox News Kimmel celebrated, while Carlson just moved his show to X-Twitter as it was starting to add video podcast options to its service), then my not having a talk show must be a violation of my free speech. “Where’s my talk show?” It was just a gag making fun of a silly idea as there are plenty of other platforms that aren’t as prestigious as the major network spot (and probably won’t pay him as much money)…but I got to thinking, and this is it for the political stuff, “what if I DID have a talk show?”

It’s actually a running “show” in my mental streaming TV, but it will never happen. The bit there is that a bunch of drunk guys made a move to prove they could make any idiot a talk show sensation, and I was the idiot chosen. That came off more like a high budget version of Attack Of The Show than anything on current late night talk shows…so how would I run a BW Late Nite talk show more in line with those? Well, I thought it would be a fun article, to challenge all of the rage drama that is dominating conversation right now and reducing my article fodder, so let’s do that.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Godsend #1

“Time to show them what happens when you steal cable TV from your neighbors!”

Godsend #1

About Time Comics (2013)

STORY: Lee Jiles (creator) & Peter Mcleod (writer)

PENCILER: Oski Yanez

INKERS: Eric Dotson & Fletcher Horton

COLORIST: Nate Tingen

LETTERER: Bram Meehan

LOGO DESIGN/SELECTED COVER ART: Ken Hunt

SELECTED COVER COLORIST: John Ercek

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BW’s Daily Video> Shorter Comic Runs VS Longer Stories

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BW-Approved Indiegogo: Lady Midnight

S.A. Rivera, the pen name for YouTube commentator Literature Devil, has released another graphic novel, though this time it’s not connected to his usual Doctor Alpha series. Instead of an ultraviolent story about a supervillain in a world of crap superheroes, he’s going for the supernatural crime thriller with Lady Midnight: Devils Dwell In Silent Springs. It’s not my genre necessarily, but seeing the uphill battle he’s had putting this out and how dedicated he is to it, I felt compelled to give the guy I wake up to five days a week a chance to really find his audience and get this Indiegogo funded. People seem to like his Doctor Alpha books, while his Lady Midnight tale is something he’s worked on during that. He focused on this in between book two and three, a two-part flashback story about how Alpha ended up in prison in the first book.

What challenges has he had? One place he tried to promote it suffered from the current “girlboss” problem. Girlboss characters have ruined heroines, so too many people assume every female protagonist in a crime or action movie gets the stigma of seemingly every modern female antagonist in most of the Hollywood mindset productions. Given LD’s various commentaries against girlbosses it seems highly unlikely that he would write such a character.

The other is possibly why a few of you came here: a prose novel by author Cassandra Clare by the same name, part of her “Dark Artifices” series. I know when I went looking for the Kickstarter, which turned out to already be my mistake as he’s using Indiegogo, most of what I saw was Claire’s series. My guess is that she’s unintentionally getting all his search results right now. The two properties have nothing in common save the name and being an urban fantasy story. Rivera is forming his own universe, with its own magic system, and is not part of Clare’s universe, nor is he pretending to be. I don’t know for sure if this is part of the problem he’s having but it’s worth noting as a possibility.

So, knowing there’s diversity in my audience for story types and wanting to see a project he’s so passionate about make it, I thought I’d use my dinky little platform to help. So what’s the story about?

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