Do you remember the 80s TV series Airwolf? The pilot of Airwolf frequently blew up enemies, as you would expect in a show about a military helicopter. Also, the intelligence agency chief - Michael Archangel - wore an eye patch.

Well, in one UK annual comic strip, Archangel’s eye patch was gone, he had both eyes. And they seemed to go out of their way to avoid any killing, featuring sanitised storylines such as Airwolf’s pilot helping return a tiger to the wild. For those of us who had seen the violence in the series, it seemed a bit silly.

It probably won’t surprise you to read that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was rebranded as “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles” over here because the word “ninja” was considered problematic, although the ninjas seen in G.I. Joe weren’t censored.

Let's talk about one of the titans of the decade, the Transformers.

Hands down some of the coolest toys of the decade for sure (originally derived from Takara's Microman/MicroChange and Diaclone toys, but as a kid I didn't know that at the time!). Soundwave was a definitely a standout, with the Sony Walkman and audio cassettes so ingrained in the times already, this was such a cool concept. Also loved the Constructicons and the whole combiner concept like with Devastator. The Dinobots were cool too, Grimlock became a bit of a scene stealer in the show in my opinion. The Insecticons were neat as well, the list goes on and on.

And the show was killer, 2 regular seasons, then the animated movie and the events that unfolded there and carried into a full 3rd season. I want to talk about the events in that 3rd one in a moment, and then what went down with the short "4th season" that was 3 episodes called "The Rebirth" that ended the US series but a separate continuation that happened in Japan.

Before that, here's a great video that runs 8:40 with all the season openings, credits, and also those great commercial bumpers. The voice of that gentleman with "The Transformers will return after these messages", didn't he make you feel like you were in the midst of something epic and very serious going on?



The first 2 seasons were classic Optimus leading the Autobots and Megatron leading the Decepticons and a growing cast of characters. It was set contemporary to the time it aired, 1984 initially. Then came the movie in 1986 taking place after season 2, but time skips ahead to 2005. Unicron is the antagonist, taking things crazy next level as a planet sized Transformer and voiced by none other than Orson Welles very shortly before his passing.



Serious things go down in the movie including the infamous death of Optimus of course, the backlash being so strong that a very last minute decision not to kill Duke in the upcoming G.I. Joe movie was made (accomplished through a voiceover dub since the animation was complete). Megatron himself is nearly killed as well, and famously rebuilt by Unicron into Galvatron voiced by Leonard Nimoy in the movie. Galvatron literally disintegrating the usurping Starscream was quite the scene as well, another shocker that suggested the stakes were a little higher than the show had previously been.

Visually the movie really does have beautiful animation. A big strength, and something I found with a lot of 80's cartoons (and earlier) are those gorgeous painted backgrounds. The Cybertron-like world of Lithone that Unicron destroys in the beginning is a visual feast that stands the test of time and I prefer to much modern animation.

Let's also talk about that soundtrack. Yeah, there's some hair metal content, and the bands involved are actually quite excellent. That opening theme song was performed by Lion which featured guitar hotshot (and one of my heroes) Doug Aldrich. Kick Axe was another seriously great band of the day (not related to the movie, their "Vices" album is a classic), and they did a track for the album as well. Plus Stan Bush with both "The Touch" and "Dare", uplifting and catchy as heck classics. Even Weird Al appears (comedy aside, also quite musically legit) with "Dare to be Stupid".

But equally important beyond the hard rock aspects were the keyboard driven atmospheric pieces performed by Vince DiCola who had just done similar work on the Rocky IV soundtrack the year before. "Death of Optimus Prime" is a particular standout.

After the movie, we head back to television with Season 3. Carrying on from the movie you have the Quintessons having a big role, Galvatron continuing to be the bad guy, and eventually the resurrection of Optimus. The season ends with a greater menace forcing Galvatron and Optimus to form an alliance. Probably my favorite line of the entire series happens at the end when, after defeating the menace and coming to a bit of a crossroads Galvatron says to Optimus, "There will be no war today Optimus Prime. You have earned the respect of Galvatron." They could have ended the series there IMO, it was the perfect closure.

But more episodes were ordered up as mentioned, the 3-part "Rebirth", and it tries to enter new territory both character-wise and with introducing the "Headmasters" concept which are humans inside the heads of the Transformers and providing some level of complementary control to their operations (the idea was that the "fusion" of the two somehow would make them even more effective). Interesting idea, but I did not find the episodes all that great.

Evidently Takara (who were both the Japanese producers of the toyline and also had been importing the US series into Japan up until that point) agreed, and did not like this new season. They continued on with their own series, Transformers: The Headmasters, which picked up after Season 3 but discarded the "Rebirth" episodes. I finally was able to watch this Japanese series on DVD and honestly, it's much better in my opinion. Here is the opening:

Japan would continue to keep G1 going in fact with more series after Headmasters (1987-1988) including Super-God Masterforce (1988-1989), Victory (1989), and Zone (1990).

Transformers...more than meets the eye indeed!!

This is a personal favourite: