A Review of the Transformers episode "Autobot Spike"

A Review by Nick Peron

Dorkive Notes: Anybody reading my other Transformers reviews already know that I cannot stand hardcore Generation-1 Transformers fans. I hate them with a passion. This is mostly on the fact that 98% of them bitch and moan whenever something new in the franchise comes out. If it doesn't look like Generation 1, it sucks according to them. Now I've been a fan of the franchise for over 20 years, I loved the original stuff, but there's on thing I can admit to myself: No matter how much I loved it growing up, it was far from perfect. In a lot of case Generation 1 is as bad as if not worse than some of it's modern incarnations. You ask me the BEST series was Beast Machines . For a time on my website I was going to do a regular feature called "Generation 1 Sucks" which would point out just how bad Generation 1 could be. Here was one of my first inductions the first episode of the second season of the original cartoon "Autobot Spike"

Welcome to the first edition of a new regular feature here at Dorkswithoutfaces, it's called G-1 Sucks. What's G-1 Sucks? Well for those of you that didn't read my Pulitzer Prize winning rant about Transformres Comic books in my last edition of Fucking Comics, it's my argument that the original series of Transformers (referred to by fans as "Generation 1") sucks.

If you aren't a Transformers fan at all (or really just don't give a shit) you are probably going "I already knew that", and that's fine, I'm not here to preach to the converted. No, see this whole series is coming out of the constant bitching, moaning and otherwise ignorant complaining that is consistent in the Transformers fan community. Whenever something new comes out that isn't Generation 1 they complain about it even before they even take a chance to get to know it. The most recent furor from the Transfans these days is the upcoming Transformers live action movie. Adding to a list of various incarnations that Transformer fans complain about without actually taking the time to look at it without comparing it to Generation 1.

Generation 1 is the best apparently. Generation 1 had the best characters, best theme song, best stories, best everything apparently. I'm here today to state that you are wrong. Very wrong. In fact, Generation 1 sucked big time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as sentimental as the rest of you out there, but at least I can acknowledge the fact that really when you look back at it, Generation 1 wasn't as great as you'd like to think. While there were some good stories, most of them were terrible, the music was repetitive and monotonous, there were annoying characters, and the animation always always had flaws, mistakes and sometimes were the product of rushing things to the finish.

If you don't believe me, and my previous rants about Transformer comic book that I wrote for two different editions of Fucking Comics (Here and here) haven't convinced you, you're probably one of those crazy thick headed insane Transformer fans that I've referred to in the past. If you're not, and you still maintain that Generation 1 is the best there every will be, then I'm going to shatter that little false idea of yours with a little something call cold hard reality.

Generation 1 Sucks, and today's first exhibit is the Generation 1 episode entitled "Autobot Spike ", which involves the Autobots human friend Spike being turned into a Transformer.

The one thing that G-1 Fans constantly slam modern incarnations of Transformers is that they focus far too much on human characters. Apparently, Generation 1 is superior and better because it supposedly doesn't focus on human characters. One example they like to cite is the constant spotlight on the human's Rad, Carlos and Alexis in Transformers: Armada , or Kicker in Transformers: Energon , even going so far as complaining about Simon Furman's "reinvention" of G-1 currently being published by IDW because apparently it focuses on human characters. Most recently it's a complaint about how much screen time the Transformers are going to get over the human characters in the upcoming Transformers live action film.

Now while I can agree that focusing on human characters kind of defeats the purpose of a cartoon, comic book or whatever that's based on a toy line whose main characters are giant alien robots from outer space that transform into trucks and cars. But I want to point out that is that the coveted Generation 1 was just as bad, if not worse than any of it's successors.

The comic book published by Marvel was rife with stories that focused on human characters like over weight truckers and families going on vacation and even taking time to focus on Spider-Man as a guest star. The cartoon was not any different.

The Generation 1, focused heavily on the Transformers being on Earth and thus interacting with humans. In the original cartoon the stories featured the humans Spike Wittwicky and his dad Sparkplug who were showcased in almost every episode. They were also joined with Spike's handicapped friend Chip Chase who had to come in occasionally to show the Autobots how to really use a computer, and Carly who became Spike's girlfriend. With the animated film that was released in the 80's we were introduced to Spike and Carly's son Daniel, as well as the addition of Marissa Fairborne to the cast.

If that isn't enough humanoid characters for you, the "fourth" season (which was only three episodes) features the Headmasters and Targetmasters who had humanoid characters that turned into the robots heads and guns, and they were the central focus of these three episodes.

Even in the Japanese episodes humans were constant characters, the Transformers: Headmasters cartoon in Japan focused on the Wittwicky family (specifically Daniel), Transformers: Super-God Masterforce all the characters were humans who merged with a "Transector" to become a robot (Kind of like Power Rangers... Yeah, I know...) and Transformers: Vicotry the Autobots adopted a kid named Jan who tagged along on all their missions and annoyed the fuck out of anyone watching the show.

With the exception of the Beast Wars /Machines cartoons, (which ironically are the two series that fans complain the most about) are the ones with a surprising lack of human characters.

Now I bet a few malcontent Transformer fans out there will try and tell me "Well the human characters didn't get the spot light all the time." And your right, they didn't, but if you're going to try and tell me that there aren't any episodes that focused on human characters, then you should go back and watch episodes like "Surprise Party", "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court", "Sea Change", "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide", "B.O.T." and today's example: "Autobot Spike"

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