The ‘Transformers’ 35th Anniversary: Party Like It’s 1984

35 Years ago the Transformers animated series blasted its way into North American homes. The three-part pilot miniseries “More than Meets the Eye” absolutely blew the minds of a generation of children and launched The Autobots and Decepticons into the pop-culture zeitgeist for decades to come. But how —and more importantly, why— did this come to be such a defining and valuable franchise?

In 1983, Hasbro representatives traveled to Japan to attend the Tokyo Toy Show. At the time, the Japanese market was flush with transforming robots and super robot toy lines. Hasbro saw great potential in the U.S. for such toys, and would purchase the rights to multiple transforming robot toy lines from manufacturer Takara. These lines were called Diaclone, Micro Change, and Mecha. To streamline and simplify the toys for the U.S., Hasbro combined them under a singular moniker: Transformers.
A year earlier, in 1982, Hasbro had great success re-launching its G.I. Joe property with a multimedia approach to marketing. The toy manufacturer teamed up with Marvel Comics to produce a comic book and animated series to accompany their action figure line, in an effort to spur sales of the toys. They would execute this model again with Transformers, and on September 17, 1984 the Transformers animated series premiered. Often referred to as G1, or Generation One, the original animated series set the themes and established characters that would be most commonly associated with the Transformers to this day. (Note: If you are craving even more backstory and some juicy details, check out episode 2 of Season 2 of The Toys That Made Us on Netflix, which focuses exclusively on “Transformers.”)

Here’s the rundown, if you’re not familiar: two factions of autonomous mechanical organisms from the planet of Cybertron are engaged in a civil war spanning millions of years. The peace-loving Autobots, who are militarily outmatched by the brutal Decepticons and on the brink of annihilation, retreat from their home planet in search of a new energy source so that they may survive. The Decepticons intercept the Autobots in space and board their ship, called the Ark. This causes the Ark to crash land on earth. The crashed ship, along with all the Autobots and Decepticons aboard lay dormant for millions of years until they are awakened by volcanic activity that activates the ship’s computers.

The ’80s animated series is far from perfect. Like other series of the time based on toy lines, Transformers included rushed, poorly executed animation, voices didn’t always follow the correct characters, the plot lines could be absolutely silly, and the tone was all over the place. What Transformers did manage to do, however, was completely capture the imagination of millions of young viewers. Our protagonists are living robots from an alien metal planet, and they can change their form to disguise themselves: most of us young, Western viewers had never seen or heard of anything remotely close to this concept. They would, on occasion, deal with relatively complex issues in absurd storylines that ranged from time travel, to climate change and the energy crisis, to questioning consciousness and identity. As off the wall as the episodes could be, there wasn’t a sense of talking down to the audience. Transformers may have been shoddily made on the production side, but the scripts engaged viewers in a way that really made us believe anything was possible.

Another thing that helped Transformers become as iconic as it was: The colorful cast of characters. Each robot’s personality is as unique as their alternate transformation mode. The most popular of all the Transformers has always been the unflappable, heroic leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime. Voiced by the legendary Peter Cullen, Optimus Prime is awe-inspiring, charismatic, selfless, and compassionate father figure, and leader to the Autobots. Optimus was fair, kind, and gentle, even though his physical prowess was so much greater than most of the other Autobots. Optimus was a grizzled war vet, but never resorted to violence if peace was achievable. I’m not exaggerating when I say Optimus helped a generation of kids learn what it meant to be moral and just. Throughout the original series there was a gentle somberness in Cullen’s delivery: he carried the guilt of bringing an intergalactic civil war to earth, endangering all organic life on the planet. The cartoon acknowledged this fact. We, as the audience, felt Optimus take responsibility for us and our wellbeing. He made us feel safe.

The story of the Transformers has been told over and over again in different ways, for different generations and audiences. Earlier this year it was announced that a Transformers: War for Cybertron series was in development with Netflix, ensuring that the robots in disguise will continue to inspire and captivate audiences —and, of course, sell toys— for many years to come.

Where to stream Transformers