Transformers

TRANSFORMERS
Made by: Filmation
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: 1984

Most people will remember the toys better than they will the cartoon series: they were heavily advertised, expensive, and if you twisted part of them the wrong way - which was easily done - an arm or leg fell off, never to be repaired again. There was a feature-length film made of these ‘Robots in Disguise’, with such credible artists as Orson Welles and Eric Idle on vocal duties, but the TV series was made with slightly less care and cash. Basically, the Transformers were robots, waging a war between good and evil, who could masquerade as ordinary, every day vehicles. The chief goodie was the grandly-named Optimus Prime, who lived in a dormant volcano, and his principal adversary was Megatron, leader of the Decepticons (name was a bit of a give-away, really), who lived in an elaborate desert complex, and was assisted by Ravage and Soundwave. Soundwave had to be the most useless of Transformers, as his alternative guise was as a tape-recorder, which obviously made him completely immobile, and reliant on someone wanting to play the latest Michael Jackson single. There was also Ironhide, some kind of people-carrier, and various other helicopters, juggernauts and milk-floats; but this was very definitely a boys’ cartoon, unless you were a girl into cars, guns, robots and sparse plot-lines. Boys didn’t care - they were too busy smashing their Transformers into each other and breaking various vital components. Strangely, Hollywood director Michael Bay thinks that the Transformers are due a revival (surely he's in a small minority?), and they're due to make their live action film debut in 2007.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 2/10

(Thanks to www.classickidstv.co.uk for the borrowed pic)