Watching G1 from the beginning over the last month.
I've seen them all multiple times before.
But when I was a kid I had not seen all the films I have seen now, read books, comics etc.

Two things that are interesting in the first season of G1:

Peter Cullen delivers some very John Wayne style lines as Optimus Prime. I'm talking about the inflection in his voice, not what is being said. In later seasons he [Cullen] has more fully developed his version of the character, by the time we get to other shows, games, live action movies, no hint of Wayne-isms, "Optimus" the character (as voice) is more fully developed.
Reminds me of the first seasons of The Simpsons, you see some after years of later episodes again and it's a bit painful like "how is THAT Homer's voice?" etc.

I don't mind the John Wayne inflections to Optimus, more amusing than anything.

Another thing I noticed (and this may be a stretch and not deliberate) is how similar Ironhide in G1 is to The Thing from the 60's Fantastic Four comics. His expressions, weird comical insults "Decepti-BUMS!" "Decepti-CREEPS" are very Ben Grimm.

Along with his whole old warhorse, rough as guts on the outside, heart of gold on the inside persona. I never cared for Ironhide as a kid, but now he is really growing on me. He is that character that is always "there", but you know he is ever dependable, when the shit hits the fan, he'll be the first on the front line, the last to leave, and he'll bore everyone shitless for years with rambling "Grandpa Simpson Impossible Stories" (C)TM about what happened - except in Ironhide's case they actually happened, and to him it's just another day on the job.

That to me is the part that makes him most like Marvel's The Thing, all this crazy shit happens around him and he just takes it in his stride and is like "ah well, another day, it's clobbering time for these palookas"



What (if any) stylistic nods have you noticed in G1 characters that may or may not be nods to other fiction, famous actors, other characters etc. Including visual motifs, as well as voice acting, themes etc. Subtle or overt.

 

G1 tracks is heavily based off Thurston Howell III from Giligan's Island. I think even the voice actor (Michael McConnohie) said it himself.

 

Obviously since they were voiced by the same dude, starscream shares a lot of traits with cobra commander

 

Voice influences I've learned about through the years:
Optimus Prime - John Wayne
Brawn - Robert Conrad
Sunstreaker - more "pinched" version of Robert Conrad
Cosmos - Peter Lorre
Tracks - Jim Backus (Thurston Howell III, Mr Magoo)

Yes, Prime is a lot more Wayne-esque at the beginning, with the insults and smack talk to Megs, especially on Sherman Dam: "Junk! That's what you are, JUNK!"
Hard to imagine Prime from later seasons doing that.

 

Peter Cullen's Optimus Prime voice is based on his older brother, not John Wayne. Cullen has confirmed this several times.

 

I've heard that the voice Cullen uses is based on his brother too. Still, you can't deny that the inflection of the voice that is used (especially in the first season of the sunbow cartoon) sounds a lot like Wayne in the original True Grit movie. It's eerily similar, maybe not intentional, but I totally get where people come to that false conclusion.

 

Spock is one of the characters on which Shockwave was based,for logical thinhking and way of speaking.
In a Star Trek sequence I remember that Spock had claimed that his work was just logical approach without emotion(and some members of the crew happily disagreed   but I don't want to go off topic)

 

I met him once at TFcon, and he said the opposite. He said Tracks was based on a character with a similar accent from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis named Chatsworth Osborne Jr.

ShoutFactoryTV : Watch The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Episode : The Solid Gold Dog Tag

He did say Cosmos was based on Peter Lorre.

 

Not a Transformer, but a human Hector Ramirez was pretty clearly based on Geraldo Rivera.

Autobot X is based on Dr. Frankenstein's monster.

In fiction the Masterforce Decepticon Pretenders Blood and Daros are the inspirations for Dracula and the Minotaur. Masterforce is G1, and I guess in the real world the inspiration is reversed.

 

Like, no offense to you, OP, but isn't much of what's been discussed in this thread painfully obvious to basically anyone? What's actually to discuss here, other than the occasional misconception?

 

But he Peter Cullen did confirm it was based on John Wayne as well... Well his earlier voice that is. Maybe it's the later voice that was based more on his older brother and that's why we've gotten two different answers.

 

If you have more to say on that, please do.
I've watched pretty much everything Star Trek (although not a "fan' as such).
Seems obvious, but I never thought of Spock and Shockwave.
Soundwave too seems to rule by logic than emotion. While Megatron is like an angry young child having constant hissy fits, who seems to never learn from his actions, or have any plan other than ruling the earth / having all the energy they need. Then when he was reinvented as Galvatron (g1 animation) he was pretty much insane and even MORE emotional, often ignoring the sage like tactical advice from Cyclonus. It's funny, Shockwave and or Cyclonus would make much better leaders. Megatron manages to stay in power by basically beating or killing anyone that tries to take it from him. Despotron indeed.
Of course comics Megatrons (Marvel, Dreamwave and IDW) was a totally different character.

 

I may go back and put up specific references, time points and lines of dialogue for people to check out themselves.
It may or may not be true. I never said Peter Cullen was directly influenced by John Wayne, it may have been more subtle - but that is like saying musicians have never been influenced by Micheal Jackson or Elvis. I mean come on. The biggest heroic icons in the era when Peter Cullen was young were John Wayne and Superman. It's no accident that Prime is also colored in american primary red and blue, the same as Superman and Spider-Man, which also suggests both Heroism, and the colors of the american flag. If Prime had been entirely blue, or entirely red, I doubt he would have had such lasting appeal as an American character. He probably would have been more popular in the rest of the world, particularly Europe and Japan - as other countries don't have so much their biggest super-hero icons associated with their flag colors and patriotism etc.

Having watched every episode of G1 multiple times over the years, and also having watched around 40-50 John Wayne films from his entire career (some of them also multiple times) what I AM saying is that Cullen gives very John Wayne like DELIVERY of lines in the FIRST season of G1. It may not have been a conscious thing. I doesn't seem to happen in anything after the animated film, games or live action movies. Again I've watched those films, played the FOC/WFC games multiple times and not a hint of it.

The intonation rhythm and style matches up mainly with classic Wayne 'isms of the late 50's through 70's era, or the tail end part of his career.

This thread is for fun and speculation, well that is my intention. However I have no interest in proving anyone's subjective opinion right or wrong. But I am overly obsessed with details. And I will endlessly discuss topics if you indulge me.
And having said that I could be 100% wrong. I prefer people to investigate and think for themselves rather than take my word for anything.

Mark Hamill for example said that he was influenced by this that and the other when doing his voice for Joker in Batman Animated. Which was true. The reality is that he also copied the basic voice from Timm Curry, who had the job (temporarily) before him during pre-production, and then Mark took over. Of course the more he voiced that character, the more he made it his own. Branching off from the style he consciously or unconsciously aped, Mark Hamill went on to OWN the voice of the animated Joker, and now people (including other paid professional voice actors who have portrayed animated versions of the Joker) ape him.

See also the first season of the Simpsons where Dan Castellanetta's Homer voice varies wildly in pitch and tone, and in later seasons seems to drop and octave or two, and he also made that character his own as did Cullen made Prime in his own style as he grew with the character.

Most voice actors who do a recurring role start out one way, and grow into the role, not always, but in general. Of course for shorter projects say like Mass Effect (3 games, thousands of lines of dialogue) you get a consistent voice cast, tone and style across a period of several years, that was more established from the start, as voice acting has come a long way for both animation and video games, and is now more of an industry, that is people are recognized for their talents, and their is more of an overall standard to most higher budget projects while lower budget kids tv animation will still often have voice substitutions at the 11th hour like the 90's TMNT show where voices delivery and voice actor changed seemingly as often as underwear.
Another example is Billy West on Futurama, who was pretty consistent in his voicing of Fry, Zap Brannigan and others, but having the role of Zap Brannigan originally written and created specifically for the deceased comedian/actor Phil Hartman to voice, Billy went on to do a Phil Hartman style delivery of the Zap Brannigan character, that honors Matt Groening's friend, but again West also made that role/character uniquely his own.

 

I've always loved Wheeljack's heavy Brooklynese/New Yawkah accent (mostly because I was born and raised from the area myself). I'm not sure what the voice actor was going for there, but it's brilliant and gives even more quirkiness to the Bots' already eccentric resident mad scientist. Maybe he saw his Italian flag racing deco and just assumed, hey, let's make Jackie sound like an Italian mafioso guy from New York, but like smart and into science and stuff.  

For Megatron, I think Frank Welker mentioned wanting to give the Con leader a raspy, old man sounding voice to denote his long years of fighting the Cybertronian civil war and give a sense of war-weariness to him (which we did get some of that in DOTM with Megatron's more nuanced depiction in that particular live action movie, but with Hugo Weaving doing the voice, of course).

Chris Latta's Starscream; he captured the character's sniveling, sycophantic arrogance perfectly with his voice acting. That and I'd like to believe Latta's questionable life-style choices probably had influenced his performances as Starscream too.

 

I just watched that goofy Robot X episode yesterday. After a really strong season, that episode stands out as both bizarre and just unintentionally hilarious. The jumping the shark moments (well...everything in the entire episode really) to me were when the doctor is like "if only we could transfer Spikes mind out of his body while we do the operation" - and I'm like...........HOW does that help anything, what was stopping them from doing the operation that transferring his "mind" - whatever that is - out of his body achieve?

But the REAL jumping the shark moment in that episode was when Spike, as Robot X stops and watches a Frankenstein Tv show or movie? in the second half of the episode. Was Teletran one not picking up Cybertron football that day? WTF!

I mean the dude's already pissed off and insane at his dad for shoving him into a spare bucket of bolts body, then the monitor in autobot headquarters shows him a Frankenstein clip to reinforce that he is a monster?
I won't mention the part where he can fly. In a body that Spike's dad just whipped up out of "parts" because he was literally bored. Maybe he should teach Wheeljack how to make the autobots fly? Well at least the ones that can't already fly in random episodes without jet packs.

 

Dude, every day is someone's first day. Heck someone might post they just discovered that Rumble is one color as a toy and another color in the TV series!

 

Not G1, but the authors of the Dreamwave Armada MTMTE comics have also stated they used a lot of character references for their bios for the Mini-Cons who didn't have personalities until they wrote them. Armada Payload was based on Ben Grimm too. Astroscope is based on Reed Richards, and Skyblast is based on Johnny Storm.

 

I think Corey Burton said in an interview he based Shockwave on David Warner's character from "Tron". Also with Kup, I always got a little bit of Mickey from the "Rocky" series, but don't know if that was intentional

 

Bob Budiansky, who wrote the Shockwave G1 bios and early Marvel comics likened Shockwave to Spock in his character concept. Corey Burton then based the voice of Shockwave on David Warner. So he is a one-eyed, evil, giant robot Spock with David Warner's voice.

 

No, like, I get that he's new here, but I just don't see where he's trying to go with talking about the obvious references that exist in the characterizations of certain characters. It's like, we might as well talk about what color they are (aside from RIBFIR). I'm trying to figure out what he's trying to actually discuss, or if the point of this thread is just to list facts?