Mods, I wasn't sure if this should go in News or General, so feel free to move it if you desire. Anyway. As noted elsewhere, I have been trawling the archives of Heritage Auctions. Way back in the misty days of 2003, it seems they hosted a series of auctions for More than Meets the Eye storyboard segments. Since I thought people might want to see these, I have saved the full-sized images and am rehosting them. http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards01.jpg http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards02.jpg Those two pages were said to specifically be the work of artist Victor Dal Chele. The rest of the storyboard auctions state the artists as "unknown", although some of them seem like they might also be by Dal Chele, going by that sample. http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards03.jpg (This Ravage is adorable.) http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards04.jpg http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards05.jpg http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards06.jpg http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards07.jpg http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards08.jpg http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards09.jpg http://obscuretf.com/MTMTEStoryboards10.jpg Looking at these, one of the things that caught my attention was the fact that, in 06, Hauler wasn't drawn as a crane-truck, or really at all as anything resembling the configuration of the Grapple toy. Out of curiosity, I checked the MTMTE script that Jim Sorenson tossed up some months back, and it turns out that Hauler was originally scripted as a tow-truck. Could it be that Hauler was originally meant to be proto-Hoist instead of proto-Grapple? The name does fit a tow-truck better, but the real answer is probably lost... Anyway, enjoy the history!
Where ever did Hauler go after this episode? XD I'll just assume the Simpsons Poochie excuse and he went back to his home planet.
The 'Hauler' in that storyboard makes me think it was supposed to be the med platform thing Ratchet's toy had.
These are great! I'd really like to see (and own if it was remotely a possibility) the Optimus Prime post injury slo-mo transform storyboard...
That was definitely my favorite part of these storyboards. He's like a stripper popping out of a cake at a bachelor party.
I considered that possibility as well, but Hauler's existence is called out in the script, which is what the board artist would have been working from. The rendering IS extremely vague compared to Cliffjumper and Ratchet, though, and suggests that Hauler didn't have an animation model ready at the time the storyboard was being drawn up. Unfortunately, those were the only storyboard segment scans that I found in the Heritage Auction archives. Apparently some of the auctions did include more pages than were actually shown on the site, but the only way to see those would be if the owners came forward themselves with them.
I always just assumed that Hauler was Grapple's original name, but then the toy got delayed so we never saw him again. By the time he showed up, he'd been given a new name.
Thanks for these, Monzo! The Hauler appearance is curious to me too not because of any need to resolve who he is, should be or become. Why then? Because he/ his altmode perfectly pushes the scene forward. Lately I'd thought, particularly after learning that Windcharger is supposedly the only Autobot in MTMTE whom doesn't get to show off his powers/skills, that he could have been shown off in this scene. Even Jazz's in arm cable would have made him useful here, if not so much for Hound, being stuck in altmode, but for those rescuing him at least. Just thought I'd point that out a good quarter of a century after the event lol. Also of note is the narrative-friendly extreme truck door hinge for viewing all the human reactions to the almost chibi-cute Ravage.
It's hard to say. The cartoon was, at its height, produced on a tight timeframe (season one was written across June-August of 1984, and aired just a few months later), but the pilot mini-series was probably a BIT less fraught. Animation models were designed as early as December 1983, with color revisions taking place through at least May 1984, by which time the three episodes had begun production and had production codes attached to them. So, spring 1984, perhaps?
thank you very muxh by chance, do you have any martial and or links to a source with any offical dates to any of what you just posted? like a script for the pilot with a date pilot episode production dates voice actor recording dates i dont doubt your info, im tring to educate someone else
Sure, check out this folder of G1 scripts and other documents Jim Sorenson shared a few weeks ago, you'll see lots of printed and hand-written dates on the various files. Nothing for the pilot specifically, though.
