Hi all,

I was talking with @Superquad7 the other night about the old cartoon, and the pondering thought I had come to mind was what if the quality of cartooning stayed on par with the better quality of Season 1 and 2, or the quality of animation we saw in the 1987 advertisements... Would the show still have died by a short season 4? For me, in regards to the cartoon, the cheap style of animation in season 3 and the final season I was not fond of at all.

Thoughts? Imagine if we did have the better animation... Would the show have lasted longer than it did?

- Gregg

 

Nah, I'd imagine even with higher quality animation, the show would still end up the way it did. The reason the show was cancelled was possibly due to Transformers just fading out of popularity. Also the Rebirth was supposed to be a 5 parter, leaving the show with 100 episodes, but it was crunched down into 3 parts, and the show ended with 98 episodes. I think younger audiences weren't worried about the quality, but simply things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles took over it's throne.

 

The main factor was that by Autumn '86, syndicated cartoon ratings were in a massive slump and the retail orders coming out of Toyfair '87 were equally dismal. The major toy companies pulled out of funding cartoons. Which, for Hasbro, meant the remaining 39 episodes of Jem and the 13 episodes of Visionaries. As those contracts were locked in before everything collapsed.

For Rebirth, I suspect that Sunbow had to leverage whatever purchase they had on getting three half-hours of television funded by Hasbro and produced by Marvel in order for the miniseries to happen at all.

Turtles wasn't a factor yet. It started at the tail end of the toy-cartoon collapse and in fact the makers of the cartoon had to go it alone on season 2 as the toy company backers didn't want to do anymore.

 

It still wouldve died G1 had been in a slump since either the 86 film or late season 2. American audiences were most intrested in tmnt.

 

I think the original fans of Transformers,including myself, just got older and lost interest in the franchise starting in '86.(I had discovered heavy metal lol)

 

It died because we all grew up (most of us that is). But in Japan, it continued until Battlestars (which was in manga/mook) form.

 

Oh I know it continued in Japan... I had just wondered if we would've continued with the better quality animation with the stories, would the show have retained more of its popularity...

- Gregg

 

A lot of people didn't like killing Prime off in the movie as well as moving to more space themed, sci-fi stories and interest started to wain. If Optimus lived and the stories stayed on earth, who knows, the series might have lasted longer. I know a lot of kids back in the day were not a fan of vehicles and such that didn't resemble real earth designs. Being on Earth and occasionally going to Cybertron was magical.

There were episodes during the pre-movie days that had quality issues. Not as bas as AKOM in Season 3, but still quality differences. Kids didn't care about animation stuff as much as stories they could connect and believe in. Having Spike as a kid running with the Autobots gave us hope that that could be us. All the space stuff changed that feeling and I know I started to become disconnected. I watched until the bitter end of course, but it just didn't resonate the same.

Just my two cents.

 

This has to do with Hasbro decision to take certain toys off shelves to introduce a new line of toys. So the movie killed off a lot of characters, The mistake was killing off Optimus Prime. There was backlash. So then it was decided to bring Optimus back, but it was too late. The damage had already been done.

 

TMNT most definitely did become king. But TMNT isn't what killed G1. It really wasn't until Fall of 1989, when the original TMNT cartoon went into five day a week syndication, and then the 1990 movie coming out that put the turtles on top. I remember I was in first grade when the Rebirth finale aired. At least in my school, Transformers and G.I. Joe were still on top for the rest of that school year. It wasn't until I was in third grade that TMNT exploded.

 

A really good dissertation on the fall of Saturday morning cartoons. Transformers in my market aired in the afternoons but this does a good job of explaining why cartoons promoting toys went by the wayside in favor of travelogues and animal shows.
The reason Saturday morning cartoons disappeared