One of the common tropes of the first two seasons was to focus on a different autobot and build a story around them. So we got things like Warpath in Camelot and Hoist in Holywood, etc. I feel like most of the characters I can think of had an episode built around them but was that more of a season 2 thing? Did basically every character get a feature, as in a starring role in at least one episode? Did all the gen 1 characters get one, like Prowl, Bluestreak, Huffer and Sunstreaker? (The main exception is of course groups. Maybe we never got an episode focused on Snarl, but we did get one focused on him with the other Dinobots as a whole, so I count that) I just started a rewatch of the series, so I'll probably be able to answer my own question soon, but thought I'd ask it here.
Most of the '84 cast did not get a featured episode. Bumblebee was a main character and had stuff to do in most episodes. Gears got a spotlight in "Changing Gears." Cliffjumper showed up in a decent number of episodes and had a lot of dialogue due to his voice actor being Casey Kasem, but there was never an episode specifically about him. The rest of the '84 Minibots were background characters. Brawn had a major role in "Microbots" but the story wasn't about him. Windcharger had a key moment in "A Prime Problem" but again, the episode wasn't about him. The two of them had a mission together in "Fire on the Mountain" but that was as close as they came to a spotlight. Huffer fared the worst, usually only appearing in crowd scenes and having only incidental dialogue. Of the bigger '84 Autobots... Ironhide had a focal character-building episode in "The Immobilizer." Mirage had much the same type of story in "Traitor." Jazz went on a mission in "The God Gambit" and while the episode wasn't about him, he had a starring role. He was also a key player in "Attack of the Autobots." Hound had a mission in "Day of the Machines" where he got a decent amount of stuff to do. The closest Bluestreak got to a spotlight was "Trans-Europe Express," where he was featured throughout and had a lot of dialogue, but as it was a Stunticon episode it tends to be remembered more for them than him. Wheeljack and Ratchet often appeared together, but never in an episode about them, even when they helped drive the plot, as in "S.O.S. Dinobots." Trailbreaker had scenes here and there, but he was almost always a plot device, there to use his force field, and received minimal character development. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker usually appeared together, but never had an episode about them. Prowl really never did anything major, partnering with Bluestreak in "Roll For It" but they were hardly spotlighted characters there.
That’s interesting, thank you. Did sideswipe get a featured episode in season 3? That sounds familiar but maybe I am misremembering or mixing him up with red alert? It felt like the season 2 guys got more individual spotlight episodes. I guess there were more episodes and they had toys to sell.
Yeah, Sideswipe wasn't in season 3. The season 2 guys did get more spotlight episodes. With the exception of Skids, just about every one of them has an episode where they take center stage. In fact, to my recollection, Bumblebee is the only '84 Autobot with a speaking role in a season 3 episode ("Ghost in the Machine" and then again in "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2") besides Optimus himself, of course, in "The Return of Optimus Prime" and "Dark Awakening" and a minor cameo in "The Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4." On the Decepticon side, Starscream has two spotlight episodes despite being dead, in "Starscream's Ghost" and "Ghost in the Machine," and Soundwave appears in a number of season 3 episodes.
Focus episode is a bit of a misnomer. They had basically showcased enough of each character to give you an idea of what their personality was like, what their gimmick was, and more or less motivations. All except Skids, who got criminally underused. I think the reason they didn't hammer Bluestreak, Sideswipe, or Huffer down very much is because they weren't very deep characters in the first place.
As far as toy-characters that didn't appear in the G1 series pre-86 movie at all? I think there are the Powerdashers, Omnibots, Jumpstarters, Deluxe Vehicles, and that's about it.
@Ikkstakk Cliffjumper got just about as much spotlight as Mirage in "Traitor," being the one who pretty much coined the episode's title with his unfounded allegations. It makes him kind of seem like an ingrate after that scene in "More Than Meets the Eye" in which he says, "For someone who doesn't like to fight, you're not half-bad, Mirage." Oh well. I guess the writers needed someone to play up the whole "not fully trusted" angle of Mirage's character bio. If the writers were more keen on playing up aspects of his bio, Bluestreak could've gotten more exposure. There's that whole "haunted by the memory of Decepticons destroying his hometown" thing. Maybe that was a little too dark for a mid-80s cartoon? I don't know. Maybe it could've fit in toward the tail-end of Season 2, when we started learning more about the history of the war on Cybertron before the Transformers came to Earth. I agree about Skids being underused. Poor bot only got two lines of spoken dialogue in two episodes, each of which were performed by different actors who sounded very different.
