It falls to us now to report the sad passing of one of the classic G1 cartoon legends. David Wise, the single most prolific writer for the original The Transformers cartoon, has passed away as confirmed by his official Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Mr. Wise was responsible for writing fifteen Transformers episodes like The Key To Vector Sigma, The Secret Of Omega Supreme, The Rebirth, and many other classic stories. His other notable credits from his long and varied career include writing on the original Teenage Mutans Ninja Turtles cartoon among other cartoons and series.
We offer our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.
ThrustJan
Just read about it ,it's a shock he was my favorite writer …still can't believe and cancer is terrible .
I'll always remember as a Tf fan The secret of Omega Supreme episode and that sad backstory about both Omega and Constructicons .Thanks for that script, David Wise, you're still a very important part of my love for this universe.
He seemed a really nice guy I'd have loved thanking him by some social for all his memorable episodes and approach to series.
RIP and till all are one.
Optimus Prime23
Aw, man. Just hearing about this.
Til All Are One, Mr. Wise.
Janitor
I was channel surfing last night and caught Batman TAS, episode was "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne". When the title card came up it credited David Wise as the writer, so I was like "Hey I know that name!" Looked up more info, and sad to discover he passed earlier this month.
I know I'm late to the party, but better late than never in giving Mr. Wise his due here and now. He was responsible for penning some of my favourite episodes of my favourite franchises (Transformers, TMNT, the aforementioned BTAS). Specifically:
Transformers
-War Dawn: I, along with many others, maintain that this is BY FAR the best written G1 episode, and created a lot of the TF mythos that still stands today
-The Key to Vector Sigma (new toys!)
-The Rebirth (even MOAR new toys!!1! A year's worth…all at once!)
-the absolutely bonkers Kremzeek!
-The Secret of Omega Supreme
-The Girl Who Loved Powerglide, Day of the Machines, Microbots…you get the idea. All unforgettable.
C.O.P.S.: the two-part pilot
TMNT: the five-part pilot, but definitely more
Batman TAS
-If You're So Smart Why Aren't You Rich (Riddler origin ep)
-The Clock King
Thank you for all you've given, to myself and fans everywhere, and may you rest in peace
Autovolt 127
Had the pleasure of asking him a question at a TFCon panel to him a few years ago.
RIP David Wise, you will be missed.
jamarmiller
Seems like a great guy in the videos
ChromeMagnus
Sad news indeed. RIP.
Death Dancaa
He wrote many of my favorite episodes. He will be missed by many. Rest In Peace sir.
Ikkstakk
Another beautiful piece of writing Wise did: in "Day of the Machines," he had Megatron use his mass-shifting gun mode for infiltration, sneaking into Quantum Labs in an ordinary guitar case. He couldn't have done that as a tank! So thank you also for that, Mr. Wise.
jamarmiller
How unfortunate , thanks for the links, that G.I. joe one has a lot of info . Too bad nothing like that for rebirth exist
Skekgar82
I heard the news and this sucks as he was one of my favorite writers in animation.
May he rest in peace.
skylight
Thank you. I may not be the biggest G1 fan, always looking for a different flavor (and hopefully always finding something that can be creatively salvaged), but I did enjoy it, especially Omega Supreme and his backstory. I couldn't think of a better sendoff for him.
Greebtron
There was no 5 part script, only an outline. Which, if you want a flavour of what that might look like, I have only two examples.
As a miniseries, it might have been submitted as a "Beats" outline, like this: robotix_beats_outline.pdf
Or, if it was a more detailed version, each part might have looked like this: 05 – Cobra Stops The World outline.pdf
Rebirth has absolutely nothing in terms of production material. Even during the limited timeframe that Metrodome was able to get scanned material from Sunbow's offices as the company was being closed for good, the best they could get for Rebirth were badly written dialogue scripts that were clearly transcribed from the broadcast episodes.
Shockwave81
Agreed. Thanks @allew.
yvk2000
This was really nice to see. Thank you for sharing this.
G1Optimal
Rest In Peace …
Thank you for being apart of my childhood
jamarmiller
ok, but still would love to see it
allew
I'm sure some of you have seen this, a part of David's panel from TFCON Burbank where he talks a bit about the episode "War Dawn"
Chris McFeely
He sent in *outlines*, not scripts. An outline is a specific thing in animation, a couple-of-pages-long breakdown of how an episode will unfold; it turned into a three-parter before full scripts were written.
whoamidri
David Wise had just as much impact on my childhood as Stan Lee did. He was a great storyteller. RIP
Sablebot
R.I.P.