No matter how long we travel beyond the original Transformers series that debuted in 1984 – there are still new and unique things that pop up which most have not seen. Today we have one of those things – an intact and complete animation bible from the original cartoon. This was given to animators and those involved with creating the cartoon as reference. It includes backstory, character lists, personality notes, size scales, animation references and more. At this point in the game it’s a very rare piece that is cool to see still in existence.
For those interested, you can check out some sample pages over at the auction on eBay here. For those really interested with a beefy bank account, good luck in obtaining the copy!
Update – for those that just want to check out the contents, there is a scanned copy of it online. Check that out here. Thanks to Greebtron and Nevermore for the heads up!
Greebtron
As a post-script, the bible finally sold for $1,136
Sunbow Prime
I'd imagine for something like that you would want a higher level of service to make sure it gets to you intact due to difficulty of replacement.
Greebtron
In fact, now that I think about it. The FFOD outline I just put out there the other week was probably the more likely reference point for season 3 writers: Five Faces Of Darkness Outline and Full Scripts Available Online
Greebtron
I don't think there is one. After all, Steve Gerber was heading up the story editing team and he didn't create a Writer's Guide for GI Joe until more than halfway through the main series run. More likely, they just added profiles and model sheets for each round of product to their briefing binders and that was it.
Hail Galvatron
I'd love to see a season three bible. It's got to exist.
Greebtron
That's for US too? I thought that was just skewed for me because I'm in the UK.
Anyway, it's just a heads-up in case some of the other stuff like the licensing kits and catalogues this seller has become more affordable
JS_Prime
$100 shipping still? Lol no
Greebtron
Just to let you all know, the seller has snagged a clue and instead of putting items on Buy It Now for exorbitant amounts. The show bible is now on a standard 7 day auction. Currently at $91 at time of writing: G1 Transformers Hasbro 1984 Animation Bible Employee Internal RARE 42 Pages | eBay
fschuler
This is TFW…we don’t appreciate jokes here, sir…
JazzAlert13
“Characters talking to them selves. This is unhealthy behaviour”.
I find that much funnier than I think I should lmao.
diablogunner
But, these are all the things I loved about "Saturday Morning Cartoons"
Greebtron
Flint Dille, February 1985: "Don't write the show the way it has been written up until this point."
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PANTSMAN1973
Interesting that they mark Rumble as "red". So when did the error occur that made Frenzy the "purple" one, Rumble in the TV series?
JazzAlert13
For your example of the Star Wars book, if someone only read that book and saw no other Star Wars media I would not fault them for saying it that Yoda is blue. They’d be correct and even if I disagree, I do not care enough.
Nevermore
As I said before, all of this is only a problem if for some reason you insist that there must be one universal "right" and "wrong", instead of simply different portrayals in different media. Like how Shockwave in the cartoon is Megatron's loyal janitor of Cybertron while mostly everywhere else he's a logic-driven cold-blooded efficiency machine, or how cartoon Blaster is a DJ while comic book blaster is a badass action hero. So Rumble and Frenzy's colors are different in the cartoon (and some other instances). So what? Sure it may have been an error, but its consistency made it canon. For the cartoon. The toys don't overrule the cartoon, and the cartoon doesn't overrule the toys. They just differ from each other.
Max Rawhide
Seems very plausable. We know that they were instructed to use Laserbeak prominently and Buzzsaw only sparingly, simply because everyone who got Soundwave already got Buzzsaw. Thus they wanted the cartoon to promote Laserbeak to get kids to want him as well. Not unlikely they did the same with Frenzy & Rumble. They wanted to keep the streetpunk who creates Earthquakes (Rumble's character and abilities) and just took the Frenzy colours and called it Rumble to have both promoting the blue cassette toy and getting the character/abilities they wanted.
Using that comparison, the Sunbow cartoon is more like the novelisation of the movie than the movie itself.
For Transformers the toys were the primary source, but they're just lifeless things designed for different toy brands. Based on these toys, characters and a universe were created: the characters by Bob Budiansky and the universe by Jim Shooter and Bob Budiansky.
It was these character describtions by Bob Budiansky (published by Marvel and shortend for the toys techspecs/bio) that formed the base for both the Bob Budiansky written Marvel Comic series and the TF bible discussed here: the bible uses further shortening of these character describtions. Thus the Marvel Universe Profiles and the toys are the primary source, with both the Marvel comics and the Sunbow cartoon derived from them.
This makes both the Marvel Comics and the Sunbow cartoon different takes of the source material. Similar to a book that gets adapted into a film/tv series and a comic. Or a novelisation of a film. To come back to the Star Wars example, have you ever read the SW novelisations? They were all I had for years bringing the words to life in my mind with images I remembered from the one time I saw the movie. But when I rewatched the movies I missed elements, elements and events I remembered from the novelisation. Things like Luke doing two attack runs on the Death Star (also in the original script, but this was edited back to one for the movie), Luke having Blue Five as call sign (it was made red in the movie, because of the filming of the special effects), scenes that were removed from the film itself or put in a different order (like Vader talking to an officer). Having seen the movie several times now I know how the movie, the primary source, had it, but I still remember the novelisation.
There's even a great comparison. In the novelisation of Empire Yoda was described as being blue. Not green like he was in the movie (and the for me very elusive toy), but blue. Green in the movie and green as a toy, but blue in the novelisation, similar to how Rumble was red as a toy and red in his character describtion, but purple/blue in the cartoon.
(That said, although I far prefer the Marvel comics over the Sunbow cartoon, spend hours reading through the few Universe profiles I had… this is one element were the cartoon made a bigger impact. So for me despite knowing that the Sunbow cartoon did it wrong, I, too, think of the purple/blue guy when talking about Rumble.)
galvatran
Explains why MP Jazz is taking soooo long. Takara (thought they) nailed the prototype, only to go back to the drawing board to incorporate this little known but important fact…
Gee Won 1984
I saw the cartoon before I saw the toy or comic Rumble, so I always thought the toy and comic was wrong. Maybe this happened to a large portion of the G1 fan base, and is why this red vs blue is such a big debate. Timing is everything, if you are exposed to one of the colors first for a while, you will reject the other color once you discover it. Basic human nature.
JazzAlert13
I think if an animation error lasts seasons it ceases to be an error and just becomes canon. Like if you’re writing a book and mean to make the main characters eyes green but for some reason you accidentally write that their eyes are blue then their eyes are blue now. Just the way it goes.
griffin-of-oz
I always found it amusing that we all accept and joke about the 100s and 100s of animation errors in the original cartoon, except the colours of Rumble and Frenzy.
Even as a kid when I saw the cartoon back in the 80s I just saw it as one of many animation errors that we just had to enjoy or ignore.
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