Cartoon Viewing Club: Zob's Thoughts on "Prime Target"

[Zobovor]

"Prime Target" was episode #51 of the original Transformers series, originally airing on November 14, 1985. It was written by Flint Dille and Buzz Dixon, names that may sound familiar. Buzz Dixon served as a story editor and writer for G.I. Joe, and also penned "The God Gambit" and "Carnage in C-Minor" for Transformers (say what you want about the animation, but that's not the writer's fault!). Flint Dille also served as a G.I. Joe story editor, wrote "Five Faces of Darkness" parts 1-5, and was one of the three people who replaced Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins as story editor during Transformers season three (the other two being Steve Gerber and Marv Wolfman). The long and the short of this is that this was an episode penned by a couple of high-profile guys, though this may not have been obvious to kids of the 1980's.

Our episode starts out with a subtle reference to G. I. Joe that may have been lost on people when seeing the episode for the first time. A female jet pilot is identified as a member of the Oktober Guard, which means this is Daina Janack. The Oktober Guard was once described as the Russian version of G.I. Joe, and first appeared in a Joe episode called "The Invaders." That episode wasn't aired until November 29, 1985, though, which means that Daina actually makes her first animated appearance in Transformers, not G.I. Joe! (Makes up for Optimus Prime's truck mode appearing in the G.I. Joe cartoon just days before debuting in Transformers proper.) It's quite fitting that the background theme we hear during this scene was one shared with both cartoons. This isn't necessarily important to understand the story, but it's fascinating from an academic perspective. Anyway, the important thing here is that the Russian jet has been captured by a submarine, which launched a harpoon and netted the jet. Daina parachutes to safety and is presumably picked up by the rest of the Oktober Guard.

Cut to the humble, modest castle of one Lord Chumley, the antagonist of our story. It seems he's a big game hunter who has grown tired of killing elephants and tigers and has, more recently, set his sights on prizes like tanks and helicopters and, yes, Soviet jet fighters. Always at his side is his faithful but slightly besotted butler, Dinsmoore. (Not sure of the spelling of either character's name. If you prefer to use the spelling Chumleigh and/or Dinsmore, I won't be upset.) Chumley is voiced magnificently by Peter Reneday, sounding exactly like Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Dinsmore is performed by Alan Oppenheimer. The two are apparently quite old, as they're making references to the Boer War (fought during the late 1800's or early 1900's, depending on which one they're referring to) and the "Big War" (what they called World War I during 1914-1918 before the second war came along). These guys are ancient in the extreme. The interplay between the two characters echoes the Commander McBragg segments from the old Underdog cartoon. Dinsmoore stands there pouring tea onto a saucer, completely missing the teacup. Anyway, Chumley has set his sights on the head of Optimus Prime, and he's already fashioned a mounting plate to hang it once he's bagged it. I suppose that for a guy who collects aircraft carriers and space shuttles, an Autobot would make a pretty impressive trophy. (The Sci-Fi Channel version of this episode cut the scene right after the big reveal that Chumley wants Prime's head. We get the build-up of the joke with Dinsmoore pouring beverages everywhere except inside the teacup, but not the pay-off when Chumley finally turns to him and asks, "Dinsmoore, may I have some tea?")

Chumley will spend most of this episode trying to kill Optimus Prime, which is significantly different than hunting animals. It's one thing to shoot a gazelle, which is not really a thinking creature by the usual definitions. It's also legal, so despite what you may personally feel about hunting animals, it's socially acceptable under certain conditions. The difference here is that Chumley goads and banters with Prime during the hunt, so he clearly recognizes that Prime is sentient. Maybe Chumley doesn't believe there's such a thing as a "living" robot, which would make killing Prime less of a crime against the universe than killing a person. Of course, Chumley also fired on Daina's jet fighter with no regard for her well-being. He hooked the jet while she was still inside it, rather than forcing her to eject first. He had no rescue vehicle waiting for her after the jet was captured; she was left to her own devices, and could just as easily drowned when her jet was pulled into the ocean, or conversely, frozen to death from exposure. Clearly, Chumley has no regard for life, regardless of whether it's animal life or robotic life or human life. This guy is pure evil.

Cut to Tracks and Bumblebee making a supply run, with Tracks yammering on about his amazing amazingness and Bumblebee offering cheeky zingers. They notice a crowd of people gathered around a storefront television display (always a great source for plot exposition) where there's a news segment playing on the stolen Soviet jet. The newscaster is actually Hector Ramirez, a character whose career spanned not just G.I. Joe but, in 1986, would spill over to the Jem and the Holograms cartoon as well as the Inhumanoids cartoon. He's voiced here by John Stephenson, rather than the Geraldo Rivera sound-alike voice provided for him in G.I. Joe, perhaps because Wally Burr didn't get the joke.

"Decepticons!" proclaims Bumblebee. At first, it sounds like he's blaming them for the theft of the jet fighter, but then Blitzwing and Astrotrain appear, running through the city streets. (They seem uncharacteristically small—the garbage cans and garage doors and the heights of the buildings seem to place them at close to human scale, not giant Transformer scale.) Naturally, Tracks and Bumblebee give chase. "I must need an overhaul—I can't catch them!" proclaims Tracks. Is this just Tracks waxing self-inflated again, or a hint that something peculiar is going on? The Autobots appear to have the Triple Changers cornered, until Tracks makes a move, trying to give Blitzwing a hug, and then Blitzwing disappears from existence. Both Decepticons were merely holograms, used by Chumley to ensnare the Autobots. Tracks is zapped with some kind of electrical taser that disables him; at first, it looks like Bumblebee is going to escape, until he drives right into the empty bed of a dump truck, which closes behind him. And then he just... stays there. And doesn't try to transform to robot mode and jump out or anything. Chumley seems to have a lot of advanced technology at his disposal for a mere human, but it's never explained where he got it.

At Autobot Headquarters, a bunch of Autobots (Grapple, Beachcomber, Jazz, and Blaster) are using Teletraan-I's monitor to watch a daytime television drama called As the Kitchen Sinks. We'll see that the Aerialbots patently cannot stand human television, but the more mature Autobots can't get enough of the stuff. In this gripping episode, if Donna is having an affair with Gordon, then Jack doesn't know Cheryl hid the real will. I'm not sure how the existence of a secret tryst is contingent upon whether a last will and testament is hidden, but I'm not caught up on every episode of ATKS so I'm sure it makes sense somehow. Anyway, good ol' Hector Ramirez is back, interrupting the show (much to the chagrin of the Autobots, who groan in protest). Ramirez is suddenly voiced by Frank Welker, so it's clear the voice director had no idea that this was supposed to be the same commentator from earlier. The United Nations have assembled to discuss the jet fighter theft—flags from Yugoslavia, Japan, Great Britain, the United States, South Korea, Sweden, and Belgium are in evidence in front of the U.N. building. Political tension is high, but Grapple downplays the seriousness of international affairs by lamenting the pre-empted soap opera: "Just when it was getting good!" Clearly, Autobots do not care about world affairs. Only love affairs.

Also, I just want to say that there's a problem with this scene that pops up very frequently in animation. There's a moment where we see Teletraan's viewscreen from an angle, and the journalist appears on the screen at an angle, as if he were peering through a window. The problem here is that this is a TV broadcast, which is a fixed image. If the news camera is filming the newscaster from a front view, then that image should continue to be a front view, no matter how far to the left or the right we stand and still look at the monitor screen. It's admittedly kind of hard to explain, so here's a bit of digital trickery to show you what I mean:

http://www.zmfts.t15.org/zmfts_viewscreen_fixed.jpg

Jazz asks Optimus Prime if he thinks the Decepticons are up to their usual tricks, but Prime seems to realize something else is going on. "I don't know why, Jazz, but I doubt it." Prime always knows when Megatron is cookng up some new scheme; it would be nice if the Autobots immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion and assumed it was the Decepticons, at least at first, but the plot requires Prime to know otherwise. In the meantime, though, Tracks and Bumblebee are missing, and this necessitates that the Autobots search for them.

Jazz is convinced Tracks is probably just getting the deluxe wax treatment at a car wash somewhere, so this becomes the focus of his search. Sure enough, there's a new place called the Auto Car Wash that he's never seen before, and he's herded into it by a taxi cab driven by Dinsmoore. Soon after, Jazz is zapped and disabled. Of course, for this far-fetched trap to work, Chumley would have had to know in advance that Tracks was a car wash fanatic AND that the other Autobots would have been checking them following his disappearance. Chumley really did his homework, apparently.

Autobots are dropping like flies. Beachcomber does his civic duty and pays the toll for a bridge, dropping a coin into the receptacle, only to be rewarded by being grabbed by a couple of tentacles. "Hey, don't be greedy! I'm not giving you one penny more..." Beachcomber protests, as if he's well accustomed to toll bridges shaking him down for additional pocket change. "Snared like a Javanese tiger!" proclaims Chumley. This is a particularly dark moment if you realize that the tigers on the island of Java were hunted into extinction in the 1970's, making Chumley's remark rather ominous.

Grapple finds a construction site and asks the crane operator if he's seen any of the missing Autobots. Of course, the crane operator is Chumley, and he responds by dumping a pile of girders on top of Grapple that somehow come together to form a cage. "Hey! Who designed this rat trap?!" balks Grapple. I'm kind of wondering this myself, actually. (I got into a big argument one time with a fan, for whom English was not his first language, over whether or not Grapple actually says "red trap." His argument was that the girders were red in color and therefore this made perfect sense.) Anyway, Grapple tugs at the cage, but despite the fact that none of the girders have been welded together or bolted shut in any way, he cannot escape. Dinsmoore congratulates Chumley in the confirmation of his "tribal instincts" theory, which apparently posits that a construction crane Autobot will naturally gravitate towards a construction site. I guess. I really don't know.

Blaster is investigating Billboard Row, a stretch of the city littered with advertisements, when he's suddenly grabbed by a giant pair of hands (part of a billboard advertisement for Creamy Cream brand hand lotion). Usually we cut to commercial during a suspenseful moment, not a goofy one. This is where this episode goes completely off the rails, as far as I'm concerned. The traps have gotten more and more silly, straining the boundaries of credibility without actually snapping them, but now they've gone and turned this show into a complete and utter farce. There are very few things about Transformers I have trouble accepting, but a gigantic pair of hands that grabs Blaster, transforms him into boom box mode, and throws him into the waiting taxi cab inhabited by Chumley and Dinsmoore, who proceed to use him like a common radio while he offers no objections? Preposterous.

The rescue scene with Inferno helps to salvage the episode somewhat. He's got his more detailed, toy-like helmet design in this episode (rather than the rounded Grapple-style design that we've seen in "Kremzeek!" and most of his other episodes) and when he rushes into the burning building, he's painted in an orange glow that actually looks really cool. He tries to save a small boy who is standing at the window and waving for someone to save him, but as Inferno arrives, it's clear the child is just a mannequin. Who somehow was able to wave its arm. Interesting. An inocuous hydraulic spreader on the ground comes alive, acting like a snake and even going so far as to target Inferno's communicator, ripping it off before he has a chance to complete his warning to Prime. Twice, because the animation goes into a loop. (As a point of interest, on the Hasbro toy, the wings for Inferno's robot mode appear to have been modeled after the same sort of fire rescue equipment. So, that's kind of ironic.)

Prime senses on some level that things are not going well for his brood, and he initiates a swift change in strategy—to recall the Autobots immediately to headquarters. Up until this point, each of the Autobots has been captured in some fashion that's strangely applicable. Inferno gets caught in a burning building; Grapple gets caught at a construction site, etc. Windcharger narrowly misses getting smashed by a train, and Huffer avoids an over-complicated trap by mere seconds where I guess a claw from inside a manhole was supposed to grab him while a drill hidden inside a lammpost was supposed to kill him. This particular trap seems to hinge on Huffer parking right in front of this specific manhole. The only thing more absurd about its design is the fact that he was, indeed, parked there until Prime called him back home.

We really need to explore this some more. For every elaborate trap that Chumley has devised, he and Dinsmoore dress up in the appropriate costume (a construction worker, a train engineer, whatever). They have to rent machinery (cars and trucks and forklifts and taxis) and actually build and design most of the traps (the car wash, the magical steel girder cage, the toll bridge, the billboard with gigantic hands). Maybe I'm just applying real-life logic to a cartoon, but usually this show has some kind of grounding in reality. It usually isn't quite so patently absurd. Any fictional story has to have some element of the fantastic, because otherwise it's just boring old reality. This specific episode is so preposterously goofy that it could have been an episode of Scooby-Doo or the Smurfs with only minor reworking.

Back at the Autobot base, Prime is reeling from the Autobot disappearances. Warpath wants to kick some Decepticon butt, but Prime insists that they still have no direct evidence that Megatron is even going to be in this episode. Purely by chance, Cosmos just happens to stumble across Chumley's estate and alerts Prime that the missing Autobots have all been thrown into this twisted obstacle course of horrors. Normally, the Autobots are pretty good problem-solvers, but if Cosmos hadn't been flying by at just the right moment, they never would have seen their friends again. Tracks is driving in this figure-eight track lined with spikes, with laser bolts in his path to keep him on track. Bumblebee is in a guillotine for cars, with swinging blades forcing him to transform back and forth repeatedly to avoid getting chopped into little bumble-bits. Grapple is forced to hold a big rock. Beachcomber is on a track where he need to constantly jump to avoid pits of spikes. Grapple is the only one who seems tied down; there are no restaints in evidence anywhere else, so why can't Bumblebee just roll off the table?

So, Chumley contacts Prime (pre-empting the transmission being sent by Cosmos) and offers him the opportunity to rescue the wayward Autobots. Naturally, this is only so Chumley can lure Prime into his midst and seize his prize, but Prime doesn't know this yet. Prime is incensed but agrees to come to the rescue. He concludes the conversation by pulling Teletraan's "feedback overload" switch, causing Chumley's monitor to explode. Definitely not the silliest thing that's happened in this episode. Oddly, some of Chumley's victims seem to have escaped, since Jazz and Inferno are already both safe and sound back at the base.

Eleven minutes into the episode, we finally cut away to Decepticon Headquarters. It seems Megatron has taken an interest in Chumley, remarking on his clever traps and his success. Starscream agrees—"he has done more in two days than you have in two years!" This episode takes place in 1985, so it's arguably been more like one year, but whatever. Naturally, Starscream gets knocked to the floor for his sassiness. "My patience for you wears thin, Starscream. Just you wait until The Transformers: the Movie!" Megatron promises. He contacts Astrotrain and Blitzwing (the real ones this time) and tells them to get in touch with Chumley and propose an alliance. "What's the matter, Megatron? Afraid to do it yourself?" asks Starscream, and this time he's right on the money.

Prime arrives at Chumley's camp and Chumley, over an intercom speaker, explains that Prime must make his way through a "well-researched mock-up of Cybertron" to find his friends. This comment in and of itself seems peculiar—how could Chumley have any idea what Cybertron even looks like? Neither the Autobots nor Decepticons have had any interaction with him until this episode, and only a handful of humans (Spike, Sparkplug Carly, Chip) have ever been to Cybertron themselves. It occurs to me that perhaps Chumley and Dr. Arkeville may have had an off-screen meeting. Arkeville would know enough about Transformers to develop zapper guns that could disable them, and he's the only other human I'm aware of who has ever seen what Cybertron looks like. So, it might be Arkeville who has been providing Chumley with his technology.

Prime encounters a dragon-like creature, which Chumley claims he discovered in the uncharted depths of Borneo. Well, we know dragons once existed as per "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court," so perhaps they did not all go extinct. (After all, we know the dinosaurs survived, as seen in "Dinobot Island" parts 1 and 2.) Prime and the dragon get into a scuffle atop a bridge overlooking a chasm, which seems to be inspired by the site of the Cloud City duel between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The dragon keeps going after the fog horns on the top of Prime's shoulders, perhaps because he hates loud noises. In the end, the dragon is sent plummeting down into the pit, and Prime is subdued by a glowing, electrified net. Cut to commercial.

When we come back, Prime manages to disable the net by throwing a chain to a nearby electrical tower, thus shorting it out. Shrug. Cartoon logic. It's around this time that the Triple Changers arrive. Blitzwing wants to just attack head-on, but Astrotrain suggests they sneak up on him. When Blitzwing trips over a pipe, Prime whirls around, but there's no one in evidence. Blitzwing has quickly transformed to tank mode and is ostensibly blending in with the scenery. Prime is either off his game, or he's playing along. He then encounters a scantily-clad female, crying and chained to a big metal thing. Prime considers it for a moment before he moves on. "Drat! Outsmarted by a lorry!" proclaims Chumley, because he is British, and they have funny names for trucks. (I've been watching Peppa Pig with my daughter lately and it's really opened my eyes to the sheer number of alternate terms used by the English. Bike training wheels are "stabilizers." The front lawn is the "garden." A popsicle is an "ice lolly." I've watched a number of British shows but none are so incomprehensible to me as Peppa Pig.)

So, the Triple Changers wonder why Prime didn't save this woman. Astrotrain seems to quickly realize it must be a trap, but Blitzwing is a little slower to process things. "Stop your cryin'!" he demands, and proceeds to stomp the woman into meat paste. Obviously, she wasn't real, but Blitzwing didn't know that. (If you watch the scene in slow motion, there's a single frame of animation where the woman's hair is visible on one side of the screen and her arm is on the other. He totally stomped her into pieces.) I wonder what the Decepticon Apologists, who insisted the Decepticons were not murderers, would have to say about this scene?

http://www.zmfts.t15.org/zmfts_blitzwing_stomp.jpg

So, Blitzwing has fallen into the trap, which coats him in a thick layer of gooey green glop. In short, he's been slimed. "Where did he come from? That blasted fool!" Chumley erupts. "You blasted fool!" echoes Astrotrain, in a silly parallel moment. (Astrotrain even takes on a British accent for an instant to really drive the parallel home, but it's an inauthentic moment since Astrotrain does not talk this way. It does at least demonstrate that the actors were indeed in the same recording studio sometimes. There are so many episodes that call for one line of dialogue to play off another, which is impossible when voice actors are delvering lines in separate recording booths.) Prime, who was apparently aware of the Triple Changers' presence the entire time, remarks thusly: "Amazing! A booby trap that actually catches boobies!" This line has gone down in infamy, mostly because people like the idea that Prime uses the word "boobies" in a sentence. It's so naughty in a rated-PG kind of way.

"Decepticons! Trust them to spoil the hunt!" observes Chumley. This demonstrates that he can recognize Decepticons on sight. Clearly, he is a learned scholar when it comes to Transformers. "Just like the Human Society, in a way," agrees Dinsmoore in a diabolically clever throwaway line. Only a big game hunter would complain about a group dedicated to the preservation and safety of animals!

Chumley sends a remote-controlled robotic scorpion after Prime, and it's something that looks like it came from the Convertors toy line. Again, Chumley's face appears on a viewscreen mounted on the scorpion's head, but the way his viewscreen image is drawn from an angle, it makes it look like Chumley is actually inside the scorpion and viewing Prime through a glass window.

Anyway, Prime has nearly subdued the Convertors scorpion, breaking its claw and is about to use its own tail against it, when Astrotrain sneaks up from behind and zaps Prime. Enraged, Chumley uses Scorpio to blast Astrotrain and the two end up in a robotic dogpile. Believing Prime to be dead, Chumley has been robbed of his prize, dismissing Prime as completely worthless now. "Maybe you could make a nice coffee table out of him, sir," Dinsmoore suggests. What a bizarre honor code Chumley has.

Back at the castle, Chumley has Astrotrain and Blitzwing chained up, and claims to have disabled their energy weapons. This is more proof that he's got some kind of insider information about Transformers (I still tend to think it's Arkeville, though I guess Chip Chase could have turned bad).

Chumley goes to check on the Autobots. "We've done nothing to you! Release us from these bonds!" demands Grapple. "The bargain," Chumley says, as if to remind Grapple of some agreement. "We struck no bargain!" Grapple protests. "No good changing the rules now," Chumley insists. "You must pay the price of failure, old sport!" Assuming Chumley is not insane (which is of course a possibility), he seems to have entered into some agreement with the Autobots—if not the specific Autobots that he's captured, then with somebody. But which Autobot would be likely to sell out his own people, just to get out of a jam? Hmm, why don't we see Smokescreen in this episode...?

Bumblebee wants to send Prime a message. When Grapple warns him not to exhaust his energy, Bumblebee responds, "What have I got to save it for?!" Bumblebee and conveniently has a communicator module inside his helmet, so he doesn't have to raise his arm communicator (and risk it getting lopped off). He activates a homing beacon, allowing Prime to track the location of the captive Autobots.

Chumley sends another Convertors toy after Prime (a spider, this time). Prime gets caught in its web, but of course by this stage we know he's going to prevail, no matter what Chumley throws at him. He breaks off the spider's legs, which is basically exactly what he did with the scorpion's claws, and manages to make Tenticus inject itself with venom. The spider apparently cannot handle the venom that is already contained within its own body, and explodes. More cartoon logic. "Don't you know it's dangerous to play with poison, Mrs. Black Widow?" Prime quips. Poor Blackarachnia. Prime warns Chumley that if that was his best shot, he's in trouble. "That was my best shot, but not my last," Chumley promises.

Prime then finds himself in a carival ride. Seriously, it's one of those rotating vortex tunnels that they have at theme parks and haunted houses, like from the end of the movie Grease. Not surprisingly, Prime outstretches his arms and stops the rotation with ease. "Impossible!" cries Chumley. At this point, Prime, who is on Chumley's monitor, somehow manages to punch the screen, shattering it and sending shards of glass raining all over Chumley and Dinsmoore. Now THAT is impossible. Cartoon physics. It's like Mr. Spacely reaching right through the visaphone to strangle George Jetson.

"Neither impossible nor impossible!" Optimus Prime proclaims, as he punches through a wall to confront Chumley. Prime is pretty cheesed off by this point. Dinsmoore retreats to the museum and wisely climbs into a military tank, thus escaping Prime's wrath.

Thinking quickly, Chumley heads towards the Triple Changers, perhaps his only chance now to save himself. "I say, old chaps, if I free you, will you fight Optimus Prime?" he asks, and Astrotrain answers in the affirmative. Not sure how they're supposed to be able to do this with their weapons still disabled, but okay. Fisticuffs. Once the Decepticons are freed, though, they're only interested in stomping him flat. There's an odd bit of animation when Chumley points to Prime. I don't know the industry term for this style of animation, but rather than the cels appearing in sequence, it's as if they are double-exposed, so one cel "fades" into the next. (There is some Japanese animation where they do this all the time, because the transition between each drawing looks more natural to the eye. Sure makes it tough to get a decent screen capture, though.) We've seen this technique a few other times during the Transformers cartoon (like the moment from "Five Faces of Darkness" part 5 when Predaking's leg makes a transforming sound while kicking Sky Lynx) and I don't really know what it's supposed to accomplish. Does it look cool, or does it look lame because it's trying too hard to look cool?

"B-but... you said...!" Chumley blubbers. "Never trust Decepticons, flesh creature!" retorts Blitzwing (who is practicing his ventroloquism here, since the voice actually comes out of Chumley's mouth). Given what he did to the scantily-clad young waif, you just know Blitzwing is going to stomp Chumley into some USDA-approved ground beef. Suddenly, the captive Autobots appear and attack. Well, SOME Autobots appear, anyway. Wheeljack, Prowl, Bluestreak, Ironhide, Ratchet... definitely not the Autobots we saw getting captured. (Did Prowl get caught during a routine traffic stop? Did Ironhide get captured at a redneck convention?) Anyway, the Decepticons, whose energy weapons still don't work, are forced to withdraw. Pretty sure Blitzwing carries a sword, which he should be able to use regardless. Also, does this mean that Chumley disable the Decepticons' weapons, but not the Autobots'? What's to stop the Autobots from blasting Chumley into bits?

The Triple Changers have kind of botched their mission, haven't they? They were supposed to forge some kind of alliance with Chumley. Sure, he captured them, but he released them conditionally. There was still the opportunity to join forces with him. Naturally, we don't see what happens to the Triple Changers after they return home, due to the basic pro-Autobot bias of the show. The Decepticons stop being part of the story as soon as they retreat. "No point in going after them," says Prime of the Triple Changers. "Here's the trophy I want."

Okay, so the problem I have with the climax of the episode is that there is no way whatsoever that Prime should be able to capture Chumley. They've spent the entire episode demonstrating how Chumley can trick and trap and disable a Transformer with remarkable ease. When he is hunting Prime, he's doing so because he enjoys the sport of it. There seem to be certain unspoken rules (when Astrotrain interferes and Chumley believes Prime is dead, he dismisses Prime as "worthless" because it was not Chumley who defeated Prime himself). Compare this to when he was trapping the Autobots. He used every dirty trick in the book and had no sense of fair play. This was because he was just using the Autobots to lure Prime. They were not the object of the hunt. The other Autobots themselves were never meant to be trophies. So, with this said, how in the world was Chumley captured? When it became clear that Prime was about to best him, why didn't he just zap Prime with the same disabling device that instantly kayoed Tracks, Jazz, etc.? It makes zero sense for Chumley to allow himself to be captured, not when we've already seen that he can instantaneously render a Transformer completely inert. Of course, the plot requires that the Autobots emerge victorious in the end.

As several more Autobots who never got captured (Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe... and a red Autobot with roof lights and a spoiler, maybe Red Alert colored like Windcharger?) drive off, we hear a radio announcer (probably Hector Ramirez again, still being voiced by Frank Welker) talk about the Autobots stopping the planet from going to war with itself. A fairly heavy resolution considering some of the goofy antics that went on in this episode. I'm surprised he didn't follow up with a teaser for his next episode of "Twenty Questions."

So, we cut to a brief interlude in Russia (you can tell by the fancy onion-shaped domes on top of all the buildings) where Chumley, and the missing jet fighter, have been safely delivered. One supposes Chumley was imprisoned or executed (I'm not up on my socialist penal code) because he never harassed the Autobots again after this episode.

It's unusual for Optimus Prime to get a showcase episode this late in the series. He was the focus of early installments like "Divide and Conquer" and "A Prime Problem," but given the merchandise-driven nature of this show, it was a bold move to place such strong emphasis on him this late in the game. This was one of the episodes selected to air as part of the first season of Transformers: Generation 2, by merit of the fact that there was an Optimus Prime toy sold as part of the G2 toy line. (Actually, this episode does a better job than most at advertising the G2 line. Bumblebee, Beachcomber, Inferno, Starscream, Jazz... all G2 toys and all featured in this episode in some capacity.)

Bonus: I was inspired to write a fanfic based on this episode, so watch for it soon-ish!


Zob (it's amazing what I can accomplish when the kids go to daycare and I have a day off work)

[banzait...@gmail.com]

Holy cow, great review. I was literally lol'ing. So I agree there are some obscenely ridiculous parts to this episode, but overall I still think it is a classic. There is some excellent humor, and it has some definitively dark moments. Specifically, as you mentioned, the antagonists complete disregard for life of any kind. I remember this episode giving me the creeps as a kid. I still remember being somewhat disturbed at how chumlie was stuffed into the jet upon its return to Russia. Not very autobot like.
Maybe I am crazy, but there is something about this episode that makes you root for the villain. I mean you know prime is gonna win, he always does. What if... I would love to read your fanfic on this. I think this episode creates on of the best g1 villains.
My only beef with your review is that you left out the best line of the entire episode, one that me and my brother laugh about to this day (a staggering 30 years later). ("May I suggest molten lava, sir"). What kind of sicko would come up with that. Pure GENIOUS!

-Banzaitron

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

On Monday, August 15, 2016 at 6:07:05 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> Zob (it's amazing what I can accomplish when the kids go to daycare and I have a day off work)

I'll get to it, I'll get to it... Everything is on fire at work, and I haven't had the time to really focus on the episode.

[Zobovor]

On Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at 12:43:01 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> I'll get to it, I'll get to it... Everything is on fire at work, and I haven't
> had the time to really focus on the episode.

We had a fire in town yesterday morning. Roads were blocked off everywhere. Every time I turned the corner, police car parked sideways. Very frustrating.


Zob (free associating)

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

"Prime Target" is a second season episode, written by Flint Dille and Buzz Dixon. Flint Dille also wrote "Five Faces of Darkness", one of my favorite episodes (well, long multipart sage) of the series, while Buzz Dixon wrote "Carnage in C-Minor" (also, "The God Gambit", which was pretty good). Since Flint Dille was an executive script consultant for the Transformers for the first three seasons, and wrote nothing other than this and "Five Faces of Darkness", I kind of wonder whether he was salvaging a mess of a script, and why he didn't also salvage "Carnage in C-Minor".

We open in the arctic, where titles hang ominously in the sky and travel at roughly the same speed as a jet. The titles then suddenly vanish leaving only the jet, flying low. "October Guard 1 to Base -- I am receiving a sonar reading, blah blah blah, probable submarine."

The submarine is under the ice, traveling fast enough that it is overtaking the fighter -- this is an awesome submarine. The plane's ability to use sonar is also quite impressive, particularly through the ice sheet. We often don't think about how the transformers have changed humanity, at least until the far future year of 2005, but here we see technological advancements well beyond the actual 1985 time period, which can only have come from Transformers.

The submarine rises, smashing through the ice, and then harpoons the plane flying low overhead. The pilot ejects, and the plane is pulled underwater. The harpoon is connected to the submarine by a link chain, which seems like a terrible choice -- a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, after all, and there is an enormous amount of force on that chain. But, Lord Chumley knows his equipment better than I do, as the chain works like a charm.

We then see the exterior of Lord Chumley's castle, as his manservant mutters at him. It's a deeply weird terrain, possibly not on Earth. The sky is purple, there is a desolate high tech city thing in the valley, and there are outcroppings with holes in them that look like they came from a depressing Dr. Suess book ("I am the Borax, I speak for the desolate wasteland"). There are weird antennas on the castle. Since the manservant is mentioning the frightening international row over the missing plane, one presumes this is Earth, somewhere.

Inside the castle, we see Chumley and the manservant (Dinsmore), walking past Chumley's trophies. I am most impressed with the head of a mountain lion that is as large as a person (the head is as large as a person, the whole thing must have been massive). The Russian fighter is now mounted and hung on the wall.

Chumley alleges that just a single trophy will make his collection complete -- the head of Optimus Prime. He's probably been a single trophy away from completing his collection for decades. Dinsmore pours tea poorly.

Meanwhile, Bumblebee and Tracks are driving through an empty city on a supply run, and discover that the entire sparse population is getting their news the old fashioned way -- watching through a shop window. This may be the largest collection of people without hardhats we ever see in the first two seasons. They also cannot afford their own televisions -- they were probably all put out of work by the fantastic advances in robotics after contact with the Transformers. One assumes there were other people, day drinking in the local bars, but that the cartoon just didn't show that. The newscast has stock footage of the secret Russian jet fighter.

The Autobots then discover Blitzwing and Astrotrain sneaking about the suspiciously empty city. "So much for my new wax job," Tracks says, and Bumblebee looks visibly relieved that he will not have to give Tracks a wax job.

The Decepticons are running surprisingly fast, so the Autobots cannot even catch them in vehicle mode, but they wander into a dead end. But they are holograms, and a truck fires a magnet and chain at Tracks and electrifies it, stunning him. Bumblebee attempts to escape, but he cannot even escape Dinsmore who drives a trap directly in front of him. Bumblebee fights valiantly to escape the clutches of Dinsmore, to no avail (all valiant fighting happens offscreen).

Dinsmore congratulates Chumly on bagging the two Autobots, and says that the holographic projection rifle is working as good as ever. Lord Chumly replies "Jolly good show, ha ha ha".

Dinsmore's costume here is weird as hell. I believe he is dressed as Jack the Ripper.

Meanwhile, at the Autobot base, Blaster, Grapple, Beachcomber, Jazz and the disembodied groan of Ironhide are watching "As The Kitchen Sinks" when there is a special newsbullitin announcing that the UN is now in session. We can see another instance of the Transformers technology entering the mainstream here, as the video signal for the newscast is a 3D hologram.

Optimus enters and demands to know whether this is the latest news report, or some old news report. It is reasonable to assume that Teletraan-I can timeshift tv programs, but wouldn't Optimus know when "As The Kitchen Sinks" is on?

Jazz asks Optimus if he thinks the Decepticons are behind the theft of the experimental Russian jet, and Optimus poo-poos that idea. 10 days later, we would see the Decepticons stealing cars, so Optimus is clearly just talking out of his tailpipe.

As the newsreport ends, Optimus turns off everyone's program. And then announces that Tracks and Bumblebee haven't reported in. Jazz suggests that they might be having fun, Grapple says they might be up to their hubcaps in trouble, and then Optimus declares that whatever the case, they must find them. Optimus then punches his hand. I think he means to beat the errant Autobots to within an inch of their lives.

Driving down the road, Jazz says "I have seen every car wash, shower head and garden hose in this city, but still no sign of Tracks or Bumblebee." There's something about this line that sounds obscene. Also, no one thinks of looking anywhere Bumblebee might want to go, because Bumblebee has no interests.

Jazz is also spewing some horrible exhaust, almost as thick as what Smokescreen puts out. Jazz then discovers a new car wash and is herded in by a taxi. He is gently massaged and then grasped suddenly for what turns out not to be a happy ending -- he is shaken and shocked and shoved into a truck -- a massive truck, given how little of the truckbed Jazz ends up occupying. "Gripping," Lord Chumly says. Dinsmore wants to go home and take a nap.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Autobots are driving aimlessly on a maze of empty highways. Surely, they would not be the only cars on the road if this was a normal city, would they? Beachcomber tosses change into a toll booth, which then grabs him until large mechanical arms pick him up.

Lord Chumley is attempting to pass himself off as a normal person now, wearing a hardhat, but his hardhat has distinctively colored ridges. "Marvelous, snared like a Japanese Tiger" -- a weird reference to a previous adventure that I assume involved releasing tigers in Japan, watching for a while, and saying "Ironic, isn't it? Now the hunters become the hunted!" before heading off to hunt the tigers. I mean, that's how I would do it.

Grapple drives up to a crane operator, asking if the operator had seen his friends. The crane operator is none other than Lord Chumley himself (because there are no other humans in this city), and he drops girders upon Grapple, which quickly unfold in a cage for the luckless Autobot. "Hey, who designed this rat trap?" Grapple asks, identifying himself as a rat. Given that the cage survived longer than any of Grapple's projects, I assume he was impressed.

Lord Chumley drops Grapple off on a ship, and Dinsmore rouses himself from his nap to congratulate Chumley on the success of his tribal instincts theory. Chumley explains that it comes from years of studying some tribe somewhere, but he cannot remember all the details.

Down on Billboard Row, Blaster is blasting at Prime, and there are an assortment of billboards. "Don't fly drive", "Don't drink and drive", "Hide and Seek at the Island of Paradis", "Try our hand lotion, Creamy Cream". A taxi drives by (hard to tell if the driver is Chumley or Dinsmore, as he is wearing a hat). The Creamy Cream hands reach down and grab Blaster, forcibly transform him, and then toss him into a taxi with Chumley and Dinsmore. Chumley may have taken off the hat.

Then our hunters set a fire, set of the alarm and proceed to water the fire. It's a trap. There was a kid waving in the window, but after Inferno dismembers him and throws him into the fire, it becomes clear he was just a mannequin, and a hose winds around Inferno. Lord Chumley is amazed, since he has never seen a species so unafraid of fire.

Inferno got about half a warning out before the hose went after his communicator, so Optimus orders an abrupt change in plan and orders everyone back to base. Windcharger is apparently confused by this, so he stops on some train tracks -- the little blockade bars go down, and he is trapped in front of an oncoming train. He transforms and leaps to safety. Lord Chumley says "Drat".

Optimus apparently has to repeat himself for hours, over and over, since we then see a night scene with Huffer under a streetlight. Huffer finally wakes up and drives off right before the trap is sprung. Dinsmore has a sad.

The next morning or so, at the Autobot base, Optimus explains to Windcharger, Ironhide, Warpath and Hoist that Autobots are missing and no one knows where they are. I wish Hoist was replaced with Sideswipe, so we would have had a scene of all red Autobots.

Warpath suggests that they go out and bang, nailing some Decepticon hide. Both "bang" and "nail" could be used as sexual euphemisms. Optimus says that there is no proof that the Decepticons are behind this. Teletraan-I alerts that Cosmos is broadcasting on the emergency frequency. Cosmos explains that he has spotted something most disturbing, some kind of outdoor torture chamber for the missing Autobots.

Viewed from behind, the group of Autobots suddenly includes Mirage. Appearing out of nowhere is kind of his thing though, so I assume this is not an animation mistake.

Grapple must grapple with a large rock, Bumblebee must transform back and forth to avoid large blades, Beachcomber is driving on a disk with some mildly rough terrain. Tracks drives on a figure 8 track while lasers threaten his paint job. Other than Grapple, all of them could escape at any moment, but choose not to. They probably suffer from Stockholm syndrome.

Optimus says that most of them will be fine, but that Grapple is something of a weakling.

Lord Chumley interrupts, holding a cigar awkwardly, announcing that Chumley is his name and hunting is his game. Dinsmore is dusting the console on Lord Chumley's side. Lord Chumley suggests that Optimus come rescue his little friends, and Optimus accepts, pulling down on the "destroy connected console" lever, destroying the connected console, and rendering Dinsmore's dusting pointless. The lever is actually labelled "Feed Back Overload", in English, at least on the side that Optimus cannot see.

The labelling of the lever in English suggests that Spike had been pulling levers at random one day. Sigh.

Warpath suggests they all go along to wham bam kick some tail, but Optimus resists, saying "If he wants a one to one battle, he will get one." This is basically why the Autobots should be doomed to lose the Great War -- honor with people and robots who have no honor.

Meanwhile, Megatron is watching on his own console, which is now static. I wish Megatron's console had also been destroyed. Megatron says that "Whoever this is, he is brilliant," whereupon Starscream points out the obvious -- Chumley has done more in two days than Megatron has done in two years -- and is beaten and threatened for it. Megatron than orders the triple changers to make contact with this fearless hunter, so they can finish off the Autobots once and for all. "What's the matter, Megatron, afraid to do it yourself?" Starscream asks, and the scene changes before Starscream gets beaten again.

Does Starscream enjoy being beaten? This might explain a lot.

Also, it is odd that Megatron would send the Decepticons that Chumley had holograms of, just at random.

Optimus arrives as Lord Chumley's castle grounds, weirdly driving on a blank background the final stretch of the way. Lord Chumley is amused that he would dress as a semi-truck, while Dinsmore approaches with an empty glass on a tray.

Optimus calls into base, and then begins to exchange banter with Lord Chumley. Lord Chumley declines to show himself, citing a precedent involving a Rhino, and then explains that the Autobots are somewhere in this well researched mockup of Cybertron. Presumably, this means that the Autobots have been explaining Cybertron to news organizations.

Optimus is then assaulted by a dragon. Perhaps a well researched Cybertronian dragon. The dragon damages Optimus's right shoulder, and knocks away his gun onto a small bridge. Optimus then beats the dragon senseless with his bare hands, and runs after his gun. The dragon follows, and nibbles on his other shoulder.

Lord Chumley explains that it is a dragon for Borneo, and presumably quite rare. Optimus then kicks it down an incredibly deep shaft. It is not one of those flying dragons, so it is probably killed.

Chumley and Dinsmore discuss the situation briefly, and then Chumley lets loose the net. Optimus dodges it, but it arises from the ground in front of him and then traps him for a commercial break, where he doubtless was forced to watch advertisements for other toys.

The net is glowing red, so Optimus grabs a nearby chain and throws it at some power lines. He misses, and hits the girders near the power lines, but it's apparently close enough. Red energy goes up the line, blue energy goes down, and Optimus is free.

Optimus exchanges some more banter with Chumley, and then the triple changers arrive. Blitzwing wants to stomp Optimus, but Astrotrain overrules him, screaming, "No! Let's take him by surprise!"

Optimus does not hear the shuttle or the jet approaching, or Astrotrain's shouting, but he does hear Blitzwing tripping. Blitzwing pulls back and Astrotrain calls him a clumsy fool as Optimus is right next to them. Optimus hears none of this.

Optimus then walks up to a damsel in distress. Lord Chumley is expecting Optimus to save the damsel, but Optimus decides to leave the woman to her fate. Lord Chumley then gives the best line of the episode -- "Drat, outsmarted by a lorry."

Blitzwing and Astrotrain are right behind. Astrotrain is surprised Optimus didn't save the woman, but Blitzwing just wants to stomp on her. Despite Astrotrain's objections, Blitzwing proceeds to do so, and is trapped in goo. Both Chumley and Astrotrain call him a blasted fool. Astrotrain proceeds to shoot Blitzwing in an effort to free him as Optimus walks away.

Optimus turns, and says "Amazing, a booby trap that actually catches boobies." The woman was quite well endowed.

"It's impenetrable. Blitzwing, how do you get into these messes?" Astrotrain asks, despite having been right there.

Blitzwing responds with muffled noises, so Astrotrain says that he will have to go to the castle to free him.

"Decepticons!" Lord Chumley rages. "Trust them to spoil a hunt."

"Yes, sir," Dinsmore replies, "just like the humane society in a way."

This is not quite as good as outsmarted by a lorry, but it is pretty good.

Optimus is then attacked by a giant robotic scorpion with Lord Chumley on a viewscreen rather than a scorpion face. The scorpion requires both Chumley and Dinsmore to control it.

Optimus is tearing apart the Scorpion when Astrotrain shoots Optimus in the back. Chumley is bothered by this -- destroying his sport -- so he attacks Astrotrain and drags him off, leaving Optimus behind.

In the castle, Lord Chumley now has the triple changers chained to the wall, and has defused their energy weapons. Astrotrain says that they were only trying to help, but Chumley says that he would sooner have the help of an aardvark. Somewhere, Dinsmore is noting that for Chumley's birthday gift.

Lord Chumley then wanders over to taunt the Autobots, and Bumblebee radios Optimus. Grapple tried to tell him not to, but Bumblebee didn't listen. This does mean that Bumblebee could have radioed at any time before this.

Optimus is awoken by Bumblebee's complaining, and asks for a homing signal. Bumblebee presumably complies, as he was clearly able to do the entire time he was held captive. Optimus staggers to the castle.

Meanwhile, Lord Chumley is trying to decide how to dispose of the Decepticons. "May I suggest molten lava, sir?" Dinsmore suggests. Lord Chumley is distracted by the viewscreen where he sees Optimus still advancing, and is delighted that he can still win his trophy.

Optimus fights a bear trap and a black widow robot. Optimus rips off the black widow's legs, except for the one it bites by accident poisoning itself and then exploding.

"If that was your best shot, Chumley, you're in trouble." Optimus is on the viewscreen again.

"It was my best shot, but not my last."

Optimus then wanders down a spinning corridor, and Lord Chumley consoles himself with the twisted remains of Optimus as a modern sculpture.

Optimus breaks the spinning corridor, and then punches the camera recording him so hard that it breaks the connected viewscreen. Dinsmore runs and hides in a tank.

Lord Chumley bargains with the Decepticons, offering to free them if they will fight Optimus Prime for him. Astrotrain says "trust us" and Lord Chumley learns an important life lesson -- never trust anyone who asks you to trust them. Or is a Decepticon, since that just means Deception.

Astrotrain tries to stomp on Chumley, but he moves fast for a fat man. The Autobots then rescue Chumley, firing the weapons which Chumley obviously failed to take away from them.

Optimus says there is no point chasing after the Decepticons, perhaps because they can fly. The trophy Optimus wants is Lord Chumley.

We then cut to Red Square, where the Soviet jet is suddenly there with Chumley tied up on the nose. Tensions decline and everyone is happy, especially Dinsmore who now has a massive castle all to himself.

---

Overall, this was a very silly episode. I liked it. Dinsmore getting away was excellent.

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

On Monday, August 15, 2016 at 6:07:05 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> "Prime Target" was episode #51 of the original Transformers series, originally airing on November 14, 1985. It was written by Flint Dille and Buzz Dixon, names that may sound familiar. Buzz Dixon served as a story editor and writer for G.I. Joe, and also penned "The God Gambit" and "Carnage in C-Minor" for Transformers (say what you want about the animation, but that's not the writer's fault!).

The writing was his fault though. And the singing. Oh, the singing.

> Our episode starts out with a subtle reference to G. I. Joe that may have been lost on people when seeing the episode for the first time. A female jet pilot is identified as a member of the Oktober Guard, which means this is Daina Janack. ... Daina parachutes to safety and is presumably picked up by the rest of the Oktober Guard.

Are you sure it was Daina, and not some other woman member? Perhaps one who died of exposure before they appeared on GI Joe? Daina's twin sister perhaps?

> Cut to the humble, modest castle of one Lord Chumley, the antagonist of our story. It seems he's a big game hunter who has grown tired of killing elephants and tigers and has, more recently, set his sights on prizes like tanks and helicopters and, yes, Soviet jet fighters. Always at his side is his faithful but slightly besotted butler, Dinsmoore. (Not sure of the spelling of either character's name. If you prefer to use the spelling Chumleigh and/or Dinsmore, I won't be upset.) Chumley is voiced magnificently by Peter Reneday, sounding exactly like Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Dinsmore is performed by Alan Oppenheimer. The two are apparently quite old, as they're making references to the Boer War (fought during the late 1800's or early 1900's, depending on which one they're referring to) and the "Big War" (what they called World War I during 1914-1918 before the second war came along). These guys are ancient in the extreme.

They really are quite fun. I didn't remember when the Boer War was so I didn't realize how old they were. Of coarse, as a big game hunter, couldn't it has been the Boar War? A vicious hunt against pigs?

> The interplay between the two characters echoes the Commander McBragg segments from the old Underdog cartoon. Dinsmoore stands there pouring tea onto a saucer, completely missing the teacup. ... Chumley finally turns to him and asks, "Dinsmoore, may I have some tea?")

A fine moment.

> Chumley will spend most of this episode trying to kill Optimus Prime, which is significantly different than hunting animals. It's one thing to shoot a gazelle, which is not really a thinking creature by the usual definitions. It's also legal, so despite what you may personally feel about hunting animals, it's socially acceptable under certain conditions.

I'm pretty sure a lot of his game was protected, and that shooting down Soviet jets is frowned upon.

> The difference here is that Chumley goads and banters with Prime during the hunt, so he clearly recognizes that Prime is sentient. Maybe Chumley doesn't believe there's such a thing as a "living" robot, which would make killing Prime less of a crime against the universe than killing a person.

Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Even the freedom to hunt other sentient beings.

> Cut to Tracks and Bumblebee making a supply run,

What supplies?

> Chumley seems to have a lot of advanced technology at his disposal for a mere human, but it's never explained where he got it.

I think it is pretty clear that the G1 Earth is more advanced than ours, probably from Transformers technology. Scientists are building robot ninjas, and things like that all the time, etc.

> At Autobot Headquarters, a bunch of Autobots (Grapple, Beachcomber, Jazz, and Blaster) are using Teletraan-I's monitor to watch a daytime television drama called As the Kitchen Sinks. We'll see that the Aerialbots patently cannot stand human television, but the more mature Autobots can't get enough of the stuff. In this gripping episode, if Donna is having an affair with Gordon, then Jack doesn't know Cheryl hid the real will. I'm not sure how the existence of a secret tryst is contingent upon whether a last will and testament is hidden, but I'm not caught up on every episode of ATKS so I'm sure it makes sense somehow.

I think they all end up paying the price for watching bad TV. Not in any explicitly connected manner, but these are the ones who get captured. TV rots their brains. They were probably too busy thinking about ATKS to notice the traps.

> Also, I just want to say that there's a problem with this scene that pops up very frequently in animation. There's a moment where we see Teletraan's viewscreen from an angle, and the journalist appears on the screen at an angle, as if he were peering through a window. The problem here is that this is a TV broadcast, which is a fixed image. If the news camera is filming the newscaster from a front view, then that image should continue to be a front view, no matter how far to the left or the right we stand and still look at the monitor screen. It's admittedly kind of hard to explain, so here's a bit of digital trickery to show you what I mean:
>
> http://www.zmfts.t15.org/zmfts_viewscreen_fixed.jpg

Hologram. Not freestanding, as the humans haven't reverse engineered that yet, except for Lord Chumley.

> Jazz asks Optimus Prime if he thinks the Decepticons are up to their usual tricks, but Prime seems to realize something else is going on. "I don't know why, Jazz, but I doubt it." Prime always knows when Megatron is cookng up some new scheme; it would be nice if the Autobots immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion and assumed it was the Decepticons, at least at first, but the plot requires Prime to know otherwise. In the meantime, though, Tracks and Bumblebee are missing, and this necessitates that the Autobots search for them.

The plot doesn't require Optimus to be right at all. He would still have to send everyone out looking for clues.

Optimus knows it isn't Megatron, though, because it appears to be competently done.

> Jazz is convinced Tracks is probably just getting the deluxe wax treatment at a car wash somewhere, so this becomes the focus of his search. Sure enough, there's a new place called the Auto Car Wash that he's never seen before, and he's herded into it by a taxi cab driven by Dinsmoore. Soon after, Jazz is zapped and disabled. Of course, for this far-fetched trap to work, Chumley would have had to know in advance that Tracks was a car wash fanatic AND that the other Autobots would have been checking them following his disappearance. Chumley really did his homework, apparently.

The entire city appears to be populated only by Chumley and Dinsmore, and they are everywhere. I wonder if there are multiples of them?

> Autobots are dropping like flies. Beachcomber does his civic duty and pays the toll for a bridge, dropping a coin into the receptacle, only to be rewarded by being grabbed by a couple of tentacles. "Hey, don't be greedy! I'm not giving you one penny more..." Beachcomber protests, as if he's well accustomed to toll bridges shaking him down for additional pocket change. "Snared like a Javanese tiger!" proclaims Chumley. This is a particularly dark moment if you realize that the tigers on the island of Java were hunted into extinction in the 1970's, making Chumley's remark rather ominous.

Ok, I thought it was Japanese... I had an entirely different backstory, possibly worse.

> Grapple finds a construction site and asks the crane operator if he's seen any of the missing Autobots. Of course, the crane operator is Chumley, and he responds by dumping a pile of girders on top of Grapple that somehow come together to form a cage. "Hey! Who designed this rat trap?!" balks Grapple. I'm kind of wondering this myself, actually. (I got into a big argument one time with a fan, for whom English was not his first language, over whether or not Grapple actually says "red trap." His argument was that the girders were red in color and therefore this made perfect sense.) Anyway, Grapple tugs at the cage, but despite the fact that none of the girders have been welded together or bolted shut in any way, he cannot escape. Dinsmoore congratulates Chumley in the confirmation of his "tribal instincts" theory, which apparently posits that a construction crane Autobot will naturally gravitate towards a construction site. I guess. I really don't know.

It's a really good theory though, whatever it is, as it allows them to catch Autobots incredibly easily.

> Blaster is investigating Billboard Row, a stretch of the city littered with advertisements, when he's suddenly grabbed by a giant pair of hands (part of a billboard advertisement for Creamy Cream brand hand lotion). Usually we cut to commercial during a suspenseful moment, not a goofy one. This is where this episode goes completely off the rails, as far as I'm concerned. The traps have gotten more and more silly, straining the boundaries of credibility without actually snapping them, but now they've gone and turned this show into a complete and utter farce.

This is roughly where I begin to really enjoy the episode, by the way.

> There are very few things about Transformers I have trouble accepting, but a gigantic pair of hands that grabs Blaster, transforms him into boom box mode, and throws him into the waiting taxi cab inhabited by Chumley and Dinsmoore, who proceed to use him like a common radio while he offers no objections? Preposterous.

We don't see Blaster getting tortured, do we? There are advantages to just playing along.

> The rescue scene with Inferno helps to salvage the episode somewhat. He's got his more detailed, toy-like helmet design in this episode (rather than the rounded Grapple-style design that we've seen in "Kremzeek!" and most of his other episodes) and when he rushes into the burning building, he's painted in an orange glow that actually looks really cool. He tries to save a small boy who is standing at the window and waving for someone to save him, but as Inferno arrives, it's clear the child is just a mannequin. Who somehow was able to wave its arm. Interesting.

Motors.

> An inocuous hydraulic spreader on the ground comes alive, acting like a snake and even going so far as to target Inferno's communicator, ripping it off before he has a chance to complete his warning to Prime. Twice, because the animation goes into a loop.

I begin to wonder if there are traps for all the Transformers -- even the ones we haven't seen. With enough cameras around, and Chumley and Dinsmore running around like mad whenever an Autobot enters the city. Assuming there are not Chumley and Dismore clones.

> Prime senses on some level that things are not going well for his brood, and he initiates a swift change in strategy—to recall the Autobots immediately to headquarters. Up until this point, each of the Autobots has been captured in some fashion that's strangely applicable. Inferno gets caught in a burning building; Grapple gets caught at a construction site, etc. Windcharger narrowly misses getting smashed by a train, and Huffer avoids an over-complicated trap by mere seconds where I guess a claw from inside a manhole was supposed to grab him while a drill hidden inside a lammpost was supposed to kill him. This particular trap seems to hinge on Huffer parking right in front of this specific manhole. The only thing more absurd about its design is the fact that he was, indeed, parked there until Prime called him back home.

Huffer was right outside the glue factory, huffing glue.

> We really need to explore this some more. For every elaborate trap that Chumley has devised, he and Dinsmoore dress up in the appropriate costume (a construction worker, a train engineer, whatever). They have to rent machinery (cars and trucks and forklifts and taxis) and actually build and design most of the traps (the car wash, the magical steel girder cage, the toll bridge, the billboard with gigantic hands). Maybe I'm just applying real-life logic to a cartoon, but usually this show has some kind of grounding in reality.

It's worse -- they have either emptied out the city, or built an entirely new city filled with traps.

> Back at the Autobot base, Prime is reeling from the Autobot disappearances. Warpath wants to kick some Decepticon butt, but Prime insists that they still have no direct evidence that Megatron is even going to be in this episode. Purely by chance, Cosmos just happens to stumble across Chumley's estate and alerts Prime that the missing Autobots have all been thrown into this twisted obstacle course of horrors.

Not all of them... Blaster and Jazz are not seen. I assume Jazz is being forced to listen to country music somewhere.

> So, Chumley contacts Prime (pre-empting the transmission being sent by Cosmos) and offers him the opportunity to rescue the wayward Autobots. Naturally, this is only so Chumley can lure Prime into his midst and seize his prize, but Prime doesn't know this yet. Prime is incensed but agrees to come to the rescue. He concludes the conversation by pulling Teletraan's "feedback overload" switch, causing Chumley's monitor to explode. Definitely not the silliest thing that's happened in this episode. Oddly, some of Chumley's victims seem to have escaped, since Jazz and Inferno are already both safe and sound back at the base.

Escaped, and apparently brainwashed?

> Eleven minutes into the episode, we finally cut away to Decepticon Headquarters. It seems Megatron has taken an interest in Chumley, remarking on his clever traps and his success. Starscream agrees—"he has done more in two days than you have in two years!" This episode takes place in 1985, so it's arguably been more like one year, but whatever. Naturally, Starscream gets knocked to the floor for his sassiness. "My patience for you wears thin, Starscream. Just you wait until The Transformers: the Movie!" Megatron promises. He contacts Astrotrain and Blitzwing (the real ones this time) and tells them to get in touch with Chumley and propose an alliance. "What's the matter, Megatron? Afraid to do it yourself?" asks Starscream, and this time he's right on the money.

It's a bit daring for a show to point out just how amazingly ineffective the villains are. Megatron and his Decepticons are like Team Rocket from Pokemon.

> Prime arrives at Chumley's camp and Chumley, over an intercom speaker, explains that Prime must make his way through a "well-researched mock-up of Cybertron" to find his friends. This comment in and of itself seems peculiar—how could Chumley have any idea what Cybertron even looks like? Neither the Autobots nor Decepticons have had any interaction with him until this episode, and only a handful of humans (Spike, Sparkplug Carly, Chip) have ever been to Cybertron themselves. It occurs to me that perhaps Chumley and Dr. Arkeville may have had an off-screen meeting. Arkeville would know enough about Transformers to develop zapper guns that could disable them, and he's the only other human I'm aware of who has ever seen what Cybertron looks like. So, it might be Arkeville who has been providing Chumley with his technology.

Dr. Arkeville looks a little like Dinsmore, so there might be a relationship there too. I assume the Autobots have been interviewed and Bumblebee went on for hours describing Cybertron as the audience discovered just how tedious the fantastic could become.

> Prime encounters a dragon-like creature, which Chumley claims he discovered in the uncharted depths of Borneo. Well, we know dragons once existed as per "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court," so perhaps they did not all go extinct. (After all, we know the dinosaurs survived, as seen in "Dinobot Island" parts 1 and 2.) Prime and the dragon get into a scuffle atop a bridge overlooking a chasm, which seems to be inspired by the site of the Cloud City duel between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The dragon keeps going after the fog horns on the top of Prime's shoulders, perhaps because he hates loud noises. In the end, the dragon is sent plummeting down into the pit, and Prime is subdued by a glowing, electrified net. Cut to commercial.

Poor dragon, so rare, so precious, so dead.

> When we come back, Prime manages to disable the net by throwing a chain to a nearby electrical tower, thus shorting it out. Shrug. Cartoon logic.

He misses the lines too.

> It's around this time that the Triple Changers arrive. Blitzwing wants to just attack head-on, but Astrotrain suggests they sneak up on him. When Blitzwing trips over a pipe, Prime whirls around, but there's no one in evidence. Blitzwing has quickly transformed to tank mode and is ostensibly blending in with the scenery. Prime is either off his game, or he's playing along. He then encounters a scantily-clad female, crying and chained to a big metal thing. Prime considers it for a moment before he moves on.

Does he see through the trap, or just figure the woman isn't important? Hard to tell.

> So, the Triple Changers wonder why Prime didn't save this woman. Astrotrain seems to quickly realize it must be a trap, but Blitzwing is a little slower to process things. "Stop your cryin'!" he demands, and proceeds to stomp the woman into meat paste. Obviously, she wasn't real, but Blitzwing didn't know that. (If you watch the scene in slow motion, there's a single frame of animation where the woman's hair is visible on one side of the screen and her arm is on the other. He totally stomped her into pieces.) I wonder what the Decepticon Apologists, who insisted the Decepticons were not murderers, would have to say about this scene?

Blitzwing, enraged by the obviousness of the trap, attempted to stomp on it out of frustration? While Optimus failed to notice and left the woman to die?

>
> So, Blitzwing has fallen into the trap, which coats him in a thick layer of gooey green glop. In short, he's been slimed. "Where did he come from? That blasted fool!" Chumley erupts. "You blasted fool!" echoes Astrotrain, in a silly parallel moment. (Astrotrain even takes on a British accent for an instant to really drive the parallel home, but it's an inauthentic moment since Astrotrain does not talk this way.

Inauthentic, but worth it.

> It does at least demonstrate that the actors were indeed in the same recording studio sometimes. There are so many episodes that call for one line of dialogue to play off another, which is impossible when voice actors are delvering lines in separate recording booths.) Prime, who was apparently aware of the Triple Changers' presence the entire time, remarks thusly: "Amazing! A booby trap that actually catches boobies!" This line has gone down in infamy, mostly because people like the idea that Prime uses the word "boobies" in a sentence. It's so naughty in a rated-PG kind of way.

It also gets reused, or paraphrased in Beast Wars. "When expecting booby traps, always send a boob in first."

> Chumley sends a remote-controlled robotic scorpion after Prime, and it's something that looks like it came from the Convertors toy line. Again, Chumley's face appears on a viewscreen mounted on the scorpion's head, but the way his viewscreen image is drawn from an angle, it makes it look like Chumley is actually inside the scorpion and viewing Prime through a glass window.

Hologram, or a model of Chumley inside the scorpion.

> Anyway, Prime has nearly subdued the Convertors scorpion, breaking its claw and is about to use its own tail against it, when Astrotrain sneaks up from behind and zaps Prime. Enraged, Chumley uses Scorpio to blast Astrotrain and the two end up in a robotic dogpile. Believing Prime to be dead, Chumley has been robbed of his prize, dismissing Prime as completely worthless now. "Maybe you could make a nice coffee table out of him, sir," Dinsmoore suggests. What a bizarre honor code Chumley has.

I don't know if Chumley thinks Prime is dead, or that he will retreat, repair and try again.

> Back at the castle, Chumley has Astrotrain and Blitzwing chained up, and claims to have disabled their energy weapons. This is more proof that he's got some kind of insider information about Transformers (I still tend to think it's Arkeville, though I guess Chip Chase could have turned bad).

I wonder if the city with all the traps was the one turned into Trypticon...

> Bumblebee wants to send Prime a message. When Grapple warns him not to exhaust his energy, Bumblebee responds, "What have I got to save it for?!" Bumblebee and conveniently has a communicator module inside his helmet, so he doesn't have to raise his arm communicator (and risk it getting lopped off). He activates a homing beacon, allowing Prime to track the location of the captive Autobots.

He could have done so at any time. Chumley knew this and was planning on it, but Bumblebee never did it, so the entire thing is dependent on Cosmos flying overhead.

> Prime then finds himself in a carival ride. Seriously, it's one of those rotating vortex tunnels that they have at theme parks and haunted houses, like from the end of the movie Grease. Not surprisingly, Prime outstretches his arms and stops the rotation with ease. "Impossible!" cries Chumley. At this point, Prime, who is on Chumley's monitor, somehow manages to punch the screen, shattering it and sending shards of glass raining all over Chumley and Dinsmoore. Now THAT is impossible. Cartoon physics. It's like Mr. Spacely reaching right through the visaphone to strangle George Jetson.

> "Neither impossible nor impossible!"

Impassable, not impossible. Well, the second one.

> "B-but... you said...!" Chumley blubbers. "Never trust Decepticons, flesh creature!" retorts Blitzwing (who is practicing his ventroloquism here, since the voice actually comes out of Chumley's mouth).

Chumley could have just been moving his mouth at the same time, nervously.

> Given what he did to the scantily-clad young waif, you just know Blitzwing is going to stomp Chumley into some USDA-approved ground beef. Suddenly, the captive Autobots appear and attack. Well, SOME Autobots appear, anyway. Wheeljack, Prowl, Bluestreak, Ironhide, Ratchet... definitely not the Autobots we saw getting captured. (Did Prowl get caught during a routine traffic stop? Did Ironhide get captured at a redneck convention?)

Ok, I didn't bother looking to see who it was when I was watching...

> The Triple Changers have kind of botched their mission, haven't they? They were supposed to forge some kind of alliance with Chumley. Sure, he captured them, but he released them conditionally. There was still the opportunity to join forces with him.

I didn't really pick up on that. I don't think Megatron has a tolerance for humans that get too big for their britches though, so I think the Triple Changers will be fine.

> Okay, so the problem I have with the climax of the episode is that there is no way whatsoever that Prime should be able to capture Chumley. They've spent the entire episode demonstrating how Chumley can trick and trap and disable a Transformer with remarkable ease.

Optimus has fought his way through to the castle. The castle is surrounded by traps, but is relatively trap free. Lord Chumley has to live there, after all.

> When he is hunting Prime, he's doing so because he enjoys the sport of it. There seem to be certain unspoken rules (when Astrotrain interferes and Chumley believes Prime is dead, he dismisses Prime as "worthless" because it was not Chumley who defeated Prime himself). Compare this to when he was trapping the Autobots. He used every dirty trick in the book and had no sense of fair play. This was because he was just using the Autobots to lure Prime. They were not the object of the hunt. The other Autobots themselves were never meant to be trophies. So, with this said, how in the world was Chumley captured? When it became clear that Prime was about to best him, why didn't he just zap Prime with the same disabling device that instantly kayoed Tracks, Jazz, etc.? It makes zero sense for Chumley to allow himself to be captured, not when we've already seen that he can instantaneously render a Transformer completely inert. Of course, the plot requires that the Autobots emerge victorious in the end.

Chumley was too arrogant to believe Prime would get that far.

> So, we cut to a brief interlude in Russia (you can tell by the fancy onion-shaped domes on top of all the buildings) where Chumley, and the missing jet fighter, have been safely delivered. One supposes Chumley was imprisoned or executed (I'm not up on my socialist penal code) because he never harassed the Autobots again after this episode.

Dinsmore is free! free! free!

> Bonus: I was inspired to write a fanfic based on this episode, so watch for it soon-ish!

The further adventures of Dinsmore? I am excited.

[Zobovor]

On Monday, August 15, 2016 at 7:07:05 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

<snip>

It occurred to me that I forgot to schedule an episode for September. Since it's back-to-school season, howsabout "B.O.T."?


Zob (not a favorite episode by any means, but sometimes it's fun to watch the bad ones)

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

Oof. I guess we have to do it at some point, but... oof.

"B.O.T." it is. At least it is better than "A Prime Problem" and "TF:TM".

[banzait...@gmail.com]

Yes!!! Another one of my favorites!

"Aren't lasers dangerous sir?"

-Banzaitron

[David Connell]

And far better than "Call of the Primatives". (Sure, the animation is beautiful, but it was the only episode that I turned off out of boredom back in the day!)