Child's Play (episode)
From Transformers Wiki
| This article is about the episode of the Generation 1 cartoon. For issue #35 of the Marvel US comic, seeChild's Play (issue). |
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 "Give me the power, I beg of you!" | |||||||||
| "Child's Play" | |||||||||
| Production code | 700-43 | ||||||||
| Season | 2 | ||||||||
| No. in season | 28 | ||||||||
| Production company | Sunbow Productions | ||||||||
| Airdate | November 7,1985 | ||||||||
| Written by | Beth Bornstein | ||||||||
| Animation studio | Toei | ||||||||
| Continuity | Generation 1 cartoon continuity | ||||||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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The Transformers find themselves on an alien planet where they're no bigger than toys to the inhabitants!
Contents |
Synopsis
At a baseball stadium onEarth,theDecepticonsare setting up aspace bridge,over the objections of thehumans.Megatrondecides to let his troops have some fun:Thrustfires baseballs at people from his cannons,SoundwaveandSkywarpplay catch (using a human),Ravagechases a player around the field, andStarscreamstarts grabbing people injet mode.The unwholesome family fun is ended when theAutobotsarrive. AsOptimus Primeand the Autobots attack,Perceptortries to run a scan on the space bridge, but Megatron shoots the controls. However, Optimus Prime, Perceptor,Bumblebee,Inferno,Smokescreen,Soundwave, Ravage, Thrust, and Starscream are within the space bridge's confines at the time, and they are sucked into a portal along with theenergon cubes.As Megatron laments the loss of the energon (and fails to notice the bright side of Optimus and Starscream probably being dead), the space bridge self-destructs.Ironhideleads the remaining Autobots back to thebase,hoping thatTeletraan Ican figure out where the others were sent.
Meanwhile, the lost Transformers awaken to find themselvessomewhere else.All of a sudden, a large sphere lands atop Starscream. Then a monster attacks, chasing Soundwave. Thrust tries to fly away, but lands in a body of water. Also, Ravage is caught by some plant life. Convinced the Decepticons are no longer a threat, Optimus has the Autobots load the energon into his trailer, and they roll out. They find a building made of relatively poor materials, only to discover something quite shocking: They're in the bedroom of a gargantuan alien child.
The boy,Aron,places Starscream, Soundwave, Ravage, and Thrust in a small bowl, whileNitro(his pet and the creature that was chasing Soundwave) smells the Autobots. As Aron tells him to stop, the Decepticons escape. Thrust is tied down with a piece of string, Ravage is chased down like a mouse and locked in a small cage witha rodent-like petto run on a wheel (how embarrassing), and Soundwave is locked in a toy box. Starscream manages to hide in the small toy building and sees the Autobots. Naturally, Starscream fires hisnull-rayat theenergon,causing a fire. Starscream is quickly recaptured, and Inferno douses the fire. Optimus introduces the Autobots to Aron, when the boy's parents arrive. Hiding the Autobots in a desk drawer, Aron shows the Decepticons to his parents. However, Aron is also compelled to show the Autobots.
The Transformers are taken to a lab, wherescientistsintend to dissect them (starting with the Decepticons). However, Aron steals the Autobots away, with the authorities in pursuit. Aron hides behind a trash can, dodging his pursuers, but a local bully namedMartycomes along. The Autobots hide within a trashcan, and Marty wanders off. Meanwhile, Ravage has picked his locks and frees the other Decepticons. Aron is still being chased by the authorities, so he intends to hide the Autobots at his house. However, Optimus tells Aron that they have to return to Earth, a planet far from this one. Aron wonders if he could see it through his telescope, and Perceptor happens upon an idea. However, Soundwave has overheard them.
The authorities spot Aron, so the Autobots decide to escape by traveling to Aron's house through the sewers. The Decepticons see the Autobots and follow them below. As the two groups fight it out within the sewer, a wave comes along. (Let's not ponder what the wave is made of.) The Decepticons hightail it out, while the Autobots ride the wave in a teacup. Escaping out through a drainage pipe, the Autobots head to Aron's house.
Using Nitro as a way into Aron's room, Perceptor explains that they can use the energon, along with modifications to hislight cannon,to propel them to Earth through the telescope. Once he's ready, however, the Decepticons arrive and grab Bumblebee. Starscream orders Optimus to let them pass, and just as theAutobot leaderis prepared to let them go, Nitro pounces, freeing Bumblebee but allowing the Decepticons to escape back to Earth...and land right in a lake filled with alligators. Back on...whatever Aron's planet is called, Aron suggests using his toy rocket ship to go home. Perceptor is able to modify it for interstellar transport, and the Autobots depart, with Optimus telling Aron that whenever he looks into the sky, he'll be seeing them.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Skywarp, think fast!"
- —Soundwaveplaying catch with Skywarp...using a human.
"Strike three, Megatron. You're out."
- —Optimus Prime,umpire.
"Alert, alert: Assistance required."
- —Soundwaverunning away from Nitro, alien kitty cat.
[The Decepticons return to Earth, landing in a lake]
Thrust:This isn't the type of welcome I had in mind.
Starscream:Who cares, as long as there aren't any green monsters around.
[Alligators converge and attack the Decepticons]
Starscream:AHHH! GET THESE THINGS OFF OF ME! AHHHH!
- —Starscreamjust can't win.
Smokescreen:A rocket ship!
Inferno:Atoyrocket ship.
PerceptorWell, anything's worth a try. With some modifications to the propulsion core—
Optimus:Perceptor, just do it.
- —PerceptorexhaustsOptimus Prime'spatience.
Notes
Production information
- Script submitted: 22nd April 1985
- First draft storyboards completed: 22nd April 1985
- Dialogue recording: 2nd May 1985
- Storyboards revised: 4th June 1985
- Storyboards slugged: 7th June 1985 byGwen Wetzler
Continuity notes
- Perceptor demonstrates his rarely-used ability to roll along as a giant vehicular microscope.
- When the Decepticons are flying through the air, Ravage is shown to be "running" next to them. So cute.
- Gadgets and powers:
- Inferno deploys a human-catching net from the top of his ladder.
- Chip says he contactedCybertronto find out if the Space Bridge sent the Autobots there. Contactedwho?At this point in the series, no actual Autobots have been shown remaining on Cybertron! Some willfinallybe revealed 10 episodes later, in "The Search for Alpha Trion".
- <<Brawn vs. Soundwave,Round 6: Brawn grabs Soundwave by the feet and hurls him into Starscream. Brawn 5, Soundwave 1. Final winner: the nigh-invulnerable Brawn!
Real-world references
- The planet that the Transformers travel to is not named in the episode, and would have to wait more than two decades before finally receiving a name — "Brobdingnag"— inThe AllSpark Almanac II.This, of course, is a reference to the famous island ofBrobdingnaginGulliver's Travels,also inhabited by a race of giants.
Animation and technical errors
More than most, this episode suffers fromreallyerror-laden animation, much of it seemingly unfinished. Throughout the episode, layering errors make hash of both physics and the characters' interactions, characters are repeatedly colored as other characters, and everybody's got the wrong sound effects.
- Megatron's opening lines ( "Since the humans are so eager to play, this stadium will make a perfect space bridge. Why don't you accommodate them?" ) don't quite flow together, as if something got cut after the first part of the first sentence, or as if the first two clauses should be switched around.
- Coloring errors:
- When Skywarp flies up to catch the human Soundwave just threw, he is colored as Starscream.
- Starscream's face is the same dark gray as his helmet after he's crushed by the giant ball, rather than its usual light gray.
- Starscream has Skywarp's colors when Aron drops him in the glass jar. And again when Soundwave joins him. Andagainas he and Soundwave break out.
- As Soundwave runs away from Nitro and says, "Get us out of here", he is colored red like Perceptor.
- As Perceptor is knocked down by Soundwave, the rim of his chest is grey instead of white.
- Smokescreen is presented in Grimlock's colors when Perceptor starts talking about building a transportation beam.
- As the Decepticons fly to Aron's house, Starscream is colored like Thundercracker.
- As Inferno blasts the energon cubes, his energy beam isn't given a proper glow effect; it's colored black instead.
- Starscream is colored like Thundercracker (again) as they fly up to the light beam.
- Smokescreen's head crest is colored blue instead of yellow as Bumblebee asks about the cubes.
- Though both of the people Starscream picks up at the baseball game are male, one of the voices screaming for help is distinctly female.
- As Starscream is flying around, the stands keep switching back and forth from being completely full to completely empty.
- As Optimus arrives at the stadium and transforms, his trailer simply vanishes into thin air, with Inferno appearing in its place.
- When Optimus says, "Strike Two...", his raised right arm actually covers part of his head.
- Thrust makes no transformation noise after he's swatted out of the air by the cat creature.
- The Autobots driving across Aron's floor are movingincrediblyslowly.
- The Autobots make the "wrong" transformation noise (descending pitch) as they arrive at the "building" and convert torobot mode.
- As Inferno knocks on the "building" 's walls, the intended comedic effect of the wall falling and hitting him and Perceptor is animated as if it were a tidal wave bursting through the wall. After about 1/2 of the "metallic clang" sound effect, the scene instantly cuts to the Autobots walking along as if nothing happened. The wall Inferno knocks on does not appear to match the walls seen in earlier shots.
- Despite the fact they are animated as walking, the background behind the Autobots does not move in any way.
- Thanks to a strange cut, the Autobots all instantly stop walking as soon as Optimus Prime decides to sprint ahead.
- Starscream swats Ravage aside after Aron drops him in the jar, but Ravage just hangs in mid-air, unmoving.
- Aron's sock (shoe?) re-appears a few times on his foot after he's thrown it at Nitro.
- As Soundwave is being dropped into the cylinder, some parts of his head are white when they should be dark blue.
- As the Decepticons fly over the city, Starscream's face is obscured by his left arm blaster. But since the view is from the right, the blaster should bebehindhis head. The layers are corrected when the shot is re-used a few scenes later, as the Decepticons hunt for Aron's house.
- Wrong weapon sound effects:
- Thrust gets Optimus Prime's laser sound effect when he's firing baseballs from his arm guns.
- Like Thrust before him, Starscream gets Prime's laser sound effect when he fires on the Autobots inside the building set.
- In fact,nobodygets the right sound effects. Ravage has the same 1950s-sounding blast effect used all over the place in "The Search for Alpha Trion"(when he, uh, fires lasers out of his missiles.) So does Prime when he blasts the sewer rat. Inferno gets a Decepticon sound effect when he blasts Starscream in the sewer.
- The spinning animation of the razor the aliens try to dissect Ravage with is screwed up. While there are clear spinning effects on the side of the blade, the teeth around the edge remain motionless.
- As Optimus reaches the sewer and finds Starscream standing atop the pipe he's coming out of, a number of odd things happen: his nose disappears for a moment. He grabs at Starscream, who stands motionless, and his hands disappear as though they're meant to be blocked by something. Then he starts falling spontaneously, and a moment later a giant half-drawn leg kicks him. It seems as though this shot was meant to be animated with a different background.
- Bumblebee falls into a whirlpool and it stops moving towards the end of the shot.
- As Inferno rushes to save Bumblebee, the water has not been animated around the characters, thus making them look like half-robots floating in midair.
- Inferno's ladder changes from hollow bars to filled-in (all gray) as he lifts Bumblebee over.
- Flying Autobots:
- The Autobots emit a rocket sound effect as they leap from the tea cup, as if they had flight capabilities.
- The Autobots are supposed to be running toward Nitro, but they aren't actually shown to be moving forward.
- When Aron removes the energon cubes from his drawer, his head and left arm disappear. This error is only present on the DVD release of the series, as it was corrected before the episode was broadcast.
- Bumblebee vanishes from the shot as the Decepticons flee from Nitro.
- As the alligators approach the Decepticons, the back of Starscream's head is the same light gray as his body, instead of its usual dark gray.
- The alligators of the lake the Decepticons landed in are unnaturally huge. They seem as big as Starscream, who is over twenty feet tall, mind you.
- As the Autobots board the rocket from Aron's hands, the cel layering iscompletelyscrewed up. The Autobots just appear out of nowhere in Aron's hands. Bumblebee appears to be growing right out of Aron's skin. Prime walkspastthe rocket rather than into it, then phases through its skin to enter it (there's no actual hatchway shown.) Nitroalsophases through the rocket to lick Bumblebee, and both of them sit there, half-submerged in the rocket. Wow!
- The audio seems to slow down for a second as the rocket lifts off.
Continuity errors
- Although continuity sets this directly before "The Gambler",the next episode broadcast was"Quest for Survival".Strange, that is.
- Megatron's line, "...this stadiumwillmake a perfect Space Bridge, "along with the General Manager's request to let them play ball seem to suggest that the Decepticons have only just decided to build a Space Bridge here. However, even as the episode begins (and in fact as Megatron isdeliveringthat line) the Decepticons are shown standing on the already completed Space Bridge. This means that either the Decepticons built the bridge while the game wasin play,or that none of the humans in the stadium noticed the giant robots and their Space Bridge as they came in.
- Nobody thinks toflee in a panicwhen the stadium is taken over by giant evil alien robots?
- Thrust confidently declares that "one of my missiles can stop anything!", while firing his... lasers.
- Since they can all fly, there's no particularly good reason for the Decepticons to be "trapped" in Aron's glass bowl. Rather than simply fly out, Thrust is shown to beclimbingout, while Starscream and Soundwavesmashtheir way out.
- Why doesn't Soundwave shrink when he transforms inside Aron's cylindrical box? He'd have been undetectable!
- The Aliens recognize the Autobots' alt-modes; strange that they have the same vehicles as we do. Aron even calls Inferno a "fire truck." (Then again, Cybertronian vehicles are usually recognisable as the same vehicle as their Earth counterparts, so maybe all intelligent races hit upon the same concepts when designing vehicles.)
- A representative of Aron's seemingly modestly-advanced civilization decides that, to figure outwherethe Transformers came from, they'll have tocut them open?They thought of this before, say...asking them?
- The physics of Perceptor's improvised space bridge seem a little dodgy. For one thing, shooting energon cubes usually causes them toblow up;in fact, that's exactly what happens earlier in the episode. Second, there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for channeling their energy into the telescope, or for controlling when the beam launches. Third, could that dinky little telescope really be reliably sightedexactlyon Earth, a small (and moving!) planet that's a minimum of several light years away?
Trivia
- Somebodymusthave been killed when Thrust knocks the huge (and explosive) scoreboard into the stands.
- Right before Brawn throws him, Soundwave appears to be... stomping on one of the bases?
- Optimus forgets to name Smokescreen when he introduces the Autobots to Aron. Smokescreen doesn't seem to mind. In fact, Smokescreen barely speaks in this episode and disappears at times. Perhaps he was written in at the last minute in order to tie the story into "The Gambler"?
Foreign localization
French
- Title (Canadian and European French broadcasts):"Jeux d'enfants"(" Child's Plays ")
- Title (European French DVD release):"Un jeu d'enfants"(" A Child's Play ")
- Original airdate:?
- This episode has been dubbed (or maybe re-dubbed) in the 2000s by a brand new team (including voice actors from theAnimateddubbing team likeBruno MagneandFrédéric Cerdal). This was probably on demand fromDéclic Imagesfor their DVD collection. That may be because the original dub was lost or not usable. It is unknown if a dubbing of this episode was made in the 1980s and if so, where it is.
- Optimus has a very forced and weird voice, he may sound like your cousin imitating Optimus Prime.
- Most of the robots have a weird sound effect applied on their voices.
- Perceptor and Soundwave change voice during the scene in the sewers, they are both dubbed by Frédéric Cerdal all of a sudden.
- All the robots are called by their Canadian French names. Optimus Prime, however, has his name from the regular G1 European dub, pronounced the same way.
Italian
- Title (dub 1):"Il pianeta di Gulliver"(" The Planet of Gulliver ")
- Original airdate:?
- Energon cubes are simply calledcubi di energia( "energy cubes" ).
- Once, Starscream pluralizes the word "Distructor" (Italian name of the Decepticons) in "Distructors",although normally the word" Distructor "is used for both singular and plural (in this series, at least).
- When Starscream takes Bumblebee as a hostage, he says he's gonna blow him into "silicone dust" instead of "silicon dust", which doesn't make any sense.
- Title (dub 2):"Giocattoli per bambini"(" Children's Toys ")
- Original airdate:?
Japanese
Mandarin
- Title:"Jùrén-guó Qíyù"( cự nhân quốc kỳ ngộ," Adventures in Brobdingnag ")
- Original airdate:?
Brazilian Portuguese
- Title:"Brincadeira de Criança"(" Child's Play ")
- Original airdate:?
Russian
- Title:"Detskiye igry"(Детские игры," Child's Plays ")
- Original airdate:?
Home video releases
- VHS
2000 —The Original Transformers— Volume 12: Size Matters (Rhino Entertainment)
1995 —Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers— Megatron Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.
1999 —The Transformers— Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
- DVD
2001 —The Transformers— DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2003 —The Original Transformers— Season 2 Part 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 —The Original Transformers— Season 2 Part 2: Vol. 5 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 —Transformers— Season 2 Part 2 (Metrodome)
2004 —Transformers— Collection 3: Series 2.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2004 —Transformers— Volume 16 (Déclic Images) — European French audio only.
2006 —Transformers— The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 —The Transformers— Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2009 —Transformers— Volume 05: Stagione Due Parte Terza (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 —Transformers— Season Two: Part Two (Metrodome)
2009 —The Transformers— Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 —The Transformers— Season Two, Volume Two: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2009 —The Transformers— The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2011 —The Transformers— The Complete Original Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 —The Transformers— Season Two, Volume Two: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2014 —Transformers— The Classic Animated Series (Metrodome)
