My 15 Favorite Transformers

For no particular reason, honestly. I was looking in the toy aisle at the store the other day and saw the Transformers toys and though, ah, there's a list I can make.

One thing you may notice is that most of my perception of Transformers comes from the 1986 animated movie. I basically forgot everything about Transformers except for that movie, the toys, and the Marvel comic book... which is to say, I have almost no memories of the TV show. The first TV show. I mean, I remember watching it, but I don't remember anything that really happened on it. I saw it again about 10 years ago, when it started coming out on video. My manager at Hollywood Video, who was a little bit older than me, had fond memories of the show and used to put the tapes on the overhead player. I was surprised at just how crappy, lame and unwatchable they really were. I was under 10 when I watched the show... I think it's the only way I could have watched it.

My relationship with Transformers is weirdly complicated. All of my, um, "friends" (the same ones who turned on me and beat the shit out of me in sixth grade, a story I've told before) dug the show, and so did I. But when I was 10, just before Transformers: The Movie came out in the theaters, there was a sudden shift and everyone suddenly had to go around being all grown up. It's that immature fear of being seen as childish that C.S. Lewis spoke about. In my mind, I was still a kid. I still liked all of the things they were giving up: G.I. Joe figures, Marvel Comics, cartoons, Star Wars. Transformers. I was pretty much alone in my geek world from then on. Back in the days before the internet, before you could meet anyone from another place who enjoyed the same things you did. Back when you had to choose either to join the herd and stifle your interests, or embraced your inner geek and became a social outcast. I embraced the geek and never let go. Fuck them, man. I was 10 and I wanted to be happy.

This is why I'm still so touchy and annoyed that something like Transformers, something which is pretty lame when you look at the original source materials, is now fodder for blockbusters. Because I got teased mercilessly when I was a kid for liking the kinds of things a kid likes. When the anime freaks came out and declared Transformers "okay" to love because it was animated in Japan and was a show about giant robots, I bristled.

These days, I just have some decent memories. I bought Transformers: The Movie on DVD. Twice. The first time it came out, and again when the restored, remastered version came out. I like that movie very much. But I don't like the TV series. I don't know if that's weird or not. But, deep down, I guess I feel like Transformers: The Movie is a small victory for me, because it helped keep me who I wanted to be instead of who my "friends" demanded I become.

Plus, it was just so freaking neat.

Anyway, enough psychobabbling, here's my list.

15. Blurr

Not for any real reason, actually. I just thought he was neat in the movie. He was voiced by John Moschitta, whose fast-talking shtick was a novelty at the time. I wonder what he does now. Do they even still make Micro Machines? Blurr was a hovercar; the movie was, after all, set in the ultra-futuristic year of 2005.

14. Blaster

Well, he was just so cool. Another sign I've seen Transformers: The Movie too many times: every time I see Blaster, I get the musical score from the Earth battle scene in my head and hear Blaster saying "Cover your receptors, Perceptor." Weird. But he was just kind of neat.

13. Hot Rod

Again, a movie character. Judd Nelson voiced him. Remember when Judd Nelson was popular? Anyway, Hot Rod was the fuck-up whose destiny just sort of found him and turned him into a hero. Which kind of makes him the Luke Skywalker of the Transformers world. I didn't dig Rodimus Prime as much; once they did that "Return of Optimus Prime" special on the show, I kind of tuned out.

12. Perceptor

Still today, whenever I read a Fantastic Four comic, I get Perceptor's fussy British accent in my head as the voice of Reed Richards. I'm not sure how I ever made that connection, but it refuses to go away. Perceptor was a pretty neat toy; you could sort of/kind of use the microscope. It turned everything into a blur, but it was pretty neat.

11. Shockwave

Well, look how cool he is. He has a laser for a hand, for chrissakes. If superficially badass qualities aren't enough reason to love a science fiction character, then I don't know what to tell you. He was like the Boba Fett of the Star Wars universe--looked cool, acted tough, was just rare enough to be awesome, but was ultimately kind of incompetent.

10. Rumble, Ravage, and Laserbeak

A little tie for three of the Decepticon cassettes that were Soundwave's minions. They were very cool. Those were coveted toys, and even though Ravage's legs were so close together that you couldn't even stand the damn thing up, he was easily the equivalent of having the Snake Eyes figure that came with Timber the wolf. Laserbeak set points for coolness in the toy world. And is it my imagination (because this kind of stuff happened when you had a toy property that was a cartoon and a comic book), or was Rumble the red figure? In the toy world, wasn't Rumble red and Frenzy blue? How did Rumble the cartoon character end up purple?

9. Soundwave

Megatron's loyal henchman. That toy was kind of cumbersome, but looked cool when he was in robot form.

8. Jazz

Come on, man, he was voiced by Scatman Crothers! How cool is that?

7. Ironhide

Another character type I dug as a kid (and still do) is the sort of grizzled, tough-but-caring old veteran. He's always touchy, but deep down he really gives a shit and is totally capable. That's Ironhide. I loved that guy. And if I remember correctly, his toy sucked and looked nothing like the cartoon.

6. Bumblebee

Bumblebee continues to divide fans today. Why is it that so many fans feel an intense, unrealistic anger towards the stuff obviously intended for kid appeal? Seriously, I'm not sure why a character designed to be the entry point for children (because he was friends with Spike, the human kid) in a children's cartoon is so awful. I like the guy.

5. Starscream

Oh, Chris Latta. I spent a long time as a kid giving myself really bad coughs trying to imitate his Starscream and Cobra Commander (they're not the same, Cobra Commander lisps more because he's snake-like, Shane Waddell from fourth grade). Starscream was always scheming against the Decepticon leader Megatron to usurp his role; as a result, they always animated him with a smirk. I like that.

4. Megatron
Speaking of. He's just awesome. He's one of the greatest badass villains from my childhood. The movie (the fake one, the Michael Bay one) sucked all the more because they did such an awful, terrible job with Megatron. He looked like a pile of magnetized metal filings stuck together, like you still occasionally find on someone's desk. And they could get Peter Cullen to voice Prime, but they couldn't get Frank Welker to do Megatron. The whole thing was ridiculous.

3. Kup

Another character added for the movie (the real one) that I liked very much. They basically took Ironhide, gave him Lionel Stander's voice, and made him touchier and more grizzled. He's always got a war story and some angry advice. I guess I've always been drawn to characters who are older and experienced; I wanted to travel a lot and see things as a kid. That never happened, but I lived vicariously through books and animated robots, I guess.

2. Optimus Prime

Well, come on. He's got to be up there. He's iconic, to me, anyway.

1. Grimlock

My favorite Transformer is the leader of the Dinobots himself, Grimlock. He's a robot and he's a dinosaur. What's not to love? The origin of the Dinobots was pretty cool in the Marvel comic, but I liked the lumbering, clumsy, stupid Dinobots of the cartoon and movie better. Hey, I was a kid, and Grimlock, spending most of his time in dinosaur form, was like a pet combined with a child, and he was awesome.

Now, tell me again about the petro-rabbits...