Virtual Transformers TV

If you were around during the 1980s, you probably remember the ABUNDANCE of quality "kid cartoons": He-Man, Jem, Rainbow Bright, G.I. Joe, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, She-Ra, Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Smurfs, Robotech, Captain N: The Game Master, Inspector Gadget, Thundercats, Voltron, Dungeons and Dragons, and many more. One of these cartoons, however, which started in the Fall of 1984, dealt with the story of sentient, self-aware, and alien robots, fighting a never-ending civil war on their home-planet of Cybertron. These robots could transform into various vehicles, animals and other machines, and eventually took their war to the planet Earth in search of more energy. With the fate of the galaxy at stake, this show was known as Transformers.

The show had two factions: Autobots (good robots) and Decepticons (evil robots). The Autobots were led by the courageous, kind, and wise Optimus Prime. The Decepticons were led by the evil and ruthless Megatron. Over time, however, different TF characters would come and go, including the leaders themselves. Because of this, the ending of the "Robot Fad", and the omitting of old characters from previous seasons, the show lost it's original popularity. It finally ended in the Fall of 1987, with a season 4 that was only three episodes: The Rebirth, parts 1-3 (see the episode listings page for a full list of episodes). The toyline, and everything else tied to the 80s TF line managed to keep charging-along until 1990.

But what if things had happened differently? What if Hasbro hadn't cancelled the show in '87, and kept it going until its proper end in 1990, along with the toy line it was supposed to support? What if they hired new writers, including YOU, to continue the show from where the last writers had left off? What if Hasbro decided to be more lenient with its writers about what characters could be used (besides Optimus Prime coming back at the end of season 3), while still adhering to the rules of introducing and developing new toy characters into the show? What would the show have possibly been like? This virtual show's purpose is to answer these very questions.

New and old fans alike have been treated to the next Transformers cartoon incarnations that followed, such as Beast Wars and Beast Machines, two computer - animated Transformer shows produced by Mainframe Entertainment from 1996-2001 that told of the war between the descendants of the original Transformers. Next came Transformers: Robots In Disguise, a cel-animated, Japanese animation TF cartoon imported from Japan, which aired on the FoxKids Network Saturday mornings and weekdays from 2001-2002. It was set in its own continuity, with Autobots fighting Predacons and Decepticons. And finally, there's the current Transformers cartoon, Transformers: Armada (with its official Cartoon Networks cartoon site here). Its done in a similar anime as Transformers: Robots In Disguise, is also in its own continuity, and contains a story gimmick circling around having Autobots and Decepticons fight over a tiny race of Transformers called Minicons to power themselves up. While some of these are decent shows, they all fail to answer an important question: What happened between the end of the original show, and the Beast Wars and Beast Machines era ... a question we hope to answer here ourselves.