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"This photo of us is terrible, Hound! You forgot the red-eye function again!"
"Attack of the Autobots"
Production code	#700-19
Season	2
No. in season	4
Production company	Sunbow Productions
Airdate	October 4, 1985
Written by	David Wise
Animation studio	Toei
Continuity	Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

After a surprise attack (read: diversion) by the Decepticons, the Autobots repair themselves in their regeneration chambers, only to emerge...EVIL!

Synopsis

We're replacing the Autobots' personalities with Folger's Crystals! Let's see if they notice.

The Autobots rush out to meet a Decepticon sneak attack on their headquarters, unaware that it's actually a diversion. While they're occupied, Megatron and Starscream coat themselves in a temporary "invisibility spray" and sneak inside. Megatron sabotages the Autobots' recharging chamber with a personality destabilizer device, before calling off the attack, leaving the Autobots bemused. After the Autobots recharge the next day, Teletraan I alerts them to the imminent launch of a rocket, and rather than protect it, they want to destroy it. Optimus Prime obeys Megatron's first order and smashes Teletraan I.

Bumblebee, Jazz, Spike and Sparkplug find a spot in the middle of nowhere for Jazz to try out his new sound system. Bumblebee leaves them to it, heading back to Headquarters. Bumblebee makes it back first, and finds Teletraan disabled and Bluestreak behaving oddly. Bluestreak forces him into the recharging chamber, but Jazz arrives in time to discover something's wrong. Jazz manages to disable Bluestreak. Sparkplug repairs Teletraan I, who tells them that the rest of the Autobots are now evil!

HASSAN CHOP!

Meanwhile, Optimus leads the Autobots on an attack at the local Air Force base, where they begin trashing military jets. Spike and Bumblebee rush off to the base to stop them, and Sparkplug and Jazz stay behind to work on a cure. Hound and Ratchet, on Megatron's orders, have gone after the plans for the human solar energy satellite being launched on the rocket. They start chasing the satellite's inventor, Doctor Harding. Bumblebee reaches the Air Force base, but is unable to persuade Optimus to stop his rampage.

Meanwhile, the Decepticons take over the rocket base and plan to take the rocket and satellite back to Cybertron. At headquarters, Sparkplug cooks up an attitude exchanger that will "First, drain evil. Second, recharge good." After he and Jazz test it successfully on Bluestreak, he starts building more. As Hound and Ratchet close in on Dr. Harding, Jazz turns up with the first batch and resets them back to good. At the Air Force base, Bumblebee continues to try to stop Optimus, who seems bent on destroying the smaller Autobot along with the planes.

The other Autobots find Skyfire, and change him back to good using an exchanger, then use him as transport to get to the Air Force Base. There, they manage to change the rest of the Autobots, except for Optimus Prime. The devices pacify Prime's Combat Deck and Roller, but Prime is still on a rampage. Bumblebee takes it upon himself to change the Autobot leader back and succeeds. Optimus gives him a nice, big hug for his trouble.

Bumblebee, from now on, you will be a Hugmaster!

Back at the rocket base, Megatron and the Decepticons have boarded the reprogrammed rocket and take off. The Autobots intercept them aboard Skyfire. Prime and Ratchet detach the satellite while Jazz uses a "musical sonic boom" to disable the rocket. The Decepticons abandon it without any further resistance and retreat. Skyfire takes everyone into space, and Prime throws the solar satellite into orbit.

Finally back at headquarters, Prime thanks everyone for helping out, especially Bumblebee. But then Ratchet gets jealous and claims credit for firing the attitude exchangers (which was actually Hound's idea. Hmmm...). Jazz reminds everybody that they have to fix all of the jets that Optimus Prime smashed at the Air Force base, and Spike breaks the tension with a lame joke that his dad finds hilarious.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"My warning diode is pulsating!"

—Optimus Prime does his best to emulate Spider-Man.

"Hey, come back! You didn't finish your nickel-plated knuckle sandwich!"

—Brawn worries about the Decepticons' dietary needs.

"Warning! Evil presence now infiltrating Autobot Headquarters!"
"Very good, Teletraan I! The personality destabilizer I placed inside your recharging chamber has converted your Autobot friends from sentimental fools to my kind of mechanisms!"
"Autobots are noble. Your plan can never succeed."
"Oh, it can't, eh? Autobots! Obey my first command: Silence that annoying computer!"
"Optimus Prime, NO—!"

—Teletraan I displays some pretty incredible capabilities as it debates with Megatron, right before Optimus shows the computer where to stick it

"Like, wow! Rock and roll with real rocks!"
"It's called an avalanche!"

—Jazz and his sound system are a bit much for Sparkplug...not to mention a nearby cliff.

"Destroy, destroy, destroy! Let none stand against us!"

—Evil Optimus Prime (No, it's not Nemesis Prime or any other evil Primes you know.)

One must wonder why these weren't used on the Decepticons to turn them good and end the war forever. Would Earth be too boring without evil Decepticons to fight?

"First, drain evil. Second, recharge good."
"Let's hope it don't finish up with 'Third, bury Jazz'!"

—Sparkplug and Jazz

Optimus: Well, there won't be any more trouble, thanks to you. And especially to you, Bumblebee.
Ratchet: Especially to him? I was the one who saved the satellite, and came up with the idea of firing those attitude exchangers!
Sparkplug: Oh, yeah? Well who helped you make 'em in the first place?
Ratchet: Why, you wouldn't know a microchip from a potato chip!

—Optimus Prime's thanks to Bumblebee start a little round of glory-hogging.

Notes

Production timeline

• First draft storyboards completed: 26th October 1984 (Artists: Wendell Washer, Gerald Moeller, Peter Chung, Gregg Davidson, Vincenzo Trippetti, Rhoydon Shishido)
• Storyboards slugged: 31st October 1984 by John Walker
• Storyboards revised: 2nd November 1984

Continuity notes

"Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"

• Ratchet calls Rumble a turkeytron.
• Gadgets and powers:
  • The Autobots' optics switch from blue to red when they're evilified, and back to blue when they're recharged with good.
  • We get to see all three of Optimus Prime's components in action, which is rare. This is the third appearance of the Combat Deck's interior cannon in the series, but the only time it was drawn to be toy-accurate.
  • Prowl fires a Laserbeak-ensnaring net from his retracted hand. He fired a similar net at Ravage in "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3".
  • Jazz deploys his (newly upgraded) speakers. They're loud enough to bring down a mountainside.
  • Soundwave, in a rare moment, fires his shoulder mounted cannon at Optimus Prime and Ratchet whilst they are on top of the rocket.
• Prime's tech spec bio states that damage to his other two components can be felt by him. Conversely, this could be interpreted that the energy exchanger's effect on the other two components actually weakened Prime's evil state, which is why he started fighting it right after. That is, if you want to apply his bio to the G1 cartoon.
• This episode may hold the record for the largest number of "evil invention/alien device"s in a single episode: invisibility spray, the personality destabilizer, the recharging chambers, the solar satellite, AND the attitude adjusters are all contenders.
• << Brawn vs. Soundwave Round 4: Soundwave flees without a fight before the onslaught of the mighty Brawn, forfeiting the round. Tally: Brawn 4, Soundwave 0. >>

Real world references

• Star Wars sound effects:
  • The TIE Fighter engine sound effect shows up when Prime says, "My warning diode is pulsating. Decepticon Jets!" as Thundercracker and Skywarp swoop down.
  • As Skywarp fires, the sound effect borrowing continues; it's Darth Vader firing his ship's lasers combined with the TIE's engine sounds. And it's complete with Darth Vader's breathing! (A similar audio gaffe happens in "Megatron's Master Plan, Part 1", as well as G.I. Joe: The Movie. Guess you can't be too choosy when you crib sounds from Star Wars.)
  • When Jazz uses his sound and light show, the sound effects are two lightsabers clashing.
• "Hold on, I'm coming!" A Sam & Dave shout-out, perhaps?
• The first batch of jets the Autobots wreck during their attack on the Air Force base seem to be based (somewhat loosely) on the F-104 Starfighter, while the second group look like Russian MiG-23s.

Animation or technical glitches

• Optimus is missing his fog lights in many shots.
• As Starscream and Megatron prepare to use the invisibility spray, Starscream's shoulder vents are behind his shoulders instead of on top of them.
• Bluestreak is missing his Autobot symbol as he opens fire on Jazz.

And in this shot, his cockpit is too far forward, and too small. Not to mention the obvious scale issues, considering Jazz was comfortably riding inside him a second ago.

• As Teletraan I reports Optimus's attack on the Air Force base, its voice is modulated differently than in the scene immediately beforehand.
• When Spike jumps into Bumblebee, there's no interior opening shown behind Bumblebee's door.
• Spike continues saying "Hold on, I'm coming!" even after he's already inside Bumblebee.
• Megatron orders Soundwave to "reprogram the main computer." Thanks to some recycled animation, Soundwave does this by strolling up to the same bank of computers that Megatron just blew up.
• Skywarp's missing his wing insignia as Megatron exits the computer bunker.
• Thundercracker's wing is sitting above his shoulder instead of behind it as he and Starscream listen to Megatron.

It's hard to believe these two shots happen just mere moments apart.

• When Optimus Prime transforms into his vehicle mode, his legs suddenly change from blue to black before they become obscured by his torso. Once he starts driving in truck mode, his truck bed is back to being blue. Also, his truck mode is extremely poorly drawn, with positively tiny wheels, a very weirdly shaped front bumper, missing headlights, and two instead of just one stripe above the section where the headlights are supposed to be, neither of which is colored gray.
• When Optimus Prime briefly connects to his trailer and then pulls away again as it transforms into its Combat Deck mode, Optimus's truck mode is much better drawn, but now the trailer is missing its wheels for the entire duration of the shot.
• Skyfire seems to gain more landing gear every time he touches the ground. As he departs from the Air Force base, his nose gear is ridiculously long.
• Skywarp is missing his wing insignia as the Decepticons fly up to the rocket.
• After Bumblebee saves Optimus Prime, a group shot shows Jazz missing his grille.
• Soundwave is missing his insignia as Megatron rants about the fuel tanks.
• Skywarp's missing his wing stripes as the Decepticons fly off. In the same shot, Sunstreaker, colored like Frenzy (!), flies off with them.
• Ratchet's "potato chip" line doesn't quite flow into his next line, which starts with an abrupt "Hey, look!" as if he was replying to a line of Sparkplug's that got cut.

Continuity errors

• How does Rumble keep from falling into the crevasse that he makes with his pile drivers?
• Flying Autobots:
  • Prowl sails skyward a long time after he's blasted by a missile.
  • Optimus and Ratchet just float up out of Rumble's crevasse. Both these incidents are in defiance of the cartoon's normal status quo, which mostly holds that Autobots can't fly.
• Was this convoluted scheme really the best use Megatron could think of for invisibility spray?
• How does Skyfire - or the Dinobots for that matter - fit in the recharging chambers, which appear to be able to fit Optimus Prime as a maximum size?
• Superhuman Spike:
  • Sparkplug and Spike's eardrums are somehow not shattered by Jazz's speakers, which are loud enough to start an avalanche.
• An avalanche, by definition, requires snow ("snowslide" is a synonym), none of which is apparent in the desert. What Jazz's speakers initiated is in actuality a rockslide.

• Superhuman Dr. Harding:
  • Judging by the exterior shot of the lab, as well as the size of the parasols visible from Dr. Harding's window, she is, at absolute minimum, four stories up (probably much higher), yet she manages to survive the fall onto the parasols without so much as whiplash.
  • She also survives being thrown by Hound while trapped in a dumpster; a throw with enough force to not only destroy the dumpster but also seriously damage the wall behind it. Even if the dumpster was filled with pillows, every bone in Harding's body should've been smashed to pieces by the sheer impact.
• "Good" and "Evil" are apparently scientific states now, detectable by computer!
• Speaking of which, why didn't Teletraan I report Megatron's "evil presence" when he and Starscream were sabotaging the recharging chambers?

• After all the fuss with the invisibility spray, it turns out that the shimmering outlines aren't just for the viewer's benefit; the "invisible" Decepticons are caught on film by Teletraan I. Whoops! And why didn't Teletraan I think to report this BEFORE the Autobots recharged?
• It's not absolutely a contradiction within the cartoon's continuity, but Hound's bio definitely doesn't identify his weapon as a particle beam gun. (That's actually Skyfire's weapon.)
• Ratchet's assertion that "Prime's a lost cause" seems like a bit of an exaggeration. Couldn't they just go back to HQ and make some more attitude exchangers?
• If the Decepticons could use a rocket to get back to Cybertron, why waste all the time building a spaceship in the pilot? Can an Earth rocket really make it all the way to Cybertron? (This seeming contradiction, and many other instances of easy travel between Earth and Cybertron, might be explained by "The Ultimate Doom, Part 3", whose events would seem to leave Cybertron in relatively close proximity to our Solar System, even after leaving Earth's orbit. Whether the writers actually had this in mind, however, is open for debate.)
• With two hours of idle time before the rocket launches, why do the Decepticons wait until T minus 30 seconds before boarding?
• Tearing a door off the rocket can't be good for it. Why not have Soundwave just open the door?

• Optimus throws the satellite into orbit and it's presumed to be in working order. Even assuming that Dr. Harding was able to convey the precise details of the necessary orbit, Optimus either has an extremely powerful physics calculator or that had to be one heck of a lucky shot.
• As usual, the good guy jet "catches" the falling protagonists by just flying under them, rather than matching speeds and actually breaking their fall. Splat.
• Ratchet claims credit for firing the attitude exchangers, but it was Hound's idea. Sparkplug then points out that he helped Ratchet build the things to begin with, but there's been no on-screen evidence that Ratchet was involved in building any of them.
• It's implied that the Autobots are going to repair all 47 of the busted jets...but jets and air frames and avionics don't really work that way. Once they're smashed and exploded, they're pretty much "beyond repair".
• Teletraan I states that all of the Autobots apart from Jazz and Bumblebee were turned evil—that's seventeen Autobots and maybe five Dinobots. By episode's end, after Ratchet frets that they're out of attitude exchangers, only seven have been accounted for. (To be fair, there is an unaccounted-for period of time between the satellite's launch and the episode's conclusion, but if that's when they took care of the problem, why was Ratchet worried about Prime being "a lost cause"?)
• Why does an advanced alien medical robot like Ratchet have an old-fashioned hand-held wrench (which dates back to the 1400s on Earth) instead of a fancy powered finger or wrist attachment? He's previously been demonstrated to have an extensive array of built-in tools - including a fingertip welder.

Trivia

• David Wise reused elements of this story for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) episode "Slash - The Evil Turtle from Dimension X", especially the climax of the story and its rocket chase sequence. This was not an entirely unique incident, as Wise was known for recycling his plots.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "L'attaque des Autobots" ("Attack of the Autobots")
• Original airdate: ?

• Only Francis Lax and Henry Djanik are here to dub their characters. Djanik gives a good impersonation of Georges Atlas' Ratchet while an unidentified actor dubs the remaining characters with different voices.
• The whole dialog between Megatron and Teletraan-1 is absent from the dub. The only line Megatron says is when he gives order to the Autobots to destroy Teletraan.
• The dialog between Optimus Prime and Ratchet on the rocket is absent too.

Italian

• Title (dub 1): "La pazzia degli Autorobot" ("Madness of the Autobots")
• Original airdate: ?

• Skyfire is called by his English name instead of the Italian one.

• Title (dub 2): "La pazzia degli Autobots" ("Madness of the Autobots")
• Original airdate: ?

Japanese

• Title: "Cybertron no Gyakushū" (サイバトロンの逆襲, "Cybertrons' Counterattack")
• Original airdate: 1990 (released straight to video)

• This is one of two episodes (the other being "Day of the Machines") not initially aired in Japan during the run of Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers. The episode was eventually dubbed in 1990 and released on Pioneer's LaserDisc set of the series. As such, it was retroactively added to the series' official episode list as episode 73, a numbering reflected in Transformers Generations.
• Since the episode was dubbed several years after Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers had ended, not all the original cast members were able to return. Frenzy (originally voiced by Ken Shiroyama) and Bluestreak (originally voiced by Kōki Kataoka) were replaced by Katsumi Suzuki.
• Due to having been released straight-to-video, this is one of the few episodes of The Transformers not to have been edited for time in Japan. As such, Japanese DVD and laserdisc releases include an optional English audio track for the episode.

Mandarin

• Title: "Qìchērén de Gōngjī " (汽车人的攻击, "The Attack of the Autobots")
• Original airdate: ?

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "O Ataque dos Autobots" ("The Attack of the Autobots")
• Original airdate: ?

Russian

• Title: "Napadenie na Avtobotov" (Нападение на Автоботов, "Attack on the Autobots")
• Original airdate: ?

Home video releases

LaserDisc

1995 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Takara) — English and Japanese audio.
1999 — The Transformers — Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.

DVD

2001 — The Transformers — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2002 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 1 (Rhino Entertainment)
2002 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 1: Vol. 1 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 1 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Bumper Collection Special (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 2: Series 2.1 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2008 — Transformers — Volume 03: Stagione Due Parte Prima (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 — Transformers — Season Two: Part One (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume One: 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)
2011 — Transformers — L'Attaque des Autobots (UFG Junior) — European French audio only.
2014 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume One: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers — The Classic Animated Series (Metrodome)

External links

• Episode dialogue script
• Model sheets and background layouts
• Gallery of full storyboards