November 9, 2023 • 23 mins
The 12 year olds are unattended and on the loose!
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Music: "Proof of Concept" and "Local Cluster" by Wintergatan
These tracks can be downloaded for free at www.wintergatan.net
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
Hello and welcome to the After Spark podcast and episode
episode recap of the Generation One Transformers cartoon.
I'm Els. And I'm Specs.
And today we're going to be talking about episode 77,
Surprise Party. Let's talk about Giant robots
today, shall we? Yeah, and we open with,
fittingly, a surprise party after nearly giving poor Daniel
(00:36):
a heart attack. The Autobots and Spike are
having a surprise birthday partyfor Daniel, and for reasons
unknown to me, God or anyone else, Galpatron is watching this
play out on ATV screen. When did he put a camera there
and why does he care? I mean, like is laser just
camped there? Like the What are we supposed to
(00:56):
assume? Here, I mean maybe Galpatron has
to get his kicks and giggles some way.
Apparently doesn't involve destroying his own stuff.
The Combaticons, complete with Swindle cosplaying as Hound
today, arrive and begin firing on the building the Autobots are
in. A fight ensues until they're
able to damage several of the shuttles and they escape on
(01:17):
blast off. One shuttle is hopefully
undamaged enough for the task oftransporting Earth delegates
from Earth to Cybertron for a peace conference.
I mean, you kind of think they'dalready be on Cybertron if the
conference is tomorrow, But see,This is why we don't allow Roddy
to be in charge of scheduling transport anymore.
Yeah, that would probably be safest.
(01:39):
Ultra Magnus, being the selflessbot he is, tells First Aid to
prioritize fixing the shuttle instead of him because Ultra
Magnus got shot. I guess during the fight.
Yes, many things got shot, but mostly shuttles.
Yes, Daniel and Wheelie comment to each other about how Ultra
Magnus always thinks of everyonebefore himself.
And then Daniel and Wheelie get a horrible, no good, terrible
(02:02):
idea. Let's subject to ultra Magnus to
the indignity of a surprise party now.
Personally, I'm just imagining him being like this isn't on the
schedule and turning around and walking out.
That would be fun. Granted, I know that's more of
an IDW Magnus thing, but still, it would be very funny, yeah.
Of course they don't know Ultra Magnus birthday, which is a
(02:23):
major problem for the whole party Planning plan here, yes.
So they head off to the peace conference to ask for scepter
'cause he's like the. Smartest person they know.
I mean, that's valid. I I too would probably ask Percy
first if I couldn't figure something out.
There's actually quite a lot of humans in this area.
Percy doesn't know Magnus's billdid either, and tells them that
(02:47):
the records of that nature wouldbe in the Hall of Records.
Well. That's a very topically named
Hall. So off our intrepid scrappies go
running into an elderly archivist spot.
But of course, Ultra Magnus's birthday isn't here either.
Because it's stored on a backup asteroid somewhere.
Why would you do this? To torment the poor viewers,
(03:09):
obviously. Apparently it was.
So if the Autobot didn't survivethe war, then their history and
technology would survive in someform.
Who would know to go find it? So I guess it's basically a
goddamn time capsule they yeatedon into space.
It look, it's Cybertron. They can't do anything normally.
(03:30):
Well, I mean, considering Bay verse, they tossed the fucking
baby looking thing out into. They're like, what if we needed
the Matrix into space? Somehow this is actually the
3rd, at least the third damn time this has happened.
In some continuity, considering it happened in animated too.
Oh Jesus, Couldn't they just askUltra Magnus to fill out a form
(03:53):
or something to get this information?
Yeah, Magnus loves forms. And I'm I'm telling you, this
episode would have been so much funnier if it was just
increasingly absurd Looney Tunesshenanigans in an effort to get
Ultra Magnus to write down his birthday somewhere or.
Magnus potentially going on, youknow, a quest.
(04:14):
Maybe he has the information written down somewhere, but no,
no, we get the the quest for theinformation Rock, the archivist
tells Wheelie and Daniel that the asteroid's homing beacon has
failed long ago, and that it hadnot been retrieved.
So they they asked for the last known coordinates I guess,
hoping that the things stopped before the the beacon.
(04:37):
Died. And I mean this.
This man, this absolute moron, gives them the coordinates.
To be fair, I too would seriously doubt a 12 year old
would be able to both get a holdof and pilot a space shuttle if
this question was positive towards me.
I mean, I guess, yeah, this guy's not genre savvy to a
situation. Or maybe he was just hopeful
(04:58):
that they would, you know, find a trusted adult to drive them.
It's really and Daniel, No. Yeah, but he doesn't know
though. True, true.
So Wheel E and Daniel steal a ship or borrow according to
Wheelie. I mean, you know what?
See, this is what happens when you leave children unsupervised.
(05:20):
I really hope whoever owned thatship had good insurance because
they're not getting it back. And Galvatron, because he's
monitoring things, sees that thewheel, the garbage scow, because
that's what it is. Wheelie and Daniel stole a
garbage scow, is not in fact on its usual route and sends
Cyclonus Scourge and the sweeps to follow it.
(05:41):
I remain convinced that Wheelie does not have his driver's
license as he takes them into anasteroid belt.
And of course, these kids are not wearing seatbelts, because
no one wears seatbelts in this show.
I'm sorry, that's just inaccurate.
In 2005, we believed in seatbelts.
Unlike the 80s, predictably, they crash into an asteroid.
(06:02):
It's a good thing that the. Asteroid, for reasons unknown,
has a breathable atmosphere and everything because otherwise
Daniel would be very dead by now.
Yup. And meanwhile, at the Peace
conference, Ultra Magnus is having the time of his fucking
life. He loves conferences, you guys.
He's so happy. The only thing better would have
(06:23):
been a law making session. Spike realizes he hasn't seen
Daniel in a while and we find out that Daniel just straight up
lied to his dad. Apparently he told Spike he was
working on a school project. Back on the asteroid, Wheelie
and Daniel are attacked by some weird ass flying worm Leech
things. The two escape into a cave and
(06:46):
walking further in, realize thatthey are in the exact asteroid
that they were looking for. Somehow, miraculously, by 80s
cartoon magic. They are literally graded by
three very polite murder drones.Wheelie and Daniel attempt to
escape the murder drones which are now shooting at them, and
run into the worm leeches again.And the reason these murder
(07:08):
drones attack them is because they inputted the wrong damn
query somehow. So who knows what the right
query was? The murder drones catch up and
are about to shoot them when they're saved by the timely
arrival of Cyclonus and the fabulous manicure squad.
Cyclonus begins questioning the two about what the hell even is
(07:29):
this location? Look, Cyclonus, if you don't
want to end up in wacky places, you probably shouldn't follow
Autobots around. In particular, this Autobot and
this small child valid Daniel tells him it's an ice cream
factory. Cyclonus is not pleased with
this answer because yes, this isclearly not an ice cream factor.
Back on Cybertron, we see that Ultra Magnus is attempting to
(07:51):
track down Daniel and Wheelie talking both to Percy and the
Archivist Bot. So some Magnus here is on the
fetch quest to end all fetch quests.
Upon realizing it's a storage asteroid that they're on,
Cyclonus also realizes that the Autobots are going to want it
back, along with their two dummies.
So the cons decide to pilot the asteroid, intending to collide
(08:15):
it with Cybertron. That's right, folks.
This right here is a storage asteroid with thrusters.
Same maneuverability as the Death Star, just in case that's
a concern for all your space storage needs.
Now let's talk past here, folks.That's three gigs, three whole
gigabytes of data on this there,here asteroid.
Perfect for backing up the entirety of your planet's
(08:35):
history. Just pocket and forget it for a
rainy day. Get your asteroid here.
Mm hmm. Yeah.
On Cybertron, Spike is able to get a hold of Daniel on a view
screen before Daniel is comically shoved out of the way
by Cyclonus. Cyclonus informs Spike in the
Autobots that the storage asteroid is on a collision
(08:58):
course with Cybertron and they will not alter its course
otherwise. The inherent threat is that they
will definitely harm Daniel and Wheelie.
I have some questions about the physics here, but we're not
getting any answers. So yeah, Spike worries for
Daniel, and Magnus worries aboutthe delegates.
Seems like we're priorities all around right now, but OK.
Well, someone has to think of the piece in the Galaxy, and I'm
(09:20):
not so attached to your son Spike.
It would be so much funnier if this 4 million plus year old
storage asteroids just broke down or you know, it already
broken down or run out of fuel or just runs out of fuel now.
I mean, it's been hanging aroundwithout any maintenance.
Were so fucking long, just thinkabout a car that's been sitting
there for two years and there's no way that thing would turn on.
(09:43):
Like even in space there's all those worm leached things.
Well, you see it like was built to last and stuff worm leach
things. Getting into the internal
workings, you're telling me they're not going to go and eat
whatever metal is there? Tried to eat?
(10:03):
Really. They tried to eat Ultra Magnus
we've gotten to. That point, Yes.
They tried to eat the ship. They weren't.
They do end up eating the ship. Fortunately, at least it's yeah.
Yeah, those things should definitely impact this thing's
movability. Yes, it it's functionality of
yours. Yes, Wheelie and Daniel are
(10:25):
thrown into a small, dark room where Wheelie comforts Daniel by
turning on the light in his knee.
What? It has very illuminating knees,
apparently outside Ultra Magnus,and Skylinks arrive to save the
day. And in a baffling moment of how
the hell does that even work? The entirety of Skylinks turns
(10:48):
into just his Links half. Where did the rest of him go?
The animators didn't want to have to deal with the flying bit
today. Apparently they could have just
split them up, but no. The two spot the ship that
Wheelie and Daniel arrived on, now being eaten by the worm
leeches. The leeches turn.
Their attention to the two Autobots skylinks is bit on the
(11:09):
butt, among other locations. Yup, Ultra Magnus I think gets
nipped on the chest and the knee.
I don't. Know the.
No one's having a great time with these things.
Maybe just. They're the Cybertronian
equivalent of like, bed bugs maybe.
Except bigger horseflies. Giant alien robot horseflies.
(11:30):
They blast leeches off each other and destroy the ship,
exploding. What is hopefully the last of
these damn things. I wouldn't count that to be
true. I do agree.
Cyclonus sends out the sweeps totake out the intruders and
during the Haios wheelie transforms into vehicle mode and
Rams the door to pieces, allowing himself and Daniel to
escape. And The thing is, Daniel was
(11:50):
trying to open this door with his tiny, tiny little hands.
His tiny little child hands. Yes, so why didn't?
Well, why didn't Wheelie do thisearlier?
I have to assume that they thought they'd just get captured
again, or Wheelie thought they'djust get captured again.
But upon hearing all the chaos outside, he said to himself, My
(12:13):
time has come. I mean, honestly, I have to
wonder why they. I mean, they can probably get
into the walls maybe. There has to be so much space in
these damn walls. You would think Wheelie and
Daniel get out and meet up with Skylinks and Ultra Magnus.
Magnus heads into the asteroid to stop Cyclonis Skylinks
responds with If my superb physique could pass through
(12:35):
those tunnels, I would join you.Skylinks is just too fabulous to
function. Or.
Fit in those Dang corridors or turn around or turn corners,
maybe, Magnus tells Skylights Toget the kids out of there in 30
minutes if he's not back, and heads in to confront Cyclonus.
The fight ensues with lots of manly grunting and it really
reminded us both of Rock'em Sock'em robots.
(12:58):
During the fight, Wheelie gets inside and hits the self
destruct button for the asteroid.
He did not even attempt to reprogram this damn thing.
We've never seen this button before, and no one looks for any
other options here. Oh, and all you have is a
hammer, or all you're used to having is a hammer.
Everything looks like a nail. Yes, I mean honestly, this thing
(13:20):
should have had a better, you know, security system than the
than the murder drones. Yes, murder drones that only
respond when you put in an incorrect query.
Like what do you Why would that even instigate murder?
Drones hunting you? Who knows?
They've been in there forever. For all we know, they were
malfunctioning, that is. Very true.
(13:41):
So Cyclonus having a sense of self preservation gets the hell
out of Dodge and the others are able to escape on the fabulous
Skylines. Yep.
Which we get to see them escaping.
Well, the asteroid blows up in the foreground, so finally back
on Cybertron, Daniel has clearlytold Spike of the recent
shenanigans, but Spike asks whatthe hell they even?
(14:03):
Wanted on the storage unit asteroid in the 1st place.
I nearly said storage unit. Well, I mean, in some ways it's
a storage unit. Now I'm just imagining
Cybertronian storage unit auctions where they've been lost
in space for years and they've been rediscovered, and now
you're finding whatever the hellgot left in there.
(14:24):
I I just want like a very awkward, like they open it and
it's just like Decepticon pin upposters or something.
I mean, that would be in. That would be in there
somewhere, probably. Probably.
Upon finding out about the surprise party plan, though,
Ultra Magnus says that he doesn't even know when his
birthday is. Spike gets a grand idea to
(14:44):
designate this day as Ultra Magnus's birthday, and then the
group resolves to have a party that evening, ending the episode
finally. So something we didn't comment
on a ton like during all this isthat this episode was very
weirdly paced and also would have moments of cutting to
scenes where characters dialoguewould get cut off.
(15:06):
Yes, it was particularly egregious in the bit where Ultra
Magnus is asking the archivist where the kids were.
Yeah, like, you know how sometimes you can see a scene
cut off and it can be either fordrama or for like a specific
purpose. But that is not what this felt
like. And I am completely baffled by
what was going on here. I like, we, we had kind of
(15:29):
joked, like, did they hit their runtime or whatever?
And I'm like, I legitimately don't know.
I had no idea. But it feels very weird when
you're watching this episode forthat reason.
And honestly there are so many better ways they could have done
this which the forms thing that we had the discussion about that
I still, I want that fanfic. I want the fanfic of trying to
(15:50):
get ultra Magnus to fill out a specific form.
But, but like I think, I think one of the things we had joked
about was you know, they're bothchildren so the form would not
be well formatted. And so Magnus's first instinct
is I must fix the form, which would be very funny.
Not probably funny to the 8 yearolds this cartoons made for,
(16:10):
mind you, but I would find it funny.
Yeah, or if you're going to go straight with the Magnus doesn't
know his birthday. He gets to go on the fetch,
Yeah, yeah, like. He needs to fill out this damn
form now, right? Because it's Magnus.
He wants to be correct and I could see that.
But not this. This, this was just this was
just silly. OK, it was silly.
(16:31):
And I think it was too silly, personally.
And also, these are giant robots.
They should know better than to have their stuff backed up in,
like, only one place. Yeah, yeah, seriously.
They're they're beings of technology, yes, but all their
IT guys are dead true. Well, all their IT guys, except
like Perceptor and I don't know,would Beachcomber count as an IT
(16:55):
guy? I have no idea.
Or grapple. I mean, Beachcomber is a
scientist, but he's more like anenvironmental scientist.
Their data analysts are dead. That's what I'm going to go
with. Their data analysts are dead.
Hire me regardless. Join us next time for episode
(17:15):
78, Mad Man's Paradise. Daniel and Grimlock have an
utterly out of this world experience.
Me Grimlock think we not on Cybertron anymore.
All right, so we had two fanfic recommendations for today.
You'll tied with the Scavengers by Enfilade, which is an IDW
continuity. Thick rated G It's Jen, no
(17:36):
pairings, and the characters here are the Scavengers and
Ultra Magnus. And in summary, the Scavengers
latest heist has yielded a box with an Autobot logo on top and
a trove of holiday goodies inside.
Thrilled with the new Discovery,Misfire, Crankcase and Spinister
decide to try this Christmas business for themselves.
But Croc's not celebrating, Grimlock's celebrating a little
(17:59):
too well, and Fulcrum is gettingthe feeling that he's made a
terrible mistake +2 epilogues with special guest stars.
And I picked this because there weren't really a whole lot of
options for parties. Understand when I was looking
for things and a lot of them were holiday parties.
And I just thought that there's more than just birthday parties
(18:21):
that we can have characters explore.
And since Ultra Magnus was, I guess he shows up in this at
least that. It would probably be a fun one
to include since this was a relatively light hearted episode
compared to some of the others. Yeah, and it's a one shot.
The second one is Serendipity byCaius.
(18:43):
It's G1 cartoon continuity ratedG It's Jen.
There's no pairings except, I guess Carly and Spike as a
background pairing, since they're Daniel's parents.
Kind of. Discusses that.
And our characters are Daniel Witwiki, Carly Witwiki, Spike,
Witwiki, Perceptor, Hot Rod slash Rodimus Prime, Braun and
(19:06):
Bumblebee. And in summary incidents in the
life of Daniel Witwiki Boy raised by the Autobots.
And I picked it based on Danielsrelationship with the Autobots
because. I imagine he identifies with
them quite a lot, especially if he grew up around them.
And the fact that he wants to give Ultra Magness a birthday
party in this episode, it's likehe's trying to connect with him
(19:28):
and that just seemed really cute.
And this fanfic explores well, his relationship, kind of, with
the Autobots as a species. Because he thinks he's gonna be
a giant robot when he grows up, When he's really little.
He wants to be a car, I mean. It was cute and yeah, it's a one
shot. So let's go to AL's.
(19:50):
She has got some fan art for us.All right, Our recommendation
for today is Maximum OverDrive. They also go by Maxi OD or
Maximus OD. They tended to do rescue bots,
or at least that's most of the stuff that I saw when I was
looking through their things. But I also saw some G1 stuff.
They do a lot of fan art for different fandoms too, so if you
(20:12):
do go like on their sites or whatever, you'll see a lot of
stuff. I personally really like their
versions of the Rescue Bots. If you have seen the actual
rescue bot show and like how it looks because it's AI believe a
flash animated type of thing, the designs are much more
simplistic than you would traditionally see in other
Transformers media. And so seeing those done in a
(20:35):
more structured way that kind ofmaybe looks like a DW or
something is actually really interesting.
Yeah it's a lot more detailed and it just it like I'm like
yeah I I could see those not designs existing in other
Transformers media and I I thinkthey're very cute.
So we have a group shot of the Rescue Bots robot cast or at
(20:55):
least like main four. Also some lobsters in the
background which makes. Flying lobsters if you've seen
the show the lobsters and then we get some lovely things of
Heat Wave hanging out with Cody and they're both playing DSS.
Don't ask me why he has a robot sized DS.
(21:16):
He does now. It's it's got flame patterns on
it. That's pretty fun.
Checks out. And then my favorite one, which
is him looking very grumpy and it says internally cursing.
Which I mean, considering lots of things they do a lot do a lot
of internally cursing. If this wasn't a show for like 8
year olds, to quote the the artist in a comment under this
(21:38):
was lapped some super fast colors on Grumpy Pants, Heat
Wave, the poor bots stuck in a children's cartoon and can't
curse out loud like he obviouslywants to.
And that sums up Heat Wave quitenicely, actually.
Yeah, he looks like he's got hislips pulled into his mouth and
like, he's biting on them. Yeah, it's like, he's definitely
like. Which I think I recognize that
(22:01):
artist. I think I end up I followed.
I'd have to go and look at theirstuff on DV and Art.
So one thing to be aware of, we're posting a couple different
links, but I didn't see anythingon their DVR art, but I'm still
going to link it. They have a YouTube where they
were doing game stuff. They have a Tumblr I'm going to
re blog from their Tumblr, but as of the time of recording
(22:22):
this, if you just go to their Tumblr, it looks completely
empty on the computer. On mobile, I think it's fine.
And whatever theme they're usingis not working right now.
So if you do go there and you'relike, hey, there's nothing here,
go to archive. Everything's still there, it's
just not displaying for some reason.
It could also be my computer or the plug insurance I have
installed or some stuff. So, grain of salt, but if you
(22:45):
get on there and you're like this looks weird, that might be
why. And that just about wraps it up
for us today. Remember to check us out on
Tumblr or Pillow Ford as After Spark Dash Podcast for any
additional information, show notes or links we may have
mentioned. You can also find us on Facebook
and Twitter at After Spark Pod, All one Word in various other
locations by searching for AfterSpark podcasts such as AO3,
(23:06):
iTunes, Spotify and YouTube, just to name a few.
And feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, YouTube or
AO3. Till next Time, I'm Specs and
I'm Alice. Doodles.
(23:26):
God is a therapist. Yeah.
Also, Rewind's first husband is now a dog.
Hello and welcome to the After Spark podcast and episode
episode recap of the Generation One Transformers cartoon.
I'm Els. And I'm Specs.
And today we're going to be talking about episode 77,
Surprise Party. Let's talk about Giant robots
today, shall we? Yeah, and we open with,
fittingly, a surprise party after nearly giving poor Daniel
(00:36):
a heart attack. The Autobots and Spike are
having a surprise birthday partyfor Daniel, and for reasons
unknown to me, God or anyone else, Galpatron is watching this
play out on ATV screen. When did he put a camera there
and why does he care? I mean, like is laser just
camped there? Like the What are we supposed to
(00:56):
assume? Here, I mean maybe Galpatron has
to get his kicks and giggles some way.
Apparently doesn't involve destroying his own stuff.
The Combaticons, complete with Swindle cosplaying as Hound
today, arrive and begin firing on the building the Autobots are
in. A fight ensues until they're
able to damage several of the shuttles and they escape on
(01:17):
blast off. One shuttle is hopefully
undamaged enough for the task oftransporting Earth delegates
from Earth to Cybertron for a peace conference.
I mean, you kind of think they'dalready be on Cybertron if the
conference is tomorrow, But see,This is why we don't allow Roddy
to be in charge of scheduling transport anymore.
Yeah, that would probably be safest.
(01:39):
Ultra Magnus, being the selflessbot he is, tells First Aid to
prioritize fixing the shuttle instead of him because Ultra
Magnus got shot. I guess during the fight.
Yes, many things got shot, but mostly shuttles.
Yes, Daniel and Wheelie comment to each other about how Ultra
Magnus always thinks of everyonebefore himself.
And then Daniel and Wheelie get a horrible, no good, terrible
(02:02):
idea. Let's subject to ultra Magnus to
the indignity of a surprise party now.
Personally, I'm just imagining him being like this isn't on the
schedule and turning around and walking out.
That would be fun. Granted, I know that's more of
an IDW Magnus thing, but still, it would be very funny, yeah.
Of course they don't know Ultra Magnus birthday, which is a
(02:23):
major problem for the whole party Planning plan here, yes.
So they head off to the peace conference to ask for scepter
'cause he's like the. Smartest person they know.
I mean, that's valid. I I too would probably ask Percy
first if I couldn't figure something out.
There's actually quite a lot of humans in this area.
Percy doesn't know Magnus's billdid either, and tells them that
(02:47):
the records of that nature wouldbe in the Hall of Records.
Well. That's a very topically named
Hall. So off our intrepid scrappies go
running into an elderly archivist spot.
But of course, Ultra Magnus's birthday isn't here either.
Because it's stored on a backup asteroid somewhere.
Why would you do this? To torment the poor viewers,
(03:09):
obviously. Apparently it was.
So if the Autobot didn't survivethe war, then their history and
technology would survive in someform.
Who would know to go find it? So I guess it's basically a
goddamn time capsule they yeatedon into space.
It look, it's Cybertron. They can't do anything normally.
(03:30):
Well, I mean, considering Bay verse, they tossed the fucking
baby looking thing out into. They're like, what if we needed
the Matrix into space? Somehow this is actually the
3rd, at least the third damn time this has happened.
In some continuity, considering it happened in animated too.
Oh Jesus, Couldn't they just askUltra Magnus to fill out a form
(03:53):
or something to get this information?
Yeah, Magnus loves forms. And I'm I'm telling you, this
episode would have been so much funnier if it was just
increasingly absurd Looney Tunesshenanigans in an effort to get
Ultra Magnus to write down his birthday somewhere or.
Magnus potentially going on, youknow, a quest.
(04:14):
Maybe he has the information written down somewhere, but no,
no, we get the the quest for theinformation Rock, the archivist
tells Wheelie and Daniel that the asteroid's homing beacon has
failed long ago, and that it hadnot been retrieved.
So they they asked for the last known coordinates I guess,
hoping that the things stopped before the the beacon.
(04:37):
Died. And I mean this.
This man, this absolute moron, gives them the coordinates.
To be fair, I too would seriously doubt a 12 year old
would be able to both get a holdof and pilot a space shuttle if
this question was positive towards me.
I mean, I guess, yeah, this guy's not genre savvy to a
situation. Or maybe he was just hopeful
(04:58):
that they would, you know, find a trusted adult to drive them.
It's really and Daniel, No. Yeah, but he doesn't know
though. True, true.
So Wheel E and Daniel steal a ship or borrow according to
Wheelie. I mean, you know what?
See, this is what happens when you leave children unsupervised.
(05:20):
I really hope whoever owned thatship had good insurance because
they're not getting it back. And Galvatron, because he's
monitoring things, sees that thewheel, the garbage scow, because
that's what it is. Wheelie and Daniel stole a
garbage scow, is not in fact on its usual route and sends
Cyclonus Scourge and the sweeps to follow it.
(05:41):
I remain convinced that Wheelie does not have his driver's
license as he takes them into anasteroid belt.
And of course, these kids are not wearing seatbelts, because
no one wears seatbelts in this show.
I'm sorry, that's just inaccurate.
In 2005, we believed in seatbelts.
Unlike the 80s, predictably, they crash into an asteroid.
(06:02):
It's a good thing that the. Asteroid, for reasons unknown,
has a breathable atmosphere and everything because otherwise
Daniel would be very dead by now.
Yup. And meanwhile, at the Peace
conference, Ultra Magnus is having the time of his fucking
life. He loves conferences, you guys.
He's so happy. The only thing better would have
(06:23):
been a law making session. Spike realizes he hasn't seen
Daniel in a while and we find out that Daniel just straight up
lied to his dad. Apparently he told Spike he was
working on a school project. Back on the asteroid, Wheelie
and Daniel are attacked by some weird ass flying worm Leech
things. The two escape into a cave and
(06:46):
walking further in, realize thatthey are in the exact asteroid
that they were looking for. Somehow, miraculously, by 80s
cartoon magic. They are literally graded by
three very polite murder drones.Wheelie and Daniel attempt to
escape the murder drones which are now shooting at them, and
run into the worm leeches again.And the reason these murder
(07:08):
drones attack them is because they inputted the wrong damn
query somehow. So who knows what the right
query was? The murder drones catch up and
are about to shoot them when they're saved by the timely
arrival of Cyclonus and the fabulous manicure squad.
Cyclonus begins questioning the two about what the hell even is
(07:29):
this location? Look, Cyclonus, if you don't
want to end up in wacky places, you probably shouldn't follow
Autobots around. In particular, this Autobot and
this small child valid Daniel tells him it's an ice cream
factory. Cyclonus is not pleased with
this answer because yes, this isclearly not an ice cream factor.
Back on Cybertron, we see that Ultra Magnus is attempting to
(07:51):
track down Daniel and Wheelie talking both to Percy and the
Archivist Bot. So some Magnus here is on the
fetch quest to end all fetch quests.
Upon realizing it's a storage asteroid that they're on,
Cyclonus also realizes that the Autobots are going to want it
back, along with their two dummies.
So the cons decide to pilot the asteroid, intending to collide
(08:15):
it with Cybertron. That's right, folks.
This right here is a storage asteroid with thrusters.
Same maneuverability as the Death Star, just in case that's
a concern for all your space storage needs.
Now let's talk past here, folks.That's three gigs, three whole
gigabytes of data on this there,here asteroid.
Perfect for backing up the entirety of your planet's
(08:35):
history. Just pocket and forget it for a
rainy day. Get your asteroid here.
Mm hmm. Yeah.
On Cybertron, Spike is able to get a hold of Daniel on a view
screen before Daniel is comically shoved out of the way
by Cyclonus. Cyclonus informs Spike in the
Autobots that the storage asteroid is on a collision
(08:58):
course with Cybertron and they will not alter its course
otherwise. The inherent threat is that they
will definitely harm Daniel and Wheelie.
I have some questions about the physics here, but we're not
getting any answers. So yeah, Spike worries for
Daniel, and Magnus worries aboutthe delegates.
Seems like we're priorities all around right now, but OK.
Well, someone has to think of the piece in the Galaxy, and I'm
(09:20):
not so attached to your son Spike.
It would be so much funnier if this 4 million plus year old
storage asteroids just broke down or you know, it already
broken down or run out of fuel or just runs out of fuel now.
I mean, it's been hanging aroundwithout any maintenance.
Were so fucking long, just thinkabout a car that's been sitting
there for two years and there's no way that thing would turn on.
(09:43):
Like even in space there's all those worm leached things.
Well, you see it like was built to last and stuff worm leach
things. Getting into the internal
workings, you're telling me they're not going to go and eat
whatever metal is there? Tried to eat?
(10:03):
Really. They tried to eat Ultra Magnus
we've gotten to. That point, Yes.
They tried to eat the ship. They weren't.
They do end up eating the ship. Fortunately, at least it's yeah.
Yeah, those things should definitely impact this thing's
movability. Yes, it it's functionality of
yours. Yes, Wheelie and Daniel are
(10:25):
thrown into a small, dark room where Wheelie comforts Daniel by
turning on the light in his knee.
What? It has very illuminating knees,
apparently outside Ultra Magnus,and Skylinks arrive to save the
day. And in a baffling moment of how
the hell does that even work? The entirety of Skylinks turns
(10:48):
into just his Links half. Where did the rest of him go?
The animators didn't want to have to deal with the flying bit
today. Apparently they could have just
split them up, but no. The two spot the ship that
Wheelie and Daniel arrived on, now being eaten by the worm
leeches. The leeches turn.
Their attention to the two Autobots skylinks is bit on the
(11:09):
butt, among other locations. Yup, Ultra Magnus I think gets
nipped on the chest and the knee.
I don't. Know the.
No one's having a great time with these things.
Maybe just. They're the Cybertronian
equivalent of like, bed bugs maybe.
Except bigger horseflies. Giant alien robot horseflies.
(11:30):
They blast leeches off each other and destroy the ship,
exploding. What is hopefully the last of
these damn things. I wouldn't count that to be
true. I do agree.
Cyclonus sends out the sweeps totake out the intruders and
during the Haios wheelie transforms into vehicle mode and
Rams the door to pieces, allowing himself and Daniel to
escape. And The thing is, Daniel was
(11:50):
trying to open this door with his tiny, tiny little hands.
His tiny little child hands. Yes, so why didn't?
Well, why didn't Wheelie do thisearlier?
I have to assume that they thought they'd just get captured
again, or Wheelie thought they'djust get captured again.
But upon hearing all the chaos outside, he said to himself, My
(12:13):
time has come. I mean, honestly, I have to
wonder why they. I mean, they can probably get
into the walls maybe. There has to be so much space in
these damn walls. You would think Wheelie and
Daniel get out and meet up with Skylinks and Ultra Magnus.
Magnus heads into the asteroid to stop Cyclonis Skylinks
responds with If my superb physique could pass through
(12:35):
those tunnels, I would join you.Skylinks is just too fabulous to
function. Or.
Fit in those Dang corridors or turn around or turn corners,
maybe, Magnus tells Skylights Toget the kids out of there in 30
minutes if he's not back, and heads in to confront Cyclonus.
The fight ensues with lots of manly grunting and it really
reminded us both of Rock'em Sock'em robots.
(12:58):
During the fight, Wheelie gets inside and hits the self
destruct button for the asteroid.
He did not even attempt to reprogram this damn thing.
We've never seen this button before, and no one looks for any
other options here. Oh, and all you have is a
hammer, or all you're used to having is a hammer.
Everything looks like a nail. Yes, I mean honestly, this thing
(13:20):
should have had a better, you know, security system than the
than the murder drones. Yes, murder drones that only
respond when you put in an incorrect query.
Like what do you Why would that even instigate murder?
Drones hunting you? Who knows?
They've been in there forever. For all we know, they were
malfunctioning, that is. Very true.
(13:41):
So Cyclonus having a sense of self preservation gets the hell
out of Dodge and the others are able to escape on the fabulous
Skylines. Yep.
Which we get to see them escaping.
Well, the asteroid blows up in the foreground, so finally back
on Cybertron, Daniel has clearlytold Spike of the recent
shenanigans, but Spike asks whatthe hell they even?
(14:03):
Wanted on the storage unit asteroid in the 1st place.
I nearly said storage unit. Well, I mean, in some ways it's
a storage unit. Now I'm just imagining
Cybertronian storage unit auctions where they've been lost
in space for years and they've been rediscovered, and now
you're finding whatever the hellgot left in there.
(14:24):
I I just want like a very awkward, like they open it and
it's just like Decepticon pin upposters or something.
I mean, that would be in. That would be in there
somewhere, probably. Probably.
Upon finding out about the surprise party plan, though,
Ultra Magnus says that he doesn't even know when his
birthday is. Spike gets a grand idea to
(14:44):
designate this day as Ultra Magnus's birthday, and then the
group resolves to have a party that evening, ending the episode
finally. So something we didn't comment
on a ton like during all this isthat this episode was very
weirdly paced and also would have moments of cutting to
scenes where characters dialoguewould get cut off.
(15:06):
Yes, it was particularly egregious in the bit where Ultra
Magnus is asking the archivist where the kids were.
Yeah, like, you know how sometimes you can see a scene
cut off and it can be either fordrama or for like a specific
purpose. But that is not what this felt
like. And I am completely baffled by
what was going on here. I like, we, we had kind of
(15:29):
joked, like, did they hit their runtime or whatever?
And I'm like, I legitimately don't know.
I had no idea. But it feels very weird when
you're watching this episode forthat reason.
And honestly there are so many better ways they could have done
this which the forms thing that we had the discussion about that
I still, I want that fanfic. I want the fanfic of trying to
(15:50):
get ultra Magnus to fill out a specific form.
But, but like I think, I think one of the things we had joked
about was you know, they're bothchildren so the form would not
be well formatted. And so Magnus's first instinct
is I must fix the form, which would be very funny.
Not probably funny to the 8 yearolds this cartoons made for,
(16:10):
mind you, but I would find it funny.
Yeah, or if you're going to go straight with the Magnus doesn't
know his birthday. He gets to go on the fetch,
Yeah, yeah, like. He needs to fill out this damn
form now, right? Because it's Magnus.
He wants to be correct and I could see that.
But not this. This, this was just this was
just silly. OK, it was silly.
(16:31):
And I think it was too silly, personally.
And also, these are giant robots.
They should know better than to have their stuff backed up in,
like, only one place. Yeah, yeah, seriously.
They're they're beings of technology, yes, but all their
IT guys are dead true. Well, all their IT guys, except
like Perceptor and I don't know,would Beachcomber count as an IT
(16:55):
guy? I have no idea.
Or grapple. I mean, Beachcomber is a
scientist, but he's more like anenvironmental scientist.
Their data analysts are dead. That's what I'm going to go
with. Their data analysts are dead.
Hire me regardless. Join us next time for episode
(17:15):
78, Mad Man's Paradise. Daniel and Grimlock have an
utterly out of this world experience.
Me Grimlock think we not on Cybertron anymore.
All right, so we had two fanfic recommendations for today.
You'll tied with the Scavengers by Enfilade, which is an IDW
continuity. Thick rated G It's Jen, no
(17:36):
pairings, and the characters here are the Scavengers and
Ultra Magnus. And in summary, the Scavengers
latest heist has yielded a box with an Autobot logo on top and
a trove of holiday goodies inside.
Thrilled with the new Discovery,Misfire, Crankcase and Spinister
decide to try this Christmas business for themselves.
But Croc's not celebrating, Grimlock's celebrating a little
(17:59):
too well, and Fulcrum is gettingthe feeling that he's made a
terrible mistake +2 epilogues with special guest stars.
And I picked this because there weren't really a whole lot of
options for parties. Understand when I was looking
for things and a lot of them were holiday parties.
And I just thought that there's more than just birthday parties
(18:21):
that we can have characters explore.
And since Ultra Magnus was, I guess he shows up in this at
least that. It would probably be a fun one
to include since this was a relatively light hearted episode
compared to some of the others. Yeah, and it's a one shot.
The second one is Serendipity byCaius.
(18:43):
It's G1 cartoon continuity ratedG It's Jen.
There's no pairings except, I guess Carly and Spike as a
background pairing, since they're Daniel's parents.
Kind of. Discusses that.
And our characters are Daniel Witwiki, Carly Witwiki, Spike,
Witwiki, Perceptor, Hot Rod slash Rodimus Prime, Braun and
(19:06):
Bumblebee. And in summary incidents in the
life of Daniel Witwiki Boy raised by the Autobots.
And I picked it based on Danielsrelationship with the Autobots
because. I imagine he identifies with
them quite a lot, especially if he grew up around them.
And the fact that he wants to give Ultra Magness a birthday
party in this episode, it's likehe's trying to connect with him
(19:28):
and that just seemed really cute.
And this fanfic explores well, his relationship, kind of, with
the Autobots as a species. Because he thinks he's gonna be
a giant robot when he grows up, When he's really little.
He wants to be a car, I mean. It was cute and yeah, it's a one
shot. So let's go to AL's.
(19:50):
She has got some fan art for us.All right, Our recommendation
for today is Maximum OverDrive. They also go by Maxi OD or
Maximus OD. They tended to do rescue bots,
or at least that's most of the stuff that I saw when I was
looking through their things. But I also saw some G1 stuff.
They do a lot of fan art for different fandoms too, so if you
(20:12):
do go like on their sites or whatever, you'll see a lot of
stuff. I personally really like their
versions of the Rescue Bots. If you have seen the actual
rescue bot show and like how it looks because it's AI believe a
flash animated type of thing, the designs are much more
simplistic than you would traditionally see in other
Transformers media. And so seeing those done in a
(20:35):
more structured way that kind ofmaybe looks like a DW or
something is actually really interesting.
Yeah it's a lot more detailed and it just it like I'm like
yeah I I could see those not designs existing in other
Transformers media and I I thinkthey're very cute.
So we have a group shot of the Rescue Bots robot cast or at
(20:55):
least like main four. Also some lobsters in the
background which makes. Flying lobsters if you've seen
the show the lobsters and then we get some lovely things of
Heat Wave hanging out with Cody and they're both playing DSS.
Don't ask me why he has a robot sized DS.
(21:16):
He does now. It's it's got flame patterns on
it. That's pretty fun.
Checks out. And then my favorite one, which
is him looking very grumpy and it says internally cursing.
Which I mean, considering lots of things they do a lot do a lot
of internally cursing. If this wasn't a show for like 8
year olds, to quote the the artist in a comment under this
(21:38):
was lapped some super fast colors on Grumpy Pants, Heat
Wave, the poor bots stuck in a children's cartoon and can't
curse out loud like he obviouslywants to.
And that sums up Heat Wave quitenicely, actually.
Yeah, he looks like he's got hislips pulled into his mouth and
like, he's biting on them. Yeah, it's like, he's definitely
like. Which I think I recognize that
(22:01):
artist. I think I end up I followed.
I'd have to go and look at theirstuff on DV and Art.
So one thing to be aware of, we're posting a couple different
links, but I didn't see anythingon their DVR art, but I'm still
going to link it. They have a YouTube where they
were doing game stuff. They have a Tumblr I'm going to
re blog from their Tumblr, but as of the time of recording
(22:22):
this, if you just go to their Tumblr, it looks completely
empty on the computer. On mobile, I think it's fine.
And whatever theme they're usingis not working right now.
So if you do go there and you'relike, hey, there's nothing here,
go to archive. Everything's still there, it's
just not displaying for some reason.
It could also be my computer or the plug insurance I have
installed or some stuff. So, grain of salt, but if you
(22:45):
get on there and you're like this looks weird, that might be
why. And that just about wraps it up
for us today. Remember to check us out on
Tumblr or Pillow Ford as After Spark Dash Podcast for any
additional information, show notes or links we may have
mentioned. You can also find us on Facebook
and Twitter at After Spark Pod, All one Word in various other
locations by searching for AfterSpark podcasts such as AO3,
(23:06):
iTunes, Spotify and YouTube, just to name a few.
And feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, YouTube or
AO3. Till next Time, I'm Specs and
I'm Alice. Doodles.
(23:26):
God is a therapist. Yeah.
Also, Rewind's first husband is now a dog.
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