Transformation 28: See You At The Lodge.

23/11/2012

It's an slippery slope for Megatron as the piste hits the fan and poor old Sue has her skiing holiday ruined.

In other news, write in to Roland Rat if you want to keep TV AM showing Transformers.

All in:

Repeat Performance Part 2.

9 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

23/11/2012 09:44:43 am

"...someone asks about the Constructicons. A lesser kids comic (and the earlier Openers page) would have used this cast iron opportunity to whore the forthcoming toys."

Were the Constructicons actually released in the UK at this time? I was under the impression they didn't officially show up here until the early 1990s.

Of course this raises the question of how the letter-writer knew about them - had TV AM cycled through the whole of the first season already?

Stuart

23/11/2012 02:32:21 pm

One of the letters about the carton specifically asks who the green Decepticon warriors featured in it are, so Heavy Metal War must have gone out by this point. Possibly even some season 2. Broadcast orders of American shows tended to be somewhat erratic on ITV at the time so it's more than possible episodes from- the then just two- different seasons were being shown as part of the same "block".

The only real firm info anyone seems to have about the IT run is that all of season one was broadcast in some form, and none of season 3. Exact dates and how much of the second year was screened seems very vague. Though I do remember the Swoop in the subway from Desertion of the Dinobots very strongly as the middle of a Timmy Mallet sandwich.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

19/3/2020 07:26:07 pm

Years later but I suspect that Desertion memory may have been from the video - it was one of the initial four tapes put out in about 1985/6 (and then re-released a lot in later years).

As for the cartoon's timing, having now seen some of these letters pages there are references to the "Roland Rat spot" on TV-AM. This would appear to have been the children's section during (what were perceived to be) the school holidays. (I don't actually have any memories of Roland Rat's TV-AM days so it was a surprise to hear about his role in later years when I had assumed he was always a BBC thing.) Given the way TV-AM cut up cartoon episodes into four minute chunks across a whole week there were probably only six episodes of the cartoon screened (and character recognition was no doubt haphazard if you missed the section specifically introducing a new toy).

(This was because TV-AM had limited time. The breakfast television station only broadcast 0600-0925 and the school holiday children's slot was wedged in at the end with a very limited amount of time. Thus they went for a magazine format to attract a broad range of viewers and it simply wasn't feasible to screen a whole episode in one go.
Saturdays were better and it's about this time that Wide Awake Club got its length doubled to two hours though I recall they still split shows in two to keep viewers around, with the second part either later in the same edition or on Sunday.)

Making a generous assumption of six weeks for summer holidays, three weeks for Easter, a total of two weeks' worth over Christmas (with all the bank holiday interruptions) and one each for the three half terms then it's easy to see how TV-AM could have run Transformers in Roland Rat and its replacement WACaday and still not have run all the first season episodes in a whole year. Quite possibly they could have taken so long that they could start repeating the episodes rather than buying in newer seasons that were not available at the time of the original purchase (I recall the BBC later did this with both Thundercats and Turtles). This could also explain the reports of the third season showing up on satellite (which reportedly did not adhere to the gentlemen's agreement in UK broadcasting to not buy up later seasons of imports popular on other channels).

Alexio link

1/12/2012 05:41:28 pm

"the middle of a Timmy Mallet sandwich."

Dangerous words in these post-Saville times!

Felicity

29/10/2019 08:33:51 pm

It is indeed important that Megatron dishonour the agreement first, because the story makes a big deal of how Ratchet, as an Autobot, is truly bound by the ritual with the fuel mixing, and must not be the first one to break it, while at the same time, he knows that Megatron doesn’t care about the rules, and if he (Ratchet) is an honest actor, he will definitely lose his life and the lives of the Autobots.

At the risk of saying what I might have already said in a comment on a previous entry (I’m going through these backwards from the middle; once I get back to the beginning I’ll jump back to the middle and go fowards): the art on this storyline is really good. William Johnson was great and it’s a shame he only did the two issues.

Also in comedy humans: “They must have known you were skiing today! They sent an ambulance!” “Very funny.” Clifford Dietz should hang out with these guys!

Nidge

13/12/2021 12:34:18 pm

Another late reply - I watched Roland Rat and Wacaday after, and recorded at the time most of the TF onto Betamax... 4 minutes at a time! They never showed a season 2 episode. Wide Awake Club (Tommy Boyd et al) on a Saturday *did* show Transformers as well at some point. I believe IIRC The first few episodes were shown then *before* Roland. But I was small and that was a looong time ago. It was full episodes as well. Roland showed other cartoons before TF - Pacman being my favourite back then!

Stuart

13/12/2021 04:41:07 pm

Never too late to bring some new info to the table, ta.

Sam

30/4/2022 07:33:33 pm

RE: broadcasts of the cartoon: This info all lines up with my memories of the on TVAM/WAC; it was very irritating, but it made the comic feel even more essential. I also remember being incredibly put out by that fact, that after Timmy Mallett took over from Roland Rat, Transformers was replaced with the Gobots!!!! Timmy Mallet would signal each segments arrival with a cry of "Gobots go Botty!' as he raised his hands in the air, whilst I reached for the remote control to change channels.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

30/4/2022 09:11:07 pm

There was a later TF run on WACaday well. Some years back I found a clip on YouTube of an intro from the summer of 1987 and although the actual bits of the cartoon were trimmed out (no doubt for copyright reasons) the description of the episode introduced made it clear it was part of the Ultimate Doom. And Timmy Mallet shouted "Transformers transform!", clearly trying to adapt his earlier catchphrase.

This clip seems to be from another edition but again confirms the run. And with Michaela Strachan shouting too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZGPOPV2tjY

I may have posted this elsewhere here but in the summer & autumn of 1987 there was a glut of TF comic material thanks to a combination of the Action Force crossover and then the Headmasters back-up, not to mention the various reprint specials and (if you got a copy and read it early) the annual. So episodes of the cartoon with the 1984 cast must have felt quite dated by this stage.

Transformation 28: See You At The Lodge.

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