Transformers: Animated was the first cartoon-supporting toyline released in the wake of the first live action film. The aesthetics of the line marked a sharp break with previous media. Where the movie had opted for hyper-complex robots, Animated abandoned many of the more traditional, Gundamesque robot design elements of G1, Armada, and RID. Instead, Animated created a new, hyper-cartoony design vocabulary, “following head character designer Derrick Wyatt‘s love of ‘rounded squares and squared rounds’” (MSipher) The line built upon the successes of Cybertron and the movie line, heavily emphasizing smaller figures, including the legends class and the new, roughly basic sized alternators. (M Sipher) These features would largely define its legacy. The aesthetic of Animated would serve as a starting point for the decade long journey of design transformations that has, at present, culminated in Transformers: Cyberverse. Similarly, the wide diversity of toy offerings present in Animated and the movie line would give HasTak the tools to redefine what toys were made for who, and would eventually demand they do so.
Unlike the Unicron Trilogy lines, or indeed the movie line itself, Animated lacked an overall gimmick. (M Sipher) Because of this, and the relatively small size of the line, the wiki’s summary page contains a concise and appropriate description of the main features of the toyline to which there is not much to add. For the sake of completeness, the highpoints of this analysis will be recapitulated here. However, the bulk of this essay will focus, not necessarily on the features of the figures themselves, but the larger features of the toyline, in particular the aesthetics and what kinds of toys the line chose to offer.
The wiki highlights several key features of the toyline.
First, “Animated has no overarching, line-wide extra play gimmick…the toys have other special features unique and appropriate to the character” (M Sipher) Second,”Hasbro designers, the Cartoon Network design team, and TakaraTomy engineers all worked closely together out of the gate to make sure toy and show-character were as close as possible, to the point where even the characters’ transformation schemes were consistent between 2D media and 3D toy” (M Sipher) The wiki also mentions that Animated was the first line since Beast Machines to be canceled, with molds left in design limbo. (M Sipher) Animated also featured many remarkably articulated figures, especially when compared with the sometimes awkward joints of the contemporary movie line. Balljoints made a prominent return. The line contained a remarkable number of figures that had a semi-transforming armor accessory (read three). (M Sipher)
Most crucially for our analysis, the wiki notes “Like the concurrent live-action film toyline, there was a heavy focus on keeping the small core cast —especially the Autobots— available at multiple price points and complexities to get them in as many kids’ hands as possible.” (M Sipher) Animated featured the legends class, the traditional run of deluxes, voyagers and leaders, a single Supreme class figure, the activators, Bumper Battlers, simple figures reminiscent of the G1 Battlechargers, which triggered transformation and electronics upon collision, Power Bots, and, of course, Happy Meal toys. (M Sipher) Bumblebee and Optimus Prime, in particular, had figures in every size class or sub-branding. (M Sipher)
While the core of the line was composed of more traditional figures, most of the classes were focused at a younger audience. In particular, the alternators demonstrate something of a visible break from the scout class figures from the Unicron Trilogy or the Real Gear Robots of the movie line. The alternators were not composed of unique characters whose fictional depictions pegged them as smaller than the average Transformer. Rather, the line was populated by members of the main cast, such as Starscream and Optimus Prime. (M Sipher) Moreover, the activators were not simply scout sized figures; they also marked the return of spring loaded auto-transformation after a lengthy hiatus. (M Sipher)
In this sense, the alternators figures were fundamentally different from the scout class that had come before. These figures were not merely a size class smaller than deluxe. Rather, they represented an opportunity for younger children to have a more kid-friendly version of Optimus Prime, a version that didn’t feature the intricate transformation schemes of the movie toyline. Indeed, in Animated, and to some extent the movie line, a clear distinction begins to arise between figures targeted at different age groups. While occasionally the target group of an entire line would shift, (for example, Armada had a somewhat younger target audience than RID or Beast Wars) the lines were largely internally consistent. That is to say, most of the figures in Armada have roughly the same level of complexity, articulation and electronic gimmickry, accounting for differences in size class. This is simply not true in Animated; there is a world of difference between the sophistication of the deluxe figures and the simplicity and electronics of the Bumper Battlers.
As time wore on and the complexity of the movie figures waxed, the conscious division of lines into various groups of figures designed to appeal to various age groups became ever more important. Although not the first to do so, Animated and the movie line dramatically expanded the kind of toy that could be considered a Transformer, or that could at least receive the branding in the case of some of the role play toys. When HasTak eventually began to more fully explore these divisions, they found themselves with precedent, and many tools pioneered by Animated, in the form of size classes, concepts such as one step transformation, more non-traditional converting figures, or even larger action figures that didn’t transform at all. This aspect of Animated is perhaps one of the most influential; all three subsequent cartoon lines would take what had been established and run away with it.
The other significant aspect of Animated was the aesthetic. All the cartoon series previous to Animated that had featured primarily vehicle-based Transformers had relied on a very traditional robot design language. Vents, paneling, and conventional, if blocky, proportions ruled the day. Animated almost completely abandoned these, in favor of designs much more heavily drawn from the world of cartoons at large. Gone were the mostly human proportions of the G1 cartoon. Animated characters “leaned towards the superheroic, with bulky chests jutting out with broad shoulders and large arms”, and “faces were given much more expression than the default “neutral” non-expression of most Transformers lines, with large eyes, smirks, snarls and more as appropriate to the general attitude of the character.” (M Sipher) Character designs featured large blocks of bold primary colors and cell shading. All this was tied together with the unique style of head designer, Derrick J. Wyatt, to create an aesthetic that is instantly recognizable and highly evocative of cartoons in general.
Of course, Transformers as a franchise was no stranger to significant redesigns. Both Beast Wars and the movies had completely reimagined Transformers in directions that had little semblance to that which had come before. What makes Animated significant is the impact it had on what was to come. In many ways, the designs of Animated served as a jumping off point for the next ten years of cartoons. Transformers:Prime and RID (2015) both have very well-defined aesthetics of their own; yet it is inescapable that both owe a great deal to the innovation of Animated. For a somewhat silly example, characters in Animated tended not to have very pronounced noses; many simply had a nosepiece like protrusion from a helmet. Almost no characters have any sort of nose in either Prime or RID (2015); it would not be until Cyberverse that Transformers would again have actual noses in a main-line cartoon.
In many ways, the legacy of Transformers: Animated is one of freedom. HasTak increased the design space in which Transformers could operate, both in terms of physical figures and artistic choices. Before, for all their diversity, many toylines had featured many of the same kinds of figure; ball-jointed, transforming robots from the Gundam school of aesthetics. Animated broke down the door for experimentation with new looks and new kinds of toys. Although the most profound changes in toy offerings would not be for some years, and would occur not in the cartoons but in the movies, every line after Animated borrowed something from the pool of ideas it pioneered. Through these influences, Animated once again breathed new life into our storied franchise.
Works Cited
MSipher et al. “Transformers Animated (Toyline)” TFwiki. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers_Animated_(toyline) Accessed 10/4/2020
Transformers Aesthetics 