The Transformers: weekday series press pack

Fresh off the success of The Transformers' first season on weekends in 1984, here is Sunbow Productions press pack to promote the series going to full weekday syndication in 1985.

Transformers: Full CBS Network Pitch material

In February 1984, Marvel Productions' Hank Saroyan and Jeffrey Scott were hurriedly commissioned to create a development bible and pilot script, intending to sell The Transformers as a Saturday morning series to CBS Network.  Now, at last, the Archive presents the paper material that formed that pitch.

Included at the link below are: 

• The initial development bible, written in three days without full reference or character profiles available.
• The revised bible, dated 7th March 1984, incorporating Bob Budiansky's profiles and original characters requested by CBS.
• Outlines and full script for the pilot episode: A Robot's Best Friend Is His Dog.
• Jeffrey Scott's notes file, which ties all the pieces together.  Containing Hasbro product list, notes from development meetings between Scott and Saroyan, along with feedback from Hasbro, Griffin-Bacal and CBS executives.

To read them all, head to The Transformers, Part 1

The Transformers: new information on CBS network pitch

Originally appearing in an article about Marvel Productions, in the pages of Comics Feature magazine for January 1985, artwork for a Saturday morning network pitch titled Car And Cable showed a transforming Volkswagen in a comedic setting with three humans and a dog.  Long assumed to be Marvel's attempt at producing a knockoff to their own success story in The Transformers.

That was until March 2020, when Instagram user consumercollectibles contacted this archive and others to show the original pitch artwork, revealing a previously unseen piece that shows this was in fact an early pitch for Transformers.

Subsequent to this discovery, in late 2024 and early 2025, Jeffrey Scott sold off all paperwork relating to his involvement with developing a Transformers series for Saturday morning broadcast on CBS.

In February 1984, the Transformers toyline had racked up retail orders at New York Toy Fair that would eventually total $100 million,  Hasbro sought to capitalise on this sudden success and before Toy Fair had concluded, had commissioned Jeffrey Scott to work with Marvel Productions' Hank Saroyan on a development bible and pilot script.  While George Arthur Bloom was concurrently writing his pilot miniseries for syndication (Act I of Bloom's script was sent to Scott as part of his reference material).

Notes show that Hasbro, Tom Griffin, Joe Bacal, Hank Saroyan and CBS executives were all in communication, providing feedback on the series' development.  

Set five years after the events of 'More Than Meets The Eye', the series would follow the Autobots as they wage guerilla warfare on a Decepticon-dominated Earth.  Working with their human allies: trucker Matt Conroy, driver of Optimus Prime, along with his dog Burt.  Along with teenagers Eddie and Wendy Fairchild, owners of clumsy VW Beetle Muffler a.k.a Muffy.  

Choosing one of 13 stock plots included with the development bible, Jeffrey Scott finished the pilot episode script "A Robot's Best Friend Is His Dog", at the end of March 1984.

Evidently CBS chose not to pick up the series for its 1984 season lineup.  Undeterred, Hasbro and Griffin-Bacal (via Sunbow Productions and Claster Television) sold 13 additional episodes into syndication for that year, with Marvel assigning Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins to act as story editors.

The Archive will bring more information as it becomes available in the future.

Transformers: 1986 Character Binder

Thanks to Autoclot@tfw2005, the Archive now hosts the 1986 character binder for Transformers, formerly owned by Paul Davids.

This 186 page document covers profiles and model sheets for nearly all of the incoming 1986 toyline (excluding the new minibots Swerve, Pipes, Tailgate, Hubcap and Outback), as well as returning 1984 and 1985 characters.

View the document in gallery form at 1986 Character Binder

The Transformers: The Movie: storyboard files reduced

As part of space-saving and general housekeeping, storyboards for all 31 final sequences of The Transformers: The Movie, as well as Peter Chung's early sequences, have been put through OCR and greatly reduced in file size.  Additionally, the 1600+ page full storyboard book is available to download at 175mb (down from over 1gb).

To view all of the storyboards, head to The Transformers: The Movie

Transformers: Flint Dille's Character Binder

The last major Transformers-related item uncovered from the storage of former Sunbow producer Flint Dille in 2020 has been released.  Flint's character binder, which received its last update on December 3rd, 1986.  Nearly all of the 1987 toy lineup is represented within its 333 pages, as well a copy of Bob Budiansky's 11-page treatment for the Marvel Comics' Headmasters miniseries.

Due to its size, the binder has been split up into three galleries, which can be viewed at: Briefing/Reference Binder Gallery Index

Transformers: The Secret of Omega Supreme storyboards

Thanks to Larry Houston for saving them from likely destruction back in the 1980s and thanks to Rich Helscher for making them available, the Archive now hosts the tenth full Transformers storyboard set: The Secret of Omega Supreme.

View galleries for all ten sets, as well as partial storyboards for ten more episodes at the Storyboard Viewing Gallery Index

Transformers: the resurrection of Skyfire/Jetfire

With thanks to Rich Helscher, the Archive now hosts an earlier version of Transformers script Fire on the Mountain.  Accompanying the script are memos from story editor Bryce Malek notifying producer Nelson Shin of rewritten pages to accompany the 2nd July 1984 revision, the earlier first draft having already gone forward to storyboards (as was common during the series run):

The impetus for these revisions was to insert a scene where Wheeljack and Sideswipe rescue Skyfire from the Arctic ice, where he was buried at the end of concurrently-written episode Fire in the Sky

Insert pages 13 and 13A, as mentioned in the above memos

The original pages 12 and 13 from the first draft are included with this copy of the revised script, and show Doug Booth writing Skyfire as simply being an established part of the Autobot roster. Setting out from Autobot Headquarters with Brawn and Windcharger to investigate the destruction of their Sky Spy satellite by Megatron's new weapon.

These pages were replaced by the new inserts and the script handed over to Ron Friedman for his dialogue changes.

Both scripts can be read at The Transformers, Part 1