Dedicated to the preservation and showcase of scripts, storyboards and other production material from Sunbow Productions, Marvel Productions and their co-production partners. This is an unofficial site that has no affiliation with any company responsible for the commission or production of the cartoons depicted herein.
A couple of home-made animatics I have made using recently-revealed Transformers storyboards, combined with episode broadcast audio. If these pique your interest, then please follow the links to the full storyboard galleries.
In 2016, the Mapes brothers found an assortment of Marvel Productions cassette tapes containing dialogue recorded in the summer of 1984, principally Season 1 of The Transformers. Deleted dialogue from those tapes is available on the Transformers At The Moon YouTube channel.
At the time of the recordings being found and made available, only one episode had a complete storyboard set available: Heavy Metal War. Animatics utilising the deleted dialogue from that episode were created and presented by Chris McFeely for TFNation 2017.
Since then, the number of full episode storyboards available online has grown to seven. Including a second episode for which a dialogue tape is available: S.O.S Dinobots.
In 2011, the website cartoonpaperwork.com posted the storyboards for an alternate version of the GI Joe season 2 intro sequence, drawn by Mike Vosburg. The produced sequence that appeared on all season 2 episodes being storyboarded by Keith Tucker.
There was no reason to believe that it wasn't a simple case of one version being approved for production and the other not...until now. A local TV promo from 1986, promoting a movie edit of the season-launching miniseries Arise, Serpentor, Arise, uses footage from the supposedly unproduced version of the intro.
Just a few storyboard samples found in an Internet Archive download of a 1993 storyboarding guidebook.
First is from late season 2 GI Joe episode Sins Of Our Fathers, drawn by Bill Barry. In this episode, Cobra Commander has succeeded in raising the monstrous creature dwelling underneath the ruins of Destro's ancestral home (destroyed in season 1 episode Skeletons In The Closet) and makes an unholy pact with the creature, offering Serpentor as a sacrifice. We join the action as the monstrosity makes landfall on Cobra Island
Next are storyboards from Larry Houston in 1992, from what is presumably the pilot episode of Marvel's Siegfried and Roy. The illusionists' management were making lucrative offers to production companies for an animated series, eventually settling on Marvel Productions. Trade adverts promised 65 episodes for the 1993 television season, however these failed to materialise.
Among the many magazine trade adverts that have been put up for sale by PaperNostalgia on ebay, is this one from Marvel Productions, showcasing the programs that would be produced for the 1991 season.
Whilst Muppet Babies, Bucky O'Hare, Kind N' Play and Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes did in fact air during that year, the remaining show Time Challengers did not.
It was previously unknown whether or not this was an actual greenlit show or a failed pitch. Until I recently found a pack of over 80 model sheets online. Suggesting that the show had at least three episodes scripted and storyboarded.
Under the production code of MP 4069-00 to 03, these model sheets were drawn up between late 1990 and early 1991.
The models themselves offer only breadcrumbs as to the premise of the series. The main cast are a trio of teenagers, who all have alter-egos: Randy AKA Rerun, Trisha AKA Contempo and Maria AKA Futuron, along with their presumed mentor Mr. Chronos. The first episode features many model sheets to indicate that the team travel to the Gold Rushes of the 19th century. Model sheets for the third episode are for a character named Shana who appears to cycle through several time periods.
If anyone who worked on this show or has any other production material available that could shed light on this series, please contact the Archive.
At TFNation 2022, Europe's largest Transformers convention, Jim Sorenson and Chris McFeely hosted a panel giving details and showing off fanart interpretations of Ron Friedman's first Transformers The Movie script.
This is the first script written for this movie, as opposed to the second draft script that has been online in various forms since 2010, including here at the Archive.
The full video of the panel, broken down into three acts, are now available on YouTube, embedded below: