Transformers Prime/Trivia

While both Peter Cullen and Frank Welker have portrayed Optimus Prime and Megatron in other productions including video games, this is the first time the two of them have been able to work together portraying their iconic characters in a television series since The Transformers. Both have stated how delighted they were to work together again and how fond they were of each other.

• Dawson Casting: Andy Pessoa is a teenage actor playing 12-year-old Raf, though they are already running into problems with keeping his childlike voice and his voice has clearly deepened as of the season 2 premiere.
• Fan Nickname: Screamernaut and Iron Screamer after Starscream gets the Apex Armor and becomes a nigh-unstoppable war machine.
• Five Episode Pilot: This is actually the first Transformers series to begin with a five-parter:
  • The original series began with a three-parter, and only ever had one five-parter, which opened up the third season.
    • Unless you're Japanese, in which case Transformers 2010 (the Japanese adaptiation of Season 3) technically started with the 5-part "Five Faces of Darkness"...
  • Beast Wars started with a two-parter, while its sequel Beast Machines averted this altogether.
  • Avoided with all of the Anime series (it's a Western thing, after all).
  • Transformers Animated also only began with a three-parter.
• Hey, It's That Voice!:
  • Of course, we must start with Peter "Optimus" Cullen and Frank "Have You Seen Anything Animated In The Last Thirty Years, Because If So You're Familiar With My Work" Welker reprising their roles as Optimus Prime and Megatron.
  • Do you think that the Decepticons are gonna beat Cliffjumper and the Autobots? IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!
  • Kevin Michael Richardson is Bulkhead.
    • It's also not the first time he's voiced a powerful, giant alien lifeform.
  • Oh, please. Ratchet goes through everyone's trash.
    • Not to mention he has experience with zombies.
    • And if he dies, they can just clone a new one.
    • He also happens to know what you fear thanks to his gas.
  • Josh "Spider-Man" Keaton, who's also Young Hercules and Revolver Ocelot, as Jack Darby.
    • And Markie Post as his mom.
  • Steve Blum is Starscream, who seems to be channeling the Green Goblin and Orochimaru.
  • The Club Scum emcee (who's also Cosmo) is Knock Out.
    • And he's not the first intelligent, metallic villain he's played.
    • Hey, Timmy's dad has always been Ambiguously Gay at best.
      • And was obsessed with a red sports car.
    • He was also J. Jonah Jameson.
  • Adam Baldwin is Breakdown.
    • Funnily enough, Gina Torres is Airachnid.
  • Ernie Hudson is Agent Fowler.
  • Clancy Brown is Silas.
  • Richard Green (known to some as Magneto or Hugo Strange) is Skyquake.
  • James Horan (Ikat'ika) is Wheeljack.
  • For all you Lord of the Rings fans out there, Unicron is played by John Noble, better known as Denethor.
    • He's also Walter Bishop.
  • Bit easier to miss, but Reggie Bannister is the security guard from episode 10.
  • Tony Todd, who voiced the The Fallen, is Dreadwing.
  • Robert Forster, also known as Arthur Petrelli, is General Bryce.
  • John DiMaggio is the Conspiracy Theorist Vogel from "Tunnel Vision".
  • David Kaye is Hardshell. He sounds like a more guttural and vicious Beast Wars Megatron.
  • The Hungarian dub brought back from the movies the voices of: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, surprisingly Arcee (and it works!), and even more surprisingly Agent Simmons... as Agent Fowler. Besides these...
    • Megatron is also Leobreaker, Eduardo and Cleveland's dad.
    • Starscream slipped over into Gollum for a moment.
    • Arcee's also Tsunade
    • Yes, Fowler is Winston from the Ghostbusters... the animated version. He's also Superman.
    • Skyquake is, in turn, Brainiac. And Patrick. And The Tick.
    • Bulkhead is Batman attempting to do a deeper voice.
    • Jack is Timmy Turner.
    • Cliffjumper is Fry and Randy Marsh.
    • Ratchet is... Captain America? Moreover, Zapp Brannigan?
    • Knock Out is Earl.
    • Breakdown has the voice of Vash the Stampede.
    • Silas is... it would be impossible to list them all. Just think of any deep-voiced badass hero or villain character, and about half the time it's dubbed by this guy, in the same voice. Notable recent roles include Aquaman, Jiraiya, and, oh, Optimus Prime.
    • Airachnid is both the mom of Dexter and of Kim Possible.
  • The Japanese dub is also a veritable who's-who of talent:
    • Optimus Prime is D-Boy and Sephiroth.
    • Megatron is, fittingly enough, Ali-Al Sanchez.
    • Ratchet is Kamille Bidan.
    • Arcee is Boota and Darry.
    • Starscream is Caster.
    • Cliffjumper is Sasuke and Shirou Emiya.
    • Jack is Lelouch Lamperouge.
    • Raf is Li Syaoran.
    • Fowler is Yammy and Japanese!Captain Quark.
    • June is Saori Bajeena.
    • Miko... is the only one who doesn't have a recognizable seiyuu, as she's voiced by newcomer Nozomi Furuki.
  • Jack is Zim in Spain.
  • In the Arab dub, Miko is Rainbow Dash.
  • In the Italian dub, Airachnid is Zecora.
• I Knew It!: Many had guessed Unicron was either Earth, or somehow connected to it, due to the fact Dark Energon erupted from a volcano.
  • Given both Prime and Transformers: War for Cybertron are set in the Transformers Aligned Universe, Ratchet's recap of WfC confirms that the being credited as "Core" in the game is indeed Primus.
• Mythology Gag: One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall.
  • G1:
    • The abandoned missile silo the Autobots use for home base has a passing resemblance to Mount St. Hilary, the resting place of the Ark in G1. Right before trying to blow up the space bridge, Ratchet says it's time to "light our darkest hour!" The design of the Decepticon ship hearkens back to the unnamed Decepticon ship from G1, given the name Nemesis in Beast Wars.
    • Optimus Prime and Megatron are both voiced by the same actors (Peter Cullen and Frank Welker) who first voiced them in G1.
    • The naming of the episode "Convoy" is quite deliberate, as Commander Convoy is the name of Optimus Prime in Japan.
      • Also, Prime's trailer in said-episode is a perfect replica of G1 Prime's trailer.
    • In "Sick Mind", Megatron muses over Optimus Prime's deteriorating health and makes a comment on him "fading to Gunmetal gray" (i.e. losing his coloration upon the moment of death)... the same thing that happened when he died in Transformers: The Movie, and in many other series, the one sign that a Transformer's spark has been extinguished and they are truly dead.
    • In "Shadowzone", while Starscream is being repaired by Knock Out, the latter suggests Starscream take the opportunity to upgrade his somewhat obsolete tech and missing arm with a null-ray.
    • In "Partners", Starscream tells Airachnid how (prior to joining the Decepticons) he was Air Commander of a squadron of Energon Seekers. In Generation 1, Starscream's title in the Decepticons was Air Commander, and all jet-model 'Cons were called Seekers.
    • In the same episode, Bulkhead mentions the Transformers Antichrist/Satan figure The Fallen.
    • In "T.M.I.", Bulkhead also name-drops Perceptor, a G1 Autobot scientist, while doing Cybertronian math.
    • In "One Shall Fall", Megatron attacks Bumblebee, critically injuring his passenger. G1 Megatron did the same thing in the second-season opener, "Autobot Spike."
    • In "One Shall Rise, Part 1" Megatron presents himself to Unicron at the maw of the volcano as his "Herald", a term used before, mostly in the comics, to describe any Transformer that directly serves Unicron.
    • Ratchet's Kung Fu from "Stronger, Faster" is a nod to the G1 episode "Changing Gears" when Ratchet totally Bruce Lee-kicked Thundercracker.
    • The title is a homage to the Action Masters toys, whose commercial mentions the Transformers becoming "Stronger, faster, more alive." In the Marvel Comics series, the Action Masters were created through the use of Nucleon - a substitute for Energon that could do very bad things (such as ruining their transformation ability, as the Action Masters were non-transforming figures) to the user. (In "Stronger, Faster," the plot is about Ratchet's synthetic Energon proving to be Psycho Serum.)
    • In "One Shall Rise, Part 1", Miko mistaking "Unicron" for "Unicorn" is a reference to the infamous Malaysian dub of Transformers Headmasters, where at one point Galvatron declares "THIS IS UNICORN!" in reference to his "Grand Galvatron" plan.
    • Also in "One Shall Rise, Part 1", Optimus sums up the Primus/Unicron legend (first introduced in the G1 comics), including the Thirteen Primes.
    • In "One Shall Rise, Part 3," it's revealed that the key that Jack received from Optimus wasn't for the ground bridge power supply, but Vector Sigma, the mega-computer that gives sentience to non-sentient objects.
    • In "Masters & Students," Starscream declares himself the "Emperor of Destruction" while taking command of the Decepticons, a term that, while rarely brought up in American Transformers series, has often been used by Japanese fiction to refer to 'con leaders.
    • In "One Shall Rise, Part 3", Optimus says the Matrix will "light our darkest hour!"
    • When Unicron posesses Megatron for the last time, he becomes engulfed in purple flames. Now, we already know that he directly took his name from Megatronus Prime, one of the original thirteen, who later became The Fallen. In various media, The Fallen is always coated in a fiery aura.
      • Also whenever Unicron tries to possess Megatron, the lighting and sound effects were exactly like those in Transformers: The Movie, right down to Megatron clutching his head and falling to his knees in pain.
    • In "Operation Bumblebee, Part 1", Bumblebee gets his Transformation Cog stolen by MECH and is left unable to transform. The same thing happened to Trypticon in the G1 cartoon. It even looks sort of the same.
    • Ratchet also reiterates to Bumblebee why he has to stay at the base while the rest of the team searches for his T-Cog. They're "Robots In Disguise", after all.
    • Megatron tries to use the Forge of Solus Prime to create what Knock Out calls a "Fortress Maximus-grade Nucleon Shock Cannon", and fails in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2".
    • In "Loose Cannons" Wheeljack mentions former Wreckers Impactor, Roadbuster, Rotorstorm, Pyro and Seaspray as fallen comrades. In even more of a mythology reference, every single one of the Wreckers named, except for Seaspray, who's a new addition, have actually served as Wreckers in various G1 continuities and have also died in those appearances. Impactor didn't survive his initial appearance in the Marvel comics, and neither did Roadbuster (who also died in the Dreamwave comics) and both Rotorstorm and Pyro were killed in Last Stand of the Wreckers.
    • In "Nemesis Prime" Agent Fowler was playing an instrumental version of The Touch on his radio.
      • Nemesis Prime, in all continuities he appears, is the evil clone of Optimus Prime.
    • In "Triangulation" the Apex Armor is from the comics where Sentinel Prime used one to fight Megatron and was defeated.
    • "Toxicity" introduces a high-ranking Insecticon named Hardshell. Hardshell was an alternate name of Bombshell, a prominent Insecticon character in G1.
  • Beast Wars:
    • Energon takes the form of bluish crystals, and artificially seeded on a planet where they grow.
    • In Sick Mind Bumblebee enters Megatron's mind for information, and then Megatron ends up in Bumblebee's mind. The same thing happened between Blackarachnia and Tarantulas.
    • In "One Shall Fall" Optimus Prime mentions "The Covenant of Primus" AKA the Transformers Bible introduced at the end of Beast Wars.
    • The battle between Optimus and Megatron in "One Shall Fall" is very similar to the final episode of Beast Wars. Mountainous terrain, lighting storms, both combatants quoting the Covenant of Primus, and Optimus loses.
    • In "One Shall Rise" Megatron ends a gloating sentence with YEEESSS!
    • Ratchet, while in the process of waking up from stasis (essentially Transformer morphine), mentions Fuzors, a type of Transformer from Beast Wars that possessed a beast mode that was a combination of two different animals, and even mentions one by name, Bantor, and also that part of his animal mode was a tiger (and part mandrill) in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2".
    • In "Triage", Wheeljack's ship managing to shoot down Laserbeak only to be shot down in return is very reminiscent of the battle between the Darksyde and Axalon that trapped both the Maximals and Predacons on Prehistoric Earth in the first episode of Beast Wars.
    • In "Toxicity", Hardshell is knocked into a volcano, but manages to get out of the volcano and attack Bulkhead again. This is not the first time a Decepticon voiced by David Kaye has ended up rising out of lava to attack the person who dunked him in it.
  • Beast Machines:
    • The mooks are called Vehicons. Though unlike Beast Machines they are sentient and all possess sparks, whereas in Beast Machines it was just the Generals who had sparks.
    • After being presumed dead, Megatron ends up in a body far weaker than his own. Same thing happened to Beast!Megatron, only more drastically.
    • "T.M.I." also name drops Beast Machines, though in reference to monster trucks.
    • The Spark Extractor that Megatron unearths at the beginning of "Operation Bumblebee" was first used by another Megatron as he conquered Cybertron to remove the sparks from captive Transformers and create his Vehicon soldiers, yeeeessss... Prime's version is a little more dangerous, though.
  • The live-action films:
    • Optimus Prime introduces himself and the Autobots to the human kids in a very similar manner to his movie counterpart did, and the ending of the Five Episode Pilot includes him sending a message to space.
    • Bumblebee is unable to speak.
    • The first episode states that the last known activity on Earth of the Decepticons was about three years prior, roughly the time in Real Life that the first live-action Transformers movie was released.
    • Design-wise, Prime Bumblebee is Movie 'Bee in Prime's art style, all the way. Prime Prime is Movie Prime without the flame-paint and different shoulders (he's got movie Prime's trademark pop-out cannon and sword, perfectly identical to the movie version.)
    • Prime Starscream's chest looks a lot like Movie Starscream's face.
    • When Soundwave's bird-drone (yet to be called Laserbeak or depicted as an individual in the show) is on his chest, it looks very much like the face of Movie Frenzy. Putting a Frenzy homage in Soundwave is also a G1 homage, sorta (G1 Frenzy, like G1 Laserbeak, was one of Soundwave's cassette minions.)
    • Megatron's jet mode is pretty much Movie Megatron's first alt-mode.
    • She hasn't done it in the show yet, but all of Arcee's toys make her capable of being mostly in robot mode but rolling around on one wheel just like the Movie Arcee trio.
    • It's a stretch, but of the movie Arcee trio, only the blue one is shown to survive the final battle. Prime Arcee is of course blue.
    • In "Out of his Head", Megatron's revival is reminiscent of Optimus's from Revenge of the Fallen.
    • Starscream loses an arm in "Shadowzone", much like his movie counterpart.
    • In "T.M.I.", Bulkhead is driven crazy after having ancient Cybertronian information projected into his brain and starts drawing symbols on any available surface. The same thing happens to Sam in Revenge of the Fallen.
    • Starscream's deeper voice and Igor-ish posture and movement make him reminiscent of movie Starscream more than any other.
    • Nemesis Prime's attack on the military base is quite similar to Blackout's attack on the Qatar base in the first film.
    • Vogel believes that aliens wish to enslave humanity. This is exactly what the Decepticons planned to do in Dark of the Moon.
  • Transformers Energon: The Terrorcons were a sub-faction of Decepticons that were largely mindless drones led by Scorponok that had ties to Unicron. The robot zombies here are named Terrorcons in sublimentary material, and seem to have some related properties.
  • Transformers Animated:
    • Ratchet is grumpy and sensitive about his age.
    • Cliffjumper's head design is almost identical to Animated Bumblebee's design, referencing how they are normally redecoes of each other.
    • Bulkhead is very similar in design to his Animated counterpart, as is Ratchet.
    • Starscream's speech to the Decepticons at the end of "Darkness Rising" is quite similar to the one Animated Starscream gave near the beginning of that show's pilot (both times being when he assumed that Megatron was dead). The difference being that this time he actually gets to finish it... and doesn't get blown up.
    • In a nod to his Animated counterpart's artistic leanings, Bulkhead spends much of "T.M.I." painting the formula for synthetic energon on any surface he can find.
    • Starscream's chest may be movie Starscream's face, but the scissors-like positioning of his wings in robot mode is straight-up TFA, as is his noticeably huge chin.
    • Megatron's got pre-Earth TFA Megs' robot mode design (with more spikes.)
    • Starscream also clones himself in "Armada" much as Animated Screamer did in Season 2, but none of the clones end up becoming any of the other Seekers and they're all dead by the end of the episode.
  • At one point in "Orion Pax, Pt. 1", Megatron refers back to the "war for Cybertron", and refers to the Transformers as being "in exodus" on Earth. A lot of backstory is taken from Exodus and WFC, in one of the show's few attempts at falling in line with the Word of Saint Paul that is WFC, Exodus, and Prime being set in one continuity.
    • There are more references to other works in the Aligned Continuity in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2" when a Nucleon Shock Cannon is mentioned by Knock Out as Megatron tries and fails to build one with the Forge of Solus Prime, one of the Thirteen Primes, marking the first appearance of one of the Artifacts of the Primes in the show that isn't the Matrix of Leadership.
• The Other Darrin: Given it's set in the same universe as Transformers: War for Cybertron, Optimus Prime is the only character who appears in both WfC and Prime that doesn't undergo this, as Peter Cullen voiced Optimus in both. The humans, Bulkhead, Knock Out, Skyquake, Airachnid, Makeshift, Wheeljack, Tailgate and Dreadwing didn't appear in the game, and the portrayals of Bumblebee and Soundwave haven't required voice actors so far, much less getting Johnny Yong Bosch and Issac C. Singleton Jr. to reprise their respective roles from the game.
  • Fred Tatasciore is replaced with Frank Welker reprising his iconic role as Megatron from G1 and Jeffrey Combs as Ratchet.
    • When the Nemesis is reanimated (it was technically Trypticon) Kevin Michael Richardson replaces Tatasciore as well.
  • Sumalee Montano replaces Kari Wahlgren as Arcee.
  • Steve Blum replaces Sam Riegel as Starscream, though Blum is also an interesting case, as he voiced Cliffjumper on the DS version of WfC, yet Dwayne Johnson voiced Cliffjumper in Prime.
  • Adam Baldwin takes over from Crispin Freeman as Breakdown.
• Name's the Same: Miko Nakadai is bored with life and so constantly gets in the Autobots' way. Mikoto Nakadai is bored with life and so constantly gets in the Abarangers' way... by beating the crap out of them.
• Shout-Out: When Arcee meets up with Jack after he has seen that Transformers exist he tries walking away from her while saying; "I get it. The first rule about Robot Fight Club is that you do not talk about Robot Fight Club."
  • Hovering somewhere between this and a voiceless version of Hey, It's That Voice!, the Dark Energon produced drone-thing in "Darkness Rising, Part 3" makes the exact same squawks and screeches as the Warrior Bugs from Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles.
    • The Vehicons in the mines have different helmet designs than the combat variants. These are similiar to another space miner
  • When fighting the Scraplets in "Scrapheap", Miko says that they're going on a bug hunt.
  • "Predatory" is essentially a half-hour long love letter to Predator.
    • As if to clue the audience even further on Airachnid's wickedness, her facial plate has horns identical to Maleficent's.
  • In "Out of His Head" Starscream says "I love it when a plan comes together."
  • Knock Out calls humans skinjobs.
  • There is no mistaking that the Polarity Gauntlet is inspired by the Omni-Tool from Mass Effect.
  • Some of the moves Ratchet pulls off in "Stronger, Faster" resemble attacks from the Street Fighter series, particularly the "Spinning Bird Kick".
  • Arcee, in both vehicle and robot modes, mirrors the coloring and looks of Priss Asagiri's Motoslave and Hardsuit, respectively.
  • There is an unmistakable shout out to A New Hope when Fowler has to pretend to be a Vehicon when Breakdown starts wondering why the Space Bridge crew has not reported in at the usual time.
  • In "Orion Pax, Part 2", Starscream takes out a flying vehicon in much the same way his movie counterpart took out fighter jets in the first live action Transformers film.
  • Arcee mentioned the time Team Prime first arrived on earth and describes how Bulkhead ran into a set of power lines. The same thing happened to Ratchet in the first movie.
  • The sentient warship turning on the crew as well as its defeat is very similar to HAL 9000.
  • The ship's stasis beam recycles the zat'nikt'al (Zat Gun) sound effect from the Stargate Verse.
• Talking to Himself: With the Vehicon mooks (and later the Insecticons) all being voiced by Steve Blum, Josh Keaton, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Frank Welker, this is more or less inevitable. Happens in a literal and somewhat humorous sense to Starscream when he clones himself.
• What Could Have Been: Bulkhead was originally planned to be Ironhide, but the creators realized that they were essentially creating a new version of Animated Bulkhead, so they put him in the show instead. However, the featurette of the Season 1 set states that Ironhide's death in Dark of the Moon was what made the crew replace him with Bulkhead.
  • According to a featurette of the Season 1 set, Lugnut was considered to be join the Decepticon ranks, but was ruled out because the makers felt they had too many aircraft on the 'Con's side and he was replaced with Breakdown.