[Spoiler Alert]
As a kid in the fourth grade when Beastwars came into play, I loved it from the outset... well, the cartoon anyway.

When I first saw the figures, I feel like such an idiot for this, I thought that some toy company had stolen the idea of transforming robots and used it with animals. Such things like a Spider named Tarantulas, a Cheetah named Cheetor and a Velociraptor named Dinobot, seemed very insulting at the least towards Transformers fans.

Though the figures looked pretty cool, the impact of which can be seen in my collection (link in Sig), It wasn't until I looked closer at the packaging that I noticed that under the Beastwars logo... was the Transformers logo.

It wasn't long after that the cartoons aired at 4:30 during Prime Possum, lol, and I was instantly hooked by the characters and the story. It was so reminiscent of the original G1 that it seemed to be a continuation of sorts, this was later confirmed towards the end of the first season.

Originally posted by GoktimusPrime:
Yet it's the same actor who voices Rattrap also voices Dinobot, Waspinator, Silverbolt, Quickstrike and Cicadacon!...
I don't mean to nit-pick but Cicadacon never made it into the cartoon, for that matter neither of the Beastwars Gestalts did.

Autocon: To my understanding they did have some sort of "blood or something", I believe it was the processed energon that they had for blood as Tarantulas makes many references to having Maximals for meals but also there are a number of scenes where various characters eat earth bound fauna, leading to the assumption that they must of had some sort of a digestive system also.

Originally posted by GoktimusPrime:
I see Beastwars as the Transformers' Renaissance.
I agree with that thought, whilst G2 had it's moments (figure-wise), Beastwars was much more of a solid effort by Hasbro/Takara-Tomy and it has paid huge dividends and continues to do so today.

All in all it is a great series that has great characters, stories, figures and contributions to the Transformers franchise as a whole.
I hope the next rendition of the cartoons/toys of the franchise has the same level of enthusiasm that went into Beastwars, because in my opinion the only thing that has come remotely close since was Transformers: Animated.