Transformers references in other media

[griffin]

For anyone curious, the cake wars Transformers episode is on tonight in a few minutes... I have no idea what it will be like, but could be amusing.

Don't watch it if you are likely to get a craving for cake later.

[griffin]

Well that was... interesting.

Their guest of this episode was a "Senior VP Global Brand Licensing Manager" at Hasbro by the name of Simon Waters.... someone I've never heard of before, so is either new (this episode was produced late 2016), or someone who isn't involved with Transformers enough to appear at Conventions or Product videos.
The Hasbro guest judge noted that he loved the Autobot symbol on the front of one of the Blurr cakes, but it was not very well done, so maybe he doesn't have much to with Transformers at all to even know what an Autobot symbol actually looks like.

Unless all of these bakers were long time fans of Transformers, I think they must have been given guides on the different series over the years or allowed to do some internet researching, because a number of ideas were a bit obscure (like Animated Blurr and Combiner Wars Leader Megatron) or a mix of different series together on the one cake.

The first round of four teams had to create in 75 minutes, a cake that represented their "all time favourite Transformers character", but I didn't realise Blurr was that popular, as these were the four cakes...
- a mid-transformation Blurr cake (looks like it was based on the GEN-2010 redeco of the first Generations Drift toy)
- an Animated Blurr cake (just the car mode on top and a 2D face on the side of the cake)
- "Gen1" Optimus Prime on top of a round building (Optimus looked more like Softimus Prime, being very rounded and cuddly like a plush toy)
- Gen1 Soundwave breaking out of the street (the person painting it called it Optimus at one point)

The team that did the Animated Blurr cake was eliminated, and the last three teams moved onto round two, which gave them 4 hours to make an "epic battle" themed cake.

- a city battle with Combiner Wars Optimus vs CW Megatron, and a lenticular Autobot/Decepticon symbol on the top.
- layers of several cakes that represent Cybertron to Earth with several characters all over it, from different eras (probably not intentional though).
- a giant Optimus Prime (time ran out before the head was painted, leaving it completely white - this was the same team that did Soundwave in the first round, and it's head was white too).

From that second round, one team was eliminated (the giant Optimus), and the remaining two teams go on (to a final or to the next episode), with the Optimus Vs Megatron cake being announced the winner, earning that team $10,000 and having their cake taken to a party somewhere unknown (briefly shown, with probably only a dozen people and kids - other end of episode parties are usually huge with a hundred plus people).

Various commercials for this "baked month" on SBS had a transforming Optimus truck that looked like a cake, which I thought was from this episode... but it wasn't, and must be from another TV show on this month, or just a clip they pulled from youtube.

[griffin]

Did anyone else watch it... or was I the only one with nothing better to do on a Sunday night?

[ComradeRenko]

NSW Police Force posting on Facebook about a truck lodged under a low bridge: "Optimus isn't looking so prime..."

[GoktimusPrime]

It reminds me of the scene in MTMTE Pt2/3 where Optimus Prime is seriously wounded after rolling down a hill when Wheeljack's bomb went off inside the ruby crystal mine. We all remember that scene - when all the Autobots had to carefully upright Prime and he struggled to transform to robot mode. Yet later in MTMTE Pt 3 we see Optimus Prime fall to the earth from the stratosphere, after chasing the Decepticon ship with Sideswipe's rocket pack -- and Prime is perfectly fine.

[griffin]

It says something about how often BotCon was at Pasadena, when the Auditorium building next to the Convention centre that hosted four BotCons, becomes immediately recognisable in just the opening seconds of a recent episode of NCIS.

Last week's episode (in Australia) was episode 19 of season 14 (The Wall), and it started out (before the credits) with a tour-group of war veterans at a "Washington DC" museum, but the front of the building caught my eye as being very familiar.

Since I've never been to DC, I knew it had to be Pasadena (in Los Angeles)... and looking through my thousands of BotCon photos, sure enough, it was what I thought it was.

From the episode (screenshots from tenplay website)...

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My photos from 2011 and 2014...

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It was really hard to look through those photos too (from BotCon 2004, 2009, 2011, 2014), with so many great memories, and the sad thought that I may never end up going back there, even if BotCon is revived by a new business. It was a great location, with LA being the easiest/cheapest city to fly to from Australia, and has so many tourist options, including themeparks and Hollywood studios.

It was the same feeling I had after FunPub took over BotCon in 2005, realising that I'd probably never go back to Fort Wayne in Indiana, which was my favourite BotCon city until Pasadena started to get used.

Maybe one day I'll return to America. I miss all those familiar faces, friends and places I met over the 17 years of trips to America since BotCon 1999.

[griffin]

Various commercials for this "baked month" on SBS had a transforming Optimus truck that looked like a cake, which I thought was from this episode... but it wasn't, and must be from another TV show on this month, or just a clip they pulled from youtube.

I noticed the other day another themed cake show had started, taking the place of the Cake Wars program on Channel 33... and checking the TV guide on Wednesday night, I saw that the episode that evening had Transformers mentioned, so I figured that this might be where the transforming Optimus cake was from in those commercials a few weeks back.
I set the recorder for the midnight repeat screening, and sure enough, this was the one... and it was so much more interesting than the Cake Wars episode.
This one featured research and clips from Transformers, and ended with an actual party at the Universal Studios, with Frank Welker and Peter Cullen as featured guests.

The episode had three projects throughout the hour, but someone has posted up a youtube video of just the Transformers portions, which goes for 29 minutes. (definitely watch it if you have a chance, especially if you've never seen Peter or Frank use their Transformers voices in public before)

Doing a little research on this, the party at the end of the episode was back in February 2nd 2015, but the episode didn't air in America until May 3rd 2016.

[Ace]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, apologies if it has.

The recent Power Rangers movie made reference to a certain Bayverse transformer. It's very brief, but I had a chuckle when I was watching it.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Episode 1 of Season 11 of Big Bang Theory.

Sheldon: ‘It’s like having Optimus Prime over and not asking him to turn into a truck’

[griffin]

The Goldbergs has already been mentioned having heaps of Transformers references, toys and a lot of Stan Bush music, and in a recent episode, one of the toys in the background in Adam's room was a Gen1 Jetfire.... a very yellowed Gen1 Jetfire. It seems that the props department acquired some vintage Transformers toys for the 1980s bedroom, but ended up with a Jetfire that didn't look like it was "new" for that time. (I don't think the yellowing was noticeable until at least into the 1990s... and this one was very yellowed, so was either out in the sun every day, or it was a 30 year old toy.

An episode in this season of Family Guy, has a nod to Transformers, as the theme of the episode is how a particular event would have been interpreted by three different directors, with one being Michael Bay. (none of the actual directors were involved)
One scene has some "Transformers", and some screenshots can be seen here.