The Decepticons: The '80s Most Disfunctional Terrorist Organization
The Decepticons suffered from the same ailment as every other cartoon terroristorganization bent on world domination in the ‘80s: misdirected focus of resources. That blame falls entirely on the shoulders of Megatron, their leader.
Megatron was a 25-foot tall robot with a cannon on his arm that was two-thirds as big as he was. Remember WWF’s Andre The Giant? I wouldn’t even want to get bitch-slapped by that guy, much less shot by a laser gun as big as two of him. But that’s not all. According to the bio on the back of the box the "Megatron" toy came in, that cannon could tap into black holes for power. Not your car's cigarette lighter... black holes. Plus, Megatron was in charge of an entire army of similar robots, with similar weaponry, who turned into things like tanks, jets, and thirty-foot long flying laser guns. For an idea of how lobsided the battle between the Decepticons and Earth should’ve been, imagine Daniel LaRusso in a dress trying to stop 30 charging steamrollers by pointing his finger at them and screaming "pow!"
So why is Megatron's face not on our dollar bills right now? Terrible implementation of even worse plans. Instead of simply ordering his men to shoot to liquify, Megatron thought his time would be better spent building a satellite that could somehow seize control of Earth’s weather, allowing him to freeze the oceans, thus cutting off our tuna supply and punishing us into submission by forcing us to eat dinners that weren’t quite as tasty with lemon juice. Sure, he thought of other ideas, but when it came down to it, they were really just kind of variations of that first idea.
Megatron, if you are reading this right now, pay particular attention to this next sentence: you and your army have laser guns. Use them. To add insult to insult, Megatron transformed into a gun himself, and he still never shot anybody. I’m not saying that’s inexcusable, I’m just saying that if I had the power to turn into a time-travelling poontang attractor, you damn well better believe that I’d be making more than a few trips to 2027 with Halle Berry and the closest thing I could find to her lesbian twin sister.
Fast-forward to Transformers: The Movie, which was the ONE TIME Megatron and his army used ther guns. They took out about ten of the good guys in less than a minute. They even did it over a kick-ass ‘80s metal song and talked a little yang while they were doing it. I’m assuming the cartoon TV series took place in the 1980s. The narrator on the Transformers movie says the movie takes place in 2005. That means it took Megatron 20 years to realize that one of the ways to win a war is to actually cause causalities on the other side. Hell, we lost more Americans in the Gulf War than we did in our battle vs. the Decepticons, and Iraq didn’t even have a twenty foot tall robot that transforms into a twenty foot long robot alligator on their side, as far as I know.
“Wow…who would’ve thought the President, the Pope, and Bono would all be in the White House on the day we decided to destroy it. Alright, America! Prepare to EXPLODE!!!"
“Wait! Cease fire! My mechanically malvolent mastermind has concocted the ultimate plan to take over the world!”
“First we taint the earth’s water supply using the shit launcher we built with the money we stole from Fort Knox!”
“You mean the one we built with the money I suggested we use to build a robot dinosaur ninja with Death Stars for hands?”
“That’s the one! Secondly, I’ll need…uh...a giant bowl of soup! Speaking of...why are you still standing around listening to me talk about it? MAKE IT HAPPEN!”
“When that’s in place, I’ll use this golden stop light changer to cause traffic jams AT EVERY INTERSECTION IN EVERY STATE IN EVERY COUNTRY AROUND THE GLOBE!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
“I’ve spent the last three months building this nuero-helmet to protect me from the humans' deadly mind control powers! There will be no stopping us this time!
"But humans don't have..."
"When the time to strike is upon us, I’ll finish mankind forever with this…something something cube!”
“Megatron, you are aware that I’m a thirty foot tall robot, and according to this picture, you turn into a pistol that’s at least half that size? And according to the box that your toy comes in, you can tap into black holes for power?”
"That bowl of soup isn't going to cook itself."
"For fuck's sake."
"When you're done with that come help me point this thing at the ocean."
My favorite Decepticon was a guy named "Soundwave." He looked the coolest, but his very existence negates my entire previous argument about the Decpticons and their bad-assness, because Soundwave transformed into a cassette player.
In a war for galactic supremacy, a tape player is the most useless thing you could possibly turn into, except for maybe a toilet bowl, or a smaller, less functional toilet bowl. Hey Soundwave—it doesn’t matter how cool you look—until they make a guy who transforms into headphones, you’ll always be the Decpticon who the other Decpticons tie to the flagpole and pop in the ass with their towels after gym.
Actually, there was a group of Decepticons that had it worse than Soundwave: the guys who turned into Soundwave’s tapes. At first, all I could think about was the endless shit these guys got from the other Decepticons, but then I realized they probably didn’t get any at all, because transforming into a tape was probably the equivalent of being a "special needs" Transformer. I figure the other guys just avoided eye-contact with them in the hallways and that was it.
What the animators didn’t think about in the ‘80s was that in 2005, when the Transformers movie supposedly takes place, tapes will be outdated. That means that by 2005, the tape squad would have no reason to even leave Decpticon headquarters. They’d be hanging out in the back room playing Connect Four with the guys who transformed into DeLoreans and Frogger machines. The only time they’d ever see action is if Megatron devised a plan that involved taking over the world one music store discount bin at a time. Holy shit—I was kidding around just then and I still came up with a better plan for world domination than Megatron ever came up with. And I don’t even have an intelligence rating of "10."
On a side note regarding the tapes, I couldn’t help but notice how the producers would use the exact same song whenever they needed rock music on the cartoon. Apparently it was awesome, because whoever was onscreen when it played, human or robot, would break into the Molly Ringwald Breakfast Club dance the instant it came on.
[thanks to www.transfan-asylum.org for the pictures]
Megatron was a 25-foot tall robot with a cannon on his arm that was two-thirds as big as he was. Remember WWF’s Andre The Giant? I wouldn’t even want to get bitch-slapped by that guy, much less shot by a laser gun as big as two of him. But that’s not all. According to the bio on the back of the box the "Megatron" toy came in, that cannon could tap into black holes for power. Not your car's cigarette lighter... black holes. Plus, Megatron was in charge of an entire army of similar robots, with similar weaponry, who turned into things like tanks, jets, and thirty-foot long flying laser guns. For an idea of how lobsided the battle between the Decepticons and Earth should’ve been, imagine Daniel LaRusso in a dress trying to stop 30 charging steamrollers by pointing his finger at them and screaming "pow!"
So why is Megatron's face not on our dollar bills right now? Terrible implementation of even worse plans. Instead of simply ordering his men to shoot to liquify, Megatron thought his time would be better spent building a satellite that could somehow seize control of Earth’s weather, allowing him to freeze the oceans, thus cutting off our tuna supply and punishing us into submission by forcing us to eat dinners that weren’t quite as tasty with lemon juice. Sure, he thought of other ideas, but when it came down to it, they were really just kind of variations of that first idea.
Megatron, if you are reading this right now, pay particular attention to this next sentence: you and your army have laser guns. Use them. To add insult to insult, Megatron transformed into a gun himself, and he still never shot anybody. I’m not saying that’s inexcusable, I’m just saying that if I had the power to turn into a time-travelling poontang attractor, you damn well better believe that I’d be making more than a few trips to 2027 with Halle Berry and the closest thing I could find to her lesbian twin sister.
Fast-forward to Transformers: The Movie, which was the ONE TIME Megatron and his army used ther guns. They took out about ten of the good guys in less than a minute. They even did it over a kick-ass ‘80s metal song and talked a little yang while they were doing it. I’m assuming the cartoon TV series took place in the 1980s. The narrator on the Transformers movie says the movie takes place in 2005. That means it took Megatron 20 years to realize that one of the ways to win a war is to actually cause causalities on the other side. Hell, we lost more Americans in the Gulf War than we did in our battle vs. the Decepticons, and Iraq didn’t even have a twenty foot tall robot that transforms into a twenty foot long robot alligator on their side, as far as I know.
“Wow…who would’ve thought the President, the Pope, and Bono would all be in the White House on the day we decided to destroy it. Alright, America! Prepare to EXPLODE!!!"
“Wait! Cease fire! My mechanically malvolent mastermind has concocted the ultimate plan to take over the world!”
“First we taint the earth’s water supply using the shit launcher we built with the money we stole from Fort Knox!”
“You mean the one we built with the money I suggested we use to build a robot dinosaur ninja with Death Stars for hands?”
“That’s the one! Secondly, I’ll need…uh...a giant bowl of soup! Speaking of...why are you still standing around listening to me talk about it? MAKE IT HAPPEN!”
“When that’s in place, I’ll use this golden stop light changer to cause traffic jams AT EVERY INTERSECTION IN EVERY STATE IN EVERY COUNTRY AROUND THE GLOBE!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
“I’ve spent the last three months building this nuero-helmet to protect me from the humans' deadly mind control powers! There will be no stopping us this time!
"But humans don't have..."
"When the time to strike is upon us, I’ll finish mankind forever with this…something something cube!”
“Megatron, you are aware that I’m a thirty foot tall robot, and according to this picture, you turn into a pistol that’s at least half that size? And according to the box that your toy comes in, you can tap into black holes for power?”
"That bowl of soup isn't going to cook itself."
"For fuck's sake."
"When you're done with that come help me point this thing at the ocean."
My favorite Decepticon was a guy named "Soundwave." He looked the coolest, but his very existence negates my entire previous argument about the Decpticons and their bad-assness, because Soundwave transformed into a cassette player.
In a war for galactic supremacy, a tape player is the most useless thing you could possibly turn into, except for maybe a toilet bowl, or a smaller, less functional toilet bowl. Hey Soundwave—it doesn’t matter how cool you look—until they make a guy who transforms into headphones, you’ll always be the Decpticon who the other Decpticons tie to the flagpole and pop in the ass with their towels after gym.
Actually, there was a group of Decepticons that had it worse than Soundwave: the guys who turned into Soundwave’s tapes. At first, all I could think about was the endless shit these guys got from the other Decepticons, but then I realized they probably didn’t get any at all, because transforming into a tape was probably the equivalent of being a "special needs" Transformer. I figure the other guys just avoided eye-contact with them in the hallways and that was it.
What the animators didn’t think about in the ‘80s was that in 2005, when the Transformers movie supposedly takes place, tapes will be outdated. That means that by 2005, the tape squad would have no reason to even leave Decpticon headquarters. They’d be hanging out in the back room playing Connect Four with the guys who transformed into DeLoreans and Frogger machines. The only time they’d ever see action is if Megatron devised a plan that involved taking over the world one music store discount bin at a time. Holy shit—I was kidding around just then and I still came up with a better plan for world domination than Megatron ever came up with. And I don’t even have an intelligence rating of "10."
On a side note regarding the tapes, I couldn’t help but notice how the producers would use the exact same song whenever they needed rock music on the cartoon. Apparently it was awesome, because whoever was onscreen when it played, human or robot, would break into the Molly Ringwald Breakfast Club dance the instant it came on.
[thanks to www.transfan-asylum.org for the pictures]
posted by Mike at
Friday, January 21, 2005
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