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Was Cliffjumper a particularly popular Autobot?

posted 11 years ago by Old_Painty_Cans_Ned
18 replies | jump to latest

This is a topic I haven't thought about in years but the recent death of the great Casey Kasem has brought this to mind.

Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Cliffjumper in fact he as one of my personal favorites. However, I never got the impression that he was one of the favorites among Transformers fans in general. Now I never got the impression that he was disliked by fans either, I just thought that the fandom saw him is as pretty average. At any rate even when the movie first came out I thought he was a rather random choice to be seen specifically surviving the events of the movie. He was of course saved from Unicron alongside Jazz and Bumblebee both of whom were major character in seasons one and two while Cliffjumper was prominanltly featured in maybe two or three episodes in season one and like many first series Autobots became all but no existent in season two in order to make room for newer bots. Given that they were all too willing to kill off series 1 bots in this movie I was astounded that they didn't drop him into Unicron's acid pit just a add a bit more tragedy to this already tragic tale.

In later years his survival would take on even more significance when it was revealed in the early storyboards most of the series one Autobots (and maybe some series two bots as well) were to be killed off in The Battle of Autobot City while running through a gauntlet of Decepticons in attempt to reach the safety of the fortress. There is also a supposed quote by one of the creators who stated that they intended to do away with the old toy line to make way for the new and any Autobot who was neither specifically seen surviving the events of the movie nor seen in season three should be presumed dead. If this is true then that means of the original Autobots Cliffjumper, Jazz and Bumble Bee are pretty much it. In any case he is one of the few original Autobots who's fate was not left uncertain after the movie.

So is there any particular reason why Cliffjumper was chosen to survive Transformers The Movie?

[–] home0006 11 years ago

Cliffjumper was fairly popular, especially in the first season. As season 2 progressed they introduced so many new characters that no one other than Optimus and Bumblebee on the autobots side was featured very prominently. Given that the movie was really made mostly off of the 1st seasons characters that was probably why his character was spared.

Unfortunately they saved all the wrong characters aside from Bumblebee as Scatman died, and Kasem supposedly quit due to the racist nature they portrayed arabs with Carbombya.

[–] BouncyX 10 years ago

not sure if there's any truth but...

i read that Kasem wasn't happy with the movie or the series for some reason or another so thats why he has so little screentime and pretty much disappears after the movie. i'm guessing they figured he would have only gotten more upset had they killed him off.

[–] Old_Painty_Cans_Ned 10 years ago

Casey Kasem didn't have a problem with the movie. He left the show because some of the human villains in season 3 were from a fictional middle eastern country called Carbomya (Car Bomb You). In addition to the name of the country he felt these characters were portrayed in a racist manner and therefore left the show. Very few of the original Autobots got any lines the movie and suspect the only reason Cliffjumper got any lines at all is so they could get Kasem's voice in the movie.

Cliffjumper disappeared early in the movie because he was part of the old toy line and they wanted to feature the new characters in the movie.

[–] Old_Painty_Cans_Ned 10 years ago

Also it not really accurate to say that Cliffjumper had "so little screen time." Compared to most of the other series 1 Autobots he had a ton of screen time. For example, Hound, Huffer and Sunstreaker only made silent appearances, Wheeljack and Windcharger were only seen as burned out corpses (a bad day to have a name that begins with "W" I suppose) and Bluestreak, Mirage, Sideswipe, Gears and Trailbreaker did not appear at all.

[–] Thomas-FordJr-1 10 years ago

Cliffjumper was one of the core Autobots in Season 1 along with Prime, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Hound, Ratchet, Jazz, and Prowl.

He was featured in almost every episode in season 1. He was highly popular...

[–] viimidgar 10 years ago

Actually Gears DID appear in the movie. He's sat next to Ironhide at the start when he's speaking with Optimus Prime but yeah so many others didn't appear at all.

[–] tenantennae 10 years ago

He was fairly popular. If only because he and Bumblebee's action figures were so inexpensive. They ended up in a lot of toy boxes as a result, so most Transformers fans knew who he was, compared to, say, Ramjet

[–] worthythorn24 10 years ago

Not sure the specifcs as to why he survived, other than by the end of the movie the writers probably figured they'd ruined enough childhoods by killing off so many characters that they figured we'll let him live. LOL.

I've made a huge mistake.

[–] Old_Painty_Cans_Ned 10 years ago

Funny you should mention Ramjet. I remember having no interest in the Ramjet, Dirge or Thrust toys because there were just slightly modified versions of Starscream, Skywarp and Thundercracker (who were, themselves, all the same toy with different color schemes). i know there is a red one, a white one and a blue one but to this day I could not tell you which was which.

[–] tenantennae 10 years ago

lol, yep. That's why I mentioned him.

[–] StrontiumAE 10 years ago

I had the toy, so that made him popular in my own fantasy world ;-P

http://www.1971-reviewae.com/2014/10/why-transformers-age-of-extinctio n-is.html

[–] tukai 10 years ago

Do any of you all also collect the Transformer toys? I took up that expensive hobby recently and have been buying a lot of the Masterpeice line toys. I think you all would love the Generations, thrilling 30's, etc. They pay homage to G1 characters but add modern engineering for some really nice collectables.

[–] d_myerss 10 years ago

I collect the original G1 line. I plan to collect all of the original G1 characters that appeared on the show, stopping with the headmasters/targetmasters and not including the delux insecticons, roadbuster, twintwist etc. I'm torn about picking up Soundwave's two cassettes (I forget their names but I think they're like dinosaurs) that had a brief cameo in the 'Call of The Primitives' episode.

My friend collects the current lines, a mixture of 3rd party and Hasbro just trying to get the best G1 interpretations other than Masterpieces.

[–] UCFKnightInKC 9 years ago

I currently have all of the G-1 line. It cost me a fair amount of money though.

[–] shuglife 9 years ago

Cliffjumper I'd say was very prominent in the begining on the cartoon. Toy wise he was tossed in with Bumblebee a lot. Toss in he was voiced by Kasem so the adults had a connection with him. Plus Cliffjumper did the countdown in the movie also.

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Is this Idaho? Because I will not limbo in Idaho.

[–] gluserty (626) 8 years ago

I liked Cliffjumper quite a bit (in looking back, Wheeljack was probably my favorite autobot overall).

[–] crc32 (2584) 8 years ago

I remember seeing cliff jumper more then 2 or 3 times. He's easily reconizable as the devil horned red guy. Strangly I didn't really notice him as he faded out of the series.

What autobots died in the battle of autobot city? I only recognize the deaths of the autobots that were on the shuttle prior to the battle but I don't recall any deaths in the battle of autobot city. Maby an insecticon or two but won't those guys a bunch of clones of each other they even died by the hundreds in the G1 series. Well optimus of course but any one else?

[–] crc32 (2584) 7 years ago

Were pretty sure mattel was just getting rid of characters so they could sell newer characters as toys and didn't put much thaught into which ones they killed off. They Killed off optimus prime who was the most popular character which is really let fans down such that the transformers cartoon series lasted one season after that. Apparently GI nearly suffered the same fate as well as mattel intended to kill off duke the leader of GI Joe. After the backlash from killing Optimus Prime they changed the plot of GI Joe the movie early in pre production. Had transformers came out after GI Joe the movie it would probably duke that did and optimus prime would still be around.