Last Friday or possibly the one before that, the people at Cartoon Network decided to stand up, pull down their pants, and proceed to take a flowing, long, steaming piss all over my childhood memories.  One of those long 6 hour drinking binge pisses.  This was the day Transformers: Armada premiered.

Regular readers of this site know that Danimal and I are fans of this little known mid-80s cartoon called Transformers.  The original show had a decent storyline that made sense if you didn't think about it too long, Transformers: Armada decides to chuck the story, and basically make a Pokemon/Digimon clone with Transformers occasionally making an appearance.   Here is the story; it will make sense if you begin drinking about an hour before you watch it.  Autobots = good, Decpticons = evil to the point of ridiculous.  Got it?  Ok, let's move on.

I had hoped for more than that, Robots in Disguise was such a disappointment to even begin to explain.   In Armada, suddenly the Autobots and Decepticons used to possess "Minicons," tiny robots who somehow magnify their power without any sort of explanation whatsoever.  For reasons unknown to anyone, the Minicons are eventually ousted to Earth where they lay dormant for millions of years (hey, that sounds familiar) until three bumbling oafs awaken them.  In doing so, they send a signal to Cybertron and there you, the viewer are treated/teased by seeing many different "classic" Transformers, the most obvious of which are Hound and Skyfire.  It was here that I began to froth at the mouth at the idea of another huge story with another giant cast, I was sorely disappointed (more on this later).

I figure now would be a good time to tell you about who you will be seeing instead of normal Transformers.

Rad is the main character; he loves his bike as much as he loves any other inanimate object.  Boy does he love those inanimate objects.  I have never seen anyone so excited about everything "HEY LOOK A ROBOT!" "WOW A ROCK!"  "LOOK AT ME, I CAN BREATHE!" you name the inane situation/object he will shout about it.  He also is responsible for awakening the first Minicon, who for reasons only known to the writers turns itself into his bike.

Carlos is Rad's best friend; Rad makes sure to point out how he could turn into a pro skateboarder someday.  Obviously he sold his soul to the devil for his skateboarding ability, as he demonstrates the world famous "roll forward" skateboarding trick.  His Minicon turns into a skateboard.  Yay.  Come on, if you could have a robot to turn into any type of vehicle you want, would you really want it to turn into a bulky metal skateboard?  Well aside from his ninja-like abilities on the skateboard, he also brings more ethnic diversity than a 2 hour block of Captain Planet.  Just about everything he says is a form of bastardized Spanish just to remind you, "Hey, I'm a different race!"

Alexis is a bitch, plain and simple, the type of girl who thought she was better than everyone else in High School.   There is really not much to say about her except she spends most of her time pointing out the mistakes of her two guy friends.  She is also lazy, seeing as her Minicon turns into a scooter to drive her prissy ass around.

I didn't bother to learn their names, but I believe that they were Bulk and Skull.  They are supposed to be the bullies of the school the first three kids go to...but in actuality the are more Laurel and Hardy than Harris and Klebold.  They don't have Minicons yet, but you know it will be inevitable.  The skinny kid would probably grow up to be a gothic tortured soul, and the fat one is always complaining and blaming his problems on others.  I don't think I can really write anything more for them, that sentence explains it all.  There is no way to describe how much I hate that this is the main cast of characters.

As for the Autobots, you get Optimus Prime, Hot Shot, and Red Alert, those two are basically interchangeable and are only there to get shot up until Prime decides to get off his changeable ass and turn into UltraOptimusPrimeHappyFinish and beat the Decepticons with one giant bitch slap.  The yellow face on the bigger Prime isn't the worst thing on him, no the worse thing is by far the fact that the trailer collapses down and turns into a type of cape for the Autobot leader.  As for the rest of the Autobots, whether they will make appearances is anyone's guess.  No word on if Red Alert will become hooked on drugs this time around.

The Decepticons aren't much better, Megatron, Starscream, Demolishor, and Cyclonus, who single handedly cheapens any fond memories I have of the original Cyclonus.   Aside from Cyclonus though, it looks like the most interesting characters lie with the Decepticons.

It is unfortunate that both Armada adopted the R.i.D. style of "less is more" attitude.  When you were young you probably begged your parents to buy you a transformers toy in the toy store, they looked at it like this "Is it worth 10 bucks to shut you up?"  Often the answer was yes and you were asked to pick out one of the medium sized ones.  You would point at Skywarp, he/she would probably groan and if you were like me, this conversation would occur:

"You already have him."
"No I have STARSCREAM (added with extra sarcasm, just incase she forgot who was calling the shots)."
"Look they're both jets, why not get Bumblebee ($5 cheaper)?"
"Bumblebee is stupid, Skywarp can teleport anywhere."
"If he can teleport anywhere why can't he just go where the Autobots are sleeping and turn them off?"  My mom always tried to throw logic at me when she didn't want to buy me toys.
"..." Silence.
"Ok, how about this I will buy you a Dinobot."
In a defeated tone, I would usually say "Ok".

Robots in Disguise and Armada only center on a handful of Transformers who would make an appearance in every episode, with a few more thrown in every now and again so you would remember them in the toy stores.  With fewer characters you can charge more money for the important ones that the kids need to have, (Optimus, Megatron, and the other major players) at each costing about 40 dollars, my mom would have disowned me on general principal.

To make matters worse, most all of the new Transformers combine Devastator style, usually requiring more Transformers and even more money so the kid can sleep at night knowing his parents didn't just buy him an arm or a leg from a larger robot.  Be honest, would you really have wanted the Constructicons if they didn't become Devastator?  No of course not, most of them were pretty much extras on the show until Megatron wanted to flex some muscle and order them to form Devastator.

Since there are fewer characters, there are fewer chances to make characters independent.  On the Autobot side, you had rednecks, nerds, effeminates, mechanics, etc.  On the Decepticon side, you had...well you basically had "Yes-men" and Starscream.  Unfortunately in RiD and Armada, you have "kind of annoying" and "really annoying" to choose from.

As well as all that, there are some glaring flaws in the show.  For instance, why can't the rest of the Transformers show up, if the Minicons are the key to winning the Cybertronian wars, can't each side spare a few more soldiers?  Second, why do all the Transformers have to replicate Earth vehicles?  If we go to war in Iraq, are we going to remodel our tanks to look like theirs?   Third, why can't they just go back to the formula that worked so well before, balancing story and cheap commercialism?  Plus as a side note...why am I reminded of Go-bots when I see Minicons?  Probably because Megatron's Minicon is named Leader-1, the bicycle and the scooter transform almost the same way as Cy-Kill and Scooter?  If there is a crossover at work, I suggest whoever green lighted it should be beaten in the street.

(Note from the Danimal:  The point about Autobots and Decepticons taking Earth vehicles is the stupidest point of the show.  In the original series they adopted Earth vehicle modes because they were heavily damaged and used Earth vehicles as a guide for repair.  In Beast Wars they adopted indigenous animal forms to protect themselves from the high Energon content of prehistoric Earth.  In this shitball of a show, there's no need for them to do that other than to have cutsey-wootsey scenes that make everyone everywhere want to puke in their sock.  Sorry to interrupt, now back to Jeff's tirade)

All in all, it is better, much better than RiD, but still no replacement for our classic transformers.  Maybe it will get better; it will have potential if all hell breaks loose.  Meanwhile, I have some classic episodes downloading on Kazaa, and wonder why I don't have a girlfriend.

- Jeff