Child's Play

The Transformers episode 44
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For a detailed overview of this episode, click here.

A group of Transformers arrive on a world populated by giants.
Original USA broadcast date: November 7th, 1985

Contents
1) Synopsis
2) Notes
3) Errors


Synopsis

The Decepticons have created a space bridge in a baseball stadium. The Autobots arrive and start fighting them, but during the battle, the space bridge is activated whilst a group of Transformers are in it, along with some energon cubes. The Transformers find themselves transported to a world populated by giant aliens, and are in the room of a child called Aron. Aron and his cat, Nitro, see the Transformers. The Decepticons attempt to flee and get away, but Aron and Nitro catch them all. Starscream manages to escape and heads into a building set, where the Autobots and the energon cubes are. Starscream shoots at them but hits some of the cubes, causing a fire. Inferno puts the fire out and the Autobots then take the remaining cubes out. Aron sees this and thanks them for what they did. Optimus introduces himself and the rest of his team: Bumblebee, Perceptor, Inferno and Smokescreen.

Aron's parents then come in. Aron shows them the Transformers, but his parents consider them to be dangerous. On Earth, Chip uses Teletraan I to try and find where the missing Autobots have been transported to, but has no luck. On the alien planet, Aron's parents take the Transformers to a scientist, who decides that the best way to find out what makes these things tick is to cut them open!

Aron picks up the Autobots and flees. He is chased by some guards, so he drops the Autobots into a sewer and tells them to get back to his house. Meanwhile, the Decepticons also manage to escape, and go after the Autobots. After a battle in the sewer, the Autobots eventually reach Aron's home. Perceptor has devised a plan to use a telescope and the energon cubes to create a beam of light they can use to get back to Earth. Everything is setup, but the Decepticons then arrive and take Bumblebee hostage. Nitro intervenes, but the Decepticons jump into the light beam and are sent back to Earth.

With the energon cubes all used up, Aron comes up with a new plan. He pulls out a toy rocket ship, which Perceptor modifies into a space-worthy vehicle. The Autobots board it, which then takes off and heads into space. As Aron says goodbye to the Autobots, Prime bids him farewell -and thanks.

Notes

-This episode was animated by Toei Animation, and is considered to be their worst Transformers episode they worked on. There are several major mistakes throughout the episode, see below for more details.

-Some fans believe that Smokescreen originally wasn't intended to be one of the main characters for this episode, but was added in late on just to set things up for The Gambler. Evidence for this points to the fact that when Prime introduces the Autobots to Aron, he fails to name Smokescreen, and Smokescreen basically does nothing for majority of the episode, such as in the sewer scene. The scene where he gets knocked into the space bridge may have originally intended to be for Inferno, who isn't seen getting on the space bridge, unlike all of the other characters.

Errors

-When Megatron says his energon cubes are gone, there is no background.
-When Soundwave says "get us out of here", he's colored like Perceptor.
-When Starscream gets dropped into the jar, he's colored like Skywarp. He's still colored like Skywarp when Soundwave gets dropped into the jar. Then when he and Soundwave smash out of the jar, he's colored like Skywarp yet again.
-He's colored like Skywarp again when Aron drops him into the box.
-When Starscream tells Soundwave "good work", most of his face is missing! Part of his upper arm is colored red instead of gray. When this shot gets repeated later the face error is fixed, but the arm color error isn't.
-When Starscream kicks Optimus, it appears that the background was meant to change, but it doesn't, making it look very strange.
-Inferno gets a Decepticon laser blast sound effect for when he shoots Starscream.
-When Bumblebee, Soundwave and the rat enter the whirlpool, the whirlpool suddenly stops animating a few seconds in.
-The water isn't animated at all during this shot.
-Smokescreen goes AWOL for the majority of the sewers scene.
-During this shot, the Autobots are meant to be riding on Nitro, but they are instead on the ground not moving.
-When Aron gets the energon cubes, his head and one of his arms disappears!
-Starscream is colored like Thundercracker when he leaps up towards the light beam.
-When the Autobots board the rocket, they overlap Aron's hand. Inferno also has a red head.
-Then as Optimus moves forward, he overlaps the rocket itself.
-Nitro then also overlaps the rocket. Bumblebee also overlaps it, and his Autobot insignia disappears for a few frames.