Day of the Machines

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Big Brother is watching you!
"Day of the Machines"
Production code	#700-24
Season	2
No. in season	9
Production company	Sunbow Productions
Airdate	October 10, 1985
Written by	David Wise
Animation studio	Toei
Continuity	Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

Megatron's latest scheme involves using the most powerful computer on Earth to control machinery remotely.

Synopsis

"Megatron! What are you doing in my cousin's house?!"

Megatron and Soundwave (the former disguised in a guitar case!) not-so-silently infiltrate Quantum Laboratories, a top-secret facility where the world’s most powerful computer, TORQ III, is housed. Megatron reprograms the computer with his own personality and gives it the power to control, from remote distances, dangerous machines of all types through the use of "Remote Control Circuit Linker cards."

At the same time, scientist Dr. Paul Gates of Quantum Labs muses with a colleague about the dangers of machine sentience and that, in the wrong hands, TORQ III might be too powerful. Since Fate is both cruel and timely, the very scenario they were discussing comes true when TORQ III locks them in their office and announces that he’s taking over.

Megatron is using TORQ and the circuit linker cards to remotely control fleets of oil tankers. This alerts Teletraan I, who notifies Optimus Prime. Prime then receives Dr. Gates’ distress signal; Gates fills him in on TORQ III’s rebellion and asks to be rescued.

The Autobots play "Monkey in the Middle" with a bunch of Brawls.

Hound and Skyfire are assigned to investigate the tankers, and Spike tags along. Prime leads a group to Quantum Labs, where they immediately come under attack by machines controlled by TORQ. Overwhelmed, Prime orders in the Dinobots (minus Swoop) to come help, and they smash, chomp and melt down all of the machines. Grimlock makes his usual pompous comment about having to save Prime’s bacon when things get rough. Afterward, Prime rescues Dr. Gates and they advance toward the buildings, meeting lots of resistance from TORQ’s machines.

Meanwhile, Hound, Spike and Skyfire sneak aboard an oil tanker and infiltrate the Decepticons' oil platform. Their attack falls short when Spike is captured and they are forced to surrender.

After smashing more remote-controlled machines at Quantum, Prime decides to explore inside TORQ’s maze-like complex alone. As Optimus moves in closer, one of the machines places a circuit linker card on him, making him Torq’s slave, and he is brought into the computer’s domain. But—surprise, surprise—Prime rips the card off his body, saying it was a dead circuit linker he placed in the robot’s claw, and he disables TORQ with a well-placed punch to the control panel. At the oil platform, Soundwave senses TORQ's demise; Megatron takes over control of the tankers with a gargantuan remote control device.

"So this is what a human Cell Phone looks like."

Dr. Gates lends the Autobots a high-speed hydrofoil to reach the Decepticons. Back at the oil platform, Spike has hatched an idea to use an electromagnet (which happened to be in their cell) to immobilize Rumble and Ravage. Skyfire easily smashes through the cell door and Hound disables the force dome that was protecting the platform. The rest of the Autobots arrive and a battle ensues. Prime faces down Megatron and manages to wrest a remote control device from his hands, then tosses it back to him. Megatron lands on it, crushing it, and comes back up spitting mad. He retaliates by activating the self-destruct mechanism on the platform.

The Autobots escape, but Prime stays behind to find Hound, Skyfire and Spike. He rips apart the platform deck, revealing the missing team members, and Skyfire flies them out of danger.

Finally, Prime says goodbye to Dr. Gates, who makes a parting comment about machines being unreliable, and then quickly retracts the statement when he realizes his gaffe. The Autobots laugh at the ungrateful human's hubris.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Illegal access! Illegal access!"
"It certainly is."

—TORQ III is reprogrammed by Megatron

"We help! ...Hmm. Always get Autobots out of messes they get into."

—Grimlock laments at yet another Autobot bungle he is called upon to resolve. Forcefully.

"It's a safe bet those doors are locked."
"Fortunately, I have a delicate lock-picking technique."

—Dr. Gates and Optimus Prime, right before Prime "delicately" blasts his way into TORQ's building.

"What do you say, guys? Can you bash it down?"
"With a smile on our lip components!"

—Spike and Hound discuss the finer points of Cybertronian facial structure.

I have the vapors!

"You took the word right out of my mouth. It was in there with my foot."

—Dr. Paul Gates after he tells the Autobots that all machines are unreliable.

Notes

Production information

• First draft script: 29 November 1984
• Script revised by Ron Friedman: 6 December 1984

Continuity notes

You did this on purpose Hasbro!

Hey, pull my finger......Okay you can let go now.

• Grimlock starts to show some annoyance about having to save the Autobots all the time, a sentiment also noted in "Atlantis, Arise!" It'll finally come to a head in "Desertion of the Dinobots".
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Megatron's gun mode actually shrinks to a human adequate scale, the only time we see him do this.
  • Megatron apparently can now reprogram things using an R2-D2 style antenna implanted in his forehead.
  • He never gets a chance to fire it, but during the first act of the episode, Ironhide wields a hand-held gun based on his toy's missile launcher.
  • Skyfire once again uses his jet-with-legs half-transformation.
    • Hound and Spike are forced to exit out of his crotch in this mode however.
  • Ironhide destroys one of TORQ's machines by walking right through the blast it's emitting and sticking his finger in its hose. He is old because he is hard!
  • Hound fires his shoulder missile for the first and only time ever.
  • Prowl fires one of his acid pellets.
• This is one of Optimus Prime's shining episodes. He defeats TORQ III almost singlehandedly; he destroys Megatron's remote control device and foils the tanker stealing plan; and he saves Spike, Skyfire and Hound from sinking with the oil platform. No wonder he's in charge!
• Barring a shot of his vehicle mode in "Dark Awakening" (which may be an animation error), this is Skyfire's last appearance in the original cartoon, and certainly his last speaking role.

Real-world references

Pay no attention to that 'bot behind the curtain!

• Pre-Megatron TORQ III bears some passing resemblance to Oz, the Great and Powerful, though probably owes more to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• It's probably no coincidence that the computer scientist Paul Gates' name is a mashup of Paul Allen and Bill Gates, co-founders of Microsoft who were beginning to get a lot of media coverage at the time.

Animation and technical errors

• As the security guard closes the Lost and Found cage's gate, his hand phases through the cage door.
• Coloring errors:
  • Soundwave's cassette door is blue instead of white before he releases Laserbeak.
  • Prowl's face changes from gray to white as he turns to look at Wheeljack after the first commercial break.
  • Snarl's tail is white instead of gold as he smashes the tank.
  • Is that supposed to be Hook lowering the cargo pipe onto the tanker? 'Cause he's colored yellow instead of green, and has an inexplicably radioed-in voice, and isn't quite on-model, and he never actually transforms, and... maybe it's not supposed to be Hook. Hound does however refer to him by name.
  • Prime's whole face is the same blue color as his helmet as he offers the humans a lift down from their window.
  • Prime's eyes are red instead of blue as the tentacle machine drags him toward its spinny things And throws it to a nearby building.
  • Skyfire's chest cockpit is white instead of blue as he drops his gun.
  • Sideswipe's head is colored red instead of black as he flees from a Torq-controlled machine.
  • Soundwave's optics are white when he notifies Megatron that the force field is down.
• The access hatch in Megatron's head simply appears out of nowhere on his forehead, and likewise vanishes after closing.
• There's no evidence of the bizarre war machines in the Hall of TORQ when Megatron and Soundwave arrive. They suddenly appear once they're needed for the plot.
• After Megatron attaches the first Circuit Linker card, TORQ appears with his original neutral face rather than his reprogrammed "evil" face.
• The sign on the front of Dr. Gates' building reads "Research and Developement".
• Teletraan I has the radio-transmission muffle on its voice as it reports the oil tanker movements to Optimus Prime.
• Prime comments that the tankers are converging near Decepticon Headquarters, but the graphics show them in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Decepticon HQ is somewhere near the Pacific coast.
• After he transforms, Prime's cab wheels are somehow in front of his trailer. (Sure is a pretty sequence otherwise, though!)
• Peter Cullen gives Optimus Prime his Ironhide accent when he orders the Autobots to shoot out the vehicles' tires.
• Slag sure does spend a long time staring at the machines, growling and very pointedly moving his mouth. His missing dialogue:
  • "You relatives of Slag, maybe? Say Hello, "Cousin"? No "Hello"? O.K., this gonna be fun!"
• Sludge does nearly the same thing before Prime uses him as a ladder:
  • "Uh, Sludge be elevator!"
• "Personnel" is spelled with only one "n" on the TORQ Project's building sign.
• Laserbeak's feet aren't fully drawn as he carries Spike past the camera.
• Laserbeak is shown outside the force field as he flies over Hound. He should be inside.
• The claws holding Sideswipe's wrists just kind of randomly let him go for no reason.
• Soundwave reports that "ORQ" [sic] is no longer functional.
• The Decepticons sure take their time getting yanked back by the electromagnet, whose effect should be instantaneous. It also doesn't seem to bother the Autobots, who run right through the spot where the Decepticons were standing when the magnet grabbed them.
• Hound's missile, supposedly removed by the Decepticons, is suddenly back in place as they run out of the cell. (In a nice bit of continuity, his launcher does remain empty after he destroys the force field generator.)
• Sparkplug is suddenly standing, unsheltered, in the middle of the Autobots, who were in a raging firefight just seconds before.
• Skyfire's chest is missing his Autobot symbol as he and Hound react to the platform's explosions. The same error repeats in the episode's closing scene.
• The bottom of Prime's waist is about twice its normal size as he and the other Autobots react to Dr. Gates' "unreliable" comment.
• In the final shot, Skyfire and Prowl are pretty much the same height.

Continuity errors

• Dr. Gates' friend walks around with a remote that can open a single filing cabinet. In Dr. Gates' office, no less!
• The scientists should probably have debated the ethics of creating a computer capable of controlling the whole world before creating a computer capable of controlling the whole world.
• Considering how easily they move around the complex, blowing holes in stuff, it's not at all clear why the Decepticons needed to go through the trouble of sneaking into the place in their alternate modes.
• How do the remote linker cards grant control of machines just by being hooked to random parts of them, not their computer circuits?
• Since when do oil tankers travel in enormous fleets? Is this World War II?
• Sparkplug is not with the Autobots in the beginning or during the battle when they arrive at Quantum Labs. He shows up out of nowhere to tell Gates about the circuit linkers, and then disappears from the episode.
• Megatron's subtle approach at the complex also vanishes when it comes to taking over the tankers. Teletraan is alerted to the sudden worldwide redirection of tankers en masse, which could have been avoided had Megatron diverted one or two at a time.
• The Dinobots disappear from the story after their one battle, despite the fact that the Autobots meet more resistance before they reach TORQ III. Also curious is Swoop's total absence.
  • In an extended scene in the shooting script,^[1] once Optimus Prime rescues the two scientists with Sludge's boost, Grimlock asks if the Autobots need any more help, Optimus Prime indicates they have everything under control, and Grimlock orders the Dinobots away "till next time Autobots get in nickel-plated pickle!", enjoying his own joke.
• Hound and Skyfire's cell has a bunch of scrap metal and a usable magnet in it...for some reason.
• Hound and Skyfire suddenly have their weapons back after busting out of the "cell."
• Prime claims that he inserted a dead circuit linker into the claw of TORQ's "friend". However, the animation basically allows no opportunity for this to happen. Furthermore, the circuit linker that he took from Sparkplug earlier sure didn't appear to be "dead"!
• Superhuman Spike: Spike picks up a metal electro-magnet which is nearly as big as he is.
• Considering Megatron had a device that could control the tankers after TORQ was shut down, taking over TORQ doesn't appear to have even been necessary in the first place.

Trivia

• The original name for this episode was "The Machine Rebellion". ^{[citation needed]}
• Like a handful of other Season 2 episodes ("Autobot Spike", "Atlantis, Arise!"), this one begins with a short narrative voiceover from Victor Caroli. Unlike the others, this one actually conveys some information that isn't immediately conveyed by the animation (namely, what Quantum Laboratories does.)
• Script writer David Wise had previously used the concept of a computer able to remote-control machinery being taken over by a villain in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode also named "Day of the Machines". Elements from that He-Man episode would be further cannibalized by Wise for the Transformers episodes "Microbots" and "Kremzeek!". Later, the Wise-written Defenders of the Earth episode "Audie and Tweak" reused elements of this story, namely a TORQ III lookalike (an evil supercomputer personified by a giant ugly face on a screen) that remotely Influences other machines and dares the heroes to enter its lair. Wise's New Adventures of Speed Racer episode "B.O.S.S." recycled these ideas once more, depicting a cybernetic villain installing remote command devices on other machines to control them. And lastly(?), his Mighty Ducks episode "The Return of Dr. Droid" recycled story elements yet again, with an evil computer that takes control of various machines and makes them attack the heroes.

Foreign localization

French

• Title (European French broadcast): "La rébellion de la machine" ("The Rebellion of the Machine")
• Title (Canadian French broadcast): "Le jour des machines" ("Day of the Machines")
• Original airdate: ?

• This episode is one of those that has never been released on DVD in French.
• Two new funny name-dodging situations happen in this episode, again with Optimus. He tells Skyfire "YOU! Take Hound there.", then later he says to Wheeljack "Hey, the tall one! Take those lasers out!".
• The dialogue between Sideswipe and Optimus before entering the doorway is absent from the dub.
• Hound's phrase "With a smile on our lip components!" is translated by "If we could smile from all our teeth, we wouldn't hesitate!". That's a joke with the idiomatic French expression "sourire de toutes ses dents" (smile from all your teeth).
• Optimus Prime's phrase "And if I can get it (the remote), it could be the perfect tool to nail this mission down!" is translated as "And if I can get it, I could send Megatron back to his dear studies!".

Italian

• Title (dub 1): "Il giorno delle macchine" ("Day of the machines")
• Original airdate: ?

• The first time Dinobots are named, they're called by their English name instead of the Italian one.
• When Hound is inside Skyfire, he calls the latter by Trailbreaker's name.

• Title (dub 2): "Il giorno delle macchine" ("Day of the machines")
• Original airdate: ?

Japanese

• Title: "Computer no Hanran" (コンピュータの反乱, "The Rebellion of the Computer")
• Original airdate: 1990 (released straight to video)

• This is one of two episodes (the other being "Attack of the Autobots") not initially aired in Japan during the run of Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers. The episode was eventually dubbed in 1990 and released on Pioneer's LaserDisc set of the series. As such, it was retroactively added to the series official episode list as episode 74, a numbering reflected in Transformers Generations.
• Having been dubbed several years after Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers had ended, not all the original cast members were able to return. Frenzy (originally voiced by Ken Shiroyama), Bluestreak (originally voiced by Kōki Kataoka) and Wheeljack (originally voiced by Osamu Saka) were replaced by Katsumi Suzuki.
• Due to having been released straight-to-video, this is one of the few episodes of The Transformers not to have been edited for time in Japan. As such, Japanese DVD and laserdisc releases include an optional English audio track for the episode.

Mandarin

• Title: "Jīqìrén Shídài " (机器人时代, "The Era of Robot")
• Original airdate: ?

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "O Dia das Máquinas" ("The Day of the Machines")
• Original airdate: ?

Home video releases

LaserDisc

1995 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Takara) — English and Japanese audio.
1999 — The Transformers — Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.

DVD

2001 — The Transformers — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2002 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 1 (Rhino Entertainment)
2002 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 1: Vol. 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 1 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Bumper Collection Special (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 2: Series 2.1 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2008 — Transformers — Volume 03: Stagione Due Parte Prima (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 — Transformers — Season Two: Part One (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume One: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2011 — The Transformers — The Complete Original Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume One: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers — The Classic Animated Series (Metrodome)

References

External links

• Digital restoration of first draft script, originally submitted 29th November 1984
• Full episode script, as revised by Ron Friedman 6th December 1984
• Model sheets and background layouts