Thief in the Night

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Looks more like a "Thief in the Day" to us.
"Thief in the Night"
Production code	700-96
Season	3
No. in season	11
Production company	Sunbow Productions
Airdate	October 6, 1986
Written by	Paul Davids
Animation studio	AKOM
Continuity	Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

Octane steals Trypticon in an attempt to use him to control the Decepticons.

Synopsis

Thundersub! Oh wait, wrong universe.

Rodimus Prime, Grimlock, Perceptor, and the Aerialbots are reviewing the footage of Metroplex's battle with Trypticon. Grimlock declares that he wants to see the "good part", where Metroplex destroyed Trypticon, but Teletraan II states that Trypticon survived the encounter. Broadside and Seaspray travel to where Trypticon landed in the ocean, and learn that he walked underwater to avoid being caught.

Meanwhile, the Triple Changer Octane is nursing Trypticon back to health, using energon made from the oil of Carbombya. Octane hopes that with Trypticon to back him up, he can overthrow Galvatron and become leader of the Decepticons. However, Abdul Fakkadi, the leader of the desert nation, is unhappy with Trypticon's constant consumption of oil. Fakkadi demands that the two Decepticons leave, or he will call the Autobots. Octane offers to bring Fakkadi gold in exchange for being able to stay, but Fakkadi declares that it would take all the gold of the United States to allow them to stay. The simple answer? Octane has Trypticon steal Fort Knox.

Pacified, Fakkadi agrees to allow the Decepticons to remain in Carbombya until the next crescent moon, and Trypticon is put under strict ration of one thousand barrels a day. Octane declares that Trypticon will starve, and negotiates a new plan: give Fakkadi a new palace, and he will let them stay and have more oil. To make Fakkadi "more happy", Trypticon steals the Taj Mahal.

Meanwhile, in the barren deserts of Kentucky...

While the Autobots investigate the disappearance of Fort Knox ('cause that's something that directly involves the Autobots), Grimlock finds energon cubes which he says "smell different". As Perceptor begins analyzing the energon, Grimlock also smells dinosaur transform static, and fears one of his own Dinobots may have been involved. Metroplex decides to interrogate all the Dinobots.

At Carbombya, Fakkadi is pleased, declaring that with enough monuments, they will soon have a thriving tourist attraction. However, Galvatron has been tracking down Trypticon. He declares Octane a traitor, saying he stole Trypticon from Dinobot Island. Thinking fast, Octane claims that he brought Trypticon to Carbombya to help him get better, with a more powerful form of energon, and tosses Galvatron a cube. As Trypticon says nothing to contradict the story, Galvatron takes a swig, and finds that it is stronger.

Meanwhile, Six-Gun and Scamper are interrogating the Dinobots, as well as Sky Lynx, under the watchful eye of Metroplex. Sky Lynx angrily objects to being called a Dinobot, and refuses to participate. Perceptor runs in declaring that the energon Grimlock found was made via a Decepticon formula, with Carbombyan oil. Perceptor believes that Trypticon is responsible for the thefts. Broadside takes the Aerialbots to investigate, and spots the two stolen buildings. However, Trypticon surfaces, carrying the Eiffel Tower. Galvatron and Octane are explaining to Fakkadi that the Decepticons will supply Carbombya with more buildings, such as the Kremlin, while they take over the oil fields. However, Trypticon spots the Aerialbots, and converts to battle mode, forcing the Aerialbots to retreat.

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to become a tall building in a single bound!

Having learned that Trypticon intends to take the Kremlin, the Autobots head to Moscow, but Metroplex is late. In the night fog, Trypticon arrives and steals the Kremlin, but Metroplex interrupts him. Metroplex takes back the Kremlin while Trypticon flees, and the Soviet government accuses the Autobots of the theft, as does India. Grimlock laments the Autobots' sad fate.

"Trypticon, I wouldn't trust you as far as I could thr—uh, wait..."

At Carbombya, Fakkadi is recording a message to send to the Autobots, authorizing them to invade Carbombya and attack the Decepticons. Galvatron, however, simply locks up the dictator. Rodimus, the Dinobots, the Aerialbots, Metroplex, and Broadside arrive to fight off the Decepticons, and Metroplex throws Trypticon into the ocean (again). Without Trypticon to even the odds, Galvatron orders the 'Cons to retreat. Metroplex returns the monuments, clearing the Autobots' name. Rodimus asks Fakkadi to never ally with the Decepticons again. Fakkadi promises the Autobot leader that he will not, swearing by the livestock of his various family members.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Don't go overexertin' yourself so much! You're just beginning to recover! I don't want you wearin' yourself out, Trypti-babes!"
"Am big hero now. Attack enemy boat!"
"Yeah? You're wastin' all your energy shootin' at vacation cruise ships!"
"No waste! Destroy dangerous enemy!"

—Octane has all the style of a big-shot ad exec. Trypticon has all the brains of a rock.

"Trypticon and me wanna turn your country into a paradise!"
"It already is a paradise."
"Just a minute, just a minute—I mean a rich paradise! Uh, do you like gold?"
"Gold? Yes! This is something that interests Abdul Fakkadi. But it would take all the gold of the United States to persuade me to let you stay here another day."
"Hmm. You sure ain't easy to please, your Excellency!"

—Octane's offer elicits an icy response from Abdul Fakkadi.

"Hold on there, Supreme Whatever!"
"But in the meantime, we gotta keep his Worthiness, the imperial master of slaves, happy!"

—Tell us how you really feel about Abdul Fakkadi, Octane.

Galvatron: You're a traitor, Octane! You had no permission to take Trypticon away from Dinobot Island! I needed Trypticon for my plans of conquering the Earth. Now, thanks to you, he may never recover!
Octane: But you got it all wrong, Galvatron! Me and Trypticon found this fantastic new type of energon. It's helping Trypticon get all better real quick! Try some, you'll love it!
Trypticon: Drink! Drink and CRUSH!
Galvatron: That's good! Makes me feel stronger, more powerful!

—Galvatron is soothed by Octane and Trypticon

"Why am I under investigation? I'm not a Dinobot."
"Ya got Dinosaur electrons in yer circuits, Sky Lynx."
"Never the less, I am definitely not a Dinobot! I refuse to participate in this...kangaroo court!"

—Sky Lynx denounces Six-Gun's prosecution skills.

"Me Grimlock say this grim. Whole world thinks Autobots are building snatchers."

—Grimlock laments the Autobots' sad fate.

Notes

Production information

Revised script submitted: 30th May 1986

Continuity notes

Metroplex mostly uses Scamper, Six-Gun, and Slammer to scout and defend his periphery, although occasionally he'll send one or more to put random Autobots on trial for flimsy pretexts.

• The battle shown at the episode's beginning ostensibly happened in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5"—however, see Continuity Errors, below.
• Trypticon had been taken to Dinobot Island in an attempt to help him recover. When the Decepticons last visited the island, they had been attacked by the natives.
• As related by Abdul Fakkadi, 1,000 barrels of oil is required to make one energon cube—and Trypticon consumes fifty cubes an hour! This is, of course, vastly out of line with what we saw in previous seasons of the show—in "More Than Meets the Eye, Part 2", for example, just a few barrels of oil seemed to be enough to make a cube.
  • That totals up to 1.2 million barrels a day to keep Trypticon running. For comparison, the daily crude output of Libya in 1990 was 1.4 million barrels a day. [1]
    • And that's just with him sitting around shooting at cruise ships. How much does he burn when he flies to other planets?!
• There are apparently different formulas for energon, some used by Decepticons and others by the Autobots.
• Something called dinosaur transform static exists. We didn't make it up; we're just documenting.
• Octane actually fulfills his tech spec function of "fueler", carrying along some energon cubes for Trypticon as they approach Fort Knox.
• Sandstorm puts in an appearance, which would chronologically place this episode after his debut in "Fight or Flee"; that episode had yet to air, however, and came later in the show's production order.
• This is the only appearance of Six-Gun.
• Galvatron claims that he's "stronger than ever" thanks to Carbombyian oil. The claim was more impressive when he made it having bathed in the plasma baths of Thrull. If you are inclined to account for his Transformers Universe profile, he could once call on the power of Unicron himself, too, definitely a better power source than crude oil.
• If we want to trust the animation, the shot of Metroplex setting down the Eiffel Tower pegs his height at around 1,100 feet, give or take. He's only a fraction of that when holding the (much shorter) St. Basil's.

Real-world references

This feckless dictator steals monuments, cooperates with the bad guys, rides around on a camel and swears "on the grave of my mother's camel, and my uncle's goat, and even my sister's donkeys". Your wiki editors can't especially blame Mr. Kasem for walking off.

In India, the Moon is unusually huge.

• While the title is a rather literal description of Trypticon's activities, the phrase comes from the Bible, regarding the second coming of Jesus: "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night."
• The nation of Carbombya (and its mercurial military ruler) is a thin pastiche of the north African nation of Libya, whose ruler Ghadafi was supporting any number of terrorist activities around the world at the time—hence the car bomb pun. The US bombed Libya in early 1986, bringing the country and its military dictator to popular attention right around the time frame when this episode was likely being written.
  • Said pastiche drove Casey Kasem to leave the show, as he declined to work on an episode that contained what he felt were offensive stereotypes of Arabs without any good Arabs to balance them out.^[1] As a result, despite Kasem having already been cast as Teletraan II, the computer had all its lines re-dubbed by Frank Welker, who continued to voice it in later appearances.
• Monuments stolen by Trypticon include:
  • The U.S. Gold Bullion Depository building from Fort Knox, Kentucky. The actual building is a similar shape to that shown in episode, though the details and proportions are different. Also, it has a full military base around it, not just empty desert. And it doesn't actually contain all the United States' gold.
  • The Taj Mahal
  • The Eiffel Tower
  • A failed attempt on the Kremlin, rendered as the more visually famous Saint Basil's Cathedral.
• A whole scene is set in Moscow; Siberia gets a mention; and the Soviet Union and its ruling Politburo get a newsfeed story, complete with the USSR's flag in the background. We also see some Red Army troops in action and something that's supposed to be Russian folk dancing. Although this episode is set in the year 2006, the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 out here in the real world.

Metroplex does Paris in a day.

• Paris also puts in a one-shot appearance as Metroplex returns the Eiffel Tower.
• Star Wars sound effects:
  • AT-AT lasers as the Decepticons fire on the Aerialbots.
  • C-3PO "NO!" laser as the Decepticons fire at Air Raid.

Animation and technical errors

I said, when I woke up this morning, I heard a disturbing sound! What I heard was the jingle-jangle of a thousand lost souls!

Don't be lost when the time comes!

• Per the AKOM standard, the following characters have non-standard color or design models:
  • Rodimus and Galvatron are both consistently colored using outdated color models; Rodimus's shoulder indentations are red instead of white, his pelvis-windshield details are white instead of light burgundy, and his gun is red instead of black, while Galvatron has pale purple "underpants."
  • The inside of Galvatron's mouth is dark purple.
  • Broadside's aircraft carrier mode is depicted as his pre-final model's, but the cabin is that of the final model. Weird.
• As usual for large-scale characters, Trypticon's size fluctuates all over the place. Sometimes Octane comes up to his ankle, sometimes to his toe, sometimes to his knee.
• In the second shot of the episode (people running away from Trypticon), the woman in orange is missing her eyes.
• When we first see the Autobots watching the city-bot battle footage, Grimlock is seen in robot mode from behind (and his head is light gray instead of black). When he starts to talk, he is in dinosaur mode.
• Rodimus is missing his spoiler as he clarifies Grimlock's request.
• The Luxury Cruises captain says that Carbombya is off the ship's starboard bow. The country is actually on the port side of the ship (and the ship is shown a few hundred yards from shore at most—definitely not the "three mile limit" the tour guide describes.)
• In the closeup shot of him reporting to Broadside, Seaspray is missing the crossbar between his propellers.
• Abdul's throne has five steps in front of it. When he starts talking to his men about Octane and Trypticon, he walks down three of the steps. Two shots later, he takes two steps forwards, and then the shot changes and he's suddenly only on the third step and needs to take three more to reach the main floor.
• Speaking of the steps, they start out as a small platform around his throne but are much larger a few shots later.
• Once again, the commercial bumpers have an extra second or two of music at the start.
• Abdul's medals (especially the one with white and red stripes) change colors and shapes during his chat with Octane after the Fort Knox heist.
• Fort Knox is orange as Trypticon approaches it (a painted matte background), but gray as he picks it up (a cel animated drawing.) It also is a much simpler shape as he picks it up.
• The American flag doesn't flutter or move at all throughout the entire scene.
• "Pitiful." "Outrageous."—Silverbolt and Skydive's voices are both off.
• As Grimlock notices the energon cubes around the Fort Knox site, the top of his head disappears a few times.
• As Octane notes their partnership, there are six lines around the top of his Decepticon logo instead of four.
• The Taj Mahal is initially shown at night; then it's daytime as Trypticon approaches it. The minarets surrounding it are also missing in the same shot.
• Trypticon clips through the left side of the Taj Mahal as he steals it.
• Coloring errors:
  • The first shot of the Decepticons flying into Carbombya includes an upside-down Bombshell, miscolored as Beachcomber.
  • As Galvatron first challenges Octane, Ramjet is miscolored as Thrust, who is right in front of him.
  • As Perceptor notes that the Dinobots are innocent, his Autobot logo is framed in black instead of white.
  • Two mis-drawn, mis-colored Aerialbots are shown taking off from the water after Air Raid's brief ditching maneuver. One seems to be a pointy-nosed Fireflight colored as Skydive, and the other is the same model colored as Air Raid.
  • The Moscow establishing shot shows a Springer-like green robot, but closeups show Grimlock in his place.
• As Octane explains himself, there are a couple of hairs in the top of the frame.
• When we pan down from Metroplex (in robot mode) to see Six-Gun for his first (and only) animated appearance, Metroplex is still wearing the shoulder cannons that supposedly form Six-Gun's arms.
• As Scamper drives along the row of Dinobots, Swoop is laying belly-down on the ground rather than standing on his beast mode feet; his torso is also huge and fat. Beside him, Sky Lynx's lander section is white instead of blue, and Grimlock is missing his lower jaw.
• Trypticon steals the Taj Mahal without its minarets, and is shown without them when we first see it in Carbombya—but it suddenly has them when Galvatron arrives at the palace.

Well let us all, all go back
Back to the old, old landmark!

• Only the Taj Mahal is in Abdul's compound when Air Raid flies over it—no Fort Knox, no original palace.
• When Octane smashes out of the Taj Mahal's dome, we see night sky through the hole—even though there's daylight coming in through the windows in the same shot!
• Trypticon and all the Decepticons get a non-standard laser sound effect as they attack the Aerialbots.
• Metroplex's mouth doesn't move for his "Hold your fire!" line.
• After blowing up Abdul's TV camera, Galvatron, Ramjet and Dirge are shown standing between a pair of huge but otherwise normal looking glass doors. The three Decepticons don't even come up to the door handles!
• Despite the dialogue, the building Trypticon attempts to steal from Moscow is not the Kremlin but nearby Saint Basil's Cathedral.
• The sentence of the Soviet officer pronounced in Russian is actually not Russian at all, it's just some gibberish supposed to sound like Russian.
• Wheelie's canopy is open as he rides on Broadside, and again as he jumps off.
• When the Autobots jump off Broadside, Grimlock disappears from the shot.
• When the Autobots are shown firing after Trypticon is hurled into the ocean, there are various colouration errors: Grimlock coloured as Rodimus Prime (and one other featuring his colours that cannot be identified), Springer coloured as Perceptor, and an unidentifiable Autobot coloured as Blurr.
• On the Metrodome and Shout! Factory DVD releases, a series of vertical lines appears in the center of the screen in several shots—including the jeep approaching Fort Knox, at the end of the Dinobot interrogation, and the Aerialbots launching off of Broadside.

Continuity errors

You thought Rhino's DVD release of G1 screwed things up? Check out the version that the Autobots wound up with!

• This episode is actually set before "Starscream's Ghost" as it explains why Galvatron has it in for Octane. Except it doesn't actually explain that—Galvatron is no longer on bad terms with Octane at the end of the episode. Put it down to Galvatron's insanity. In real-life production terms, Octane's role in "Starscream's Ghost" was originally meant for Blitzwing, accounting for the somewhat wonky continuity with this episode.
• The Autobots watch a version of Trypticon and Metroplex's battle that is very different from what happened in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5"; though the general outline is correct, the details are totally off:
  • Both city-bots have different dialogue than they did in the original.
  • Metroplex first challenges Trypticon as he's randomly stomping his way through an Earth city; in the original, Trypticon was about to stomp the disabled Metroplex when the fight began.
  • Metroplex is shown throwing Trypticon over an icy environment (it was actually more like a desert), and Trypticon slides over a flat-topped brown cliffside on his way into the ocean (he actually bounced over some grey cliffs).
• It's pretty weird that Teletraan II didn't immediately inform the Autobots that a robot as dangerous as Trypticon was still alive.
• First Trypticon crunches the energon cubes, then they melt in his mouth, then he drinks from them.
• In this episode, energon cubes take on a rusted brownish color when emptied. Previously, they became clear when drained of energy, such as when the Decepticons got "over-energized" during the episode "Microbots".

Normally we're all in favor of sound effect consistency, but the gong gong gong sound that plays every single time Metroplex or Trypticon takes a step gets really annoying by the end of the episode.

• Given their need for the energon cubes, why did Octane and Trypticon just leave several laying there at Fort Knox?
• Trypticon lifts the Fort Knox building straight up; the next two shots show the inside tilting and gold spilling everywhere.
• The episode's central premise, of Trypticon stealing famous buildings and carrying them back to north Africa, strains credibility. More accurately, it takes credibility and drags it outside, gives it a thorough beating, and launches it into the sun:
  • Nobody noticed Trypticon as he just strolled up to Fort Knox (after making his way to the interior of the USA)? None of the guards bothered to call the Autobots?
  • Buildings can apparently just be picked up and carried around. Masonry buildings do not crumble into rubble or implode into dust when grasped by their walls and ripped from their foundations. The cast iron Eiffel Tower does not shatter or snap when manhandled like a toy. None of them are harmed by being carried through the bottom of the ocean or being deluged by salt water.
  • Amazing that after being carried by hand to a separate hemisphere (through the ocean!!) the gold bars are still stacked neatly in Fort Knox.
  • Amazing that the gold bars are still stacked neatly when it was last seen falling on the guards.
  • Amazing that the gold bars are not slathered in human blood after crushing and smashing the guards.
  • Amazing that St. Basil's Cathedral can be thrown—and caught—without suffering catastrophic damage.
• It should be unsurprising, given the presence of citybots and real-world landmarks, that the scale in this episode is hilariously bad. While stealing the 47.5-meter St. Basil's Cathedral, Trypticon looks to be give-or-take twice that, but while tussling over the 300-meter Eiffel Tower, both Metroplex and Trypticon are about the same height as it.
• Considering that Fakkadi hired Trypticon and Octane to keep the American "imperialist fanatic" tourists away from Carbombya, it is rather unclear why he would desire his nation to become a tourist mecca via the appropriated world monuments. Did he suddenly realize the economic potential of having foreigners bringing their money to his country?
  • It seems like a bad idea regardless of that, since he would have to publicly admit that his country was now home to several stolen monuments.

"Well, Slag is well known as a connoisseur of fine art, and Sludge moonlights in architecture and design. They have to have done it!"

• Trypticon apparently didn't leave a single footprint? No trail of destruction? No snapped trees, no crushed buildings, no shell-shocked witnesses, no flattened victims, no... anything that would tip the Autobots off?
  • No, the only clue left behind is... dinosaur transform static!
    • Who finds it? That Sherlock of Sherlocks, the ever-observant Grimlock!
      • What dinosaur-bots do the Autobots immediately suspect of carrying off a giant building? Why, the Dinobots, naturally!
• Air Raid's "I'm a goner! Goodbye cruel world!" is more than a little hyperbolic, considering he just touches the water for half a second then flies off normally.

Trivia

• This was one of twelve episodes of the original cartoon released as audio adventures by the German company Karussell Musik und Video.
• Trypticon is the most energy inefficient robot ever. Seriously.

Foreign localization

French

• Title (European French broadcast): "Le voleur de la nuit" ("Thief of the Night")
• Title (Canadian French broadcast): "Le vol dans la nuit" ("Thief in the Night")
• Original airdate: ?

• This episode is one of those that has never been released on DVD in French.
• To date, and although there is probably one in existence, the European French dub of this episode is lost.
• Concerning the Canadian French dub:

• The song that the young woman hums is present, although it is barely audible.
• Perceptor's phrase "He must be the dinosaur behind all this!" is dubbed by "Il doit y avoir dinosaure sous roche!" ("There must be a dinosaur under the rock"), a pun with French idiomatic expression "There is an eel under the rock", meaning "There's something fishy".
• Like in the original version, the voice actor dubbing the Russian officer did not talk Russian at all, but provided some gibberish supposed to sound like Russian.
• Like in Forever Is a Long Time Coming, Rodimus Prime is still called Rodimus Primo instead of Rodimus Primus.
• Strangely, despite the fact that Fakkadi's final tirade is well translated, there is a few differences: his uncle owns a goose instead of a goat, and his nephew has a fine coyote instead of fine roosters.

German

• Title: "Wie ein Dieb in der Nacht" ("Like a Thief in the Night")
• Original airdate: ?

Italian

• Title (first dub): "Il tradimento di Triplex 3" ("Octane's Betrayal")
• Original airdate: ?

• In English Fakkadi says that one thousand barrels of oil makes a single energon cube, and that Trypticon drinks 50 cubes an hour, which is an absurd quantity. The Italian dub makes it slightly more realistic by having Fakkadi saying that he drinks 50 cubes a day.
• When he's talking to Grimlock, Perceptor's line: «That's highly improbable, Grimlock» becomes: «That's highly probable, Grimlock», saying exactly the opposite! This, of course, doesn't stick with what Perceptor himself says after.
• In the last scene, Fakkadi doesn't talk about his relatives' animals' tombs, but rather about the tombs of his actual mother, sister and brother. The dub also gives names to them: his mother's name is Ashmahara, his sister's is Ishmahala and his brother's is Shabac. He doesn't talk about his nephew, though; instead, he finishes his line by saying: «I have no one else to swear on».

• Title (second dub): "Ladro nella notte" ("Thief in the Night")
• Original airdate: ?

Japanese

• Title: メトロフレックスVSダイナザウラー (Metroflex VS Dinosaurer, "Metroplex VS Trypticon")
• Original airdate: December 19, 1986

Mandarin

• Title: "Yèjiān Dàozéi" (夜间盗贼, "Thief in the Night")
• Original airdate: ?

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "Ladrão Noturno" ("Night Thief")
• Original airdate: ?

Home video releases

VHS

1991 — Transformers — Thief in the Night / Surprise Party (Tempo Video)

LaserDisc

1999 — The Transformers: 2010 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.

DVD

2001 — The Transformers: 2010 — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 3 Part 1 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 3 Part 1: Vol. 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 3 and Season 4 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 4: Series 3.1 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers — Season's Three & Four [sic] (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2010 — The Transformers — Seasons Three & Four: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2011 — The Transformers — The Complete Original Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 — The Transformers — Seasons Three & Four: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers — The Classic Animated Series (Metrodome)

References

External links

• Episode Dossier at The Cybertron Chronicle
• Episode dialogue script