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Transformers Animated: Difference between revisions
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'''This Show Provides Examples of:'''
* [[Abandoned Mine]]: the Decepticons set up a hidden base in one. It also features prominently in the episode "Nature Calls".
* [[Abandoned Warehouse]] - Detroit has quite a few of these due to robots replacing human workers.
** And being, well, Detroit. They reference the auto industry, with some easy extrapolations to the demise thereof, in the first episode.
* [[The Ace]] - Afterburn, in the ''[[Titan Magazine]]'' adaptation. Borders on [[Canon Sue]] who, in two consecutive issues, leaves Optimus and Bumblebee holding the [[Idiot Ball]], respectively. {{spoiler|Turns out he is a [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|sparkless drone]] [[The Mole|Decepticon spy]], whom Megatron [[You Have Failed Me|quickly]] [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|disposes of.]]}}
* [[Actor Allusion]] - Sentinel Prime is a walking [[Shout-Out]] to [[The Tick (animation)]], including his blue coloration, giant chin, and occasional lines like "Energon-y goodness". His character was actually designed after actor [[Townsend Coleman]] was cast.
** Wreck-Gar (voiced by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]) declares "I '''dare''' to be stupid!" in one episode, and pulls out an accordion in another.
* [[Adaptational Badass]]: Waspinator. Good lord, Waspinator. In ''[[Beast Wars]]'' he was pretty much the biggest [[Butt Monkey]] in the history of Transformers ("Why universe hate Waspinator?"). In this series, as Wasp he was one of the Autobot Academy's most promising candidates (despite being an overall [[Jerkass]]), before spending years in imprisonment drove him paranoid and crazy. When Blackarachnia transformed him into Waspinator, he reached [[Nightmare Fuel]] levels of sinister. ("Waspinator has plans...")
* [[Adaptational Villainy]]: ''Animated'' Waspinator is much scarier and more villainous than the [[Chew Toy]] Waspinator in ''Beast Wars'', who spent a lot of his time being blasted to bits by other robots.
* [[Adorably Precocious Child]] - Cosmos is one of the smartest characters spoken about in the [[All There in the Manual|Almanac]], and yet he is one of the most adorable characters in the entire roster.
** [http://twitpic.com/31hv8n Just look at him!]
* [[Adorkable]]: Most of the Autobots have their moments, such as Bulkhead, Blurr, and Wreck-GAR.
* [[Aesop Amnesia]] - Happens frequently. Bumblebee and Sentinel Prime in particular are poster boys for this trope.
* [[Affably Evil]]: Megatron
* [[AI Is a Crapshoot]] - Megatron developed Soundwave to evolve with uses of Sari's key into a new body, but Soundwave unexpectedly became sentient unto himself (though still useful to Megatron's plans). And then there's stuff like Professor Sumdac's malfunctioning police robots, and the nanobots in the pilot, and...
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* [[Airplane Arms]] - Briefly by Optimus in "Where Is Thy Sting."
* [[Alien Arts Are Appreciated]] - Bulkhead winds up with a museum show in one episode, although his "masterpiece" was an accident.
* [[Aliens in Cardiff]] - Megatron's head and hand land in Paw Paw, Michigan, though they end up in Detroit.
* [[Aliens Speaking English]]
* [[Aliens Steal Cable]] - Quite literally: Sari {{spoiler|(half-alien herself)}} and Bumblebee use the Key to pirate Master Disaster's illegal street races.
* [[Almighty Janitor]] - Eventually taken to near absurd lengths with the main crew. Despite being a lowly maintenance crew, they have {{spoiler|A cadet who was on track for the Elite Guard, a vet from the Great War who is bonded to the Autobot's greatest weapon (which happens to be their ship), the most skilled spacebridge engineer in the Autobot ranks, and one of the most skilled Cyberninjas around). Really, everyone but Bumblebee is considered near top of their field, and this is before they [[Took a Level In Badass]]}}
* [[Almost Kiss]] - Blackarachnia and Optimus Prime. However, most of the time she does it, she's trying to [[Distracted by the Sexy|distract him]].
* [[All There in the Manual]] - The Starscream clones are only ever referred to by their personalities (or gender), but their toys are named after the ''[[Transformers Generation 1|G1]]'' Seekers: Coward Starscream = "Skywarp," Sycophant Starscream = "Sunstorm," Egomaniac Starscream = "Thundercracker". This is because if they gave them proper names in the credits, they would have had to pay Tom Kenny for four more characters. And while he didn't get a toy until ''long'' after these three, the Liar Starscream's name was given as "Ramjet" in the Allspark Almanac.
** In an almost literal example, toyless Female Starscream's official name "Slipstream" was [[Sure Why Not|created just for]] ''The AllSpark Almanac''.
** Actually ''The Allspark Almanac'' probably counts a lot for this trope, revealing intense amounts of detail (and [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] about the show, the setting and the characters).
** ''The Allspark Almanac II'' is even better, with lots of hints of what happened after the series, more detail about life on Cybertron (including how protoforms are developed), and more behind-the-scenes information about the show itself.
* [[Aloof Ally]] - The Dinobots and the main team of Autobots have a relationship that is adversarial at best.
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** The [[Fan Nickname]] 'Punch of Kill Everything' made it into the canon comics (though sadly not the show itself), and shows up in [[Transformers: War for Cybertron]] to boot (as both a Leader-class killstreak reward and a Soldier-class melee upgrade).
* [[Asteroids Monster]] - Rock Lords (or at least the animalistic space-born ones) can form smaller versions of themselves if shattered.
* [[Attack Pattern Alpha]] - 'Omega Formation' is used against Blitzwing in 'Sari, No-One's Home'. It doesn't end well.
* [[Autobots Rock Out]] - Done absolutely literally in "Human Error". And it was [[Rule of Cool|AWESOME!!!]]
* [[Awesome Backpack]]: Wreck-Gar's, which was inspired by [[The Marx Brothers|Harpo Marx]].
* [[Back-to-Back Badasses]] - With bonus [[Strange Bedfellows]]: Megatron and Optimus Prime. ''"Well, you're the last bot I'd expect to come to my rescue."'' When Optimus says he isn't, Megatron then grabs Optimus and ''uses him as a shield''.
* [[Badass Grandpa]] - Ratchet.
* [[Badass Normal]] - Captain Fanzone
* [[Bag of Holding]] - Swindle's "personal storage dimension" and Wreck-Gar's backpack, which contains (quite literally) everything ''and'' the kitchen sink. The former has a justification, the latter runs on [[Rule of Funny]].
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* [[Batman Gambit]] - Optimus manages to pull one off in "Decepticon Air," in a near-perfect [[Homage]] to ''[[Superman]] II''.
* [[Battle Butler]] - Lugnut's near-religious fanatical devotion to Megatron.
* [[Bedsheet Ghost]] - Bulkhead has to use a fumigation tent.
* [[Berserk Button]] - Starscream, true to type, likes to plan out monologues and speeches. Don't interrupt him when he gives them, 'kay?
** "You ''interrupted'' my '''''SPEEEEECH'''!!''"
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* [[Black and Gray Morality]]: This series is less [[Black and White Morality|black-and-white]] than some of the others - while the Decepticons are unquestionably the bad guys, the Autobots aren't exactly noble, flawless heroes. The best example is the Autobot leadership, which is flawed and includes at least one power-grabbing xenophobe. The Decepticons are "freedom fighters" in some twisted sense, which might have made them "[[Grey and Gray Morality|gray]]" rather than "black" if it weren't clear that they have no respect for anyone's plight but their own.
* [[BLAM Episode]]: The [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Bee_in_the_City Bee in the City] script reading. Filled with [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|Fourth Wall breaking fun]], and various [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] to not other Transformers continuities, and even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the trope by agreeing never to speak of the incident again.
* [[Blofeld Ploy]] - Played with in the first season finale. Megatron mentions how appropriate it is to have Starscream with him as he takes his revenge on the one responsible for his 50 years as a head. He then aims at Optimus, only to turn around and slag Starscream, who actually ''was'' responsible for it but didn't think Megatron knew.
* [[Blow You Away]] - Jetstorm and vehicle-mode Safeguard. Optimus whips up a tornado with the Magnus Hammer.
* [[Boot Camp Episode]] - In a [[Whole-Episode Flashback|Flashback Episode]], Bumblebee and Bulkhead go through basic training.
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* [[Bring It]]
* [[Broken Hero]] - Optimus Prime, of all people.
* [[Buffy-Speak]] - Oddly, two of the smartest (in terms of technology) cast members: see [[Shaped Like Itself]].
* [[Butt Monkey]] - According to [[Word of Dante|supplementary]] [[Sure Why Not|material]], Beachcomber.
** Tutor Bot, as well.
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** Inverted with Prowl's samurai armor sidecar; it was created for the show but Hasbro liked the design so much they made a toy version, and Prowl eventually got the armor permanently.
** Played more straight with Lugnut, Lockdown, and Slipstream. Slipstream's a character in ''[[Transformers: War for Cybertron]]'' (albeit for multiplayer only); Lockdown got [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Lockdown_%28ROTF%29 a toy] for the ''[[Transformers (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]'', then was repurposed and used as the basis for a [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Lockdown_%28G1%29 G1 version of the character]; and [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Lugnut_%28TF_2010%29 Lugnut] appeared in two G1-based comics, [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Rodimus_vs._Cyclonus one of which] took place during [[Transformers: The Movie|the original movie]] (and, as the TFWiki points out, probably freaked out when Starscream threw Megatron out of Astrotrain).
* [[Caped Mecha]] - Lockdown's space poncho and Alpha Trion's traditional cape. Red Alert's design makes her look like she's wearing a labcoat, but at least that's clearly a part of her altmode.
* [[Cardboard Prison]] - Played straight and averted. The first time Meltdown escapes, he apparently does so without the Detroit Police [[Fridge Logic|even hearing about it]]. The second time, however, he's stuck in a specially-designed cell not even he can melt through and it takes the Dinobots (following Blackarachnia's orders) to get him out. The lower-grade supervillains like the Angry Archer seem to have an easier time of it: Fanzone even [[Lampshade Hanging|points this out]] in the Almanac.
** The Decepticons seem to escape with frightening frequency on the ELITE GUARD ship
* [[Cassandra Truth]] - Bulkhead tries to warn Sari about {{spoiler|Soundwave}}, but she's just not listening.
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* [[Chewing the Scenery]] - "You interrupted MY '''SPEEEEEEEEEEECH!'''"
* [[Christmas Episode]] - "Human Error"
* [[Chronically Crashed Car]]: Captain Fanzone's car.
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]] - Wreck-Gar and Random Blitzwing. To quote the latter after being sent flying:
{{quote|Mayday! Mayday! Let's all dance around the maypole!}}
* [[Co-Dragons]] - Lugnut and Shockwave. When they finally meet, it takes them about ten minutes to start fighting over which of them is the most loyal to Megatron.
** Thanks partly to Starscream manipulating the (rather dense) Lugnut...and because Megatron ''wanted'' Lugnut to be at his most loyal.
* [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]] - The Autobots are bright, primary colors (sans Bulkhead and Prowl) while the Decepticons are muted or secondary colors like gray, purple and green. Dead Cybertronians become a distinct darkish grey, in homage to G1 Optimus Prime's death in [[The Movie]].
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* [[Concept Art Gallery]] - Both ''Almanacs''
* [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]] - The Autobots barely hold off Starscream early on, but are much more effective against the squadron of clones. (The Autobot arsenal now includes stasis cuffs...)
* [[Convection, Schmonvection]] - Sari uses boiling water to kill the space barnacles possessing Bumblebee and Prowl, but isn't scalded by the steam. {{spoiler|Maybe her skin is tougher than a normal human's.}}
* [[Convenient Color Change]]: When Mixmaster and Scrapper [[Face Heel Turn|change their allegiance to the Decepticons]], their [[Unusual Euphemism|optics]] go from blue to red, as Autobots have blue eyes while Decepticons have red ones.
* [[Conveyor Belt of Doom]] - When Megatron takes over the factory equipment in 'Home Is Where the Spark Is', he uses the manipulator arms to pin Bulkhead down on one of these and send him towards a crusher.
* [[Cool Car]] - Par for the course with Transformers, but special mentions go to Lockdown, a combination of a few classic muscle cars, and Blurr, whose vehicle mode is reminiscent of [[Speed Racer|the Mach 5]].
* [[Cool Chair]] - Professor Sumdac used Megatron's hand as a chair in his lab. Its owner was less than happy.
* [[Cool Shades]] - or rather, optic sensors: Prowl, Soundwave, Jazz, and Grimlock (the first two's even look a bit like [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann|Kamina's]]). Meltdown's shades, however, are actual sunglasses, and are pretty funky.
** Don't be fooled; Prowl might have Kamina's shades, but he's really [[GaoGaiGar|Volfogg]].
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* [[Cruel Mercy]] - {{spoiler|Optimus didn't spare Megatron because he was feeling kind...}}
* [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]] - [[Word of God]] states that there is a Church of Primus on Cybertron. Not much is known about the church, though ''Animated'' Vector Prime's design brings to mind the uniform of the Pope. [[Word of God]] states that it's of the [[Church of Happyology]] flavor.
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]] - The main Autobots are a maintenance crew, only a handful of whom have proper combat training and only one of whom has actual experience. The Decepticons are massive, powerful war machines. Do the math.
* [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul]] - Perceptor may already be a robot, but according to [[Word of God]], he deleted his own personality and capacity for emotion in order to store more information in his processor.
* [[Dark Action Girl]] - Slipstream, the Female Starscream, as treacherous as her progenitor ''and'' her fellow trope examples. Blackarachnia sometimes fills this role as well, though she's more often a [[Femme Fatale]].
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* [[Dating Catwoman]] - Optimus and Blackarachnia{{spoiler|/Elita-1}}
* [[Dead Line News]] - A reporter is covering the [[Robot War]] that Soundwave started when his camera starts attacking him. Then we see a News-Bot covering the news a few days later...
** He survived, and is shown covering the garbage disputes in Season 2.
* [[Death Montage]] - {{spoiler|a now immortal Starscream gets one showing him attempting, and failing, to overthrow Megatron.}}
* [[Decontamination Chamber]] - Sentinel uses one to pick on the team in 'The Elite Guard'.
* [[Deflector Shields]] - Sumdac Tower has an emergency force-field that can cover the entire building - pretty impressive, considering it's one of the few inventions that probably didn't have its roots in Megatron. The Elite Guard ship also has one, and Swindle has a personal version that he purchased from the [[Beast Wars|Vok]].
* [[Deserted Island]] - North Sister Island, a volcanic island that somehow exists in the middle of Lake Erie. Then it becomes "Dinobot Island" and gets more and more crowded.
* [[Destructive Saviour]] - Bulkhead. So very, very much.
* [[Development Gag]] - Team Rodimus is three-fifths scrapped ideas (see [[What Could Have Been]]). Sari's scooter / jetpack is based on a transforming trike she had in a dropped version of the opening sequence.
* [[Die Hard on an X]] - "Decepticon Air", complete with Prime doing the "exploding elevator" trick from ''[[Die Hard]]'' and making snarky comments while doing an [[Air Vent Passageway]] escape.
* [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons]] - The Dinobots, as ever, although Professor Sumdac didn't actually have this in mind while designing them. Megatron added the flame breath because he planned on using one of them as a new body and the others as attack drones.
* [[Dirty Coward]] - Coward Starscream, even more so than Starscream himself, though the clone lacks even the courage to betray people to ensure his own safety.
* [[Disco Dan]] - Meltdown. Not only does he cling to outmoded ideals about human superiority over all machines, he also once speechified about how Prof. Sumdac isn't worthy to "lick the mud off my platform shoes, booga-looga-looga-looz!"
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* [[Distracted by the Sexy]] - Blackarachnia pulls this on Bulkhead and Bumblebee during her first appearance on Earth (They'd never seen a female Transformer before) and does it quite often to Optimus Prime {{spoiler|(who kinda used to be her ex)}} afterwards.
* [[Damsel in Distress]] - Arcee is metaphorically [[Stuffed Into the Fridge]] multiple times.
** Also, Elita-1.
** Also, as Blackarachnia she ''keeps'' having to be saved from her own attempts at evil schemes. Even the one exception to this rule was retroactively made one (after Megatron Rising, it was the Dinobots who pulled her to the island.) That's ''three'' female 'bots ([[Composite Character|for the price of two]]) who were quite [[Badass]] in previous incarnations whose roles have been reduced to "helpless victim who is either saved, or not saved as part of a male 'bot's backstory." You ''really'' expect the 2008 series to be ''more'' progressive than the 80s/90s ones... but in the writers' favor, there ''is'' Sari.
* [[Does Not Know His Own Strength]] - Bulkhead
* [[Do I Really Sound Like That?]]? - Sari's impression of Optimus Prime is spot-on.
* [[Don't Call Me "Sir"!]] - Ratchet works for a living.
* [[Double Aesop]] - 'Velocity'.
* [[The Dragon]] - Starscream at first, and later Lugnut.
** By the series finale, the latter is literally fighting Shockwave for this position.
* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] - Sentinel <s>Prime</s> Minor in a flashback.
* [[Drives Like Crazy]] - Sentinel, although it's more to do with his contempt for human traffic laws (he also can't figure out how to drive in the rain). All of the "Automen" in ''Human Error'', where they have to actually work their vehicle modes from the inside instead of just thinking about it.
* [[Drop the Hammer]] - Ultra Magnus and Sari. Shockwave, briefly.
** {{spoiler|And now Optimus himself.}}
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** And note that Takara-Tomy's marketing director claims that the Japanese dub is going to make Bulkhead/Ironhide be the exact same character as Movie Ironhide... though this doesn't jibe with the show's depiction of him so far.
* [[Dumb Muscle]] - The Dinobots, especially the toddler-like Grimlock. Of course, [[The Voiceless|Swoop and Snarl]] can't seem to muster up the processor power to ''speak'', either. Lugnut, Scrapper, Mixmaster, and Blackout are also standouts, while Bulkhead is a [[Genius Ditz]], though his lack of general intelligence is played up considerably in the Japanese dub. Omega Supreme was ''specifically programmed'' to be [[Dumb Muscle]], so that he wouldn't question his lot in life as a [[Person of Mass Destruction|Robot Of Mass Destruction]]. Blitzwing's Hothead personality leans toward this, as well.
* [[Eats Babies]] - Megatron is such a nightmarish, legendary figure to the Autobots that he's said to eat their protoforms for breakfast. He doesn't, {{spoiler|1=although he doesn't mind using them to build WMDs.}}
** According to some fans, Omega Supreme feeds on protoforms. He ''was'' built by Wheeljack...
* [[Eat the Bomb]] - Snarl swallows a missile in the Dinobots' debut episode, and isn't even fazed.
* [[Easy Amnesia]] - Averted, for the most part, with Arcee. {{spoiler|After she loses her memory it stays lost for a very, ''very'' long time, and it takes quite a while to retrieve them properly in the finale.}} There was also a scrapped Season 4 idea with this as its main plot point, this time with Cosmos being amnesic instead of Arcee. According to the [[All There in the Manual|Allspark Almanac 2]], "[[Hilarity Ensues]]".
* [[Efficient Displacement]] - Bulkhead and Blitzwing in different episodes.
* [[Enemy Mine]] - Although they're technically both Autobots, Optimus and Grimlock's fateful team-up played out like this.
* [[Engrish]] - The closed captioning for one episode dubbed Shockwave as "Chugway"
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* [[Expy]] - Very common, this being ''[[Transformers]]''. Most recently, ''[[Beast Wars]]'' character Rattrap got one in the form of Rattletrap (a combination of the original's Western (Rattrap) and Japanese (Rattle) names). Not exactly [[Dirty Coward|a flattering portrayal]].
** Lockdown has been compared to [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] Death's Head from the comics.
* [[Eyes Do Not Belong There]] - The mutant space barnacles make eyes appear all over their victims.
* [[Face Palm]]
* [[Fake Static]] - Bumblebee in "Megatron Rising" and Prowl in "A Fistful of Energon".
{{quote|'''Ratchet''': [[Continuity Nod|Personally, I've always found Bumblebee's fake static to be a lot more convincing.]]}}
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** Considering his spark was still glowing {{spoiler|in the close-up models of the cube}}...
** In a [[Transformers Timelines]] comic published after the series, {{spoiler|Blurr attends an event, still smushed up}}.
* [[Fan Nickname]]:
** "''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]''", by the TF-fans who belive the series is [[Ruined FOREVER]] ([[Running Gag|as usual]]), since it was designed by the same team who worked on the aforementioned series.
** Since, in this continuity, Autobots are largely incapable of flying, the Animated version of [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Powerglide_%28Animated%29 Powerglide] actually seems to transform into a ground-based alternate mode, prompting some to name him as "Powerdrive" instead.
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** Sentinel Prime ''really'' doesn't like organics. This is actually endemic to the entire Cybertronian population (Optimus' crew, for whatever reason, are far more tolerant even at the start), but Sentinel goes above and beyond. He actually tells Blackarachnia, his old friend Elita-1 turned techno-organic, that she was [[Fate Worse Than Death|better off dead]] {{spoiler|before trying to ''[[Mercy Kill|kill her]]''}}. How bad is this? Even Blackarachnia herself has less hatred for her organic half than Sentinel does, and she spends the entire series trying to purge it. Second-in-command of the Autobot Elite Guard, everybody!
*** Fanzone actually uses this against the Cybertronians when he ends up on Cyberton in one episode. Being a human and all, he's basically a walking bioterrorism weapon.
* [[Fascists' Bed Time]] - One of Sentinel's first acts as Magnus is to institute a curfew. What this means for robots who don't exactly 'sleep' is unclear, although they do take 'stasis naps'.
* [[Fastball Special]] - Optimus does this with Sentinel Prime to get the latter into melee range of Lugnut. They were in space at the time.
** Bulkhead tosses Prowl and Bumblebee on more than one occasion. See also the [[Not Quite Flight]] example below.
* [[Fauxtivational Poster]] - Prowl has one in his room.
* [[Femme Fatale]] - Blackarachnia
* [[Five-Bad Band]] - The main Decepticons, although there is significant shifting of positions because of plot, betrayal or otherwise being separated.
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** [[Evil Genius]] - Blitzwing and Shockwave mostly. Soundwave also fits but he doesn't interact with the others.
** [[Dark Chick]] - Blackarachnia, the true [[Mad Scientist]] of the group, but besides the first episode she doesn't have much to do with the others.
** Team Chaar also fits, with Strika being the [[Big Bad]] (though Megatron still outranks her), Cyclonus [[The Dragon]], Blackout [[The Brute]], Oil Slick [[The Evil Genius]] and...Spittor [[The Dark Chick]] by default.
* [[Five-Man Band]] - Somewhat iffy:
** Prime - [[The Hero]]
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** "Don't just stand there with your pistons in your servos!" For those who don't know, "servos" are hands.
** "Get your head out of your exhaust port!"
** Sentinel Prime once refers to Optimus and the Autobots as "You Glitches". It's a [[Double Entendre]] when you think about it.
** The Constructicons also give us this beauty: "What the front-end loader was that?" This was going to be "forklift", but that DIDN'T get past the radar.
** Sari apparently tells Optimus where babies come from.
** "Are you out of your motherboarding mind?!"
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* [[Heroes Gone Fishing]]: Bumblebee and Sari can often be found playing videogames, holographic Twister or flying toy planes. "Nature Calls" starts out as a camping trip.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: Optimus Prime died in the third episode - less than sixty minutes into the series. He was brought back from the dead less than two minutes later - a new personal record. Then Omega Supreme died in the second season finale... but he's [[Not Quite Dead]].
** {{spoiler|Prowl as well, in the third (and most likely final) finale}}.
* [[Hero with Bad Publicity]] - Bulkhead occasionally in Season 1, all the Autobots in Season 2.
* [[Homage]] - several designs are nods to other [[Humongous Mecha]] and even other Transformers series:
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** Ultra Magnus' toy received a redeco to become Roadbuster Ultra Magnus, an homage to G1's Roadbuster, who had a nearly identical vehicle mode to Animated Magnus.
* [[Honest John]] - Swindle doesn't even bother with a fake name, he's just that honest.
* [[Hollywood Law]] - Powell uses his [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|connections and resources]] to get Masterson free so he could hire him, despite Masterson threatening to blow up an entire state on live television.
* [[Horrible Judge of Character]]: Issac Sumdac thought that Megatron was an Autobot. To be fair, that part wasn't entirely unreasonable since he had no real knowledge of the Decepticons beyond witnessing Starscream battle the Autobots. However, when Megatron starts putting flamethrowers into the Dinobots (who are running amok when this info is made aware) and begs Sumdac not to tell his "Autobot friends", it's baffling that he wouldn't find that even a little suspicious.
* [[Hostage for Macguffin]]
* [[Humans Are White]] - It does a better job of averting this than previous entries.
* [[Hulk Speak]] - Grimlock
* [[Hypocritical Humour]] - Wreck-Gar complaining that Sari can't make up her mind in "Human Error".
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* [[I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder]] - Ratchet is a medi-bot, not a field commander.
* [[Incoming]]
* [[Incredibly Obvious Bomb]] - How Starscream nearly kills Megatron in the premiere. He tries to do this again during the famous Death Montage, but Megatron catches it and throws it back at him.
* [[Ineffectual Loner]] - Prowl keeps trying to be antisocial and self-reliant, but is inevitably beaten down by [[An Aesop|the power of Aesop]].
* [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]] - The Society of Ultimate Villainy, for the most part.
* [[Inhumanable Alien Rights]] - Powell uses this to get Masterson off the hook for attacking Optimus and Sentinel. Fanzone and the Autobots turn this back on him a few episodes later.
* [[Initiation Ceremony]] - Mixmaster and Scrapper get the 'painful' version when they officially join the Decepticons: Megatron literally brands both of them.
* [[Insignia Rip Off Ritual]] - After Shockwave frames Wasp, Sentinel removes his Autobot insignia as Cliffjumper is taking him away.
* [[Instrument of Murder]] - Soundwave has an electric guitar that turned into his attack bird Laserbeak. He also has Ratbat, who turns into a keytar.
* [[Intro Dump]] - The first scene featuring the main Decepticons.
* [[I Shall Taunt You]]: Bumblebee uses this against Blitzwing in "Megatron Rising", angering him enough to switch from Icy to Hothead in midair - meaning he transforms from plane to tank and falls out of the sky. "Oh slag! NOT AGAI-"
* [[Is It Always Like This]] - Newcomer Jazz, on being attacked by a mass-produced robot army.
* [[Island Base]] - There's one hidden on Dinobot Island: Meltdown moves into it after his first jailbreak, and Blackarachnia finds it during season 2. According to the [[All There in the Manual|Almanac]], it's an abandoned government facility.
* [[I Surrender, Suckers]]: When [[Bad Liar|Ramjet]] tells you he's completely disarmed and helpless, he isn't. Sentinel, who'd never met him, didn't pick up on it, but Prowl did.
* [[Is That a Threat?]]
* [[It Has Been an Honour]] - In the first season finale, Optimus tells the team he can't think of anyone he'd rather have by his side as they're about to go into battle. Bumblebee, however, notes he wouldn't mind having the Elite Guard there too.
* [[Jaw Drop]] - Bulkhead does this twice, and it literally ''falls off'' the second time.
* [[JAM Project]] - Provided the OP for the Japanese dub. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWjXcmBjJXg&fmt=18 And it is glorious]
* [[Jerkass]] - Sentinel Prime. Ultra Magnus really is a ''terrible'' judge of character.
* [[Jet Pack]] - Bumblebee's turbo-boosters (when he's in the air), Prowl's jump jets (especially with the samurai armour), Sari's transforming scooter and Optimus' wing-pack from the finale.
* [[Jive Turkey]] - Jazz. "Traffic lights. Solid."
** [[Word of God|Marty Isenberg]] stated in an interview that he was suppose to sound like a [[Beatnik]].
* [[Journey to the Center of the Mind]] - Prowl interfaces with {{spoiler|Omega Supreme to free him from Megatron's control}}.
* [[Keep-Away]] - Five Autobots trying to keep an angry Starscream from the Allspark. Lampshaded by Sari.
* [[Kid Appeal Character]]- Bumblebee (duh) and Sari.
** In "Bee in the City", Bumblebee is mistaken for several other "kid appeal" types across various other ''Transformers'' canons; [[Transformers Generation 1|Wheelie]], [[Transformers Robots in Disguise|Side Burn]], [[Transformers Armada|Hot Shot]], and [[Beast Wars|Cheetor]].
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* [[Knight of Cerebus]] - The show has quite a few, actually, the first was Lockdown, who has his roots with Ratchet, and showed an emotional depth and seriousness that made most people grow to the series, Megatron, who basically threw out all the stops by [[Establishing Character Moment|murdering Starscream]] [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|the moment he's right next to him]], and Shockwave, who {{spoiler|outright ''murdered Blurr''}}, not to mention his generally no nonsense attitude.
** We forgot Wasp, whose insanity, unlike in ''Beast Wars'', ''isn't'' played for laughs.
* [[Lantern Jaw of Justice]] - Many of the Transformers, but especially Sentinel Prime, who's an [[Actor Allusion]] to [[The Tick (animation)]].
* [[Large and In Charge]] - Megatron, Ultra Magnus
* [[Large Ham]] - Starscream
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* [[Make Me Wanna Shout]] - Starscream eventually develops an eerily appropriate sonic scream ability from the Allspark fragment in his head. It's never really explained how he does this, and it's never even brought up again after "TransWarped".
* [[Manipulative Bastard]] - Megatron
* [[Master Character Heroes]] -
** Optimus: ''Apollo: The Businessman''
** Ratchet: ''Poseidon: The Artist''
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* [[Mistaken Identity]] - In the second-last episode, Slipstream spots Starscream flying over Detroit, and heads over to shoot him down; when she sees it's Optimus wearing a jet pack built from one of Starscream's old bodies, she flies away while expressing her surprise about flying Autobots.
* [[The Mole]] - "Longarm" a.k.a. Shockwave
* [[Mook Face Turn]] - The Dinobots, once Meltdown couldn't hurt them.
* [[Moral Dissonance]] - Fanzone laughing off sending Swindle to his death in "S.U.V." {{spoiler|though he does get better}}; Bulkhead's unprovoked attack on who he believes to be Wasp in "Where Is Thy Sting?"
* [[More Teeth Than the Osmond Family]] - Sky-Byte only appears as a headshot in the AII, and doesn't even get a bio, but slag does he have teeth. It's an even bigger shift than Waspinator.
* [[Motor City]]
* [[Motor Mouth]] - Blurr, to the ''n''th degree. Notably, this is played differently from his G1 counterpart, who rambled irrelevancies and reiterated himself in a redundant manner; Here, he talks a [[Mythology Gag|blue streak]] at 600 mph.
* [[My Nayme Is]] - Played with at episode 1's "next episode" segment in the Japanese dub. Bumblebee complains that "Optimus Prime" is long and hard to remember, and so opts for other names that are all rejected by Optimus: Convoy (traditionally used in Japanese TF series for almost any "Prime"), Opti (sounds more fitting for a cute dog), Opra (plain weird), and Pupu (from "O''pu''timasu ''Pu''raimu", and it's hard not to laugh at it). Bumblebee actually gets Optimus into responding to "Pupu", much to Prime's dismay. It soon degenerates into a "Pupu!" "Optimus Prime!" argument ''past'' the sponsor cards.
* [[The Napoleon]] - Dirt Boss
* [[Nanomachines]] - Experimental 'microbots' going haywire indirectly wake up the Autobots during the pilot. Powell has them repurposed to consume garbage in season 2, but the first sample is exposed to Allspark radiation and starts consuming everything: luckily, they can't swim.
* [[Naughty Tentacles]] - Spittor's tongue-tentacles in his alt form move to his ''crotch'' in his robot mode. Given that his first victim is the female Autobot Red Alert, this brings this trope forcibly to mind. The ''Almanac'' writers took note and named them Legion Tentacles in a nod to [[Squick|Kiss Players]].
** The second part of the pilot has an enormous monster with tentacles grabbing a ''seven-year-old girl''. It's not perverted in context (thank God), but it's surprising that there weren't more Kiss Players jokes at the time.
* [[Neck Lift]] - Blackarachnia to Optimus (after borrowing Bulkhead's strength), Starscream to Bumblebee and Megatron to both Constructicons.
* [[Neutral No Longer]] - Happens not just once, but twice because of the Autobots. To be fair, Ratchet apologizes to Wreck-Gar about the first time and convinces him to switch back to being a hero.
* [[Never My Fault]] - Sentinel blaming Optimus for Elita-1's "[[Left for Dead|death]]".
* [[Never Trust a Trailer|Never Trust An Opening]] - The opening to the Japanese dub of Animated suggests that {{spoiler|<s>Iron</s>Armorhide and Arcee}} have bigger roles than they actually do in the series. And the humans seen throughout the series? Nowhere in the Opening... not even the Sumdacs.
** It also has the Autobots and Decepticons battling each other in various locations across the world, which they did do in [[Transformers Generation 1|G1]], but not in Animated. It also shows {{spoiler|Arcee and Blackarachnia fighting each other}}, when they never even meet in the show. And then there's that weird, shadowy, robot... guy... thing, wearing a cape at the beginning of the intro. Who the hell is that?!
** Not to mention that Lockdown is featured as part of the main group of Decepticons (Even in the ending) despite being technically unaffiliated while [[The Brute|Lugnut]], on the other hand, only appears briefly.
*** Yeah, but it was an [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome]], [[More Dakka|laser firing]] briefly.
* [[Never Say "Die"]] - 'Slag' or 'take offline' are generally used instead, with the occasional exception - Bumblebee quotes Rattrap in the premiere ("We're all gonna die, aren't we?") and when Optimus tells Ratchet he has to use his EMP on an overloading Sari, he flat-out says "It could kill her!" Sari herself later mentions that Soundwave "tried to kill me".
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* [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]] - Besides being robot ninjas, Jazz is also a [[Soul Brotha]], and Prowl and Bumblebee were once turned into zombies. Lockdown has a huge claw for a right hand, making him the "pirate" to Prowl's "ninja", as well as a [[Bounty Hunter]] with a skull for a head and an undertaker's tux. To say nothing of the Dinobots, who are [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].
** Let's not forget that Prowl decided to become the ''complete opposite of a ninja'' by getting a Samurai-armor upgrade in "A Fistful of Energon"...which later returns in "Five Servos of Doom" and seems to be a permanent upgrade.
** It's later revealed that {{spoiler|Lockdown}} was once a ninja pupil himself {{spoiler|and an Autobot; [[Word of God]] is that no Decepticon ever trained under Yoketron}}. And Oil Slick is a ninja chemist.
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wheeljack_%28Animated%29 as noted on the Transformers Wiki], Wheeljack to [[Myth Busters|Jamie Hyneman]], although [[Word of God]] said it was a coincidence.
* [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]]: Optimus and Bumblebee would've made it to the Elite Guard if they didn't bother to help their fellow Autobots (Bumblebee for accepting the blame on Bulkhead's behalf for knocking a tower onto Sentinel, and Optimus for taking the heat for Sentinel's idea to go to the restricted planet). Isaac Sumdac spends season two as a prisoner due to helping that poor disembodied robot head in his lab.
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* [[Not So Harmless]]: When most people heard that Waspinator was going to be in season 3 most fans though he was going to be comic-relief like his [[Beast Wars]] counterpart, not an ex-[[Jerkass]] who's been mentally [[Break the Haughty|broken past repair]], a hulking monster twice the size of Prime, and a completely insane [[Implacable Man]] (as, like in [[Beast Wars]], blowing him up just annoys him).
* [[Odd Couple]] - Optimus and Grimlock. Prowl and Bumblebee/Bulkhead. Ratchet and Captain Fanzone.
* [[Officer O'Hara]] - Wreck-Gar meets one of these while trying to work out who he is.
* [[Official Couple]] - Lugnut and Strika. Yeah.
** The ''Almanac II' also gives us [[Beast Machines|Rattletrap/Botanica]] and [[Pair the Spares|Warpath/Flareup.]] [[Fanon Discontinuity|Hardly anybody likes the latter.]]
* [[Oh Crap]]: The look of ''pure abject horror'' on Optimus Prime's face when the restored Megatron (whom he'd thought dead since the first episode) bursts out of Sumdac Tower is priceless. This is a 'bot who understands ''exactly'' how completely and utterly screwed he is.
** The Elite Guard get big one when, after insisting for the entire episode that there are no Decepticons on Earth, they face off with Starscream, who is more than willing to show the lot of them a taste of what Optimus has been up against.
*** Ultra Magnus has a pretty good one. After telling the Autobots to stand back, he presumably intended to deal with the situation. As soon as he turns around, Starscream has recovered and is pointing his weapons right in Magnus's face. * [[The Worf Effect|blast]]!*
** The Decepticons get their own when the Autobot ship transforms {{spoiler|into a revived Omega Supreme}}.
*** And again in {{spoiler|"Transwarped" (the season 3 premiere):}}
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** Also the SUV, although they were only a group for one episode.
* [[Raised by Robots]]: Sari spends most of the second season living and being brought up by the Autobots in their warehouse.
* [[Random Teleportation]]: Going through a space-bridge with no target co-ordinates can send you just about anywhere, and holding onto a plasmadynamic thruster while someone else is transwarping can send you hurtling around space like a pinball. The Autobots exploit this by attaching one to Omega while he's under Megatron's control, sending him transwarping randomly through space for most of the season.
* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] - Bulkhead delivers one to Wasp in "Where Is Thy Sting".
* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] - Fanzone and Ultra Magnus
* [[Red Eyes, Take Warning]] - All the Decepticons. In fact, when the Constructicons ''became'' Decepticons, their eyes turned red. Blackarachnia's, too.
** ...and Sari's eyes changed from red to blue with {{spoiler|her transformation}}, so there you go.
* [[Red Herring Mole]] - Wasp is the [[Ur Example]] in this show, and suffered for it the most. But every one that wasn't Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Sentinel in the flashback [[Everyone Is a Suspect|was a suspect]]. An error in an online game on [[Cartoon Network]]'s website made {{spoiler|Ironhide}} a Deception. {{spoiler|Cliffjumper (the red Autobot)}} was supposed to be the traitor but Hasbro nixed the idea. Turns out the mole was {{spoiler|Longarm Prime}}.
* [[Red Shirt Reporter]] - Newsbot
* [[Reference Overdosed]] - The ''Almanacs'', again, if not the show itself.
* [[Relocating the Explosion]]
* [[Remake Cameo]] - The Witwicky family, and all those crowd shots on Cybertron during the second half of season three.
* [[The Remnant]] - The Decepticons.
* [[Rescue Romance]] - Both [[Subtext]]-y robot romances, Optimus/Blackarachnia and Ratchet/Arcee, make heavy use of the males saving and [[Stuffed Into the Fridge|failing to save]] the helpless females.
* [[Resistance Is Futile]] - Delivered by Soundwave in 'Human Error'
* [[The Reveal]] - {{spoiler|Sari is a robot.}}
* [[Robo-Family]] - Jetfire and Jetstorm refer to each other as brothers due to being 'born' from a mitotic spark.
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* [[Robot War]] - Soundwave keeps trying to start one, and it's just not happening.
* [[Rogues Gallery]] - Of mostly humans, allowing the Decepticons to stay that much more threatening by their lack of overuse.
* [[Rollerblade Good]] - Optimus and Bumblebee have wheels on their feet which they can use this way. Sari has actual rollerblades, and later gets laser-skates with her upgrade.
* [[The Sadistic Choice]] - Starscream does this in the pilot. And, you know, what Bumblebee did to Nanosec.
* [[Sassy Secretary]] - Or rather, a robot programmed to sound and act like one.
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* [[Screwed by the Network]]
* [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here]] - {{spoiler|Jazz,}} having enough of {{spoiler|Sentinel's attitude, follows Ratchet to Earth to join Optimus' crew}} in "This Is Why I Hate Machines."
* [[Screw Yourself]] - Okay, he never gets ''that'' far, this being a kid's show, but there was definitely something suggestive about the way Starscream asked Slipstream what part of him she represented. She wasn't interested.
* [[Send in the Clones]] - Starscream is able to create clones of himself, each of which embodies part of his personality. One is a coward, one is an egomaniac, one is a pathological liar, one's a suck-up...[[Opposite Sex Clone|and one is a girl.]]
{{quote|'''Starscream:''' So, which part of me do ''you'' come from?
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* [[Shapeshifter Guilt Trip]]: Shockwave does this to Bumblebee and Bulkhead, asking if they're really willing to take down their old friend Longarm. They totally fall for it. {{spoiler|Psych.}}
** Maybe because he forgot to change his colors back?
* [[Shaped Like Itself]]: Bulkhead is as gentle as a...really gentle thing (and then there's the page quote Professor Sumdac gave us for [[Technological Pacifist]]).
* [[Shell Shocked Senior]] - Ratchet, notably in his flashback episode "The Thrill of the Hunt". Further elaborated on in his Sequel Flashback in ''TransWarped''.
* [[She's a Man In Japan]] - Flareup and Strika were gender-flipped in the Latin American dub of the third season. Slipstream is more ambiguous, but she has the same VA as Starscream in Italian, and a very grave voice in Latin American.
* [[Shockwave Clap]] - Bulkhead can cause this just by clapping, as seen in the "Mime Time" short.
* [[Shoo Out the Clowns]] - Masterson is the only human supervillain to appear in season 3. Not even Meltdown, who was still alive and actually a threat, is heard from again.
* [[Short Run in Peru]] - Somewhat annoyingly to American viewers, Canada's YTV aired this show a week ahead of Cartoon Network after it was dropped for one week in favor of the ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'' premiere. Not to mention that, annoying everyone ''else'' in the world, a Dubai children's network aired almost all of season 2 over a month early, leading to [[Wild Mass Guessing]] and outright misinformation based on screenshots with no English translations.
* [[Show Accuracy, Toy Accuracy]]: For all its worth, Animated has some of the most accuracy between the show and the toys of any continuity, in that the toys are highly accurate in Alt Mode, Robot Mode, and have extremely accurate transformations, all while maintaining the series' unique art style.
* [[Shrug of God]] - Derrick Wyatt himself prefers not think about what Slipstream represents. He's also keeping mum about how {{spoiler|Sari's protoform}} ended up in Isaac's lab - he feels that something like that should only be told in future TFA fiction. Fingers crossed...
* [[Shy Finger-Twiddling]] - By [[The Big Guy|Bulkhead]], of all bots.
** Bumblebee in "Nature Calls", after Prowl asks him where he found room for so much stuff in his car mode.
* [[Silent Bob]] - Mayor Edsel. His eyebrow is apparently expressive.
* [[Silent Partner]] - Snarl and Swoop, with Grimlock doing the talking.
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** [[Locked Into Strangeness]] - He got it when {{spoiler|Sari was "born".}}
* [[Smug Snake]] - Porter C. Powell, he talks a big game but he is also willing to throw an 8 year old out onto the streets. The only thing keeping the Autobots from squishing him is their own morality, and he is consciously aware of that. Grimlock's morality, on the other hand...
* [[Social Services Does Not Exist]] - Despite her father being a famous businessman, no-one notices that Sari doesn't legally exist until Powell does some digging. Afterwards, no-one seems to mind her living with the Autobots - of course, it'd be one brave social worker who tried to stand up to five protective transforming mechas.
* [[Something Else Also Rises]]: Blackarachnia caressing Swoop's face causes him to lift his flail and swing it around energetically.
** Doing the same to Grimlock causes flames to erupt from his neck/collar.
* [[Soul Brotha]]: Jazz.
* [[Southern-Fried Private]]: Bulkhead went to boot camp straight from the energon farm, and Hot Shot and Ironhide both have distinct Southern accents.
* [[Space Does Not Work That Way]] - Jetstorm can still create windstorms... in space. Solar wind, perhaps?
* [[Space Is Noisy]]: A stasis-cuffed Starscream actually calls attention to this in "A Fistful of Energon": "You call this a fight? I'll rust before someone wins, and I'm in a vacuum!"
* [[Space X]] - Transformers already had space bridges, but now we have space barnacles and Lockdown's Space Poncho (at least, that's what the Allspark Almanac calls it).
* [[Spinning Paper]]: Three in the course of a night during 'Three's A Crowd'. Either it's just a gag, or the Autobots spent a ''long'' time trying to get Lugnut out of that crater.
* [[Split Personality]] - Blitzwing has ''three'', and...
** [[Personality Powers]] - ...a different power for each, as well as different vehicle modes.
** Technically, he has two powers and two alt-forms; one of his personalities alternates between both interchangeably.
* [[Spoiler Opening]]: The Japanese opening, while very pretty, spoils most of the major subplots of Season 2.
* [[Steven Ulysses Perhero]] - Nanosec (Nino Sexton) and Headmaster (Henry Masterson). Also Angry Archer (A. A. Archer) and Professor Princess (Penny Princess, Ph.D.).
** And comics-only villains Stiletto (Stella Healy) and Crossroads (Roland Cross).
** While this isn't technically canon, Slo-Mo's design was based on TFA team member Samantha Lomow.
* [[The Starscream]] - Starscream is dealt with as a traitor deserves--the next time Megatron sees him after Starscream blows him up in the pilot, Megs blows him up. When that fails, he blows him up again. The only reason Starscream lived to see Season Two is because he got an AllSpark fragment that made him unkillable.
* [[The Stoic]] - Prowl
* [[Stoners Are Funny]] - Beachcomber is revealed in the second Almanac to indulge in many Cybertronian drugs. He is also portrayed by many fans to be [[Friend to All Living Things|very nice]] and occasionally forgets what he's talking about, resulting in many an odd conversation.
* [[Straw Man Has a Point]] - The villain Meltdown's anti-robot crusade was due to robots taking manufacturing and service jobs from humans, in a city with the highest unemployment rates in the country.
* [[Stuffed Into a Locker]] - Wasp and Ironhide do this to Bumblebee in 'Autoboot Camp'...after ''removing his legs'' and putting them where he couldn't get to them even if he was outside.
* [[Super Mode]]/[[Powered Armor]] - An upgraded Sari gets it in "TransWarped".
** While not powered ''per se'', Prowl later permanently retains a duplicate of his one-shot samurai armor upgrades.
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* [[Synthetic Voice Actor]] - Perceptor has one of these, and it sounds a lot like Stephen Hawking's.
* [[TV Head Robot]]: Tutor Bot
* [[Take My Hand]] - Bumblebee to Sari in the pilot.
* [[Take Our Word for It]] - What ''did'' Sari tell Optimus about where babies come from?
* [[Taking the Bullet]] - Bumblebee does this at least twice: he takes a blast from Starscream for Sari and a dose of Meltdown's acid for Bulkhead.
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** This was lampshaded during the Botcon 2008 script reading, where Bumblebee suggests to a thinly disguised Beast Wars Megatron (as voiced by David Kaye) that they call Grimlock or Lugnut (both voiced by David Kaye) for help. Megatron responds "Oh, please. What do I look like, [[Beast Wars|Scott McNeil]]?"
** There's even one where Animated!Optimus is talking about golf with BW!Megatron, the latter declaring with a chuckle that Autobots suck at golf.
* [[Tearful Smile]] - Sari after Optimus's [[First-Episode Resurrection|revival]].
* [[Technological Pacifist]] - Professor Sumdac
* [[Technopath]] {{spoiler|Post-Upgrade Sari}} in Season 3
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{{quote|'''Ratchet:''' "It's primitive...it's barbaric...there ought to be a law against it!"
'''Optimus Prime:''' "...It's just an auto parts supply store, Ratchet." }}
* [[They Would Cut You Up]] - Blackarachnia joined the Decepticons for fear of ending up on a lab table on Cybertron if she returned to the Autobots.
* [[That Liar Lies]] - Endgame, part 1: While Megatron facepalms at Lugnut and Shockwave's squabbling, you can just hear Shockwave yelling 'Liar, lying liar!' Seriously.
* [[The Easy Way or the Hard Way]] - Optimus to Lockdown (when he thought Lockdown was just a crazy human in a muscle car).
* [[Theme Twin Naming]] - Jetfire and Jetstorm. Also, while they're not technically twins, Wasp and Bumblebee share a chassis model.
* [[Theme Tune Cameo]] - Bumblebee's horn plays it in 'The Thrill of the Hunt', Ratchet whistles it in one of the DVD shorts, and Sari hums it in 'Sari, No-One's Home'.
* [[This Is Sparta]]:
{{quote|'''Starscream:''' [to Megatron] "THIS! IS! '''ALL!!! YOUR!!!''' '''''FAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUULT!!!!!'''''"
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** {{spoiler|Only because that would apparently be the easy way out. [[Cruel Mercy|Which Megatron doen't deserve.]]}}
* [[Throw It In]] - Blitzwing's German accent was a last-minute improvisation by Bumper Robinson while auditioning for the role, no doubt based on the character's name. When he got the part, Blitzwing was hastily redesigned to compliment the accent.
* [[Thrown Out the Airlock]] - How Optimus survives his first fight with Megatron.
* [[Token Mini-Moe]] - Sari. Somewhat less in season 3.
** Does Professor Princess count?
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* [[Tonight Someone Dies]] - Sort of. The [[DVD Commentary]] for a second season episode has one person asking if anyone really dies, and another one responds that no one does until season three... {{spoiler|And in the last episode of the series, Starscream and Prowl are both killed off.}} Can't say they aren't honest.
** [[Send in the Clones|Can't]] [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Starscream_clone_%28Animated%29#Notes they?]
* [[Too Fast to Stop]] - Bumblebee's first go with the turbo-boosters results in this.
* [[Took a Level In Badass]] - Prowl has gone through a specific character arc for him to complete his "cyber-ninja" training. Optimus Prime has had to dig in his heels in order to properly face off against Megatron. Bumblebee received a literal upgrade to his previously worthless stingers (which nicely explained how they were so powerful in flashback).
* [[Took a Level in Jerkass]] - Resident [[Jerkass]] Sentinel Prime actually used to be somewhat of a nicer guy. Of course that was before {{spoiler|Elita-1 was thought to have been killed when Optimus failed to save her.}} But then just as we can sympathize with his attitude (almost), he takes an even bigger one by {{spoiler|telling Blackarachnia/Elita-1 that it would have been [[Fantastic Racism|better if she had died, rather than turn into a techno-organic]].}}
* [[Toyless Toyline Character]] - Quite a few, both human and robot.
* [[Trainstopping]] - 'Mission Accomplished'. On top of it being out of control, Starscream had planted an unstable Allspark fragment on it.
* [[Truly Single Parent]] - Isaac Sumdac, since Sari is seemingly an [[Opposite Sex Clone]] by way of a Cybertronian protoform.
* [[Tuckerization]] - The Angry Archer (named after and resembling Hasbro designer Aaron Archer), Slo-Mo (named after and resembling Hasbro executive Samantha Lomow), Yoketron (named after [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Hideaki_Yoke Hideaki Yoke], a designer for the Diaclone and Microman toylines the original ''Transformers'' series was based off of)
* [[Twinkle Smile]] - ''Starscream'', although it only shows up in his full [[Transformation Sequence]].
* [[Twitchy Eye]] - Occasionally, Megatron gets tired of Lugnut's fawning.
* [[Universal Universe Time]]: Par for the course with Transformers, Cybertronions always refer to lengths of time as cycles. Solar Cycle for a day, Mega Cycle for a month (year?), etc.
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* [[Verbal Tic]] - Wreck-Gar starts nearly every sentence with "I am Wreck-Gar!" after he obtains his name.
** Getting there in the Japanese dub. Bumblebee with "''Ikimasu~!''" ("Here I go!", "Let's go!", or almost any variations), <s>Bulkhead</s> Ironhide's "''Dosukoi!''" (spoken by sumo wrestlers), "''De aru!''" for Prowl (literally, "to be" in formal speech) and '''Hey!''' and '''Man!''' for the angry face of an [[Acceptable Targets|American accented]] Blitzwing.
* [[Villain Exit Stage Left]] - The main Decepticons do this less often than in previous shows, but Lockdown and Soundwave still manage it, with the result being that they're both still on the loose by the end.
* [[Villainous Breakdown]] - Megatron starts to lose it just a ''little'' bit in the season 3 finale. "Then destroy the Autobots. Destroy the city. DESTROY ANYTHING THAT'S '''NOT ME'''!"
* [[Villainous Glutton]] - Though not fat, Starscream's toy-only clone Dirge is the living representation of the former's greed, and as such is an accomplished glutton who always wants more of everything, energon goodies included. Spittor can also digest his victims if he chooses - and Oil Slick claims that once you get past the slobbering freak and his weird tentacles, you discover a much more disgusting creature on the inside.
* [[Villain with Good Publicity]] - Porter C. Powell, again. Soundwave's attempted conquest of the world is forgotten quickly enough for Powell to sell toys of him, although he spent most of it controlling machines from underground.
* [[The Virus]] - Space barnacles, once they've been...altered(either by Megatron's body or Allspark energy).
* [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]] - Aside from the eponymous [[Transforming Mecha]], Decepticon spy Shockwave (not to be confused with Soundwave) has Autobot ''and'' Decepticon variations of his robot and vehicle forms.
** Also Colossus Rhodes, who's rather [[Batman|Bane]]-ish.
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* [[The Walls Are Closing In]]: In the first episode of the third season, {{spoiler|Blurr}} falls victim to this. {{spoiler|Sadly, he is transformed into a cube.}}
* [[Weak but Skilled]]: Contrary to tradition, the Autobots in this series are almost all smaller and weaker than their Decepticon counterparts. Most of the main cast of this series are armed with tools intended for non-combat purposes instead of weapons. As such defeating even one Decepticon requires a great deal of teamwork and tactical thinking.
* [[We Hardly Knew Ye]]-Blurr. Poor Blurr. He cameoed in "Velocity", was formally introduced in the Season 2 finale "A Bridge Too Close" and was {{spoiler|compacted into a cube}} in the Season 3 opener "Transwarped".
* [[Wham! Episode]] - ''A Bridge Too Close'' and ''Transwarped''.
* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]? - At the end of "Human Error," {{spoiler|Optimus and Soundwave have a guitar duel, done completely serious.}}
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]] - The fate of quite a few secondary characters, most of them villains. Slipstream, for instance, isn't seen or mentioned for most of season three, then appears briefly in the penultimate episode when Optimus tests out his jetpack...and then flies off again.
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* [[What Were You Thinking?]]: Professor Sumdac when Bulkhead actually makes Megatron's space bridge work. "This coming from the guy who rebuilt Megatron."
* [[Where It All Began]] - Season 1 finale. Also happens in the Season 3 premire (in the exact same place, no less) and provides the page quote.
* [[Where's the Fun In That?]]:
{{quote|Ratchet: "Why didn't you just use the EMP?"
Prowl: "Where's the fun in that?" }}
* [[Whole-Plot Reference]] - Season 2 finale "A Bridge Too Close", very nearly at least, to ''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]'' (!). The Decepticons capture Bulkhead, when they discover that despite appearances, he's {{spoiler|[[Hidden Depths|the preeminent space bridge expert in the galaxy]]}}, and press-gang him into building them a space bridge back to Cybertron. He does so out of spite for those who doubted {{spoiler|his expertise on the subject}}, many of whom were his own allies. The ending differs in that {{spoiler|nobody dies, permanently at least; the Decepticons are prevented from using the space bridge to take Cybertron}}.
* [[Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?]] - This happens to Bumblebee at least twice in season one, and again in season three - not to mention Sentinel in 'This is Why I Hate Machines'.
* [[Why Are You Looking At Me Like That?]]
* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?]] - Elita-1's "death" left Optimus with a phobia of spiders and Seintel of anything organic. Cybertronians in general are wary of organics in this continuity (due to a bad past experience, according to [[Word of God]]), but Sentinel is that much worse about it.
** Whilst he isn't exactly afraid of them (he just doesn't like them), Fanzone makes a pretty direct homage to the [[Trope Namer]] when the Elite Guard arrive on Earth:
{{quote|'''Fanzone''': Robots. Why did it have to be robots?}}
* [[With Due Respect]] - 'But Sentinel-' 'Is a glitch-head. All due respect.'
* [[With Friends Like These...]] - Sentinel.
* [[Word of God]]: Several things, most notably the possibility of {{spoiler|Blurr not being dead}}, and Slipstream's name.
* [[Would Hurt a Child]]: Blackarachnia and Soundwave. The former drops Sari off a building to distract Optimus and later threatens to kill her if she doesn't give up the Allspark's location. The latter blasts her with Laserbeak and brainwashes her own family into attacking her. Megatron, of all Bots, simply brushes her out of his way when she stands in front of all the Allspark. He most likely thought she was just beneath him.
* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: Megatron pulls one of these off in "Endgame, Part 1," with ''his own minions''.
* [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]] - The Angry Archer.
Line 675:
** This is a [[The Starscream|Starscream]] clone we're talking about. Of ''course'' he's working an angle and trying to butter everyone up.
** Lugnut, however, plays it straight in the mold of [[Beast Wars|Inferno]].
* [[Your Approval Fills Me with Shame]] - Prowl and clone #2716057.
* [[You Can Run but You Can't Hide]] - Bumblebee went for the flipped-around version against Lockdown. Of course, he was biting off a lot more than he could chew.
* [[You Do NOT Want to Know]]: Slipstream's (i.e. the female Starscream clone) response to Starscream about which part of his personality she represents is "Don't ask".
* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]] - In "Endgame, Part 1," Megatron says this to {{spoiler|Starscream}} before blasting him to smithereens.
* [[You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost]] - {{spoiler|Starscream}} to Megatron in season 2, after his resurrection but before he figured out {{spoiler|it was an Allspark chunk keeping him online.}} "Well maybe you HAVE!"
* [[You Monster!]] - Scrapper to ''Sari'' after she uses the factory equipment to pummel him and Mixmaster.
* [[You're Not My Father]] - Sari to Isaac after her [[Robotic Reveal]]. He actually ''is'' her biological father (sort of), but by the time she learns this she's already accepted him again.
* [[You Shall Not Pass]] - In the first season finale, with Megatron rising with a new body and the Decepticons closing in on the Allspark, Optimus tells his crew that this is where they stand and fight. This results in Bulkhead [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|tackling]] the bruiser [[The Brute|Lugnut]] in the air.
* [[You Talk Too Much]] - Bulkhead to Lugnut in ''Megatron Rising''.
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