Transformers

I'm pumped over this movie. Every afternoon after kindergarten back in 1986, I would watch Transformers with my best friend Scott in Helena, Montana, after which we would take apart his parents' living room and build forts. It's about the best way a six-year-old can spend his day.

Scott and I were also two of apparently about a dozen or so people who went out and saw the Transformers cartoon movie that came out in 1986. I haven't seen it for over twenty years, but the memory that sticks out the most is that the producers killed off Optimus Prime (the audacity) and replaced him with some bot called Hot Rod who had just made his debut in the movie. What utter crap. No wonder it only made $6 million.

Anyway, I was tinkering around over at IMDB recently and discovered that for a mid-1980s Japanese cartoon that made only six bills, this movie had quite the cast:

Eric Idle

Casey Kasem

Judd Nelson

Leonard Nimoy

Robert Stack

Orson Freakin' Welles

I can see Dr. Spock being in it. He'll do anything from Priceline commercials to directing Holy Matrimony. But the Unsolved Mysteries guy? And Citizen Kane? How did they rope Orson Welles, one of the most prolific actors and directors ever into something designed to entertain a kindergartener? Sure enough, he did it. Transformers was his last movie before his death in 1985 (prior to its premiere).

May have to go rent it somewhere...

UPDATE: CNN article on Orson Welles' involvement in the 1986 Transformers.