Beast Wars story editor Larry DiTillio sits down with Turin for a 32-minute phone interview on this February 25, 2000 Radio Free Cybertron. He explains how Hasbro kept Beast Wars on Earth, why he and Bob Forward fought the season two Transmetal changeover, and why Tarantulas and Rattrap were his favorites. John DeLuna’s ATT Buzz looks at the rise in off-topic posts on alt.toys.transformers. Altered States Magazine posts over 130 photos from Toy Fair 2000.
News
Altered States Magazine Posts Toy Fair 2000 Photos
Altered States Magazine, at Skyjammer.com, updated this week with over 130 images from Toy Fair 2000 covering most of the year’s new toys. RFC also thanks Skyjammer for a rotating banner that features the show. [Source: Altered States Magazine]
RFC Site Plugs
Turin, filling in for Brian Kilby, who lost his voice, plugs Marvel Universe Transformed. He also reminds fans of The Matrix TF’s Transformers Memorial Day on Yahoo Clubs.
ATT Buzz
John DeLuna says there was little hard news, but plenty of debate about off-topic posts. He blames the slow season, with only Toy Fair pictures and some Beast Machines episodes from Canada to talk about. He also blames a shift in the fan base, since the group was founded by fans who lived G1. He points to ATTCM, where G1 fans keep talking without new material, and reminds posters that ATT is a newsgroup about Transformers.
Interview: Larry DiTillio
Since Beast Wars, Larry DiTillio has worked on Kong, the animated series, a co-production with France. He names Roger Zelazny as his top influence, along with Michael Moorcock, Jack Kerouac, Fritz Leiber and Harlan Ellison. In film and TV he admires David Chase, David Webb Peoples, Frank Darabont and Kevin Smith. He doesn’t see himself as a children’s writer but aims for family shows that kids and parents enjoy on different levels, which he thinks Beast Wars came closest to.
Hasbro required Beast Wars to stay on one planet and later insisted it be Earth, which he found limiting. He and Bob Forward added the aliens and G1 elements to push beyond two factions. Had the show continued, they would have taken it into space. Early on, a supportive Hasbro liaison left them alone, but interference grew once the show became a hit.
His favorite characters to write were Tarantulas, a sociopath with his own agenda, and Rattrap, a breakout character every writer wanted. He also praises Dinobot’s arc to nobility and calls the voice cast terrific. Scorponok and Terrorsaur were killed off because they were one-note in a cast of about 14.
He calls the season two opener’s aftermath his low point. Hasbro wanted new price-point toys, an immediate return for Optimus Primal and everyone changed to Transmetals in the first episode. The writers won only the right to bring Primal back at the end of that episode, and built the rules for the change from the Other Voices cliffhanger.
His high point was the first season, with animation that let them show expressions instead of spelling everything out in dialogue. He singles out The Spark and the Other Voices two-parter, which introduced Blackarachnia. The third season, with a new producer and the most interference, was the low point, and he and Bob were ready to leave after 52 episodes. Hasbro never liked the aliens because there were no alien toys.
He has only glimpsed Beast Machines. He likes the animation but not the less cuddly character look, especially Cheetor’s. He calls Bob Skir and Marty Isenberg good writers who face heavy Hasbro pressure and strong fan attachment to the old characters. He would work on Transformers again but doubts Hasbro will hire him, since he is expensive. He recently answered questions for a Japanese Beast Wars book.
Radio Free Cybertron is the world's first and oldest toy and action figure podcast — broadcasting from the heart of the Transformers fan community since October 1999. What started as a scrappy fan show has grown into an institution, with nearly 1,000 episodes and over 25 years of coverage. Every week, host Brian Kilby and the RFC crew dig into the latest Transformers news, toy reveals, collecting, and everything hitting shelves from Hasbro, Takara, and beyond. No fluff, no hype — just informed, passionate collectors who have been doing this longer than anyone else on the planet. The original. The longest running. Till all are one.