The Third Column
- Studio
- Hanna-Barbera Studios
- Animation studio
- Cuckoo's Nest Studio, Wang Film Productions Co., Ltd.
- Distributor
- TeleRep
Synopsis
Earth is the battleground in an interplanetary struggle between good and evil when a distant, scientifically advanced world erupts in war. On GoBotron, the noble guardian GoBots, a race of robots that can transforminto vehicles, pursue the evil renegade GoBots- called Cykills- who scheme to enslave Earth and use its resources to conquer GoBotron and the galaxy.
Characters
Scooter, Spoiler, Tank, Zeemon, Rest-Q, Blaster, Cy-Kill, Crasher, Buggyman, Coptur, Dozer, Fitor, Leader 1, Pathfinder, Turbo, Loco, Pumper, Space-C, Tank, Matt Hunter, Nick Burns, A.J. Foster, Dr. Braxis, General Newcastle, Vanguard, Dr. Go, Klaws, Hornet, Heat-Seeker
Credits
Directing
- Director
- Art Davis, Oscar Dufau, Volus Jones, Don Lusk, Ray Patterson, Rudy Zamora, Alan Zaslove
- Assistant Directors
- Bob Goe, Bill Hutten, Rick Leon, Tony Love, Don Patterson, James T. Walker
- Supervising Director
- Ray Patterson
Producing
- Producer
- Kay Wright
- Producer, Tonka
- Lois Hanrahan
- Co-Producer, Tonka
- Ray McDonald
- Associate Producer
- Lew Saw
- Executive Producers
- William Hanna, Joseph Barbera
- Co-Executive Producer
- Joe Taritero
- Executive Producer, Tonka
- Patrick S. Feely
Writing
- Writer
- Reed Robbins, Peter Salas, Kelly Ward, Mark Young, Antoni Zalewski, Mark Zaslove
- Story Editors
- Jeff Segal, Kelly Ward
Voices
- Voice
- Lou Richards (Leader 1), Art Burghardt (Turbo), Frank Welker (Scooter), Bernard Erhard (Cy-Kill), Bob Holt (Cop-Tur), Marilyn Lightstone (Crasher), Morgan Paull (Matt), Leslie Speights (A.J.), Sparky Marcus (Nick Burns), Rene Auberjonois (Dr. Braxis), Brock Peters (General Newcastle), Ken Campbell (Vanguard), Philip L. Clarke (Dr. Go), Richard Gautier (Klaws), Darryl Hickman (Hornet), Kirby Ward (Heat-Seeker), Adrienne Alexander, Lewis Arquette, Bever-Leigh Banfield, Jered Barclay, Eddie Barth, Michael Bell, Robin Braxton, Candy Ann Brown, Steve Bulen, Howard Caine, William Callaway, Selette Cole, Henry Corden, Regis Cordic, Jennifer Darling, Jerry Dexter, George Dicenzo, Richard A. Dysart, Paul Eiding, Phil Hartman, Erv Immeman, David Jolliffe, Zale Kessler, Peter Leeds, Norma MacMillan, Tress MacNeille, Kenneth Mars, Bill Martin, Walter Matthews, Gail Matthius, Amanda McBroom, Joseph G. Medalis, Allan Melvin, Scott Menville, Sidney Miller, Noelle North, Soon-Tek Oh, Alan Oppenheimer, Laurel Page, Rob Paulsen, Robert Ridgely, Josh Rodine, Shavar Ross, Marilyn Schreffler, Michael Sheehan, Andre Stojka, Steve Susskind, Mark L. Taylor, Brian Tochi, Les Tremayne, Manu Tupou, Jimmy Weldon, Eric Williams, Keone Young, Ted Zeigler
Music
- Music
- Hoyt S. Curtin
- Music Supervisor
- Paul DeKorte
Editing
- Editor
- Gil Iverson
- Supervising Film Editor
- Larry C. Cowan
Crew
- Creative Supervisor and Story Editor
- Jeff Segal
- Associate Story Editor
- Kelly Ward
- Story Direction
- Robert Taylor, Kent Butterworth, Roy Wilson, Rhoydon Shishido, Michael Swanigan, Peter Von Sholly, Rich Chidlaw, Larry Latham, Marija Dail, Dale Barnhart, Tom Sito, George Scribner, Bill Kroyer
- Recording Director
- Gordon Hunt
- Animation Casting Director
- Andrea Romano
- Titles
- Bill Perez
- Graphics
- Iraj Paran, Tom Wogatzke
- Design Supervisor
- Davis Doi
- Character Design
- Michael McHugh, Tony Sgroi
- Background Color Key
- Eric Heschong
- Background Supervisor
- Al Gmuer
- Background Artists
- Eric Heschong, Mike Humphries, James Hegedus
- Production Supervisor
- Lynn Hoag
- Technical Advisor
- Bob Marples
- Animation Supervisors
- Richard Bowman, Gary Hurst, Willard Kitchen, Mark Simon
- Sound Directors
- Alvy Dorman, Phil Flad
- Dubbing Supervisor
- Pat Foley
- Supervising Music Editor
- Joe Sandusky
- Supervising Effects Editors
- Michael Bradley, Kerry Williams
- Negative Consultant
- William E. DeBoer
- Post Production Supervisor
- Joed Eaton
- Executives in Charge of Production
- Jayne Barbera, Jean MacCurdy
Companies and other credits
- Music and Effects: Vitello and Associates
- Produced in Association With: Cuckoo's Nest Studio
- Produced in Association With: Wang Film Productions Co
- Produced in Association With: Ltd
- A HANNA-BARBERA PRODUCTION
- © Copyright 1984 Hanna-Barbera Productions
- Inc. All Rights Reserved
- The Go-Bots and all related indicia: ® and © 1984 Tonka Corp. All Rights Reserved
Production notes
Earth is the battleground in an interplanetary struggle between good and evil when a distant, scientifically advanced world erupts in war. On GoBotron, the noble guardian GoBots, a race of robots that can transforminto vehicles, pursue the evil renegade GoBots- called Cykills- who scheme to enslave Earth and use its resources to conquer GoBotron and the galaxy.
Racing into the marketplace at nearly the same time as Hasbro's Transformers., Tonka launched its own "Mighty Robots, Mighty Vehicles," the GoBots. The transforming robots-robot to plane, car, helicopter, motorcycle, etc., and back-had been a major craze on the Japanese toy scene for years, and the U.S. versions were just as successful. The toys caught on like wildfire, and both Tonka and Hasbro fed the flames with syndicated cartoon versions of their mechanical warlords.
Challenge of the GoBots began on the planet Gobotron, where a group of robots called Guardians were created as planetary protectors. But good robots can go bad, and under the command of motorcycle/robot Cy-Kill, the Guardians raged against the machine, becoming a band of insurrectionists known as the Renegades. And so, it was up to jet/robot Leader-1 and his team of loyal Guardians to keep Gobotron from destruction.
Fighting on the side of good were Scooter, Smallfoot, Turbo, Rest-Q and others. Cy-Kill's evil henchmen included Crasher, Cop-Tur, Loco, Fitor and Pincher. In the pilot episode, the war moved to earth, where the good Guardians were befriended by heroic human Matt Hunter and youngsters Nick and A.J.
The battle continued for 65 episodes and led to an animated feature, GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords, but Leader-1 and the gang never managed to hit the same level of popularity as their Hasbro rivals.
Racing into the marketplace at nearly the same time as Hasbro's Transformers., Tonka launched its own "Mighty Robots, Mighty Vehicles," the GoBots. The transforming robots-robot to plane, car, helicopter, motorcycle, etc., and back-had been a major craze on the Japanese toy scene for years, and the U.S. versions were just as successful. The toys caught on like wildfire, and both Tonka and Hasbro fed the flames with syndicated cartoon versions of their mechanical warlords.
Challenge of the GoBots began on the planet Gobotron, where a group of robots called Guardians were created as planetary protectors. But good robots can go bad, and under the command of motorcycle/robot Cy-Kill, the Guardians raged against the machine, becoming a band of insurrectionists known as the Renegades. And so, it was up to jet/robot Leader-1 and his team of loyal Guardians to keep Gobotron from destruction.
Fighting on the side of good were Scooter, Smallfoot, Turbo, Rest-Q and others. Cy-Kill's evil henchmen included Crasher, Cop-Tur, Loco, Fitor and Pincher. In the pilot episode, the war moved to earth, where the good Guardians were befriended by heroic human Matt Hunter and youngsters Nick and A.J.
The battle continued for 65 episodes and led to an animated feature, GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords, but Leader-1 and the gang never managed to hit the same level of popularity as their Hasbro rivals.