BOYS DO CRYIt took a cartoon robot to help 8-year-old boys everywhere grapple with human mortality.
By
Tom Horgen, Star TribuneIt was the whimper heard around the world. Eight-year-old boys everywhere were in tears. • It was 1986 and
Transformers, one of the decade's most beloved cartoons (among 8-year-olds), had made it to the big screen. It was a monumental event (well, if you were eight), but something bad was about to happen. I was sitting next to my dad in some sticky little theater in northern Minnesota when that moment of complete and utter devastation came. •
Optimus Prime died.
Today that name sounds more like some doohickey for your laptop. Back then it was the name of our hero. Optimus was the leader of the good robots who fought against the bad robots for the fate of mankind.
But they killed him. Boys aren't supposed to cry, they say. But all over the theater, we wept like babies.
It was an experience I buried (the crying part), until I came across the old videos at Blockbuster or heard it mentioned on one of those silly VH1
I Love the '80s shows. I mean, we shed tears for a robot -- a cartoon robot. A cartoon robot created just to make us buy the toys.
But Optimus meant something to us. He was strong and noble, and there for us every morning on TV. No major character had ever died in cartoons. For some of us, it was the first time we had experienced the death of someone we "knew" -- and loved. And Optimus didn't just pass away: He was killed in action, brutally.
So the minute I heard there was a new special-edition DVD release this fall marking the movie's 20th anniversary, I went running through Big Box's sliding glass doors. I hadn't seen it in years (there was a crappy DVD version a few years ago that everyone ignored).
I was reaching back for something from childhood. But was it how I remembered? Surprisingly, yes. Watching it again was like reaffirming the truth in my memory. His death was still something special.
I feel better knowing the cartoon that made me cry at least had some aging Hollywood panache. I mean, it was
Orson Welles' last movie. Yeah, the guy who made
Citizen Kane voiced a giant, transforming planet in his final role. (Not a stretch, some might say.) And then there was the awesome '80s-rock soundtrack. You can't hate the power rock of
Stan Bush's The Touch. ("You got the touch!")
The DVD extras reveal some sad realities, however. One screenwriter admits he was clueless about how Optimus' death would affect legions of boys. "It was a toy show. We just thought we were killing off the old product line and introducing a new product."
I wanted to cry all over again when I heard that.
Our horrified reaction had a wider impact, too, at least in the cartoon world. It forced the other '80s mega cartoon --
G.I. Joe -- to rewrite the death of a major character in its movie, which was released the following year. (He got stabbed in the chest, but lived.)
The movie also stung for more mercenary reasons. I had all the toys -- in the original boxes -- but I sold them years later at a garage sale for 2 bucks a pop. Now they go for upward of $300 on eBay. Even my mom says it was a bad idea.
So maybe you grown-up
Transformers fans would do better to pretend the DVD never even happened -- it might just bring you more anguish. It'll remind you of when you cried for a cartoon (and of all those toys you pawned off). Or maybe I'm just a sentimental geek.
But I'm not alone, am I?
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