So I'm working on a Cyclonus story, generally happy with it, but I'm running into an imbalance between the Autobot and Decepticon plots, simply due to the lack of characters on the Decepticon side--it's basically Cyclonus, Scourge and an unspecified number of Sweeps. So anytime there's a Decepticon scene, all I'm doing is exploring how Cyclonus and Scourge bounce off each other.

I want some variation, but I don't want to artificially introduce non-Unicronians and I figure I've got at least half a dozen Sweeps... why not make some of them into actual characters? We do it all the time with other background generics.

I could just make them up cold, but are there any cartoon Sweeps who have been retroactively turned into distinct characters? I know different voice actors were cast depending on the episode--did any Sweep voices repeat across multiple episodes? Hell, are there any who stand out particularly in people's memories for something they said and did? (I've got nothing)

Velvet Glove (who has literally never given the Sweeps a moment's thought before and is now disproportionately regretting it.)

On Wednesday, September 6, 2023 at 10:48:06 AM UTC-4, Velvet Glove wrote:
> I could just make them up cold, but are there any cartoon Sweeps who have been retroactively turned into distinct characters? I know different voice actors were cast depending on the episode--did any Sweep voices repeat across multiple episodes? Hell, are there any who stand out particularly in people's memories for something they said and did? (I've got nothing)

Ah, good question! Well the one who stands out the most for most people is probably the one who got shot in the face by Wheelie and fell to his presumed death over Jupiter in FFOD, all while Galvatron tells him to his face (too soon?) to hurry up and die with dignity. Jeez. Poor Sweep.

They usually just cast whoever was on hand for that episode to be Sweeps, so for example there are some Chris Latta voiced Sweeps in the Starscream episodes. I'm kind of partial to the one who wants to melt down Scourge with very little prompting, while the other one plays devil's advocate instead ("Why would he do that? He's our leader.") There's another funny one in Webworld who says "You're starting to sound like Galvatron!" only to be cowed into submission with a stern look and sheepishly add that it's not a bad thing.

None of them have ever been given official names, but it's been done in fanfic (I remember Raksha had "Razorwing", for example). I'm not against Sweeps having names. Someone will inevitably point out to the "Sweeps 6 and 7" thing from "Call of the Primitives" but that does not disprove the presence of names necessarily.

One thing that's very clear from watching the Sweeps in season 3 is that, whatever weird cloning replication method they have going on, they are distinctly sentient beings and not mindless drones. They have distinct personalities and bicker amongst themselves. I think they're definitely a ripe topic for exploration, and I look forward to see what you do with them!

On Wednesday, September 6, 2023 at 8:48:06 AM UTC-6, Velvet Glove wrote:
> I could just make them up cold, but are there any cartoon Sweeps who have been retroactively turned into distinct characters? I know different voice actors were cast depending on the episode--did any Sweep voices repeat across multiple episodes?

Like Sky Raider said, they tended to cast whichever actors were already working on the episode. The first one we hear speak (in "Five Faces of Darkness" part 3) sounds similar to Scourge, but he's not Scourge because Scourge has a conversation with him. There's another one in the same episode voiced by Charlie Adler (the famous one who gets blasted in the face by Wheelie). There are three Sweeps in "Starscream's Ghost," all with different voices (the first one is Jerry Houser). There are two Sweeps in "Ghost in the Machine" who both sound a lot like Starscream. In "Webworld," we get one voiced by Aron Kincaid who sounds exactly like Sky Lynx, and another by Jack Angel who sounds like a strangled Ultra Magnus ("For the glory of Galvatron!"). A third in that episode admonishes Cyclonus that he's "staring to sound like Galvatron" so that's at least three distinct voices in that episode.

"The Dweller in the Depths" uses a Galvatron body language sound by Frank Welker for one of the Sweeps as he's getting grabbed by the Dweller, so do we count that? Even though it's probably a mistake? We hear the Sweep voiced by Jack Angel again in this episode ("Galvatron, no, I beg you!").

In "Call of the Primitives" we get the one who announces "Sweep 6 and 7 coming in for a strike!" and he sounds like whoever is doing Swoop in this episode. There's another who calls Ultra Magnus a "miserable Autobot!" and it's Jack Angel again, so likely the same one from "Webworld" and "The Dweller in the Depths."
So that's around a dozen distinct voice characterizations for the Sweeps. Take your pick!

I think you're free to create whatever characterizations you feel are appropriate for the story you're writing. As a bunch, they seem to be characteristically cowardly, but that seems to be the only strong personality trait they share. It's interesting to note that they must have some memory of their former existence, as one of them was able to recognize Starscream's voice after hearing it come out of Cyclonus.

Zob (if I traded a Voyager-class Sweep toy for the upcoming Leader-class Swoop toy, would that be a Sweep-Swoop swap?)

Posted this eight hours ago, and I have spent an alarming percentage of this time working on a Cartoon Sweep Database. (Skyraider, I'm sorry to disappoint, but in all likelihood, I will spend days making my own personal list of Sweep individuals and it will affect maybe two lines of dialogue in the fic. This is the way I tend to work. But it's also possible that I'll spend the next three months creating stories for every single Sweep in my arbitrarily divided list... we'll see where the brain goes.)

On Wednesday, September 6, 2023 at 11:50:47 PM UTC+1, Zobovor wrote:

Ahahahaha! Oh Zobovor, you fell into my trap. I knew I was going to need you to hash out the voice actors. Now I'll whine incessantly at you to clear up every last bit of dialogue for me.

(I may have watched too much Galvatron over the past few hours)

> Like Sky Raider said, they tended to cast whichever actors were already working on the episode. The first one we hear speak (in "Five Faces of Darkness" part 3) sounds similar to Scourge, but he's not Scourge because Scourge has a conversation with him. There's another one in the same episode voiced by Charlie Adler (the famous one who gets blasted in the face by Wheelie).

The first one really interests me because he's the first character to question Galvatron's suitability as a leader--Sweeps are not characteristically independent thinkers. So he's the same voice actor as Scourge? He's definitely deeper than the other Sweeps who speak this episode.

I'm going to take your word for voice actors over TF wiki, since I know damn well you've got a good ear for this stuff. However, TF wiki lists Neil Ross as the sweep who Wheelie kills. Got any idea why that would be? I.e. does he voice one of the other sweeps in that scene, "audio sensors" and "its torture" or is it a straight up misidentification?
(TF wiki also claims Frank Welker, Corey Burton and Ed Gilbert voice sweeps in FFoD, but there's no indication of which episode/scene.)

> There are three Sweeps in "Starscream's Ghost," all with different voices (the first one is Jerry Houser).

Similarly, TF Wiki credits Beau Weaver and Paul Eiding alongside Jerry Houser for those three Sweeps. For the crypt scene, there's one with a posher, higher pitched accent, so I suppose that's Eiding and the other one is Weaver, unless you have other suggestions. In the later scene though, when they note that Cyclonus sounds like Starscream, it sounds to me like two completely new characters (I suppose one might be the Weaver sweep again, but the other?--my ear for this stuff is terrible.)

This is a *lovely* episode though for actually characterising three different individuals across the crypt scene. All of these three are keepers.

> There are two Sweeps in "Ghost in the Machine" who both sound a lot like Starscream. In "Webworld," we get one voiced by Aron Kincaid who sounds exactly like Sky Lynx, and another by Jack Angel who sounds like a strangled Ultra Magnus ("For the glory of Galvatron!"). A third in that episode admonishes Cyclonus that he's "staring to sound like Galvatron" so that's at least three distinct voices in that episode.

TFWiki lists Dick Gautier as the third, which confuses me since Rodimus isn't in that episode which is what you'd expect for Gautier to show up, but there's something Rodimus-esque in the delivery of the starting to sound like Galvatron line, so I could buy it. Is Jack Angel also the Sweep who says "As he helped us, Cyclonus?" The dialogue script has them both as Sweep 2. There's a sweep who talks when they arrive on Torkulon though and I can't tell if that's one of the earlier ones or a new one. (The script just lists him as Sweep, same as for 'starting to sound like Galvatron')

> "The Dweller in the Depths" uses a Galvatron body language sound by Frank Welker for one of the Sweeps as he's getting grabbed by the Dweller, so do we count that? Even though it's probably a mistake? We hear the Sweep voiced by Jack Angel again in this episode ("Galvatron, no, I beg you!").

Dweller in the Depths pretty consistently shows four Sweeps in the early scenes who go into the caves with the Decepticon party. Two of them get caught in the first encounter with the Dweller and Galvatron throws two to the zombies later. The 2nd and 3rd Sweeps only scream, so probably not good candidates for voice ID. TF Wiki says Jack Angel and Neil Ross voice Sweeps, so I'm presuming they've tagged Ross in for Sweep 1, who (I think) is the only sweep talking in those early scenes--his voice does get suddenly deeper for that scream as the Dweller drains him, which I'm guessing is the Welker scream you mentioned.

(It would be nice if we can match an FFoD Sweep that survives the miniseries with Sweep 1 here.)

>
> In "Call of the Primitives" we get the one who announces "Sweep 6 and 7 coming in for a strike!" and he sounds like whoever is doing Swoop in this episode. There's another who calls Ultra Magnus a "miserable Autobot!" and it's Jack Angel again, so likely the same one from "Webworld" and "The Dweller in the Depths."

The dialogue script has Sweep 6 deliver both the "coming in" line and the "up there" line that's animated to look like Swoop says it. I'm chalking that up to an error, since it makes no sense with anything else in episode for a Sweep to hear the voice.

I like that Jack Angel does appear across three episodes because that gives quite a bit of continuity for one Sweep. (He seems to get shot by Rodimus in his final appearance too).

> I think you're free to create whatever characterizations you feel are appropriate for the story you're writing. As a bunch, they seem to be characteristically cowardly, but that seems to be the only strong personality trait they share. It's interesting to note that they must have some memory of their former existence, as one of them was able to recognize Starscream's voice after hearing it come out of Cyclonus.

Spoiler alert: I am not having them remember their former lives. Technically speaking, the Sweeps got to hear Starscream speak when Galvatron showed up at his coronation and killed him, so they might remember his voice from that. (It *is* pretty distinctive after all.)

Velvet Glove (who was also surprised by how much the Sweeps influence the Cyclonus / Scourge dynamic. There are some fairly indirect ways this exercise will affect the current story.)

On Wednesday, September 6, 2023 at 5:35:48 PM UTC-6, Velvet Glove wrote:

> The first one really interests me because he's the first character to question Galvatron's suitability as a leader--Sweeps are not characteristically independent thinkers. So he's the same voice actor as Scourge? He's definitely deeper than the other Sweeps who speak this episode.

Oh, I got it. He sounds like Blowpipe. It's John Moschitta. Solved!

> I'm going to take your word for voice actors over TF wiki, since I know damn well you've got a good ear for this stuff. However, TF wiki lists Neil Ross as the sweep who Wheelie kills. Got any idea why that would be? I.e. does he voice one of the other sweeps in that scene, "audio sensors" and "its torture" or is it a straight up misidentification?

So, here's the thing. I would say that I am probably primarily responsible for identifying the bulk of the voice actor list that we have today. Most voices I can identify readily, unless it's a heavily-synthesized performance, or a very small voice sample (or both). So I managed to come up with a list that was like ninety percent complete. But then, I feel like the wiki editors went, "well, we can't just put that we don't know, we have to put SOMETHING here" and so they would put together a list of all the voice actors who played the main characters in that episode and just picked one of them, just to "complete" the wiki entry. Suffice to say, I do not agree with that approach.

But, I'm still continuously revising and reassessing. For example, the fandom collectively assumed for DECADES that Frank Welker was doing the voice characterizations for Laserbeak, when it turns out that it was Chris Latta all this time. (In retrospect it's obvious, but it sure wasn't obvious to anybody for the last forty years!) I also do a lot of heavy cross-referencing from other shows, so I can get a good feel for a voice actor's true vocal range and abilities. You can't do that if the only performances you've ever heard are from Transformers.

But what embarrasses me is that a lot of my old guesses, which are wrong, have been recorded in the wiki or, even worse, in convention appearances where a voice actor is making a special guest appearance and they'll list the characters he played, and I see it and go, "No, don't tell people that! That was a guess I made in 1994!" but then it's out there on the Internet so it might as well be etched in stone. Sigh.

Regarding the Sweep creep that Wheelie shoots in the face, yeah, after taking another listen, that's most likely Neil Ross. Charlie Adler was a bad guess on my part. Sorry 'bout that.
> (TF wiki also claims Frank Welker, Corey Burton and Ed Gilbert voice sweeps in FFoD, but there's no indication of which episode/scene.)

I'm pretty sure the only time a Welker voice characterization is used for any of the Sweeps is when they use that Galvatron archive scream for one of them. I can't think of any Sweeps off the top of my head that sound like Corey Burton or Ed Gilbert, so I wonder which episodes they're thinking of.

> Similarly, TF Wiki credits Beau Weaver and Paul Eiding alongside Jerry Houser for those three Sweeps. For the crypt scene, there's one with a posher, higher pitched accent, so I suppose that's Eiding and the other one is Weaver, unless you have other suggestions. In the later scene though, when they note that Cyclonus sounds like Starscream, it sounds to me like two completely new characters (I suppose one might be the Weaver sweep again, but the other?--my ear for this stuff is terrible.)

> TFWiki lists Dick Gautier as the third, which confuses me since Rodimus isn't in that episode which is what you'd expect for Gautier to show up, but there's something Rodimus-esque in the delivery of the starting to sound like Galvatron line, so I could buy it.

"Webworld" has such a comparatively tiny voice cast that identifying everybody in the episode should theoretically be easy. But I'm struggling with this one. It sounds like Aron Kincaid to me. In this case, it doesn't make sense to cast Dick Gautier for a side character if he's not performing any of the principle roles.

(If you want some fun, watch the classic DuckTales episode "Down and Out in Duckburg" which features a fox character named Fritter O'Way, a very angry version of Sky Lynx. Or just a regular version of Jessica Morgan's father..)

> Is Jack Angel also the Sweep who says "As he helped us, Cyclonus?"

Yes.

> There's a sweep who talks when they arrive on Torkulon though and I can't tell if that's one of the earlier ones or a new one. (The script just lists him as Sweep, same as for 'starting to sound like Galvatron')

The one who says "this place gives me the creeps"? That's definitely Aron Kincaid. No question. (He's basically doing his Killer Croc voice from Batman: the Animated Series.) I tend to assume that if we hear a Sweep with the same performer as an earlier scene, it's the same guy.

> I'm presuming they've tagged Ross in for Sweep 1, who (I think) is the only sweep talking in those early scenes--his voice does get suddenly deeper for that scream as the Dweller drains him, which I'm guessing is the Welker scream you mentioned.

It's this guy right here:

https://youtu.be/YTiB-r1o_Ns?si=-krhOs94xNY7ZiSd&t=552

He's Neil Ross when he says, "Where?!" but then that's Frank Welker who does the scream when he gets grabbed.

> (It would be nice if we can match an FFoD Sweep that survives the miniseries with Sweep 1 here.)

In the Star Wars fandom, they're able to point to individual Stormtroopers and go, "The one who stuns Princess Leia is the same one who gets shot by Luke Skywalker on the Death Star" or whatever, because there were very minor flaws in the costumes (paint scratches and such) that allowed for individual identification. Too bad we can't do that with the Sweeps!

> I like that Jack Angel does appear across three episodes because that gives quite a bit of continuity for one Sweep. (He seems to get shot by Rodimus in his final appearance too).

Yeah, it feels more like a character and a little less like just random voice actors being asked to deliver lines. Not quite the same sense of continuity you get with the Quintessons, who feel like the same bunch in every episode in which they appear. But still.

> Spoiler alert: I am not having them remember their former lives. Technically speaking, the Sweeps got to hear Starscream speak when Galvatron showed up at his coronation and killed him, so they might remember his voice from that. (It *is* pretty distinctive after all.)

That's a totally valid take. I like the *idea* of characters remembering who they used to be, mostly because it creates a sense of continuity, but I think the canon probably supports your take more readily. Scourge never really acted like Thundercracker and Cyclonus never really behaved like Skywarp *or* Bombshell, so it's definitely possible Unicron simply wiped their minds and started with a clean slate. Megatron/Galvatron is a little more tricky, for reasons that have been discussed at length. (Both of them like the phrase "I will crush you with my bare hands," and it seems strange that Galvatron would seek revenge on Starscream without having Megatron's motives somewhere inside him. Two reasons of many.)

Zob ("...I threw a ROCK at him! Well, it was a BIG rock...")

On Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 4:47:31 PM UTC+1, Zobovor wrote:
> Oh, I got it. He sounds like Blowpipe. It's John Moschitta. Solved!

What tickles me about this is that it's something the fandom has literally never known about the G1 cartoon until this moment. And it's not exactly impactful in any way, but it's cool! Especially since John Moschitta didn't seem to get much to do outside of Blurr (although this makes me wonder if he was doing extra voices all along, but because people only knew him for Blurr, he's never got the credit for them. Like he did a few lines of Wheelie in one of the FFoD episodes for whatever reason, and I don't think anybody worked out who it was until Wally Burr's notes for the episode were found?)

> But, I'm still continuously revising and reassessing. For example, the fandom collectively assumed for DECADES that Frank Welker was doing the voice characterizations for Laserbeak, when it turns out that it was Chris Latta all this time. (In retrospect it's obvious, but it sure wasn't obvious to anybody for the last forty years!) I also do a lot of heavy cross-referencing from other shows, so I can get a good feel for a voice actor's true vocal range and abilities. You can't do that if the only performances you've ever heard are from Transformers.

And this is why I put more stock in you than almost anybody else. I am basically useless--I have a terrible ear for voices and accents, and can be talked into and out of believing almost anybody's talking. (OK, I'm very confident in saying none of the sweeps were voiced by Sue Blu, but basically anybody else is a contender as far as I'm concerned.)

> Regarding the Sweep creep that Wheelie shoots in the face, yeah, after taking another listen, that's most likely Neil Ross. Charlie Adler was a bad guess on my part. Sorry 'bout that.

Updated! It's a shame he plays the one who dies, so we can't have continuity with the one in Dweller.

> > (TF wiki also claims Frank Welker, Corey Burton and Ed Gilbert voice sweeps in FFoD, but there's no indication of which episode/scene.)
> I'm pretty sure the only time a Welker voice characterization is used for any of the Sweeps is when they use that Galvatron archive scream for one of them. I can't think of any Sweeps off the top of my head that sound like Corey Burton or Ed Gilbert, so I wonder which episodes they're thinking of.

OK, in FFoD 5, there's a bit about 9 minutes in where some Sweeps get shot and crash into each other, and there is three lines of reaction dialogue: "Look out, you idiot!" "Watch it!" "When this is over, I'm gonna--" Maybe those are the three voices they've identified as Welker, Burton and Gilbert?

> "Webworld" has such a comparatively tiny voice cast that identifying everybody in the episode should theoretically be easy. But I'm struggling with this one. It sounds like Aron Kincaid to me. In this case, it doesn't make sense to cast Dick Gautier for a side character if he's not performing any of the principle roles.

Webworld is a weird one, because the dialogue script has Sweep #2 speak first, "For the glory of Galvatron," then Sweep #4: "I'll help you mighty Galvatron!", then Sweep #2 again: "As he helped us, Cyclonus?" then Sweep (no number) "You're starting to sound like Galvatron"

Later in the episode, un-numbered Sweep says "This place gives me the creeps," and in Act III, Sweep #1 says "The planet is going crazy!"

My assumption is that in the full script, the Sweeps would appear in numbered order (i.e., between the dialogue of #2 and #4, Sweep #3 would be the one that Sky Lynx shakes up) and that Sweep #1 and Sweep are the same character. I don't know how much Wally Burr worried about keeping the voices consistent with the numbers in episode, but you've now identified Jack Angel for both Sweep #2's lines and Aron Kincaid for un-numbered Sweep's lines. I thought #4 was the one who sounded most like Sky Lynx, so is Aron Kincaid just doing all Sweeps that aren't #2?

> (If you want some fun, watch the classic DuckTales episode "Down and Out in Duckburg" which features a fox character named Fritter O'Way, a very angry version of Sky Lynx. Or just a regular version of Jessica Morgan's father.)

Shouldn't Fritter O'Way be Irish?! I'm curious now... I recognise the episode title, but I've not seen it since I was a kid!

> > I'm presuming they've tagged Ross in for Sweep 1, who (I think) is the only sweep talking in those early scenes--his voice does get suddenly deeper for that scream as the Dweller drains him, which I'm guessing is the Welker scream you mentioned.
> It's this guy right here:
>
> https://youtu.be/YTiB-r1o_Ns?si=-krhOs94xNY7ZiSd&t=552
>
> He's Neil Ross when he says, "Where?!" but then that's Frank Welker who does the scream when he gets grabbed.
> > (It would be nice if we can match an FFoD Sweep that survives the miniseries with Sweep 1 here.)
> In the Star Wars fandom, they're able to point to individual Stormtroopers and go, "The one who stuns Princess Leia is the same one who gets shot by Luke Skywalker on the Death Star" or whatever, because there were very minor flaws in the costumes (paint scratches and such) that allowed for individual identification. Too bad we can't do that with the Sweeps!

That's actually really cool. I love that people have figured that out... and yes, it's a shame we can't do that here.

> That's a totally valid take. I like the *idea* of characters remembering who they used to be, mostly because it creates a sense of continuity, but I think the canon probably supports your take more readily. Scourge never really acted like Thundercracker and Cyclonus never really behaved like Skywarp *or* Bombshell, so it's definitely possible Unicron simply wiped their minds and started with a clean slate. Megatron/Galvatron is a little more tricky, for reasons that have been discussed at length. (Both of them like the phrase "I will crush you with my bare hands," and it seems strange that Galvatron would seek revenge on Starscream without having Megatron's motives somewhere inside him. Two reasons of many.)

Oh, Galvatron's the exception. I figure Unicron wanted to exploit Megatron's leadership skills, whereas for his minions, he just didn't care. But due to the way the cartoon characterised Cyclonus and Scourge and the inconsistency of who did and didn't survive, I think it gets too messy to try and draw on that well. (For purposes of symmetry, I'd love for them to be Skywarp and Thundercracker, but the characters just don't follow over in any sensible fashion... If they had been Soundwave and Shockwave, that would be totally different.)

OK, so.... Sweep database is coming along beautifully. Further to the lines of dialogue I mentioned above, other unidentified voices are:

Five Faces of Darkness part 3:
"This is blowing out my audio sensors!"
"It's torture!"

Starscream's Ghost:
There are three sweeps, and I think I've figured out which is saying what line in the crypt scene, but as they're flying away afterwards, I can't tell who is doing these two lines of dialogue. (It's supposed to be two out of Jerry Houser, Beau Weaver and Paul Eiding.)

"There seems to be something wrong with Cyclonus' voice."
"Yes! He sounds like Starscream!"

Also, who says the last line of the episode after being possessed by Starscream? I'm not sure if it's meant to be Scourge or a Sweep.

Burden Hardest to Bear
When Galvatron regains control at the end, one of Scourge's sweeps gets a panic line:

"Uh-oh! It's all over! Beat feet!"

And for the record, the current list of 'definite' individual Sweeps. FFoD credits the sweep Wheelie kills as "Doomed Sweep" which I enjoyed more than numbering so I have attached similar tags to the rest of them. Please note that none of these adjectives have any canonical source.

1. Redshirt Sweep from Movie
Blown up by Dinobots in the 2nd attack on Autobot City. Killed too early to be anybody else on this list.

2. Thinking Sweep (John Moschitta) from FFoD part 3
Retrieved Galvatron from Thrull, but showed independence of thought when he was literally the first Decepticon to question Galvatron’s sanity.

3. Doomed Sweep (Neil Ross) from FFoD Part 3
Retrieved Galvatron from Thrull, only to have his guidance system taken out by Wheelie, causing him to fall to his to death in Jupiter's storms. He expected Galvatron to save him, trusting his leader, and was horrified when Galvatron didn't even try.

4. Audio Sensors Sweep / Sweep 7 from FFoD part 3, Call of the Primitives
Capable enough soldier. Retrieves Galvatron and survives through most of the series to Call of the Primitives. (According to TF wiki, the Japanese Legends comic names this particular sweep as Sweep 7, while a Sweep 7 is named in Call of the Primitives but never talks. It's a bit of cross-canon-referencing to amalgamate the two characters, but there's no reason not to, IMO.)

5. Torture Sweep from FFoD Part 3
Retrieved Galvatron. Didn't enjoy Jupiter's storm but he survived it. Really got nothing else on him.

6. Sweep 6 from Call of the Primitives
This is the one who names himself in his dialogue alongside Sweep 7, as they make an attack run on the Autobots. According to the script, he then hears the voice but Swoop was animated delivering this line. Considering the voice calls on 'Sweep' rather than Swoop, I kind of wonder if Donald Glut got confused and thought that since the Sweeps had Dinobot-like names, they were actually Decepticon-Dinobots?

Click here to read the complete article

Update: I just realised that the Sunbow archive has a Wally Burr entry on the blog where the documents haven't been properly uploaded yet, but it includes a picture of a call-sheet for FFoD 3. This confirms John Moschitta as Sweep 1 and Neil Ross as the doomed sweep, but also names:

Frank Welker as the guy complaining about his audio sensors.
Charlie Adler for "It's torture!"

This is the only call sheet I've found with separate numberings for the Sweeps (the ones for FFoD part 5 and Dark Awakening just list them as 'sweeps' but in those cases the script also includes their dialogue in one 'adlib' line). It looks like numbered sweeps in a script would have had a consistent voice actor for each line.

Velvet Glove (Wish I'd found this three days ago!)

On Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 12:44:27 PM UTC-6, Velvet Glove wrote:

> OK, in FFoD 5, there's a bit about 9 minutes in where some Sweeps get shot and crash into each other, and there is three lines of reaction dialogue: "Look out, you idiot!" "Watch it!" "When this is over, I'm gonna--" Maybe those are the three voices they've identified as Welker, Burton and Gilbert?

Those voices are all so heavily muffled that I'm having a great deal of difficulty making a positive identification.
> Later in the episode, un-numbered Sweep says "This place gives me the creeps," and in Act III, Sweep #1 says "The planet is going crazy!"

The one who says "this place gives me the creeps" is Aron Kincaid, for sure.. "The planet's going crazy!" sounds like Neil Ross to me.

> I don't know how much Wally Burr worried about keeping the voices consistent with the numbers in episode, but you've now identified Jack Angel for both Sweep #2's lines and Aron Kincaid for un-numbered Sweep's lines. I thought #4 was the one who sounded most like Sky Lynx, so is Aron Kincaid just doing all Sweeps that aren't #2?

Seems that way, because he's doing a variation on his Sky Lynx voice for (checks your notes) Suck-Up Sweep during the battle for the isodrite, while the other guys who first arrive on Torkulon ("I want outta here!" and "this place gives me the creeps!"—not sure if that's just one Sweep speaking or two, since there are two in the scene) have the rougher DuckTales Fritter O'Way voice.

By the way, I have been checking the Hasbro Pulse channel on YouTube for some of these scenes, because it's faster than popping a DVD into my computer..
YouTube now identifies that Sweep scene as the "most watched" part of the episode. I think you or I, or both, might be affecting their algorithm!

> OK, so.... Sweep database is coming along beautifully. Further to the lines of dialogue I mentioned above, other unidentified voices are:
> Five Faces of Darkness part 3:
> "This is blowing out my audio sensors!"
> "It's torture!"
I see you covered this in a later post, so moving on.

> Starscream's Ghost:
> There are three sweeps, and I think I've figured out which is saying what line in the crypt scene, but as they're flying away afterwards, I can't tell who is doing these two lines of dialogue. (It's supposed to be two out of Jerry Houser, Beau Weaver and Paul Eiding.)
>
> "There seems to be something wrong with Cyclonus' voice."

This is Jerry Houser.

> "Yes! He sounds like Starscream!"

This one I'm not sure about. Why are we so sure that Paul Eiding is performing a Sweep in this episode, exactly? Perceptor's not even in the episode..

> Also, who says the last line of the episode after being possessed by Starscream? I'm not sure if it's meant to be Scourge or a Sweep.

I'm pretty sure that's Scourge.

> Burden Hardest to Bear
> When Galvatron regains control at the end, one of Scourge's sweeps gets a panic line:
>
> "Uh-oh! It's all over! Beat feet!"

Is that one Sweep speaking, or two? Because Beat Feet Sweep sounds like Neil Ross to me, but the It's All Over Sweep is speaking by inhaling (?!), it sounds like, which is a) super weird and b) is making it very difficult to get a good actor identification.

> 6. Sweep 6 from Call of the Primitives
> This is the one who names himself in his dialogue alongside Sweep 7, as they make an attack run on the Autobots. According to the script, he then hears the voice but Swoop was animated delivering this line. Considering the voice calls on 'Sweep' rather than Swoop, I kind of wonder if Donald Glut got confused and thought that since the Sweeps had Dinobot-like names, they were actually Decepticon-Dinobots?

When you've got a bunch of names like Slag and Snarl and Sludge and Swoop, I guess it's easy enough to accidentally throw in the name Sweep somewhere in there, too. I always thought they had just gotten a substitute voice actor for Swoop, but Swoop is actually voiced by Michael Bell later in the episode, so it seemed weird that he would be miscast like that.
> 7. Lazy Sweep (Jerry Houser) from Starscream’s Ghost
> 8. Stupid Sweep (Beau Weaver?) from Starscream’s Ghost
> 9. Dignified Sweep (Paul Eiding?) from Starscream’s Ghost

Agreed that Stupid Sweep sounds enough like Octane to make that work. Dignified Sweep I can't figure out right now.

> I'm still going through various other episodes where Sweeps appear but don't have lines to make up a 'non-specific' list of Sweeps, which have a distinctive moment but who could easily be ascribed to any of the above characters.

Yeah, they're hard enough to identify and match up voice actors, but when they don't even talk, they could be literally anybody (except the ones that have been destroyed, I guess).

> Velvet Glove (who is getting disproportionate amounts of enjoyment from this largely pointless exercise)

I love that you're giving them descriptive designations. They're honestly great. It reminds me a bit of the Foot Soldiers who would appear in the Ninja Turtles video games. They were normally dressed in a blue-and-purple outfit, but Konami invented all these wacky color schemes for them, and armed each color version with a different signature weapon. They didn't actually get names, but I ended up making a whole list of them and gave them goofy names like Banana Soldier (he was yellow and threw a boomerang that kind of looked like a banana), Sledge Hammer Soldier, Coat Rack Soldier, etc. So, yes, I can tell you're having fun!

Zob (once we identify all the voice actors, does that mean we'll have made a... clean sweep?)

On Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 10:18:19 PM UTC+1, Zobovor wrote:
> > OK, in FFoD 5, there's a bit about 9 minutes in where some Sweeps get shot and crash into each other, and there is three lines of reaction dialogue: "Look out, you idiot!" "Watch it!" "When this is over, I'm gonna--" Maybe those are the three voices they've identified as Welker, Burton and Gilbert?
> Those voices are all so heavily muffled that I'm having a great deal of difficulty making a positive identification.

Durn. Especially because that's such a full episode voice-cast-wise. The world may never know...

> The one who says "this place gives me the creeps" is Aron Kincaid, for sure. "The planet's going crazy!" sounds like Neil Ross to me.
I'd love to see the full script for Webworld just to figure out the logic behind the numbering! But if it's Neil Ross talking in Act 3, then we can say it's Hapless Sweep from Dweller, so that's fine. (From the storyboards, there should be two sweeps in Act 3, to match the two sweeps we see arriving on Torkulon in the episode.)

>
> By the way, I have been checking the Hasbro Pulse channel on YouTube for some of these scenes, because it's faster than popping a DVD into my computer.
> YouTube now identifies that Sweep scene as the "most watched" part of the episode. I think you or I, or both, might be affecting their algorithm!

Hah! Yeah, I've been using Hasbro Pulse for all of these.

> > "There seems to be something wrong with Cyclonus' voice."
> This is Jerry Houser.

Thank you!

> > "Yes! He sounds like Starscream!"
> This one I'm not sure about. Why are we so sure that Paul Eiding is performing a Sweep in this episode, exactly? Perceptor's not even in the episode..

TF Wiki says Paul Eiding does a Sweep this episode, but that might just be because Dignified Sweep has a slightly posher voice? I think Perceptor is on screen at one point, but he doesn't have a line, so you're right that it doesn't make any sense for Paul Eiding to be there. I suppose it's more likely to be Silverbolt's VA or one of the Combaticons that show up at one point. (Annoyingly, we don't even have a proper dialogue script for this episode! The one that exists was clearly typed up retroactively, and also transcribes the title song and the end secret files of teletraan segment.)

> > "Uh-oh! It's all over! Beat feet!"
> Is that one Sweep speaking, or two? Because Beat Feet Sweep sounds like Neil Ross to me, but the It's All Over Sweep is speaking by inhaling (?!), it sounds like, which is a) super weird and b) is making it very difficult to get a good actor identification.

The existing script has it as one sweep speaking (though credited as Sweep #1 which suggests there's a Sweep #2 role), but when watching it, I did think it looked like Beat Feat was being said in response to "it's all over." Neil Ross seems to have been a bit of a go-to for Sweeps. For the sake of Hapless Sweep's continuity, I'm very disappointed this one doesn't get injured. (He's now learned to call a retreat first.)

> When you've got a bunch of names like Slag and Snarl and Sludge and Swoop, I guess it's easy enough to accidentally throw in the name Sweep somewhere in there, too. I always thought they had just gotten a substitute voice actor for Swoop, but Swoop is actually voiced by Michael Bell later in the episode, so it seemed weird that he would be miscast like that.

My theory is that they caught the error at the storyboard stage, so while the line had already been recorded, they just animated it to a more appropriate character.

> I love that you're giving them descriptive designations.

I started out thinking that I would number them which is the most canonical way to distinguish them, but I found it totally useless as a memory aid. Giving them little descriptors solidified them for me much more effectively!

> Zob (once we identify all the voice actors, does that mean we'll have made a... clean sweep?)

If you can identify all the voice actors, you'll have earned the right to make that pun!

Velvet Glove (who can't sleep so is just going to update her notes; because nothing's better for insomnia than going on a laptop.... Wait.)

(Just going to keep updating this thread randomly)

Hey, Zob, my plan is to put some sort of finalised version of this up on my website for future reference... Obviously, I want to credit you for the all the voice info. How would you like me to do that? Is there anywhere you want me to link to? Or just some sort of 'thanks to Zobovor' acknowledgment? (I'll probably also put in some kind of a disclaimer that these are your best guesses as of September 2023 and reserve you the right to change your mind, etc.)

I think I've figured out the reasoning for Paul Eiding being in Starscream's Ghost: the cast list of speaking parts for the episode include Perceptor even though he isn't in the finished product. This could mean he had a line that ended up being cut after the recording session, but considering this is the same list that has Blitzwing instead of Octane, I would consider it to be well out of date by the time of the recording. And you didn't think it was Eiding doing the Sweep anyway. But I was trying to figure out who the pool of voice actors was and it occurs to me that this is a really full episode for extra parts, with all the aliens--and they would have had to bring in at least one actress for the diner scene. But aside from Jerry Houser and (possibly) Beau Weaver, these guys would have been available for the Sweeps:

Kup – John Stephenson
Rodimus Prime – Dick Gautier
Silverbolt – Charlie Adler
Slingshot – Rob Paulsen
Galvatron – Frank Welker
Onslaught – S Marc Jordan
Blast Off – Milt Jamin
Scourge – Stan Jones
Cyclonus – Roger C Carmel
Starscream – Chris Latta
Skuxxoid – Corey Burton

(Which is still a *long* shortlist.) And when watching the episode again, I felt that the "sounds like Starscream!" line sounded more like Stupid Sweep than Dignified Sweep, so now I'm reconsidering Stupid Sweep's name....

I attempted a process of elimination for the FFoD 5 adlibs, looking at the callsheet for who already had three speaking roles that episode, which means we can eliminate Frank Welker, Jack Angel, Roger Carmel, and Bud Davis..... That leaves us with 18 possible voices, so yeah. That was pretty useless. (Fun fact: Dick Gautier was already cast as Rodimus by this point: notes on earlier call sheets show that he looped lines for parts 2 and 3 two weeks before part 5 was recorded; I wonder if Ted Schwartz was cast as Tailgate just because they had already booked/paid him for the session?)

There's also a couple of ad-libbing Sweep lines in Dark Awakening, when Optimus first appears, but these guys are literally talking over each other, so I doubt you'd be able to get anything from that. (I'm tempted to assume that every adlib or screamed line is Neil Ross and/or Jack Angel who are easily the most frequent Sweep actors.)

Otherwise, I guess we're still missing Sweep 6 from Call of the Primitives, which has the same problem as FFoD five in that there seem to have been a ton of voices that episode...

At any rate, I think it's safe to consider Sweep 6 and Dignified Sweep as unique individuals, so it's the FFoD 5 ad-libbers that bother me, because I can't decide whether to classify them as new individuals or just leave them as unspecified.

Some number statistics: By the end of Webworld, we've had at least 15 individual Sweeps built, at least five of which are already dead. We will need a minimum of six to account for the action over the rest of the series. After Big Broadcast of 2006, at least five will need to survive until The Burden Hardest to Bear and then we have at least three living through that episode to experience the Hate Plague. After the Hate Plague, the Sweeps will never be seen again....

Hapless Sweep is the only one of our individuals to definitely survive as far as the Hate Plague. Good Soldier, Sweep Six and Seven make it at least as far as Call of the Primitives.

Velvet Glove (who has also finally finished the first draft of the story this was all in aid of. I haven't actually named any of the Sweeps who now have dialogue within the story, but I absolutely know which one is which.)

On Tuesday, September 12, 2023 at 9:58:22 AM UTC-6, Velvet Glove wrote:

> Hey, Zob, my plan is to put some sort of finalised version of this up on my website for future reference... Obviously, I want to credit you for the all the voice info. How would you like me to do that? Is there anywhere you want me to link to? Or just some sort of 'thanks to Zobovor' acknowledgment?

No credit necessary. It was a group effort!

But I was trying to figure out who the pool of voice actors was and it occurs to me that this is a really full episode for extra parts, with all the aliens--and they would have had to bring in at least one actress for the diner scene. But aside from Jerry Houser and (possibly) Beau Weaver, these guys would have been available for the Sweeps:

> Kup – John Stephenson
> Rodimus Prime – Dick Gautier
> Silverbolt – Charlie Adler
> Slingshot – Rob Paulsen
> Galvatron – Frank Welker
> Onslaught – S Marc Jordan
> Blast Off – Milt Jamin
> Scourge – Stan Jones
> Cyclonus – Roger C Carmel
> Starscream – Chris Latta
> Skuxxoid – Corey Burton

The waitress sounds like Samantha Newark to me, so it's possible they just borrowed her from the Jem and the Holograms recording session across the hall.

Also, I'm not convinced those are the regular Combaticon actors in "Starscream's Ghost." Blast Off only has one line of dialogue and Onslaught only has a couple. I honestly think that's Jerry Houser doing Blast Off in that episode, and honestly it wouldn't be hard for somebody else to effect a British-sounding accent and pull off a decent fake Onslaught. But, it's possible that I'm allowing the fact that Onslaught got replaced in "The Rebirth" to cloud my perceptions.

I'm not sure who all the alien patrons are. One of them is clearly Stan Jones ("Is he with us? We gotta get moving!") and another is Samantha Newark again ("But I'm still hungry!") but I'm unclear on the guy who does most of the talking in that scene ("What, this? I picked it up on Mars!").

> I attempted a process of elimination for the FFoD 5 adlibs, looking at the callsheet for who already had three speaking roles that episode, which means we can eliminate Frank Welker, Jack Angel, Roger Carmel, and Bud Davis..... That leaves us with 18 possible voices, so yeah. That was pretty useless. (Fun fact: Dick Gautier was already cast as Rodimus by this point: notes on earlier call sheets show that he looped lines for parts 2 and 3 two weeks before part 5 was recorded; I wonder if Ted Schwartz was cast as Tailgate just because they had already booked/paid him for the session?)

I imagine so. Tailgate only has a bit part, and it's likely he wasn't considered an important character, so they probably just assigned him to whoever else was already going to be recording that day.

Zob (are we also going to identify all the generic Junkion voice actors some day...?)

On Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 8:50:06 PM UTC+1, Zobovor wrote:
>
> No credit necessary. It was a group effort!

You're getting some nod. The voice ID was entirely reliant on you!

> The waitress sounds like Samantha Newark to me, so it's possible they just borrowed her from the Jem and the Holograms recording session across the hall.
>
> Also, I'm not convinced those are the regular Combaticon actors in "Starscream's Ghost." Blast Off only has one line of dialogue and Onslaught only has a couple. I honestly think that's Jerry Houser doing Blast Off in that episode, and honestly it wouldn't be hard for somebody else to effect a British-sounding accent and pull off a decent fake Onslaught. But, it's possible that I'm allowing the fact that Onslaught got replaced in "The Rebirth" to cloud my perceptions.
>
> I'm not sure who all the alien patrons are. One of them is clearly Stan Jones ("Is he with us? We gotta get moving!") and another is Samantha Newark again ("But I'm still hungry!") but I'm unclear on the guy who does most of the talking in that scene ("What, this? I picked it up on Mars!").
>
> Zob (are we also going to identify all the generic Junkion voice actors some day...?)

Nah, it seems clear our next project will be to do the definitive alien database...

Anyway, in addition to my list of Sweeps, I've done an episode by episode breakdown of Sweep activity, with some suggestions for which Sweeps might be featured in non-speaking roles.

TF:TM
No sweeps are visible during Starscream’s coronation, but if we assume that they do not remember their previous lives as Decepticons, then there must have been some just off-screen, as Loudmouth Sweep will later be able to recognise Starscream’s voice.

At least four sweeps + Scourge are in the attack at Autobot City: Redshirt Sweep and three others. Their action is focused on the Dinobots around the first shuttle, where Redshirt Sweep is killed.

Contenders for the surviving Sweeps are:
1. Loudmouth Sweep, as he recognises Starscream’s voice.
2. Hapless Sweep, if we want to fanonise the coincidence of him always being Sweep #1.
3. Doomed Sweep, if we recognise the comic continuity of him being Sweep Four.
(Obviously, the latter two also require some assumptions on how the numbering works.)

On Junk, all the Decepticons attack. The surviving three Sweeps plus Scourge are strafing Ultra Magnus and Perceptor, possibly with more helping them. (It looks like dozens of Sweeps in this scene, but it’s possible the same few were repeatedly circling back around—I don’t think we ever see more than three plus Scourge). Three Sweeps with Scourge kill Ultra Magnus.

Neither the Sweeps nor Cyclonus and Scourge appear after Junk so far as I can tell.

FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS
There are a minimum of seven Sweeps at the start of Five Faces of Darkness.
1. Doomed Sweep
2. Thinking Sweep
3. Sweep Seven
4. Torture Sweep

Contenders for the others:
1. Loudmouth Sweep (see Movie)
2. Hapless Sweep (see Movie)
3. Sweep Six, if we assume that Sweep numbers follow the order of their creation.
4. Unidentified Sweeps from ad libbed lines in part 5.

At this innocent point in their lives, the Sweeps are subscribing wholesale to the idea of Galvatron as their lord and saviour. “Hail Galvatron!” is an almost pavlovian reaction.

Cyclonus takes two Sweeps on the first mission to Unicron’s head. They don’t enjoy it, obviously nervous, still fearing their former overlord.
• If we assume that these are the two who are left behind during the Thrull mission, then the likely contenders for this mission are Hapless Sweep, Loudmouth Sweep and/or Sweep Six.

Five Sweeps go on the mission to Thrull, four of which can be positively identified via dialogue: Doomed Sweep, Thinking Sweep, Sweep Seven, Torture Sweep. Of the five, all are hesitant when Galvatron emerges but end up in a devoted chorus of “Long live Galvatron!”

Galvatron then proceeds to teach them a lesson in humility by attacking them, sending them flying into the plasma:
1. Shot immediately when Galvatron starts attacking,
2. Shot second when Galvatron starts attacking,
3. Transforms but is shot down before he can manoeuvre.
4. Transforms and attempts to evade him, but is caught by exploding plasma,
5. Transforms, attacks in vain and is shot down.
• The plasma battle makes the count of five Sweeps definitive. The script actually describes six sweeps fighting Galvatron, but the final episode compresses the battle.

As the last one standing, Scourge successfully surrenders via arse-kissing. At least four Sweeps are shown leaving the plasma without serious injury afterwards, and as all five can be seen in the attack on the EDC space station, it can be assumed none were killed in this instance.

The Sweeps seem to be divided in their opinions at this point. Thinking Sweep is dubious about Galvatron but Doomed Sweep presumably still believes he will protect them. After destroying the human space station, the Sweeps follow Galvatron in pursuit of Blurr and Wheelie’s shuttle to Jupiter, where Doomed Sweep’s death confirms that Galvatron is not the leader they’ve been dreaming of.
• Considering how appalling Five Faces of Darkness animation quality is overall, it is remarkably consistent in the number of Sweeps here. Since Thrull, we’ve regularly seen five Sweeps together. From now until they reunite with the other Decepticons on the Quintesson ship, we will never see more than four Sweeps in a scene at once. (True, they won’t always be coloured correctly, but there will only be four of them.) We can probably credit the storyboard artists for that.

The remaining Sweeps suffer but survive Jupiter’s storm and end up heading back to Chaar, where they find the other Decepticons, save Blitzwing, have run off with the Quintessons. The Sweeps are a little subdued by this point and don’t contribute much for the next episode… but their conditioning is still going strong, so they can be counted on for a rousing chorus of “Hail Galvatron!” when needed to rally the other Decepticons back to Galvatron’s command.

At least four Sweeps are involved in the attack on Cybertron. They’re fighting a group of Autobots led by Perceptor, when Slingshot shoots one who barrel-rolls out of control through the other Sweeps.
• One narrowly avoids him: “Look out you idiot”
• Another collides with him—"Watch it!”—and spins out.
• The shot Sweep is left spinning upright. “When this is over I’m gonna…”
• Cyclonus orders “Quiet, you clumsy—” and he himself is collided with.

This is the first time we’ve heard Sweeps bickering. In absence of positive voice ID, they could each be one of the Sweeps previously mentioned or a completely new character.

DARK AWAKENING
Four Sweeps enter the mausoleum, panic when Optimus appears and flee. All escape. None do anything distinctive. They talk, but it’s hard to distinguish words let alone voices.
• For what it’s worth, the script gives their lines as:
AD LIB YELLS AND SCREAMS: "He's back! Nooo! Lemme out!"
AD LIB SHOUTS OF PANIC: "Back! Outta the way! Retreat!"
• Such behaviour is entirely in character for Hapless Sweep. Backpedalling Sweep wouldn’t be a bad call either, assuming he’s been created at this point.
• How the Sweeps recognise Optimus Prime is very much open for debate. He’s famous enough that they may have seen images of him, or maybe this is the proof that they retain memories of their former lives.

STARSCREAM'S GHOST
The three sweeps who take part in the mission to capture Octane are clearly defined:
1. Lazy Sweep
2. Loudmouth Sweep
3. Dignified Sweep

However, in the final scene, two show up with Scourge when Starscream secretly possesses them. It is likely that they are two of the same trio as earlier, but as they do absolutely nothing, they could be anybody. Another set of contenders are the pair of Sweeps that will appear in Ghost in the Machine:
1. Questioning Sweep
2. Bloodthirsty Sweep

SURPRISE PARTY
Three go with Cyclonus to secure the lost records asteroid, and find themselves defending against Ultra Magnus on one of the days that he can deal with that now.
1. Apparently killed from a shot to the chest by Ultra Magnus.
2. Attempts to hide behind a rock but is torn apart by one of Ultra Magnus’ missiles.
3. Shelters successfully behind the rock from the other missile, is flung into a bad crash from the explosion but transforms and escapes.

Sweeps available to be killed (i.e. not been killed on screen already, but don’t appear later):
1. Thinking Sweep
2. Torture Sweep
3. Lazy Sweep
4. Loudmouth Sweep
5. Dignified Sweep

The last three can be considered main contenders for this group as they worked as a trio for the capture of Octane in Starscream’s Ghost one episode earlier. However, they’re also three of the more distinctive personalities, and it could be argued based on this episode that they are Sweeps who specialise in ground-based missions rather than aerial combat. Essentially, they have more story potential than somebody like Torture Sweep..

GHOST IN THE MACHINE
The Sweeps in the opening scenes are clearly defined as Questioning and Bloodthirsty Sweep, although in the initial fight with Starscream / Scourge, it’s not clear which one is which. Both are seen firing and getting hit.

It is likely the Sweeps through the rest of the episode are this same pair; however, they could be any other living Sweep. One is seen on Chaar when Trypticon is stolen.

On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 3:15:55 AM UTC-4, Velvet Glove wrote:
>
> Velvet Glove (who is now better at recognising individual Sweeps than individual Constructicons)

That was an amazing breakdown Velvet Glove! And now you really have me wanting to re-watch some of these episodes that I have not seen in many years, probably almost 20 in some cases.

One thing I've noticed after reading this: you'll often hear it repeated that it was Galvatron always killing Sweeps, but your breakdown proves that this was not the case. Sure, he punched a lot of Sweeps, and threw some to the Dweller, and refused to save the one on Jupiter, but he didn't actually fatally shoot any of them. That's kind of a brain-bug that the fanbase came up with or misremembered and took it and ran with it. Poor Sweeps.

On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 1:59:06 PM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:

> One thing I've noticed after reading this: you'll often hear it repeated that it was Galvatron always killing Sweeps, but your breakdown proves that this was not the case. Sure, he punched a lot of Sweeps, and threw some to the Dweller, and refused to save the one on Jupiter, but he didn't actually fatally shoot any of them. That's kind of a brain-bug that the fanbase came up with or misremembered and took it and ran with it.

Okay, but nobody knew there was a cure for robot vampirism when the Dweller went on its rampage. Everybody, including Galvatron, believed getting their energy drained was a death sentence. So he didn't end their lives with a shot of his arm cannon, but he absolutely had every reason to believe that throwing a Sweep to the Dweller would result in his death.

The Sweeps fall into a weird area as almost-generic troops that sends the meta-message that it was okay to kill them in the show, like the Stormtroopers from Star Wars, in a way that it wouldn't be okay to kill off named characters who had Hasbro toy equivalents. When you see Galvatron shoot Starscream's ghost right out of Cyclonus' body and he's sitting there with a gaping hole in his body, you know that Cyclonus is going to get fixed up by the next episode. But when a Sweep collapses into a crumpled heap in "Surprise Party," you know he's a goner. The idea of Sweeps getting repaired after an on-screen "death" doesn't even occur to most people.

Zob (can we all just get together and agree that the Autobot mausoleum and the Decepticon crypt were one of the creepiest things on children's television? Pretty sure the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake didn't have graveyards for their dead characters...)

On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 4:46:21 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 1:59:06 PM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:
>
> > One thing I've noticed after reading this: you'll often hear it repeated that it was Galvatron always killing Sweeps, but your breakdown proves that this was not the case. Sure, he punched a lot of Sweeps, and threw some to the Dweller, and refused to save the one on Jupiter, but he didn't actually fatally shoot any of them. That's kind of a brain-bug that the fanbase came up with or misremembered and took it and ran with it.
> Okay, but nobody knew there was a cure for robot vampirism when the Dweller went on its rampage. Everybody, including Galvatron, believed getting their energy drained was a death sentence. So he didn't end their lives with a shot of his arm cannon, but he absolutely had every reason to believe that throwing a Sweep to the Dweller would result in his death.
>
> The Sweeps fall into a weird area as almost-generic troops that sends the meta-message that it was okay to kill them in the show, like the Stormtroopers from Star Wars, in a way that it wouldn't be okay to kill off named characters who had Hasbro toy equivalents. When you see Galvatron shoot Starscream's ghost right out of Cyclonus' body and he's sitting there with a gaping hole in his body, you know that Cyclonus is going to get fixed up by the next episode. But when a Sweep collapses into a crumpled heap in "Surprise Party," you know he's a goner. The idea of Sweeps getting repaired after an on-screen "death" doesn't even occur to most people.
>
>
> Zob (can we all just get together and agree that the Autobot mausoleum and the Decepticon crypt were one of the creepiest things on children's television? Pretty sure the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake didn't have graveyards for their dead characters...)

Fair point about the Dweller Zob. I guess I can amend that to say Galvatron didn't effectively or permanently kill any Sweeps, though not for lack of trying.

And on a meta level, I kind of hope for the Sweeps' sake they don't have memories of their past lives after all. Because remember: the Sweeps were born in the first place because of other Decepticons literally throwing them to their fate to save their own skins, and here we have another Decepticon again doing the exact same thing. Imagine a Sweep who can remember that he used to be Kickback or something and saying, "Oh god no, it's happening again!" as Galvatron chucks him toward the Dweller.

I do like how the Autobot mausoleum and Decepticon crypt both lent themselves to a character saying they won't have to take their intended victim anywhere.

On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 4:46:21 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> >
> > Zob (can we all just get together and agree that the Autobot mausoleum and the Decepticon crypt were one of the creepiest things on children's television? Pretty sure the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake didn't have graveyards for their dead characters...)

I'm pretty sure Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake weren't allowed to mention death. I remember as a kid noticing how they danced around the actual word in My Little Pony... There was one particular moment: "Is he..." *character coughs* "He's alive!" I think one of the writers sneaked a 'perish' through as well. Mind you, they definitely had graveyards and stuff in Scooby Doo, while keeping the tone fairly light. It makes a bit of a difference when the names on the graves are the guys who were taking the viewers on fun adventures a year ago...

On Thursday, September 21, 2023 at 1:17:22 AM UTC+1, Sky Raider wrote:
> Fair point about the Dweller Zob. I guess I can amend that to say Galvatron didn't effectively or permanently kill any Sweeps, though not for lack of trying.

I should note that I've been fairly conservative in my death count, mostly because characters do seem to survive all kinds of injuries in the show and it's not clear what constitutes a fatal wound. I counted as dead the Sweep in Surprise Party who is shown lying on the ground with fumes pouring out of his chest during the remainder of the fight--even if that wound was survivable, I don't think it's likely he received any medical attention. The other Sweeps that I've counted as dead were the ones who get blown apart (that's only usually survivable through Junkion intervention). But really, any time a Sweep gets shot down, it *might* be dead.

What I want to know is who are the Autobot redshirts? Think about how many ships explode in Dark Awakening... Your leader returns from the dead and cons you into following him into a trap, where (dozens? hundreds?) of your peers are killed before you realise how flimsy his story was. All the Autobots should have been an absolute psychological mess after that episode. Though the cartoon has a tendency to say all the occupants of exploding spacecraft get flung safely into space, so maybe that's what happened.
>
> And on a meta level, I kind of hope for the Sweeps' sake they don't have memories of their past lives after all. Because remember: the Sweeps were born in the first place because of other Decepticons literally throwing them to their fate to save their own skins, and here we have another Decepticon again doing the exact same thing. Imagine a Sweep who can remember that he used to be Kickback or something and saying, "Oh god no, it's happening again!" as Galvatron chucks him toward the Dweller.

Sweeps, however, go unmourned. I wonder if there's a Sweep graveyard on Chaar somewhere... And if anybody but the Sweeps visits it...

Velvet Glove (who intends to write the origins of the Decepticon crypt next, but I've managed to over-complicate things again, so... maybe I should aim to have it done for Halloween.)