I assume everybody here knows what Cel Animation is.

I would probably choose the iconic Animation error in "The Search for Alpha Trion"
where Optimus Prime is missing his mouthplate.

Or any given frame from the movie.

Swivelbot

The answer would really depend on how old I was when you asked. In '84 I was completely in love with the scene where Shrapnel fires lightning bolts from his hands in A Plague of Insecticons. It was immortalized as Action Card #188:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115203091963

From '85 it would have be Briticus firing SHockwave at that army of drones on Cybertron. Omega Supreme standing on Scrapper from the intro would also be great.

I think my favorite episode in '86 was Thief in the Night so maybe I'd want one of Trypticon eating 50,000 energon cubes a day. That one just really imprinted on me for some reason and to this day when I finish at the dinner table rubbing my big ol' gut I always think of him in that scene.

I'd love any Sixhot cell from Headmasters, the opening scene from Masterforce where King Poseidon is combined standing in the water, and Deszaras on his throne in Victory.

From the movie Unicron holding Galvatron above his mouth.

Swivelbot wrote:

> I assume everybody here knows what Cel Animation is.

Like this?

https://tinyurl.com/cel-animation

> I would probably choose the iconic Animation error in "The Search for Alpha Trion"
> where Optimus Prime is missing his mouthplate.

So, it's funny you should mention that scene. It's likely there were actually (at least) two animation cels in play for that scene, and the cel containing Prime's mouth plate was removed and then not replaced for one frame, which is why it disappears briefly. So, you would need two separate cels to complete that *scene* but you would only need one to get the animation error moment you're describing.

Transformers had a lot of limited animation, so I imagine there are lots of cels out there where characters are missing their mouth or arm or other body part, since it's statistically likely they were only animating a piece of the character at any given time.

> Or any given frame from the movie.

Well, I will never own cels from The Transformers: the Movie, since they were all gobbled up by collectors years ago. Just about the only ones left on the market are of weird, random characters like Bosch or Alanna or somebody, with no actual Transformers visible anywhere in the scene.

Some years ago at BotCon '95 I had the opportunity to buy a cel of the animation model for Crosshairs for like $60, but I had offered to pick up some toys for a friend who couldn't go, and I also had a toy shopping list of my own, so it just wasn't in the budget. But, in retrospect I really wish I had gotten it, because even being a fairly unimportant character, it would still have been a neat piece of history. I don't own any artifacts in my Transformers collection that are completely unique and one-of-a-kind, and sometimes I feel like I'll never be playing with the big dogs until I do.

But, to answer the question, if it was from Transformers: the Movie, and I could pick any scene, and spend like $5000 that I wouldn't ever miss, it would probably be something hugely iconic like Optimus Prime's leap towards the Decepticons during the battle at Autobot City.

If I wanted something for its pure artistic merit, and not just as a flex for my collection, I'd likely pick a scene of Cyclonus from "Webworld" or maybe that awesome drawing of Predaking and Abominus from "Call of the Primitives."

In looking at the current offering on eBay, I am reminded that there are many counterfeit animation drawings being sold. Somebody bought up a bunch of storyboard sheets, drew some various characters in weird poses, and is selling them as production art. But, none of those character drawings correspond to any episode of G1 that ever aired. They're fake. Fake, fake, fake. I reported them years ago, but maybe I need to do it again.

Zob (I do have an original TMNT animation cel, but that's not exactly a flex considering you could get them for like ten bucks at Toys "R" Us)

Wow, wait - what? That's cool, Zob. How/why was Toys R' Us providing TMNT animation cells? Neat!

JB

Swivelbot wrote:

> I assume everybody here knows what Cel Animation is.

> I would probably choose the iconic Animation error in "The Search for Alpha Trion"
> where Optimus Prime is missing his mouthplate.

> Or any given frame from the movie.

> Swivelbot

I have so many. My favourite scene changes over the years.
My favourite episode is "A Deceptacon Raider in King Arthur's Court" because it was beautifully animated with a quirky story. For a long time, the beautiful shot of Starscream standing on the castle raising his hand prematurely in triumph would be the cel I wanted to have framed.

But right now it is the dynamic shot of Megatron in "SOS Dinobots" just before transforming to gun mode and attaching to Starscream plane.

JosephBardsley wrote:

> Wow, wait - what? That's cool, Zob. How/why was Toys R' Us providing TMNT animation cells? Neat!

Probably around the mid 1990's, they had an assortment of cels on a rack, packaged for retail sale. I remember seeing many dozens of them, though at the time I didn't really think much about their appeal or their collector value. I'm sure it was just a way for the animation studio to recoup some of the costs associated with producing the cartoon. They made 192 episodes, but most of the cels I've seen are from seasons one through four. Which is still potentially many hundreds of thousands of drawings that were made commercially available!

The backgrounds were never properly matched with the cels, though, so you had weird mismatches like Krang in the sewers or Casey Jones inside the Technodrome.

The one I own is a scene of April O'Neil from the episode "The Mean Machines," and I do love it so. Like most of the Transformers cels, though, all the good TMNT cels were gobbled up years ago. All you can really find now is supporting characters or scenes in which the Turtles are wearing non-standard costumes.

Zob (now, of course, I'm kicking myself for not buying them when they were cheap and plentiful!)

Good to know! Thanks, Zob.

(I never realized that cels were something in finite supply, and couldn't be reproduced, but of course that makes sense).

JB

JosephBardsley wrote:

> (I never realized that cels were something in finite supply, and couldn't be reproduced, but of course that makes sense).

I mean, genuine animation cels that were actually filmed for animation are hand-drawn one-of-a-kind illustrations. But of course there are also mass-produced animation cel style collectibles. I believe Rhino included some in one of the Transformers DVD releases. But those are usually marketed as reproduction cels or replica cels.

Zob (a lot of great animation cels were lost forever because the cels were often washed and reused)