G1 ended after The Rebirth

[Ironwave]

G1 Rebirth seemed like a pilot of a new ongoing series , not the end of the show. Well, at least that's what I though at the time. Especially how Rebirth ended, which Galvatron's statement, that he will build a new planet bigger than Cybertron and that is his destiny and Scorponok replies with " We shall see". I don't know why the writters cancelled the show after that episode and leave the show with a cliffhanger.

So what happened?

[optimusb39]

From my understanding american audiences fell off after the second season and the toylines where horrendous and if the toys wherent selling the whole purpose of the promotional show was mute so they cancelled.
I believe the japanese series kinda continued the storyarc with their own unique twists but i havent taken the time to watch them through.
Anybody know if thats the case?

[justprime]

The Japanese carried on( loosely interpretation ) with headmasters ,masterforce and victory. Then on to beast wars.....

[Janitor]

Yeah in Japan they took things in another direction completely: they ditched Rebirth and had their own 'pilot'/intro for the Headmaster series.

Crazy as it sounds, by the time 1987 rolled around the Transformers series in North American had completely dropped in popularity [iirc the stat is kids' toy franchises have a shelf life of 3 years, so they were already ahead of the curve] so even though there was an order for a fourth "season" of the animated series, it was originally suppose to be a five-parter and done, then got chopped down three parts...which explains the utter character dump.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Rebirth

[Sir Prime A Lot]

There is one single reason why Transformers died off so suddenly in 1987........Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Seriously, when they came out, kids went crazy for them and ditched their current toys to get them. Kevin Eastman single handedly killed Generation 1 Transformers.

[chaingunsofdoom]

Everyone has mentioned the main reasons already, but here's some fun time travel info.

If you look at financial-related historical stock price info from the TF G1 era (I can't find any actual reports)... Hasbro were doing really good with GI Joe toys in 1982 and 1983. Their stock split once in 82 and twice in 83!

I realize TFs did not appear at the start of the year, but their stock price in January 84 was $26. It climbed to $57 by October. They had another split in Jan 85. Then it climbed from $24 to $53 into August 1986 when they issued a full dividend to every shareholder so the stock price was halved.

The stock hovered around $20-$22 for almost a year until October 1987 when it went to $18 and then $13 in early 1988. It hovered under or around $20 until 1991 when the stock started rising again.

Link:
http://investor.hasbro.com/calculato...estDividends=1

[RNSrobot]

Originally Posted by Sir Prime A Lot

There is one single reason why Transformers died off so suddenly in 1987........Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Seriously, when they came out, kids went crazy for them and ditched their current toys to get them. Kevin Eastman single handedly killed Generation 1 Transformers.

100%.

[Chigimus]

Originally Posted by Sir Prime A Lot

There is one single reason why Transformers died off so suddenly in 1987........Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Seriously, when they came out, kids went crazy for them and ditched their current toys to get them. Kevin Eastman single handedly killed Generation 1 Transformers.

x2 Although I wouldn't say I ditched TF's as a kid. I would've gladly continued asking for more TF toys, but you can't ask for something that was no longer being made and TMNT was the wildfire that took over afterwards. I confidently remember that the only toy lines I devoted to as a kid were Transformers, He-Man & MOTU, Transformers again as MOTU drifted off, and then TMNT.

[Robimus]

I feel like "died" is way to strong a term. Transformers became less popular for a time yes, but was far from dead.

Marvel kept producing G1 comics into the middle of 1991. New toy lines kept getting rolled out into 1990 as well. Then G2 came along, which was basically G1 repackaged with a few new twists.

[jjwankenobi]

As much as I love TFTM '86...



...was when G1...



...or if you prefer...