NB: I just recently got the Headmaster series, and I have to say, that Wheelie is just as big a pain in the after burners as he is in the movie and American cartoon.
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Wheelie: The Bane of Transformers
Jar-Jar Binks, Wesley Crusher, Rebecca Chambers, Scrappy Doo and Wheelie. All genres have them, they are the ones who cause the fans of that particular genre to cringe, to wonder what the writers were “on”, what were they thinking and how could they reduce the genre to such a cesspool of filth, when they wrote that character in. They are the characters we love to hate, the characters who embarrass the genre, who take the spotlight from the more respectable characters in a way, which is degrading, to the writer, the genre and the other characters who actually act in a dignified manner. But there is always one, there is always one character from one Genre who stands out as the worst character ever created – Wheelie. This character came from The Transformers. A children’s cartoon show, developed with the intention to sell toys. A comic book series, a movie and various other products also designed and created to empty the wallets of parents. Yet, this one character, Wheelie, brought shame to the series.
Jar-Jar Binks, an odd looking alien appeared in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace after which, most fans were actually horrified at the repugnant and feeble attempts of humour the writers used to personify through this character. Binks was added for the sole purpose of “comic-relief”. Rebecca Chambers, the young 18-year-old medic from the Resident Evil series. What could be so wrong about this? One would ask. She is a smart, young, innocent, the personification of which would be a direct antithesis to the circumstances the S.T.A.R.S members found themselves in. One would hypothesis that this would make for a very interesting combination and thus improve the game’s impact upon the player. However, something went wrong. The character of Rebecca Chambers turned out to be an irritable and annoying diversion and proved that while some things look good in theory, during the process and experimentation with character development something can go wrong, which is what is the case here. Chamber’s voice actor did a rather unsavoury job, her actions and general presence through the game became tiresome and one, which is a target of loathing. Scrappy Doo, the small talking puppy nephew of the semi-literate sleuth dog Scooby, proved that you can have too much of a good thing. The amusing thing with Scooby was the fact that he could barely talk, one understood what he was saying, one found it entertaining. The writers had a combination that would see them success, a semi-vocal dog whom solved mysteries usually by accidentally capturing the perpetuator, yet, adding a talking bi-pedial puppy took away the kind of “feeling” and “magic” that had graced the first couple of seasons. It made it un-realistic, it took away the entertaining quality and replaced it with something that was no longer believable in its actions. Scooby by any stretch of the imagination, was not believable, it was a cartoon, yet adding a factor that was even more unbelievable, simply because it was a cartoon took the previously succeed audience-cartoon repour. As one can see, previously thought out ideas that do look good in theory, can end in diaster and the turning away from the genre by the most hard-core fans.
Wheelie. The name that all Transformers fan would have heard at least once in their following of the cult 1980s children cartoon show. The small orange “boy” bot found on the planet Qunintessa during The Transformers: The Movie by Grimlock and the Dinobots. His first moments of introduction were even plagued with inconsistencies and plot holes. Wheelie appeared out of nowhere, and only due to the fact he was wearing an Autobot insignia did the Dinobots accept him. In fact what was one of the first actions the audience saw the small Autobot doing? Firing a pebble at one of the most powerful and least intelligent Dinobots. One must give Wheelie credit for such brave actions; however, the word foolish is more appropriate for that behaviour. The most disturbing traits of this small Autobot was not his colour, his size or even his misplaced audacity, but the fact he rhymes his sentences. One could be persuaded to give credit to the writers for coming up with so many words that rhyme, but in the long run it proved to be something out of a fairy tale that involved copious amounts of violence and destruction. One could be forgiven to think that this was just another way to bring in more children of younger ages and of the opposite, fairer gender, yet, one must begin to imagine what it would be like to be around someone who constantly rhymed. He could of proved his intelligence by instead of rhyming used metaphors, even at the very least he could of used similes, not only proving that he was intelligent by understanding the meaning of such literary terms, but by being quick witted and fast enough to come up with a simile for every situation. The writers could of easily have made Wheelie into a character where another trait of verbal and literal language could have been employed, by simply reading The Iliad or The Aeneid they could of picked up the simple method of applying such techniques to everyday life, even if it was in the Transformer world.
The writers, however, did not use Wheelie in many episodes after his introduction in The Transformers: The Movie, this is not odd in itself, but it provides one with many instances that prove the unnecessary need for the character. In Five Faces of Darkness episodes one sees that Wheelie not only shoots one of the Sweeps, destroying him completely, attributing to one of the few kills outside The Transformers: The Movie but he also does not rhyme, when he states “Galvatron may be tough, but Wheelie mean!” Many argue that this is a way for him to “trick” the Decepticons and his enemies into believing that he is no threat, but that he is indeed a fierce warrior capable of feigning stupidity and thus achieving the upper hand when he is threatened. However, when one studies the proceeding episodes in Season three and four of The Transformers and The Headmasters series in Japan one sees that this argument is faulty in logic. The episodes in which Wheelie appeared after the Five Faces of Darkness paint him in an unflattering way; he is mere “comic relief” and a dismal character whose attributes are a punitive attempt by the writers to include some variety into the cartoon’s niche. For example, the episode Chaos Wheelie just seems to stand around and fire at what ever happens his way, he does not add anything of value to the episode except for simple “rank filler”. Another episode in which Wheelie appears to be nothing except cannon fodder for the Decepticons is Fight or Flee, Wheelie’s only apparent useful moment in this episode is crowned with the phrase “Not no more, door in floor”. Ultra Magnus and Sandstorm may or may not have discovered the exit out of their predicament, but how could Wheelie possibly be helping with firepower that he had enough time to remove a large piece of metal and discover the trap door? The answer to that question is simple; Wheelie is not the warrior many claim him to be.
Wheelie is different to the majority of Autobots that much is clear. The Autobots have First Aid, the pacifist medic who is part of the sub-team the Protectorbots. First Aid has a use, he is one of the Autobots who when other Autobots get injured during battle he is there to “patch them back together”. Springer is the gung-ho mech, a fighter with a mix of enthusiasm and cynicism; together these traits make for an interesting character that can be developed through the show. Even Blurr had his uses, as irritable and annoying as he was, he served a purpose of being the Autobot’s courier. WreckGar may also have been annoying and although his purposes may not be numerous, he does lead the Junkions and is powerful and skilled warrior; he also provides a more enlightening “comic relief” by way of referring to other genres as he speaks “T.V”. Ultra Magnus, Rodimus Prime, Kup, Scattershot, Blaster, Silverbolt et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, forgetting for a moment their respective rank, personality and duty to the Autobot cause, they all share one thing in common which Wheelie can not be a part of. They both have ample amounts of firepower and skill. Even Bumblebee, probably the most weakest and smallest of the Autobots has skill. One would have to have skill to be a spy whose paintjob just so happens to be the colour that the eye is first attracted to – yellow. Bumblebee served a purpose and although he was often seen with the young Spike Witwicky he actually proved to be quite useful to the Autobot cause. Whereas Wheelie cannot possibly take on a larger Decepticon, unless he actually had sufficient firepower, and a slingshot cannot possibly be referred to as “sufficient firepower”. This point also provides us with evidence as to why none of those aforementioned characters is used as “comic relief”. One must understand that the use of such a character, for example Wheelie, is not to create a fan base for that character, but rather the jokes and “antics” of the character in mention is because no other character is so un-dignified that they would use such behaviour. The writers of these genres already have respectable characters, whose actions, words and behaviour is favourable and dignified to the point that they are known to be funny without the use of diminishing actions which are executed by the less “decorous” character.
Referring back to the argument that Wheelie is really a very intelligent individual who is capable of feigning stupidity for the sole purpose of appearing to be weak and not a threat can, once again, also be proved to be invalid. The episode “Surprise Party” proves to the viewer that Wheelie is not intelligent. If Wheelie was capable of such elevated aptitude he would of devised a plan that would of prevented the Astroid containing the Autobots history and records from being destroyed, or, at the very least, he would of downloaded at least some of the information to some removal disk. Only the truly ignorant and barbaric of individuals could possibly believe that these actions are “cool” and that they prove that “Wheelie was the ‘Bot”. To truly come to grips with the devastation Wheelie wrought upon the Autobot’s culture, one must imagine that their history and everything that made up their ethnicity was destroyed in one moment of rashness and lack of thought. The Autobots at the time would of probably not have understood the massive implications of Wheelie’s actions. The Autobots were them selves, involved in a civil war, at those exact moments they would of hardly considered the information to be above the lives of Wheelie and Daniel Witwicky, however, the war is inevitably end one day and there descendants will want to know their history, only to find, that in of the many repugnantly incompetent moments of Wheelie’s existence, he had destroyed Autobot history, one can only hope that the Autobots have a backups of the information somewhere in the bowels of Cybertron.
As one can plainly see, Wheelie is not a warrior and he is not intelligent. If Wheelie were human he would probably be around the age of five or six years old, a child who is not quick and probably suffers from a learning disability. Wheelie, to put it mildly, is a brat. His actions are not thought out, and unlike some other Autobots whose actions may be rash, they usually do not result in harm coming to another individual. Wheelie’s actions have been known to cause injury to other Autobots, for example, “Surprise Party” where Ultra Magnus is injured due to his attempts to save Wheelie from his own stupidity. All arguments that attempt to glorify Wheelie are unfounded, and no sufficient evidence, whether provided through the comic book series, the American cartoons or the Japanese cartoons, exists.
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