Kremzeek!

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"Well he don't know talkin' good like me and you, so his vocabulistics is limited to "Krem" and "zeek," exclusively in that order." "Well I tell you what, that's gonna wear real thin, real fast, bud."
"Kremzeek!"
Production code	700-47
Season	2
No. in season	32
Production company	Sunbow Productions
Airdate	December 27, 1985
Written by	David Wise
Animation studio	Unknown
Continuity	Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

An electric pest annoys everyone. Including the viewers.

Synopsis

"To the window, to the wall...Kremzeek -zeek motherf*#$^%!"

At Decepticon Headquarters, Megatron is working on some electrodes for the Decepticons' new energy magnet. When Starscream comes to complain that it's taking too long, an energy-based lifeform which calls itself Kremzeek jumps from Megatron's experiments and begins wrecking all their gear. Megatron is impressed, thinking that Kremzeek will make an effective weapon against the Autobots. Temporarily containing it in a circuit trap, Megatron has Thrust take them to the Autobot base, where they deposit Kremzeek.

Give me 700 billion dollars or your city is trashed.

Optimus Prime is bewildered to see the sparking box on the security monitor. The box soon breaks open, releasing Kremzeek, who goes on a rampage, shorting out Jazz and Hoist. Sparkplug tries unsuccessfully to catch the critter in his hands, only to get zapped. While Kremzeek continues to wreak havoc, Sparkplug fetches an insulating compound and coats Optimus with it. The compound proves to make the Autobot immune to Kremzeek's attacks, and they quickly coat Blaster, Inferno, and Bumblebee as well. Unfortunately they realize too late that Teletraan I is still vulnerable, and watch as Kremzeek enters the computer, causing it to broadcast strange warnings to the rest of the world. Finally Teletraan I shorts out, and Kremzeek rides Sky Spy's transmissions to another location... Japan.

Meanwhile, the Decepticons have detected the success of their plan, and Megatron decides it's time to deploy the energy magnet.

The remaining active Autobots take Omega Supreme to Japan, but the massive mechanoid is shorted out on arrival by Kremzeek, crashing on the beach. Kremzeek then jumps onto a train, which Optimus chases along the tracks in his truck mode. Eventually the train reaches the city, Tokyo, and stops, unleashing Kremzeek on an unsuspecting population. He wreaks havoc in an arcade, then enters Shibuya Manufacturing Corporation. Within the company's factory area, the Autobots meet Dr. Sōji Yoshikawa, who theorizes that radio waves might affect the creature. Blaster works his magic, but Kremzeek marches straight through the radio waves and enters the Autobot. Blaster tries to fry Kremzeek with his own energy supply, but Yoshikawa's warning that this isn't a good idea comes too late, and a veritable plethora of Kremzeeks begin shooting out of Blaster's chest.

KremzeeKong is alive!

As they rampage around Tokyo, the Autobot leader theorizes that a large energy source could draw the Kremzeeks together and reunite them. At the Decepticon base, the energy magnet is ready, and the Decepticons first target a passing warship. Back in Japan, the Autobots have finished preparing a tower to absorb the Kremzeeks, but one manages to slip inside Blaster. When the remaining Kremzeeks are reunited, they merge in a massive form and begin a new rampage through the city. Inferno unsuccessfully tries his fire-retardant foam on the beast, which simply flings it back at the Autobots.

"To the sweat drop down my"...oh nevermind.

Megatron activates the energy magnet, drawing the world's energy sources to the Decepticon base. As the Autobots begin to feel the effects of the loss of energy, Prime realizes that this whole thing has been a distraction by Megatron. That leads Blaster to think of a plan: Why not let the Decepticons deal with Kremzeek? They lure Kremzeek, who is getting sleepy from the energy drain, to a radio tower, causing him to be beamed to the energy magnet, destroying it as the Decepticons flee. Its destruction ceases the energy drain and the city has power again.

The Autobots take a boat out to the energy magnet, where Yoshikawa theorizes that they could disperse Kremzeek's energy, which would kill him. Despite Bumblebee's objections that killing him is wrong, Prime causes Kremzeek to disperse. Returning to the mainland, Blaster admits that he sort of misses Kremzeek... at which point the solitary Kremzeek that jumped into him earlier jumps out, and the pursuit begins again. Sadly (or thankfully), there's no time to see what happens next.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Aw...who's a cute widdle destwuctive ball of energy?"

"Yes, Kremzeek! You will be my ultimate weapon against the Autobots."

—Megatron displaying how desperate he was getting by that point.

"This isn't the time for jokes, Sparkplug!"
"What joke? I'm savin' ya!"

—Optimus Prime and Sparkplug Witwicky

"Chomp and munch!
Chew and crunch!
There's a lot here to destroy!
Inch by inch,
It's a cinch
Bringing down this big old boy!"

"Alert! Alert! Evil Martian Phlengoes have invaded supermarkets across the planet! They have come to steal Earth's ammonia!"
"What in the world...?"
"Choco-rations down 2 grams! Double-plus un-good!"

—Teletraan I's funniest lines in the series confuse a radioman.

"Oh! The Autobots! Verrrry honored. ...YOU DID THIS?!"
"No! Er, no, Doctor. There's a creature made of pure energy... in there."
"You... crazy?!"

—Dr. Sōji Yoshikawa and Optimus Prime, the former of whom is as dubious of the episode's plot as the target audience.

"Yo, Prime! What do we do when we catch that weirdo?"
"We'll worry about that when we catch him!"
"You mean you don't have a plan?"
"Who's had time to think of a plan? Hang on!"

—Blaster and Optimus Prime

"Oh, here comes that sinking feeling..."

—Optimus Prime on seeing a multitude of Kremzeeks

"Blaster... you finally came up with a plan."

—Optimus Prime has no pride whatsoever.

Notes

Production information

First draft script submitted: 10th May 1985 (Script cover page shows 7/10/85, though when compared to cover dates of other episodes, this is likely a typing error).

Continuity notes

• Kremzeek shows various emotions, experiences exhaustion and pain... he is a very sentient being. Yet Prime seems to forget his motto, i.e. that "Freedom is right of all sentient beings" when he gives the execution order. His reasoning is that "He doesn't belong on this world", yet he took the effort to blast the Morphobot plants back into space, and we know that Kremzeek can be contained in a circuit trap box (i.e. long enough to be put in a space ship). Is he discriminatory against energy-lifeforms?

Real-world references

Dum Dum, if that big, pink, non-clothes-wearin' woman is loose again, I quit!

• The building the energy magnet is built into is referred to as a "seascraper" - a very light pun on "skyscraper".
• Most of the episode is set in Tokyo, Japan, resulting in references galore:
  • A sign advertising a distinctly Godzilla-esque monster movie called Hojoni is seen in this episode.
  • A sign advertising KIRIN beer is seen in this episode.
  • Given the location and size, the "antenna" is likely the Tokyo Tower.
  • The white and green trains the Autobots encounter when they first arrive in Japan are the Shinkansen "Bullet-Trains", specifically the "0 series", which no longer operate today, but were the main trains in use at the time.
  • Shibuya is one of the major wards in Tokyo.
  • An overly large Mount Fuji is shown along with the Tokyo skyline at sunset.
  • US Naval Warships are shown operating off the cost of Japan. Aside from active war zones, Japan houses the largest deployment of US military personnel outside of the US.
• Japanese spoken in the episode (very badly pronounced):
  • The woman the conductor runs into: "Hey, watch it."
  • Guy with the Walkman: "What in the world?" (with a very heavy accent)
  • People coming out of the theatre: "I've never seen such a stupid movie."
• When Teletraan I is scrambled by Kremzeek, some of its babbling includes a dose of Newspeak a la George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
• The Walkman, of course, was Sony's huge-hit portable tape player of the 1980s.
• Star Wars sound effects:
  • The title character is constantly accompanied by the sound of clashing and sparking lightsabers, from Ben and Darth Vader's duel on the Death Star.
  • Millennium Falcon engine burst as Omega's rocket launches, twice.
• While the notion of an "energy magnet" might seem like cartoon technobabble nonsense, research into wireless power transfer via electromagnetic field, including far-field (long-range), has been going on since the 19th century, with scientists such as Nikola Tesla experimenting in the field. However, this is usually done the other way: providing power to a compatible object, not sucking it out of random objects.

Animation and technical errors

They can get the arm-wrestling sumo game right, but they can't write up the katakana properly??

Now it's in Korean??

Generally speaking, this is one of the worst-animated episodes from the first two seasons. The frame rate is choppy, the coloring is bland, and often the characters' heads are drawn larger than they should be. Most of the time, the characters' mouth movements don't match what they're saying, assuming they move at all (none of the three Navy crewmen on the power-drained ships move their mouths, for example.) On the audio side, Megatron's voice is missing the metallic modulation in nearly every scene (the line "We will drain this planet dry!" is a good example), and Blaster's is over-modulated to the point where it's sometimes hard to understand what he's saying. The title character, meanwhile, uses all sorts of animation cheats to move about the screen, sometimes just gliding statically along or disappearing into things without actually being near them.

• Megatron's finger moves twice while Kremzeek is resting on it, but he doesn't move along with it.
• Coloring errors:
  • Thrust's cockpit is colored the same maroon-red as his body in the first shot of him flying.
  • The inside of Ratchet's helmet cheekguard is gray instead of white just before Kremzeek shorts him out.
  • When he says he doesn't have a plan, Optimus's bumper is red instead of gray. This happens again just after he hits the train.
  • When Kremzeek smashes the televisions, they are gray and later change to red.
  • Inferno's neck is red instead of gray as he watches the power tower light up.
  • When Blaster notes that he's low on power, his helmet is entirely red, then entirely gray, then a mix of the two over the next few shots.
  • As Optimus averts his eyes from the impending demise of Kremzeek, the top of his helmet is gray instead of blue.
  • Blaster's helmet forehead is red as the group stands alongside Omega on the beach.
• The circuit trap is dropped into the entrance to Autobot Headquarters... but a second shot shows it bouncing toward the exit.
• When Jazz is attacked and shorted by Kremzeek in the first act, his few lines are done by voice director Wally Burr rather than Scatman Crothers; the resulting voice would also be used for Thundercracker in "War Dawn" and for Ratchet in "Masquerade".
• When Sparkplug grabs Kremzeek, he shouts as if he's reacting in pain, but his model doesn't make a pained expression.
• When Optimus Prime says that they have to "insulate the other Autobots" and then surveys the casualties, Jazz is shown without his characteristic hood stripe (or any headlights to speak of, for that matter).
• As Inferno and Bumblebee first find Kremzeek destroying some equipment, the size and shape of the room changes between shots. Inferno's sudden declaration - "you can't catch the thing; you can't hold it, you can't shoot it" - doesn't follow on from any action that would make him say it.
• Scale issues abound in this episode. For instance, as the Autobots head towards Omega Supreme to board him, and Sparkplug turns around to run back into the base, Sparkplug's nearly the same size as Bumblebee. Kremzeek, meanwhile, changes size constantly - though maybe one can excuse it as part of the character's design?
• Once Kremzeek gets inside it, the train woobers and wiggles like it's made of rubber. It may just be for comic effect... or maybe the animators just didn't know how else to convey "whole train goes berzerk".
• The energy magnet tower has vertical striping as it rises from the sea, but none when it's shown as a matte painting in the following shot.
• Starscream's voice is noticeably higher-pitched than usual as the "seascraper" is put in place.
• As the Autobots chase Kremzeek out of the train station and onto the street, the Japanese population has suddenly turned caucasian. This occurs again at the movie theatre.
• Blaster is drawn mouthing Inferno's "Where did he go now?" line.
• The sign outside the video game arcade appears to be a horrific mishmash of Japanese katakana and English letters. Instead of spelling "game arcade" as "ゲームアーケード", it is spelled as "Ｋ゛ームアーＫード" with a dakuten (the tiny quote mark) over the first K as if to make it a G-sound as it does when used in kana. Additionally, the "ア" character appears to be very poorly formed, or just mirrored. It is uncertain whether this episode was animated by Toei or one of the two unknown Generation 1 animation studios. If the episode was done by Toei, then such slaughtering of the Japanese language is especially bizarre, considering Toei is a Japanese studio.
• The arcade sign, when shown again as the patrons are fleeing, looks nothing like when it was originally shown. In fact, it looks to have a Korean character as well as a Kanji "出" (out).
• Blaster's line "Come on out of there, you short circuit" doesn't time up with Kremzeek entering or being inside of anything - he's just running down the street at that point.
• Before Kremzeek enters the robot arm to start smashing the televisions, they're exploding all by themselves for no reason!
• When Blaster is re-tuned by the doctor to capture Kremzeek, he instantly changes to his boombox mode in the next frame without going through the animation for it, making it appear as if a small chunk of the episode was cut out. Strangely, despite that, you can still hear the tail end of Blaster's transforming sound effect.
• The second commercial break fades to black before the audio stops; the audio - and the background music - are abruptly cut off by the commercial bumper.
• When Optimus has the idea to head to the nearest power station, the front of his cab section is slanted severely inward (it should be flat).
• The animators, having drawn a long sequence of the Autobots hanging on to Prime's cab as he drives down the train tracks, apparently forgot that the other Autobots can transform. As the Autobots rush off to the power station, they jump on to Prime's trailer again - and even their human buddy Dr. Yoshikawa does so! Bumblebee is missing from the shot, to boot.
• Megatron is missing his insignia as he declares that "we will drain this planet dry!"
• Whilst on the command bridge of the Energon Magnet, on at least two separate occasions, Starscream's mouth is replaced with three lines that look like a mouthplate animation. However, when he speaks, his mouth returns.
• Also, Soundwave's Decepticon insignia is missing during those sequences on the command bridge.
• When Optimus yells "Hit him with all you got, Inferno!", Inferno's truck mode is huge - it's drawn as tall as robot mode Optimus.
• Before Starscream says "Let's light this candle!", he has a mouthplate
• As Prime congratulates Blaster on coming up with a plan, Bumblebee is almost as big as Inferno.
• Megatron's "Nothing can stop me" line continues long after the animation shows him stopping and reacting to the oncoming Kremzeek.
• As the Autobots are about to disperse Kremzeek, Bumblebee is missing his Autobot symbol.

Continuity errors

• Megatron rides inside Thrust to drop the box holding Kremzeek into Autobot headquarters. Since when can Megatron fit inside Thrust? And where on Thrust is the huge circular window he's sitting next to? We saw in "Megatron's Master Plan, Part 1" that an ordinary human fits into Dirge's cockpit, and Thrust shares Dirge's basic alternate mode.
• Jazz is the first Autobot incapacitated by Kremzeek, yet we see him walk into the same room fresh as a daisy with Ratchet just a moment later.
• Once again, human buildings are easily entered by Autobots, and human-sized control panels are used by them (their fingers should be too big to hit individual buttons!).

• If Sparkplug's insulating foam prevents Kremzeek from getting inside the Autobots, how did he get inside Blaster on two separate occasions?
• On that note, why didn't Kremzeek cause Blaster to short-circuit when he was inside him?
• The traffic intersection Kremzeek is causing havoc at is shown as a right-hand traffic system; in Japan cars drive on the left.
• How does the antenna building have power when the rest of the city is drained?
• If Kremzeek is pure energy, why wasn't he pulled to the energy magnet along with the rest of the energy in the city? And why does he exhibit mass, such as stomping down the street in super-Kremzeek form and when Inferno's foam lands on him?

Trivia

Each one represents a re-use of this plot.

• David Wise recycled certain set pieces of this episode from the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode "Day of the Machines", including the creation of Kremzeek (it was a little more involved in the Masters of the Universe episode), his transmission to the Autobots, and the final scene of Kremzeek messing up the Decepticons' base. Wise is known for reusing his ideas and set pieces, and recycled the main plot of this episode wholesale for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) episode "The Big Zipp Attack", and then again for the Mighty Ducks episode "Zap Attack". Also, Wise's Defenders of the Earth episode "Audie and Tweak" recycled the idea of the heroes' computer being afflicted by an outside force that makes it babble nonsensically.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Kremzeek!"
• Original airdate: ?

• The European French DVD edition mistakenly named the episode "Kremseek!" on the DVD box.
• All the logo transitions were cut. It is unknown if it was that way for the original broadcast or if the episode was chopped for the DVD release.
• Like in the other dubs, Kremzeek is fully re-dubbed. In order to avoid playing every scene twice, there is a big vocal effect applied to all the voice actors. Though it renders well on Kremzeek, it makes several phrases of the Transformers difficult to understand.
• While he's infected, Teletraan-1 says "2,99=π r² + two strawberry tarts and one ice cream cone", then "Alert! The little martians have invaded all supermarkets on the planet, they have come to steal the frozen puff pastry!" then "Double the portions of chocolate, and don't forget the sugar!".
• The Navy crewman's line "The engines are cutting out, we're just drifting." is missing.

German

• Title (Generation 2 dub): "Elektro-Schock" ("Electro-Shock")
• Original airdate: August 20, 1994

Italian

• Title (dub 1): "Kremzeek!"
• Original airdate: ?

• "Circuit trap" is weirdly translated as "antimatter container" (contenitore antimateria).
• The three sentences originally in Japanese are dubbed in Italian, but it's pretty clear that the translator had no idea what the characters were saying, since they're completely different from the original:

• «Hey, watch it!» became: «Where is he hiding now?» (possibly refering to Kremzeek).
• «What in the world?» became: «This music is awful! Take this!». So... he's basically destroying his walkman just because he didn't like the music?! What?!
• «I've never seen such a stupid movie» became: «Darling, this is just fantasy, something like that could never really happen!», making the sentence quite ironic considering what happens next.

• Yoshikawa's accent sounds more Chinese than Japanese... which is not surprising at all...
• Some sentences are badly translated, making no sense in the context:

• Blaster's: «Hey, why not let Megatron deal with him for a change?» became: «Hey, let's let Megatron do the trading!». Thus, it's pretty difficult to understand the Autobots' plan.
• Bumblebee's: «But... but he's kinda cute...» became: «But, who is him?».

• Title (dub 2): "Kremzeek!"
• Original airdate: ?

Japanese

• Title: "Panic the Kremzeek!" (パニック・ザ・クレムジーク!)
• Original airdate: March 28, 1986

Mandarin

• Title: "Xiǎo Jīnglíng " (小精灵, "Elf")
• Original airdate: ?

Home video releases

LaserDisc

1995 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.
1999 — The Transformers — Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.

DVD

2001 — The Transformers — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2: Vol. 6 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 3: Series 2.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Volume 11 (Déclic Images) — European French audio only.
2005 — Transformers — Les Dinobots (UFG Junior) — European French audio only.
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers — Volume 05: Stagione Due Parte Terza (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 — Transformers — Season Two: Part Two (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2009 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume Two: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2011 — The Transformers — The Complete Original Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume Two: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers — The Classic Animated Series (Metrodome)

External links

• Full episode script
• Episode dialogue script