Hasbro bought the rights to produce the toys, but decided to release them under a single brand to avoid confusing the market with several series with similar premises.

Both sides are from a race called Transformers – robots that can change into vehicles, mechanical devices and even animal forms.

A cruel and coldly logical race of alien squid-like creatures with five faces and tentacles known as Quintessons, who were the creators of the Autobots and Decepticons.

Eventually the design of the robots would become so sophisticated they developed emotions, self-awareness, and the machines went into rebellion, known as the 1st Cybertronian War.

After successfully seizing control of Cybertron the robots lived in peace until the Decepticons could not resist or overcome their innate desire for military campaign and attempted a coup.

The Autobots only overcame the Decepticons in the 2nd Cybertronian war by developing transformation to hide as mundane objects, vehicles, or tools.

After copying the transformation ability of Autobots and creating a new leader named Megatron, the Decepticons launched into a 3rd Cybertronian war that would see Cybertron ruined, at which point the TV series begins.

Two characters – each the greatest leader of his side, became the most iconic representatives of the series: Optimus Prime of the Autobots and Megatron of the Decepticons.

Both Optimus Prime and Megatron continued to appear in one form or another in subsequent Transformers series, where they maintained their leadership roles.

[8]: 11–32 Optimus Prime is the Autobot Commander and transforms into a tractor trailer truck – specifically a Freightliner COE 1980.

While in its robot form, the toy consists of three separate parts: the main figure, which transforms into the cabin of the truck; an Autobot Headquarters, which transforms into the tractor trailer, serves as a combat deck, and includes a mechanic/artillery robot; and a small scout car named Roller, which launches from the Autobot Headquarters.

[8]: 11 The eleven Autobot cars consist of Bluestreak, Hound, Ironhide, Jazz, Mirage, Prowl, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, and Wheeljack.

[9]: 45–48 To save production costs in developing separate chassis for multiple toys, many of the G1 Transformers are simply re-painted or re-accessorized clones of one another.

Intended as a means of authentication, they were introduced in response to similar, though inferior, bootleg toys that were being released at the time.

[citation needed] The toys made use of molds and designs primarily from the Micro Change and Diaclone lines.

[citation needed] The year of 1986 saw Hasbro start using original designs for many characters as fewer Microman and Diaclone molds were recycled.

This was a banner year for the toy line as the tie-in animated feature, The Transformers: The Movie, was finally released.

While the movie was not the blockbuster Hasbro hoped for, it marked a change in the direction the series in general was taking.

Both figures were identical to their original release with the exception of a more reinforced fist design for Optimus Prime.

One of the more unusual toys introduced in the year was Sixshot, a Decepticon billed as a "Solo Transformer Assault Group" ("S.T.A.G.

The animated series had one more season, but only three episodes were produced in America due to Sunbow losing its contract and its subsequent inability to renew (coinciding with the G.I.

New Headmaster and Targetmaster characters were introduced, but the new driving forces for the line were the Pretenders and Powermasters (which featured the return of Optimus Prime).

In early 1993, more exclusive figures were released under the Transformers (no subtitle) label, most notably the color-changing Stormtroopers, the Lightformers, the Trakkons, and the Autobot and Decepticon Obliterators.

The heads of the Obliterators, Pyro and Clench, were the inspiration for the redesigned Autobot and Decepticon symbols that were used on this year's packaging and later used for Transformers: Generation 2.

Unlike Hasbro UK, Takara had more autonomy for releases and storyline that were running concurrent with the American line.

The 1992 range in Japan was the final year of Generation 1, and featured several more Micromaster combiners, recolored versions of Defensor and Bruticus, and the smaller Turbomasters and Predators which were concurrently released in Europe.

So far, there are four comic book continuities based on the Generation 1 characters: In 1986, film critic Richard Martin called the first generation toy series a more fun counterpart to Rubik's Cube in "[helping] children develop their hand-eye coordination and their spatial reasoning skills, but Hasbro kept quiet about this, believing no self-respecting 10-year-old boy would bug his parents half to death to buy him an educational toy".

He said the resulting TV show "has topped the ratings every week since its debut in 1985, thus setting the stage for The Transformers: The Movie (1986) [which is] designed to sell more toys to more kids.

The second NTFA convention with official support from Hasbro Nordic was renamed "NordCon" (to avoid copyright problems with the name "Mini-Con") and held in Aalborg, Denmark, from June 19–20, 2010.

The Botcon 2010 inauguration included Bob Budiansky, Peter Cullen, Hideaki Yoke, Ōno Kōjin, and the characters Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream and the Dinobots.