Derrick Wyatt has answered two of the questions raised to him in comments on his blog. DieMaus asked "a) We've now seen Animated Hot Shot and Red Alert, two characters who
were reportedly in the original outline for the show, but were
subsequently replaced by Bumblebee and Ratchet, respectively. Do the
current Hot Shot and Red Alert bear much similarity to those original
concepts? Are they a taste of "what might have been"? Or did those
original character ideas never get past the planning phase?
b)
Who actually decides which characters DO make it onto the show? You
suggested, for example, that Hot Shot wasn't your call, Marty Isenberg
mentioned that Hasbro nixed the idea of Sixshot, and as noted, we know
that Bumblebee's inclusion was their initiative as well; on the other
hand, I can't imagine that the likes of Highbrow were anything other
than your idea. How does this all get decided, and whose call is it at
the end of the day?"
To which Derrick replied
"Hey,those are some good questions.
a) Hotshot is more of a
tribute to his UT self (or selves). Red Alert is actually a bit of what
might have been. Her design is based in part on TFA development art
that my friend Eric Canete had done. That's why she's female.
b)
There are some upcoming interviews that go deeper in to this process
than I will here. The current TFCC magazine has an interview with Eric
and me where we discuss it. Anyway, we on the animation side try to
work together with the 'Bros to come up with a roster of characters
that both teams are happy with. Bumblebee's inclusion in the show was
actually a result of Matt Youngberg and me pleading for him in the
first meeting we had with the higher-ups."
An anonomous poster then asked the question "Well, I kinda like Red Alert being female, it mixes things up a little. I personally would have liked to have been at one of those meetings, just to hear some of the characters Hasbro wanted in that you guys didn't, or vice-versa. Is it generally harder to get characters who weren't popular in terms of toy sales(or were only in that franchise's toyline) in the show? Or is Hasbro pretty cool about letting some relatively unknown/unpopular characters get their chance in the spot light?"
Which prompted Derrick to reply "On the whole they've been great. I don't think there were any
characters we really wanted to do that they vetoed. The only things
that ever got nixed were characters that it would be too impractical to
do from either an animation or a toy point of view, or characters that
just didn't fit the stories we were telling."