CareerKnight wrote:RobbyB1982 wrote: Similarly in season 3 they introduced Tigerhawk, and that wasn't planned as a toy, so they had to very quickly be rid of him too... and then Hasbro changed their minds and turned around and made it a toy.
I doubt that had anything to do with his death considering right after his introduction is the season finale so his death was more likely planned beforehand. Not to mention his toy came out at the same time as dragon megs, which was before Tigerhawk's episode aired, not often toy isle get to be a walking spoiler.
The folks that have worked on the show have said that's exactly how it went down though. (At Botcon, and in some old online interviews. Sorry, its been years and years, I can't recall where exactly to pull them up.) They made Tigerhawk for the sake of wrapping up actual story stuff, there was no toy of him, they had to be rid of him super fast as a result. And then after the episodes were done Hasbro went and made a toy anyway because there was a positive response to the character.
They similarly got in trouble for their Megatron, Optimus Prime and Ravage cameos.. its the main reason they didn't do a whole bunch of shout outs while they were on the Arc, they weren't being paid to make cg models for the fans.
They weren't even supposed to have Tigertron or Airrazor on the show in season 2, that was the writers doing... they could have easily ben wiped out in int he first two minutes along with Terrorsaur and Scorponok... and why they were similarly taken out basically without warning.
Yes, the show was near its end at that point, but he could have easily survived for another 15 minutes through to the finale and gone home or onto Beast Machines. (Maybe he was luckier that way, like Dinobot.)
This level of executive meddling can reeeeally be seen if you ever watch War Planets. Season 1 was them doing a good story with the premise. Season 2 was the toy company insisting the actual planets moved and did battle, no matter how stupid and nonsensical that was.