Vinyl single released to promote the French release of Transformers The Movie titled "La Guerre Des Robots"Track 1: La Guerre Des RobotsFor more rare TF medi...
There were a couple songs produced specifically to promote the French release of the Transformers movie, “La Guerre des Robots”!
Honestly, the opening of this one is a little weird, but the rest of the song is genuinely a banger. Give it like 10 seconds, and then it gets good!
I never see anyone talk about regional release soundtracks (aside from some of the Japanese tracks), so I thought I’d share. :)
I was talking with my kids last night, and my son wanted to know why the Japanese Optimus Prime is called "Convoy". The name originates in the song Convoy by CW McCall, seen in the very dated music video above. Lots of Prime-looking trucks in this video.
Long-winded explanation below the break.
In the mid-70's, President Ford and Congress reduced the national speed limit to 55 miles per hour, in response to the energy crisis. While this undoubtedly saved lives in traffic accidents, and likely conserved gas in automobiles, the long-haul truckers of the country were not happy. They made their living delivering goods as fast and efficiently as possible. 55 was slow for them, and their diesel engines had significantly worse fuel mileage at that speed. Between that, and local governments making a fortune in speeding tickets off of truckers trying to go faster, an entire culture grew up around truckers communicating on CB (citizens band) radios, trying to avoid speed traps. They had their own slang, some of which you can hear in the song. Trucks in a convoy were less likely to get pulled over.
This song dragged the whole thing into popular culture. The fad had waned by the time the Burt Reynolds film Smokey and the Bandit came out in 1977. There also was a film called Convoy based on the song, starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali McGraw and Ernest Borgnine (Mermaid Man!). Despite the fact that it had a talented cast, and was directed by Sam Peckinpah, it wasn't a very good movie.
Somehow this whole concept leaked into Japanese culture, and Autobot leader was called Convoy.
