1995 McDonalds Toy Documents Reveal Early Development Concepts for Beast Wars

Beast Wars! 1995 McDonald’s Toy Document Gives Us a Previously Unseen Look at Early Franchise Development and Several Unused Toy Concepts!

Warm up your transwarp drive and grab some drive-through, because we’re heading to the bygone era of 1995 to catch a glimpse at Transformers history! To a time before it was even called…BEAST WARS!

Thanks to Nathan at RoboticPlanetToys on Instagram who acquired a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy presentation binder at auction and has given us scans of the Transformers content within. I say “Transformers” because not only do these concept pages use the Generation 2 logo, the name “Beast Wars” was seemingly not decided upon yet, as it appears nowhere in the document. While we know Hasbro/Kenner initially intended Optimus Primal and Megatron to be the original G1 characters before the show opted to make them new individuals, this document reinforces that, as this predates the change from “Prime” to “Primal” in the toyline proper. Also noteworthy is this was apparently before the faction name “Maximal” was decided upon, as the document states Megatron leads the Predacons while Optimus Prime leads the “Cyberbeasts”.

In the earliest part of the document, several sketches of what would become mainline toys are featured, some with preliminary names, such as Snapper being referred to as “Buzzsaw”, and Scorponok being labeled as “Shockwave”. However, the most interesting thing in this section is the design that would become Cheetor being referred to as “Prowl” while utilizing the color scheme reminiscent of the McDonald’s toy that would ultimately see release as “Panther”. It’s often been suspected that the decision to deco the deluxe toy that became Cheetor as a cheetah may have been a decision that occurred after the sculpting phase was complete; it seems it may have originally been intended to be a panther version of G1 Prowl, which would explain Cheetor’s very Prowl-like head sculpt.

Also mentioned in the document is the pitch for “Auto-Rollers” as the potential auto-transformation gimmick (another carry-over from G2), including four vehicle mode ones, which unfortunately were not included in the document; though Nathan managed to grab an image of the moon buggy Prowl from another auction listing.

Check out the images mirrored below, which include concept sketches of toys that saw release, some that didn’t like sea turtle and dragonfly versions of Megatron, and some that were originally conceived as different characters—like the Predacon Manta Ray who was originally intended to be Optimus Prime! Oh, and a concept sketch for a lion Optimus Prime that pre-dates Lio Convoy, as well as the evolution of the Under-3 toy from a G1-themed Optimus to the lion head that ultimately saw release!

It's nearly the 25 year anniversary for Transformers Beast Wars, the Kingdom line has brought the toys back to major retailer shelves, the Masterpiece line slowly brings fantastically accurate robot and animal modes to collectors, and the recent Japanese Beast Wars Generations book has provides wonderful background information about the development of the line. What better time to reveal previously unseen Beast Wars concepts courtesy of a McDonald's presentation binder! Did you know before they were Maximals lead by Optimus Primal, they were known as the Cyberbeasts, and Optimus Prime was their leader? Additionally, two other alternative McDonald's promotions were being considered, the Creature Autorollers and Vehicle Autorollers. Stay tuned for more posts showing off these unreleased concepts that will certainly contain surprises for even then biggest Beast Wars fans.
Also, don't worry Littlest Pet Shop fans, lots of reveals will be presented after this Beast Wars series.

Starting off this series from the McDonalds concept binder, you'll be familiar with the alligator Megatron, but might be surprised that no only is the bat Optimus known as Optimus Prime, but there was a possible plan for a lion Optimus well before Lio Convoy from the Japanese Beast Wars II series existed. Also notice Scorponok was named Shockwave and Snapper was named Buzzsaw. Lastly the generically named "Panther' toy at one time had a familiar Transformers name: Prowl.
Only Prowl/Panther' made it to Happy Meals in 1996, Scorponok in 1998, and Optimus & Megatron made appearances on the happy Meal boxes. The other concepts though give a peek at alternative ideas Hasbro/Kenner was considering strongly enough to relay to their licensees. Would "Shockwave" been fitting for Scorponok? Trukk not Liun???

The Beast Wars Creature Auto Rollers was an entire concept line that never made it off paper. Check out these cool illustrations of potential toys that would have completely changed the McDonald's Beast Wars Happy Meal promotion.

The last proposed Happy Meal Transformers were not the familiar Beast Wars animals, and would have included Prowl, Starscream, Hound and Rumble as Vehicle Auto Rollers, functionally similar to the Creature Auto Rollers. Sadly when I acquired the McDonald's concept binder it only included this description page. The moon buggy Prowl picture was eventually found online, but I was unable to reach the owner to recover that page or find out if they have the others.

Here it is, the last two pages of the McDonald's Transformers Beast Wars Happy Meal concept binder. The proposed, but unreleased Under 3 toy was a very G1 looking Optimus Prime toy. Quite a bit different than the unnamed final product that better aligned with the Beast Wars theme.

... but wait, there is more to come! I will have another series of posts from a subsequent iteration of concepts for the same Beast Wars promotion, and it gets a lot more colorful too. Stay tuned!

In April 1996, one year after the previous Beast Wars Happy Meal concepts were presented Vehicle Auto Rollers were out, and character decisions and toy colors were being refined. Take a look at these pictures of Megatron as a Sea Turtle, and Optimus Prime as what would become Predacon Manta Ray. I have no information suggesting if these were original ideas by McDonald's or if Hasbro provided some input.
Who do you think would win in an aquatic robot battle?

Beast Wars Megatron concepts didn't stop with the Sea Turtle shown in my last post! A dragonfly Megatron was also being considered that had some interesting wasp-like coloring. Swipe to see the other pictures of a brilliantly colored Iguanus, as well as Panther/Prowl in nearly final colors.
Next up I'll be posting what all these characters would have looked like as Creature Auto Rollers.

Next in this series of McDonald's Beast Wars concepts is the familiar characters from my last post, but now as Creature Auto Rollers. Nothing too surprising except some color changes. Unfortunately this is the last that's seen of the Creature Auto Rollers, as the fold out toy concept moved on into product. One more post remains in this series and it may be quite a surprise. Stay tuned!

Here it is, the last post of the McDonald's Transformers Beast Wars concept series. If you remember way back to the second post of the series, I showed line art of Optimus Prime/Primal as a fold out lion toy. Later I showed an alternate Under 3 toy concept of a G1 Optimus Head. Of course that means Under 3 was indeed supposed to Optimus Prime, and here is the evidence of that. The robot head on the produced toy certainly resembles Optimus' masked face and crown, but the lack an actual name for the toy, and the early Optimus lion toy concept are two pieces of the production history that finally identity Under 3.