Spike Witwicky/Cartoon continuity

Read about Spike Witwicky, the Autobots' friendly human companion from your favorite 1980s cartoon.

The Transformers cartoon
In 1984, the fourteen-year-old Spike was working on an oil rig with his father Sparkplug when his life was turned upside-down by the arrival of the Decepticons. The evil robots began attacking the rig and terrorizing the workers; when Spike tried vainly to save his father from the clutches of Rumble, he was swatted away by the Decepticon and fell in the ocean. Sparkplug broke free from Rumble's grip a second later and leapt in after him, and as the two Witwickys floated in the brine, the Autobots arrived to stop the Decepticons' evildoing. To cover the villains' escape, Megatron collapsed the oil rig, imprisoning Spike and Sparkplug beneath a metal lattice with fire creeping towards them. Autobot leader Optimus Prime freed the two humans and brought them to safety, and in reciprocation, Spike and his father offered to serve as the Autobots' guides to Earth and allies in the fight against the Decepticons.

While returning to the Autobots' base after writing the latest entry in his journal, Spike stumbled across a sweet discarded cassette player, which he brought back to the base with him. After quizzing Trailbreaker, Hound and Mirage on the Autobots' various special abilities, Spike took Hound up on his offer for a joyride through the desert, leaving the tape player behind. When he returned, however, he was horrified to discover that the device had been the Decepticon Soundwave in disguise, and that he had downloaded much secret information from Teletraan I. Using that information, the Decepticons soon struck Sherman Dam, and when the Autobots tried to stop them, Hound was buried under a pile of rocks, deep in the river, by Rumble. Spike dived in to save him, but once he had done so, he then had to be saved by Hound, who gave him CPR.

While out scanning for Decepticon transmissions with Trailbreaker, Spike and his father learned that Megatron was planning to hit the ruby crystal mines of Burma, and the Autobots mobilized to confront them. Soon after, when the Autobots learned that the Decepticons were poised to return to Cybertron, Spike and Sparkplug volunteered to stop them before they could depart aboard their space cruiser. During the subsequent battle, Spike threw a rock that dislodged Starscream's null-ray. Eventually, the threat of the Decepticons was believed ended when their space cruiser crashed in the ocean.

Several months later, the Decepticons resurfaced with a plan to create an intergalactic transportation system known as a "space bridge". Spike was chilling with Jazz when the villains struck a solar power plant, knocking out power across the city. When Optimus Prime charged Bumblebee with spying on the Decepticons to learn their plan, Spike requested that he be allowed to accompany the small Autobot, beginning a long-standing friendship between the two. Unfortunately, this first mission together did not go very well, as Spike was captured by the Decepticons and almost used as a guinea pig for the first test run of the space bridge, but was thankfully saved at the last second by Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.

Spike's friend Chip Chase brought Spike and Bumblebee on a visit to the laboratory of Doctor Alcazar, with whom he was working on an antimatter formula. Laserbeak attacked the trio as they were leaving the lab, and although they were able to escape, the Decepticons returned to capture Chip in his home. Spike, Bumblebee, Hound and Mirage teamed up to rescue Chip, but the Decepticons were still able to acquire the antimatter formula. In the battle that resulted, Skywarp was wielding the antimatter-powered Megatron when Spike bravely attacked his leg with a pneumatic drill. Skywarp seized the boy, but this gave Chip the distraction he needed to plant an override device on the Decepticon's leg, allowing Wheeljack to control Skywarp's motor relays remotely, tipping the scales of the battle in the Autobots' favor.

Spike was helping Optimus Prime search for the newest location of the Decepticons' space bridge when a distress call from Chip summoned them to a munitions plant under Decepticon attack. Prime was fatally wounded in the subsequent battle, forcing Chip and a team of Autobots to head to Cybertron to recover a replacement cosmitron for his systems. In their absence, the Decepticons attacked Autobot Headquarters, and the leaderless Autobots could not muster the courage to fight. Claiming that this was not what Prime would have wanted, Spike seized Jazz's pistol and announced that he would fight the battle himself if he had to, his bravery galvanizing the other Autobots into action. During the fight, the Cybertron team returned with the cosmitron, restoring Prime, who defeated Megatron and won the day.

A freak snowstorm in the desert around Autobot Headquarters gave Spike cause for celebration, as he introduced the Autobots to the wonders of a snowball fight. When the unnatural weather was discovered to be the product of a Decepticon plot at the North Pole, Spike and his father headed to the Arctic Circle with the Autobots. There, the two humans were captured by the Decepticons' newest recruit Skyfire, but they could see that his heart wasn't in the evil robots' scheme, and he soon switched sides.

When the Autobots discovered a cavern full of dinosaur bones behind their Headquarters, Spike educated them on the ancient reptiles, and helped design the robotic "Dinobots" that Optimus Prime decided to have created based on Spike's stories. Later, he and Bumblebee headed to South America to investigate a Decepticon scheme in Peru, where he got cosy with a native girl named Luisa after he saved her life. Luisa led them to the temple the Decepticons were using as a base, where Spike discovered and repaired the captive Skyfire.

Soon after, he and Chip helped the Autobots create two more Dinobots, Spike faced his greatest challenge yet when he saw his father abducted by the Decepticons. The Autobots quickly enacted a rescue plan, but Spike soon realized that his father was not in his right mind when he discovered that he was responsible for sabotaging Teletraan I and the Autobots' weapons. In truth, a hypno-chip had transformed Sparkplug into a mind-controlled Decepticon slave!

Concurrently, the Decepticons activated a massive space bridge that teleported the entire planet Cybertron into Earth's orbit, causing massive natural disasters that Spike and the Autobots were also forced to contend with. Discovering that his father had been taken to Cybertron, Spike insisted that Optimus Prime allow him and a team of Autobots to go to the planet and find him. Navigating traps and ventilation shafts, Spike, Bumblebee and Brawn made their way to Decepticon Headquarters, where Spike confronted his father in hopes of bringing him to his senses. Unfortunately, Sparkplug instead triggered an alarm that brought the Decepticons running, forcing Spike and the Autobots to flee and take refuge in Wheeljack's old laboratory. There, Wheeljack analyzed a computer disk stolen from Decepticon Headquarters by Bumblebee and created a device to undo the hypno-chips' effects. Spike served as bait to lure the Decepticons and Sparkplug out so that the device could be tested, and although he was nearly shot by his brainwashed father, Wheeljack's counter-weapon succeeded, freeing Sparkplug from Decepticon control. The Autobots and Witwickys headed back to Earth, where Spike hit on the idea to blow up the Decepticons' stockpile of energon cubes in order to blast Cybertron out of Earth orbit.

Spike traveled with the Autobots to Bali to battle the newest Decepticons, the Insecticons, and was the one who came up with the idea to use Trailbreaker's forcefield to block Shrapnel's clone beams. Soon after, Spike was among the spectators of a mighty one-on-one battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron, which ended with Prime's defeat. When Megatron was revealed to have cheated by combining all the powers of the Decepticons together, the Autobots overturned the result of the fight and sent the Decepticons tumbling into a river of lava. Spike wondered if this was truly the end of the Transformers' war, but Optimus Prime was uncertain.

When Spike was grievously injured by Megatron in a Decepticon attack, the Autobots had to figure out a way to remove his mind from his body so that life-saving surgery could be performed. The process was carried out using Autobot X, a Frankenstein-like robot created by Sparkplug from various Autobot spare parts, but the unstable robot body clouded Spike's mind. He began rampaging, and eventually fled Autobot Headquarters, at which point he was approached by Megatron, who manipulated him into allying with the Decepticons against his friends. Only after nearly killing his father did Spike come to his senses, and turned on the Decepticons, after which his mind was subsequently transferred back into his body.

Spike was instrumental in saving New York City from Decepticon domination when he and Bumblebee infiltrated Megatron's command post and goaded him into destroying his own weapons control console, after which he had to fight against his friends when the Autobots fell under the influence of a Decepticon personality destabilizer device.

While on a run to pick up a polarizer for Wheeljack's new Immobilizer invention, Spike and Bumblebee stopped off at the Robots Video Arcade, where Spike was approached by an older girl named Carly. When it turned out that all she wanted was to be introduced to Bumblebee, however, Spike excused himself and his Autobot buddy, and they had an eventful journey back to the base, enduring a policeman who questioned Spike's driving age and a surprise attack by Ravage. Carly trailed them back, and then helped them out in their mission to reclaim the stolen Immobilizer from the Decepticons. At the adventure's end, Spike invited Carly out for a chocolate soda, beginning a romance between the two teens.

When Spike and Chip came up with the idea of the Autobots racing for charity, they could never have predicted that the Decepticons would use it as an opportunity to trap the heroic robots in their vehicle modes with their new Transfixatron. Wheeljack and Ratchet managed to escape the paralyzing device's influence and created a grenade to undo its effects, and Chip and Spike outran Soundwave and his cassettes to detonate it in the Autobots' midst and save them.

After a lesson in how to play football, Spike went with a team of Autobots to investigate the underwater city of Sub-Atlantica, and told them of the legend of Atlantis that was potentially inspired by it. Later, while investigating a Decepticon oil pumping platform, Spike was captured alongside Skyfire and Hound, but was able to effect their release by incapacitating their Decepticon guards with an electro-magnet. Later still, Spike told the Autobots about ninjas when he attended the unveiling of Nightbird.

When a mysterious second Optimus Prime appeared while the Autobots were investigating a crevice of korlonium crystals, Spike proposed a series of tests to determine which was the real one. The tests failed, but the impostor Prime was revealed when he displayed no concern for Spike after the boy was captured by Megatron. His deception revealed, Megatron hurled Spike from his rocket base to cover his retreat, but he was safely rescued by Powerglide. Soon after, Spike joined the Autobots in battling the super-powered Insecticons, and bravely climbed Shrapnel's body to deliver by hand the antidote that stopped his over-charged frame from exploding.

The Autobots' discovery of a mysterious prehistoric island where dinosaurs still lived was a dream come true for Spike, and he christened the lost world "Dinobot Island" when Powerglide and the Dinobots took him there. After some perilous encounters with the local wildlife, however, Spike decided he would limit his dinosaur experiences to reading about them in books. Powerglide returned Spike home, but while he and Bumblebee headed to the library, the Decepticons arrived on Dinobot Island and began draining its many sources of energy. This caused a series of time warps to open all over the world, including one that disgorged barbarians and woolly mammoths right into Spike and Bumblebee's path! The time-tossed creatures collapsed a building on top of the duo, but Bumblebee shielded Spike with his body, and the other Autobots soon arrived to dig them out and send the unwelcome visitors back through the time warp. A little later, Spike taught Optimus Prime how to play basketball.

Spike believed it was "about time" when the mayor of Central City decided to honor the Autobots with a holiday dedicated to them, but he was horrified when mayoral rival Shawn Berger interrupted the ceremony with a tape given to him by Megatron that framed the Autobots for energy theft. Naturally, Spike, his father and Chip were not fooled by the bogus footage, but unfortunately, they were about the only humans who stood by the Autobots. When the heroic robots went to trial, Spike left in the middle of the proceedings to try and locate some evidence to prove their innocence. He was successful, discovering more footage on the tape that revealed the "Autobots" on display as disguised Decepticons, but was then confronted by Ravage. Escaping, Spike presented his evidence to the mayor, but it came too late: the Autobots had already been exiled from Earth, and the world was now celebrating the Decepticons. Megatron did not allow his pantomime to last long, however, announcing in a press conference his dominion over Central City. Spike was captured and put to work in a slave camp along with the rest of the city's population, but thankfully, before long, the Autobots returned to Earth to clear their names and rout the Decepticons.

Spike and Carly were enjoying themselves at an amusement park with Bumblebee, but the merriment had to come to an end so they could go to the airport and pick up Sparkplug. The airfield became a battlefield, however, when a Decepticon base was discovered in a nearby hangar and the Dinobots were ordered in to attack. Badly damaged by the fight, the Dinobots decided to finally secede from the Autobots, but this could not have come at a worse time: no sooner had they left than the Autobots began to malfunction due to cybertonium deterioration. Spike and Carly volunteered to go to Cybertron to recover a fresh supply, but as soon as they had arrived, they fell afoul of Shockwave, and were forced to flee into the tiny tunnels honeycombing the planet. Heading for Wheeljack's lab, Spike and Carly encountered Swoop, who had come to Cybertron with the other Dinobots, but had been the only member of the team to avoid capture. With Swoop to help them, Spike and Carly navigated the ancient traps in the bowels of the planet, and even found a historical video records room that relayed for them the history of the Transformers' war. While watching the video, they were ambushed by Shockwave's sentinels and taken to join the other Dinobots in the cybertonium pits. The Dinobots had had their memory circuits bypassed to ensure their compliance, but Carly soon put their systems right, and they worked with the two humans to escape the pits, defeat their captors and return to Earth with enough cybertonium to repair all the Autobots. For their bravery, Spike and Carly were appointed Honorary Autobots.

Spike and Carly got to travel to the moon when the Decepticons threatened the world with the Voltronic Galaxer, after which Spike went on an even greater journey: into the past! Along with Hoist and Warpath, Spike followed a group of Decepticons through a relic called the Dragon Mound, which transported them to 543 AD. There, Spike took an immediate liking to Nimue, the daughter of a local nobleman, and tried to single-handedly rescue her when she was kidnapped by the Decepticons and their local ally, Sir Wigend of Blackthorne. Unfortunately, by the time Spike had scaled the tower Nimue was being held in (which was in and of itself a challenge thanks to the heavy suit of armor Hoist had made for him), she and Wigend had fallen in love and become engaged! Spike subsequently returned to the present with the Transformers, where we can only assume he didn't tell Carly about the hot medieval chick.

When several Autobots and Decepticons were lost in a space bridge accident, Spike was among those who huddled around Teletraan I as Chip tried to use the computer to locate them. After the lost Transformers returned, Spike, Bumblebee and Cosmos were sent to the planet Floron III to recover robotic insecticide that would help deal with the threat of the Insecticons. Unfortunately, they also inadvertently brought back one of the planet's native lifeforms, the Morphobots.

Spike was washed away in a flash flood caused by Astrotrain and Blitzwing when they started fighting for Decepticon leadership, but was rescued by Optimus Prime and carried to safety by Powerglide. Later, Spike was working in his father's automotive garage when Powerglide dropped in with Astoria Carlton-Ritz, a flighty heiress he had rescued from the Decepticons. Spike began hitting on Astoria when they were left alone, but when he found that all she wanted to talk about was Powerglide, he grumpily returned to his work...at which point all his equipment started malfunctioning thanks to Astoria's tendency to jinx up machinery around her. We bet Spike didn't tell Carly about her, either.

When Hoist, Spike and Carly accidentally stumbled into the middle of a movie shoot, the movie's director decided to hire Hoist and some other Autobots on to star in his movie, and Spike and Carly were given free passes to the studio lot. While there, they discovered the Decepticons were also hiding out on the lot, searching for footage a film crew had accidentally taken of a secret cargo they were transporting. Spike and Carly were able to get hold of the negative the Decepticons were looking for, and fled (with some difficulty) through the myriad movie sets decorating the lot. Eventually, the Decepticons were tricked into believing the negative was destroyed when Hoist pretended to be evil and dropped it, Spike and Carly in a vat of lava... but of course, it was only movie magic.

Spike, Carly and Sparkplug were in the audience when Perceptor received the National Scientific Achievement award for his newest invention, Corrostop. Later, when the Combaticons tried to plunge the Earth into the sun using the space bridge, Spike helped the Autobots find the missing space bridge control panel, and convinced Megatron to join forces with them to stop the Combaticons' plan. For his final recorded adventure in the 20th century, Spike aided the Autobots in apprehending the Stunticons, reacting with some distress to the sight of Optimus Prime playing "chicken" with Motormaster.