Hound/Cartoon continuity

Hound was the secondary kid-appeal character in the 1980s cartoon, but he had a much cooler jeep alt-mode!

The Transformers cartoon
Hound was one of the original Autobots aboard the Ark when it crash-landed on Earth four million years ago. When awakened in 1984, he was reformatted to have a terrestrial alt-mode, that of a Mitsubishi military jeep.

As the Autobots got their bearings on this strange, new planet, Optimus Prime dispatched Hound on a recon mission to find the Decepticons. The impetuous Cliffjumper tagged along uninvited, itching to start a fight, and took a pot-shot at Megatron once Hound sniffed out the Decepticon base. Cliffjumper missed, and the Decepticons gave chase. Laserbeak pursued the two Autobot eavesdroppers, and Hound took the brunt of the assault, getting blasted by Laserbeak's cannons. Hound spun out of control on the winding mountain roads and crashed into a ravine.

Cliffjumper returned with help: the Autobot medic, Ratchet. Hound was too injured even to transform, so the crane truck Hauler had to lift him out of the gulch so he could be dragged back to the Ark for repairs. Despite the mishap, Hound bore no ill will against Cliffjumper. The scout had heard enough about Megatron's plans to plunder the Earth's resources that Optimus immediately launched a mission to stop the Decepticons.

Later, when the Autobots counter-attacked the Decepticon siege of Sherman Dam, Hound got into an underwater fight with Rumble. The pint-sized Decepticon managed to trap Hound under a pile of boulders so that he couldn't move. Then Spike Witwicky jumped in and removed the boulders, thus freeing Hound to resurface and rejoin his teammates.

After they came back from the ruby crystal mines of Burma, Hound and Mirage came up with a plan to fool the Decepticons: They would create a hologram of a rocket fuel base. The Decepticons would go there to use the resources to create energon cubes, at which point the trap could be sprung. Optimus Prime agreed, and the then-imprisoned Ravage was allowed to escape with the false information. However, Megatron outsmarted the Autobots, went to the real rocket fuel base and used its resources.

After Chip Chase was kidnapped by the Decepticons, who were after the antimatter formula, Hound and Mirage used their respective powers to sneak into the antimatter laboratory in order to mount a rescue. While Hound distracted Megatron with an army of holographic duplicates, Bumblebee and Spike swooped in to save the prisoner, and the Autobots beat a hasty retreat through a fourth-floor window. Megatron had already obtained the formula, and he attacked Autobot Headquarters. When Starscream unleashed the power of the antimatter gun in his direction, Hound ended up buried up to his waist in rubble.

He again defended the base when Optimus Prime was incapacitated and required a new Cosmitron. Though the fight didn't got well for the Autobots, they held off the Decepticons long enough for Optimus to be repaired. After enjoying a snowball fight in mid-summer, the Autobot traced the source of the strange temperature drops to the Arctic. Hound was one of the Autobots who went there to investigate and immediately encountered a new Decepticon, Skyfire. When Spike and Sparkplug became trapped on the ice, Hound was unable to rescue them and watched helplessly as they were carried off by Skyfire. As the Autobots followed, Hound, Gears, Ratchet and Ironhide were separated from the others and subsequently captured by the Decepticons. Skyfire was ordered to eliminate the foursome as a test of loyalty, but refused and was blasted by Starscream. Hound employed his holograms to allow the four Autobots to avoid a similar fate. Once they'd repaired Skyfire, the jet happily defected, but ended up buried in ice following the defeat of Megatron's plan. The Autobots held a memorial for him.

After the Autobots discovered fossilized dinosaur bones inside a cavern in the Autobot volcano, Hound was accompanied Spike on a trip to the museum, a new Earth experience that excited him. He scanned three dinosaur skeletons with his hologram gun, and the resulting holographic simulation inspired Wheeljack and Ratchet to build the Dinobots. However, Grimlock severely damaged Teletraan I when the exceptionally dim-witted Dinobots went on a rampage, forcing Hound and Spike to scout for Decepticon activity while the Autobot base computer was being repaired. Hound didn't mind the extra work, as it allowed him to do sightseeing of the surrounding Earth landscape. He managed to detect Decepticon activity at the Great Falls hydroelectric power facility and relayed the information to Optimus Prime. Arriving at the falls, he was extremely impressed with the view. When no Decepticons were in immediate view, Bluestreak jokingly wondered about the occupancy of glitch mice in Hound's database, to the amusement of no one. Hound was among the Autobots subsequently captured by the Decepticons, but was freed when Wheeljack and the Dinobots arrived to save the day.

Hound joined the Autobots on a mission to Peru to thwart Megatron's exploitation of the Crystal of Power. They won. Next, Hound was on the Autobot squad, along with the Dinobots, which was on-hand when a meteor crashed to Earth in a ghost town.

After Sparkplug was abducted by Laserbeak, Hound took part in a diversionary attack on the Decepticon base while a small team went in and rescued Sparkplug. Later, he and the rest of the Autobots attempted to stop Megatron from activating a giant space bridge. They failed, and Cybertron was drawn into Earth's orbit. During the retreat back to Headquarters, Hound and Bluestreak had to save Spike from Laserbeak. Hound used his sensors to locate Bumblebee, who'd fallen into a crevasse, so that Windcharger could haul the diminutive Autobot out. As he was out of gas, Bumblebee had to ride back to Headquarters in Hound.

Hound took part in the cleanup efforts after Cybertron was ejected from Earth's orbit. After the Decepticons were spotted on the move, the Autobots gave chase. After a brief stop in a quicksand trap, they caught up with the Decepticons outside Doctor Arkeville's secret laboratory and prevented the explosion of the Exponential Generator. Hound turned out to cheer on Optimus Prime during the Autobot leader's one-on-one fight against Megatron. To the shock of all of the Autobots, Prime lost, and they were legally obligated to vacate the planet. Once they returned to base, they discovered that Megatron had cheated, and the results of the fight were void. Faced with the Decepticon's huge new warrior, Devastator, Hound projected an even bigger Autobot, distracting the combiner long enough for Optimus defeat him. The Autobots subsequently blasted the Decepticons into a crevasse filled with lava.

After Spike's mind was transferred into a robot body, the process affected the boy and Megatron turned him against the Autobots. Hound rolled out to bring Spike back to Autobot Headquarters and stood by his bedside as his mind was transferred back. Hound was later on another mission to a gold mine. The mission didn't go well, resulting in the Autobots being battered by energised boulders, and Gears being kidnapped. When Megatron activated his Solar Needle, the Autobots were obliged to travel to Africa to shut down the operation and rescue Gears. They did briefly consider leaving him with his temporary affable personality, but were overruled by Gears himself.

The Autobots visited New York City when the Decepticons began replacing buildings with Cybertronian architecture. Optimus Prime was captured by the Decepticons, and Hound, along with Spike, Bumblebee, Ratchet and Mirage, entered the sewer system in an attempt to rescue their leader. After tangling with an Alligaticon, Hound became confused by the fact that his sensors detected Prime behind them. His sensors were correct—the Constructicons had built the Alligaticon out of Prime's parts. Hound, Mirage and Ratchet ended up wrangling it so Optimus could be rebuilt. During the battle for New York, Hound found himself battling Frenzy in a subway with Bluestreak, then consoling Wheeljack after the scientist's remote-controlled helicopters failed to stop Devastator.

When Megatron used a personality destabilizer device on the Autobot recharging chamber, Hound was one of the Autobots turned to evil. He and Ratchet went after Doctor Harding, who had plans for a new solar satellite. When she escaped them at the lab by jumping out of a window, Hound pursued her into an alleyway, where she jumped into one of the dumpsters. As he picked up the dumpster she was in, Jazz arrived and distracted him long enough for Sparkplug to use an attitude exchanger to restore Hound's good nature. The Autobots set about finding the rest of their number, and Hound struck on the idea of firing the exchangers from their guns, enabling them to restore the rest of the Autobots.

During a test of Wheeljack's latest invention, the Immobilizer, Hound projected a hologram of Laserbeak, only for Ironhide to mistake it for the real thing. The Autobots dove for cover as he fired, and the only casualty was the Immobilizer itself. Hound took part in an Autobot charity event, during which the Decepticons took the opportunity to test out their new Transfixatron. Stuck in vehicle mode, the Autobots were taken to a ghost town, but Hound was able to use his holographic gun to send a message back to base. Though his gun was blasted by Soundwave, the message had been received, and the Autobots back at base came to the rescue with an anti-transfixation grenade.

Hound bravely participated in a game of football against the Dinobots, resulting in him coming off second best when he ran into Slag while heading for a touchdown. Investigating strange energy readings, he and the other Autobots encountered the Sub-Atlanticans and Decepticons beneath the sea. The Autobots raced for Washington, which their combined enemies intended to conquer. Hound warned the other Autobots to be careful that they didn't damage any of the historical structures there as they fought, but all of the Autobots were overcome by Nergill's magnetic dysfunction ray. It wasn't until the Dinobots arrived and the weapon was destroyed that the Autobots were freed from its power. The Autobots assaulted Sub-Atlantica, and the city was destroyed by Nergill's own hand.

While the bulk of the Autobot forces went to investigate the reprogramming of TORQ III at Quantum Laboratories, Hound, Spike and Skyfire were left on their own to check out why the world's fleet of oil tankers were converging on a spot near the Decepticon base. They found the Decepticons had built an oil platform, and they used one of the tankers to sneak aboard, only to be almost immediately captured. Spike's deft use of an electromagnet broke the trio out, and Hound was able to destroy the shield generator protecting the platform. The main Autobot force stormed the base, and Prime helped the trio get clear before it was destroyed.

After Nightbird, a human-invented robot, was reprogrammed by the Decepticons and stole the World Energy Chip from Autobot Headquarters, the Autobots gave chase. Hound used his infrared sensors to track her down, but it was only after a prolonged fight that they got the chip back and Nightbird was disabled. On one strange occasion when the Autobots found that they had two Optimus Primes, Hound accompanied the Autobot forces to a crevasse from which strange energy readings were emanating, and he ended up fighting Starscream briefly.

Hound, Beachcomber and Bumblebee investigated reports of chewed-up trees and quickly realised that the Insecticons were behind it. After tracking down their quarry, the three Autobots, along with Spike and Ranger Jeff, were chased off a cliff by a fallen tree trunk. They were able to take shelter on a small ledge, and Hound used a hologram to fool the Insecticons into thinking the Autobots had been destroyed. After radioing base to warn them that the Insecticons and their Decepticon allies intended to attack the Nova Power Plant, the trio headed to the target themselves, but were too late to prevent the Insecticons from devouring the Nova Power Core. Hound and Jazz ended up pulling Wheeljack out of the wreckage of a pylon. The Autobots tried to head off a subsequent attack on Iron Mountain, but the power-saturated Insecticons blasted them. Hound ended up under Inferno, who was under a ton of rock. He then ended up at ground zero as the Insecticons were about to explode, but swift work by the Autobots prevented too much of a disaster.

Hound was witness to another of the Dinobots' rampages at headquarters, after which they were sent to the newly discovered Dinobot Island to work on their technique. Responding to strange energy readings in the city, Hound used his sensors to locate Bumblebee and Spike under some rubble, before taking part in the effort to round up a bunch of barbarians on mammoths who'd wandered through a time warp. He and Sunstreaker kept the warp open long enough for the barbarians to be returned through it.

The Autobots were taking part in an Autobot Day parade to celebrate their accomplishments, when a tape was shown which incriminated them all for energy theft. Hound and the others were put on trial, swiftly found guilty, and ordered to leave the planet. With little other choice but to obey the law, they boarded a spacecraft supplied by Shawn Berger. When Cliffjumper proved unable to alter the ship's flight path, Hound pinpointed their destination: the Sun! Unable to prevent the ship's destruction, they used one of Trailbreaker's force fields to link to Cosmos and were able to return to Earth. There, Megatron's frame-up had already been exposed, and the Autobots brought the full might of their forces down on the enemy.

Hound attended a demonstration of the Ultra Plane, only for the experimental drone craft to be destroyed by the Decepticons. He took part in the defense of the lab behind the Ultra Plane, using one of his holograms to trick Starscream and Soundwave into believing that Megatron had retreated. A short while later, he and the rest of the Autobots were afflicted by Cybertonium depletion and were unable to function. Luckily, Spike, Carly and the Dinobots were able to retrieve some more from Cybertron. Hound rolled out to prevent the theft of the Voltronic Galaxer and again later to help the humans when Megatron used the device to block radio waves planet-wide.

He was part of a second wave of Autobots who went up against electrum-coated Decepticons. They didn't have much better luck than the first wave. Once they found the pool of electrum that the Decepticons had been utilising, the Autobots were able to even the odds. Hound rolled out to rescue Perceptor from a Decepticon trap, and he was presumably subsequently struck down by the same Cosmic Rust that afflicted the other Autobots. After the Autobots captured the Stunticons, who were out on a mission for Megatron, Hound probed their memory banks but only came up with a map to a crater. A number of the Autobots, including Optimus, disguised themselves as the Decepticon team, but after they'd gone to uncover Megatron's plan, the real Stunticons broke out of their cells. Hound came to see what all the noise was, and was blasted by Menasor as the combiner departed. The damaged Autobots recovered in time to provide much-needed reinforcement to Prime's team.