Peter Cullen is One with the Matrix

His name was Peter Cullen, and he was a hero.

On August 26th, 2026, the world was stunned to hear about the passing of the legendary voice actor, Peter Cullen. People were already still reeling from various high-profile deaths over the last two days, Dolly Parton on the 24th and Tim Curry the day before. And despite what Google may say, I think a lot of nerds have likely taken Peter’s death the hardest, and for good reason. Earlier this year, he finished his role as Thaedus on Invincible. I didn’t even know that he was the voice of Eeyore in the era of Winnie the Pooh I grew up with. Anime fans knew him as the announcer for Toonami, and I have at least one friend who’s an indie voice actor and streamer who’s emulated his voice. But for everyone else, he was, is, and likely always will be Optimus Prime.

Voice Actor’s Have Come a Long Way since the 80s

I don’t think anyone could have imagined just how much Optimus Prime would come to mean to people, especially not Peter. According to Google, back then voice actors weren’t given the same level of respect and adoration we do today. Which is a darn shame, because I can think of several famous actors who got their second wind later in their careers using their voices (Tim Curry among them.) I’d chalk the success of Peter’s role as Optimus to the advice his older brother Larry famously gave him: “Don’t just play another action hero. Be strong enough to be gentle.” That has to be some of the best advice anyone has ever given anyone, because it shows in the way he played the character until the day he died.

Optimus Prime wasn’t just this badass warrior leader. He was kind, he was compassionate, emotionally intelligent. He wasn’t afraid to put a hand on someone’s shoulders when they needed to cry or be reassured. As a result, for the kids who grew up watching the original cartoon in the 80s all the way up to today, Optimus Prime was more than just a fictional character. He was the cool big brother, a mentor, an example of positive masculinity. Most importantly, though, he was a father figure, especially for those who didn’t have a dad in their lives!

And that is why Hasbro’s decision to kill him off might have single-handedly been one of the worst decisions they ever made.

Hasbro Messed up Killing Optimus the First Time

If there’s one thing that I learned while covering the story of Coyote vs ACME, it’s that when a business decides to give a project or character the axe, it’s not meant to be personal. They’re just trying to earn money because they are ultimately beholden to the almighty dollar. And so, with the second wave of Transformers toys due to come out to replace the first, Hasbro had to make room. In other words, they had to clean house while explaining what happened to the first wave and where the new characters came from. The end result was The Transformers: The Movie and the death that now lives in infamy: the original death of Optimus Prime.

For the record, there were people who didn’t want to kill Prime in the movie. Ron Friedman, the man who wrote the movie, fought against the decision, or at least for it to not be permanent. In an interview he gave years later, he famously said that “To remove Optimus Prime, to physically remove ‘Daddy’ from the family, that wasn’t going to work.” But Hasbro didn’t listen, thinking that kids wouldn’t care that Prime died.

They should’ve listened.

BRING BACK OPTIMUS! BRING BACK OPTIMUS!

Like I said before, corporate decisions like this aren’t meant to be personal and aren’t meant to be done out of malice. But for little kids and the target audience, it’s very personal. It was bad enough that the opening act of the movie saw many of the first wave of Autobots violently die in a Decepticon raid. But seeing Optimus Prime die? That scene now lives in infamy as the moment when kids ran out of theaters crying or made them lock themselves in their rooms for days. It was this generational loss of innocence for millions of kids, all in the name of cold, hard cash.

Hasbro would start paying for killing off Optimus Prime almost right away. Their replacement for Optimus, Rodimus, got a flak of unnecessary hate, blaming his interference in Optimus and Megatron’s fight as the reason Prime died. Kids dropped the show or refused to get the new toys. Not to mention the likely mountains of hate mail and hours of phone calls Hasbro got from upset kids or parents angry at them for scarring their kids! And then Hasbro did something dumber. In an episode of season three, they brought back Optimus Prime as a robotic zombie, having him die again in another heroic sacrifice. That just rubbed salt in the wounds!

Now, I don’t hate Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime in any way. He was made to appeal to kids and serve as a surrogate for them as they became teenagers. And his design is pretty cool, if I do say so myself. However, he was no Optimus Prime, and Judd Nelson was no Peter Cullen. Less than a year after killing him off, Hasbro had to give in and brought back Optimus Prime for real. And all was right with the world.

I mean, the show ended in America shortly afterward with a 3-part special, and the Japanese version would kill Optimus off again in its continuation. But Hasbro learned its lesson about Optimus Prime: never let his deaths stick. And now these days, when we see Optimus die, we shrug our shoulders and say, “meh. He’ll be back.”

More importantly, though, Peter Cullen learned just how important the role he helped create really was.

It wasn’t just a role. It was an icon

I reiterate that back in the 80s, voice actors weren’t held up to the same celebrity status that they are today. It was just another gig for Peter to earn money. His biggest concern was that he was losing his job and couldn’t afford the car payments. He knew that he and the cast got fan mail, but Hasbro, for corporate reasons, never gave it to them. Thankfully, Peter found work as the new voice of Eeyore (I didn’t even know this until he died) in the era I grew up watching. And anime fans knew and loved him as the announcer for Toonami who made everything sound cool. I daresay it, but between him and Steve Blum, Peter helped anime get the foothold it needed in the West to become mainstream. And while others would take up the mantle of Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen would always remain the definitive voice. So much so that when Michael Bay started making the live-action movies, the decision to bring Peter back gave them some serious clout. If you ask me, it was pretty much the one good thing about them after Bay’s first film, even if the man didn’t “get” the franchise or its characters. Or cohesive storytelling, for that matter. At least the movies led to Peter returning to voice Prime in most Transformers media, a role that he would hold until his death, including one final short that was attached to the 40th anniversary re-release of The Transformers: the Movie. Which I will be covering in the second half of this, because this has already run too long!