Junk (Transformers)

The Planet of Junk is the home planet of the Junkions, a group of Transformers who transform into motorcycles. The planet and the Junkions first appeared in The Transformers: The Movie.

It is not really a planet in the normal sense of the word, but rather, a landfill in space that has accumulated enough mass to be held together by gravity. Depending on the storyline, it has been depicted as either a traditional spherical planet or as an elongated slab. (In the original movie art and storyboards, the Planet of Junk was intended to be a spherical planet, with several rounded slabs seeming to rise off of its surface. In the end, only the "northernmost" rounded section of the planetoid was retained on film.)

Junkions
A group of Transformers known as Junkions inhabit the Planet of Junk. The planet is within close proximity to the Earth; close enough to receive television broadcasts with only a few decades of lag. According to the Quintessons' preliminary analysis, "the primitive television transmissions from Earth constitute their entire culture."(The Big Broadcast of 2006) As a result they only speak in phrases from commercials and TV shows. Given this, Junkions can be somewhat hard to understand; they tend to talk in somewhat of a mish-mash of catch phrases and sound bites (referred to in the film as "talk[ing] TV").

Junkions are regarded by many other races as being slightly to extremely insane, depending on the race. They also have a rather extreme xenophobic streak due to their isolation on Junk, and are naturally put off by and wary of strangers, even going so far as to assault the Autobots when they first crash-landed on their planet. Apparently the only way to gain the trust and friendship of the Junkions is to announce the universal greeting- "Bah weep gra nah weep nini bam!" which is also a joke repeated in the original Transformers: The Movie.

After the initial battle, the Junkions become allies of the Autobots. Oddly, their eyes are red, which is usually associated with Decepticons in the cartoon.

Their only exhibited alternate mode is a motorcycle; when they attack, they attack en masse, organized into pairs with one in motorcycle mode and the other riding in robot mode to provide firepower. Junkions are superb technicians, capable of assembling all manner of functional machinery from junk(when?). They also seem to have an affinity with mechanical garbage, allowing them to manipulate it and move it telekinetically. These two abilities combine to make Junkions very durable; Junkions are built out of scrap and are naturally very ramshackle, but if their parts are scattered then they can reassemble themselves almost instantly, repairing and reattaching broken off parts and drawing replacement parts from nearby sources (other disabled Junkions, slain Transformers, junkyards, etc.). As Springer says: "It's not hard to knock 'em down, it's getting 'em to stay down that's the trick!". On the Planet of Junk, they are nearly invincible.

The only notable Junkion is their leader, Wreck-Gar. His voice is provided by Eric Idle in the movie and Tony Pope in the television series. The rest of the Junkions' voices were provided by Frank Welker.

Online retailer e-Hobby recolored the toy for the Autobot Hound in a primarily light brown/sand colored deco into the Junkion mercenary, Detritus, who, unlike the other natives of his homeworld, is not aligned to either the Autobot or Decepticon factions. However, this character never appeared in the animated series.

The background soundtrack to the battle on the Planet of Junk is "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Dare to Be Stupid", which, similar to Junkion speech, contains many pop-culture catchphrases.

Transformers: Animated
The Junkions received a nod in the 2008 series with a garbage truck Transformer allied with the Autobots. Named Wreck-Gar in homage to the Junkion leader, he is voiced by "Weird Al" Yankovic, who also provided the song "Dare To Be Stupid" for the Junkion fight scene in the original movie.

Devil's Due Comics
In the third volume of the Devil's due comics the android Serpentor downloaded information on the history of Cybertron from Soundwave. Mentioned among that information was the Quintessons, Alpha Trion, Megatron and Soundwave, the planet of Junk, a warrior named Optimus Primal and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership.