In Loving Memory of Peter Cullen

It has been unusually quiet on my blog for a while. Not because I had nothing to write about, or because there were no ideas waiting to be turned into articles, but simply because my mind and my heart have been somewhere else. I have been sad. Much sadder, in fact, than I ever expected to be…

Today is the day of Peter Cullen’s funeral, and somehow today feels like the right moment to break that silence. Not with any of the subjects you would normally expect to find here. Those stories will come again. Today, I want to use this little corner of the internet to say goodbye, in my own way, to one of my childhood heroes. To a man I unfortunately never had the privilege of meeting, but whose voice has been part of my life for more than forty years.

As a child, I never really thought about the man behind that voice. To me, he was simply Optimus Prime. He was the leader of the Autobots, the big red and blue truck that transformed into a robot, the hero who somehow always seemed to know what to say. Back then, I could never have imagined who the man behind that voice was, nor could I possibly have known that his voice would stay with me for so much of my life.

I certainly could not have imagined that, at 52 years old, Optimus Prime would still mean so much to me and touch my soul like it did when he suddenly was no more. That one day I would know the name Peter Cullen, know the person behind the voice, listen to him talk about the character and what Optimus represented to him, and appreciate the humanity he brought to something that, to the rest of the world, might simply have been a cartoon character. And I could never have imagined that one day his death would hurt this much.

There is a sentence that has been going through my head over and over again for the past few days:

“Earth is the playground of souls, where the wonders never end, a universe of dreams, where all journeys begin but never come to an end.”

For some reason, I cannot get those words out of my mind. Perhaps because they make me think about how strange and wonderful life really is. About all the people, events, stories, voices and memories we collect along the way. Some are with us only briefly and then slowly disappear into the background. Others somehow become part of who we are and travel with us for much longer than we could ever have anticipated.

Peter was one of those people for me.

I still find myself incredibly sad. There is still that familiar pressure behind my eyes, and last week it suddenly all came out. I cried. I cried a lot. Thankfully, I was at home and surrounded by understanding and love, because at that moment there really wasn’t much else I could do except let it happen.

I honestly did not expect Peter’s death to affect me this deeply, although perhaps I should have known that it would. For more than forty years, for most of my life, that voice was simply there. First when I was a child, later when I became an adult, and eventually when Transformers became something more to me than just a cartoon and some toys from my childhood. Somewhere along the way, those toys became memories. The cartoons became nostalgia. And Optimus Prime became a connection to that little boy who once sat in front of the television, completely fascinated by what he was watching and blissfully unaware of everything life still had waiting for him.

And Peter traveled with me through all of it, without ever knowing it and without us ever meeting. Simply through a voice.

There have been a two things in particular that have touched me deeply over the past week. I have no idea whether they are in the right order, and perhaps there shouldn’t even be an order to something like this.

The first is everything I see about The Death of Optimus Prime. Those words alone are enough at the moment. Instant tears. That scene has always been difficult for me to watch. It made an enormous impression on me as a child, and even decades later it remained an emotional moment. But now something has fundamentally changed. When I watch that scene today, it is no longer only Optimus Prime who is dying. Inevitably, when I hear Optimus speak, I hear Peter. A scene that for almost forty years belonged safely to the world of fiction has suddenly become connected to something very real.

But perhaps the thing has touched me most of all, the incredible sense of togetherness, support and love I have seen throughout the Transformers community.

The Transformers community can sometimes be pretty divided. We all have our favorite generation, our favorite version of Optimus, and our opinions about the movies, television series, characters and designs. We can be remarkably passionate about which interpretation is the best, which movie got it wrong, or which design should never have existed in the first place. G1, Beast Wars, Bayverse, Prime, Animated… normally we can debate these things endlessly.

But over the past week, none of that seemed to matter.

Instead, I saw people from all over the world experiencing the same sense of loss. People sharing stories, memories, photographs, videos, artwork and moments from their childhood. I saw complete strangers comforting each other because somehow they understood exactly what the other person was feeling. Different ages, different countries, different generations of Transformers fans, but all connected by the same voice and by the same man.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful tribute to Peter Cullen of all.

For more than forty years, through the voice of Optimus Prime, Peter spoke to generations of us about courage, loyalty, compassion, sacrifice and leadership. About being strong without losing kindness. About protecting others rather than simply being more powerful than them. And now, at the end of his own journey, he has somehow managed to bring us together one more time. Perhaps only for a little while, but right now we are not G1, Beast Wars, Bayverse, Prime, Animated, or whatever generation we happen to call our own.

We are simply Transformers fans.

Together.

Today, while Peter’s family, friends and loved ones say their final goodbye to him, I want to say goodbye in my own way as well. There is still sadness, and I suspect there will be for quite some time, but underneath that sadness there is an enormous amount of gratitude.

Thank you, Peter. Thank you for that unmistakable voice. Thank you for Optimus Prime. Thank you for all those memories you helped create without ever knowing that you were creating them. And thank you for traveling alongside me for more than forty years without ever knowing who I was. That little boy who once sat in front of the television is 52 years old now. A lot has happened between then and today. But when I close my eyes and hear that voice, a small part of me can still be that child again. Maybe that is why our childhood heroes never truly leave us. They become part of the memories we carry with us. A moment, a feeling, a character, a voice. Something capable of taking us back to another time in our lives, even if only for a few seconds. And perhaps that is why that sentence has been stuck in my mind for days:

“Earth is the playground of souls, where the wonders never end, a universe of dreams, where all journeys begin but never come to an end.”

Today we say goodbye to Peter Cullen, but the journey he started all those years ago does not end here. It continues in every person he inspired, every childhood memory he helped create, every lesson people found in Optimus Prime, and every time that unmistakable voice makes one of us stop, smile, remember… or perhaps shed another tear, as long as we remember, he will forever be with us…

Peter may be gone, but the voice that accompanied so many of us through our lives will remain. And for me, it will always be the voice that stayed with me.

Till all are one.

Rest in peace, Peter. ❤️