Although it has been Optimus Prime's most famous quote since he got introduced, Optimal Optimus was in fact the first Transformer character to say "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" in any Transformers cartoon.
Optimus Prime's Spark container looks exactly like the Matrix of Leadership, first seen in The Transformers: The Movie (1986), yet the two are not the same artifact. It was shaped so because the animators weren't aware of the Matrix's importance in the Transformers lore, and thought it would make a good model for a Spark container. Later, it was explained in a comic that Prime had two identically-shaped objects inside his chest, the Matrix and the container of his Spark. Interestingly enough, due to one of the several animation errors in The Transformers: The Movie (1986), you could also see two Matrix-shaped objects inside Prime's chest.
The writers included the scene of Ravage's severed head being kicked down a chasm into the water to make sure he would not be brought back again. Despite this, the character later returned in a spin-off comic, along with many other "dead" characters.
Rattrap's line "He changes them often enough", referring to Optimus Primal's new alternate modes, is a reference to all the new forms that Optimus had throughout the series, and an in-joke as well, since the cartoon's first priority was to advertise all the new toys. Ironically, most of the toys did not appear in the show.
Originally going to be titled "The Agenda, Part IV"