The Witwicky Family beginning with Sparkplug and his son Spike met the Transformers shortly after their reawakening on earth in 1984 and had continuing interaction with them far into the future. In 1985, Spike met Carly whom he eventually married. They had a son, Daniel, who was introduced in Transformers: The Movie. He was inside Unicron during the battle against the chaos bringer and saved his father and several Transformers, including Bumblebee and Jazz, from a smelting pool.

Spike Witwicky was also used as the binary-bonded partner of Cerebros, himself the partner of Fortress Maximus, making him the only human character in the series to ever appear as a real, mass-marketed toy.

In the Marvel comics, Spike had a younger brother named Buster, who also had adventures with the Transformers. However, he never appeared on the TV show or in the movie.