Bumblebee (Bumble in Japan, Volks in Argentina, Furão in Brazil and Maggiolino in Italy) is the smaller brother of the Autobots in the Transformers television and comic series based on the popular toy line produced by Takara and Hasbro. His vehicle mode is a Volkswagen Beetle. Bumblebee remains one of the more popular and well remembered characters from the original series, although there has not been a mass market release toy for several years and the character has not been featured in the modern Transformers Universe.
Bumblebee has been depicted very inconsistently in terms of his size, sometimes being as tall as other small Autobots, other times barely taller than a human. In his only official measurement, given in one of the early issues of the Marvel Comics, Bumblebee is said to stand 15 feet tall in robot mode. The toy of Bumblebee is about 5 cm long, whereas a real Volkswagen Beetle is 406 cm (13.32 feet) long, implying a scale of 1:81. With a robot mode height of 8 centimeters, Bumblebee should stand about 648 cm (or 21.3 feet) tall.
The original toy that became Bumblebee was originally released by Takara in 1983 as part of the Micro Change subset of the Japanese Microman line. He was released in the US in 1984. Because Hasbro used toy stock bought from the Microman line, some Bumblebee toys were red instead of yellow. In addition occasionally a different, but similar, mold was put in the box instead of the Bumblebee mold, one based on a Mazda Familia 1500 XG. Because this toy was sometimes found in the box for BUMBLEbee and sometimes in the box for CliffJUMPER, fans started to refer to this toy as Bumblejumper - later shortened to simply Bumper.
Bumblebee was released as Volks in some countries. He was released in a variety of other colors as well - including yellow, red, white and silver.
Bumblebee was one of the original Autobot Transformers, making his first appearance in Issue #1 of the original Marvel Comics Transformers series.
Bumblebee has returned again in this next new toyline from Hasbro.
In the upcoming live-action film Transformers Movie Bumblebee will be a Chevrolet Camaro.
This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 13 July, 2006.
