I noticed in a news article a while ago that we're getting what looks like a Legends class G1 Megatron which I hope they can't make a gun that small illegal because this may be my only chance to get a G1 Megatron cheaply. (And I like the idea that at that size I can make other larger Transformers hold him.)

I'm getting off track... Next to Megatron was another legends figure which was labed as "Gold Bumblebee" I'm guessing they lost the rights to the name "Gold Bug" but to me any Gold Bumblebee will always be Gold Bug.

Getting to the point of this topic, why is this the first time sense G1 that Hasbro has made a Gold Bug figure? Given Hasbro's track record of repaints, remolds, and retools I'm amazed at all the oppertunities they've passed up with this character.

Beast Wars Waspinator could have easily been repainted into Bumblebee and with a different head sculpt the gold TM Waspinator could have been a good Gold Bug.

And there's Classics, Movie, and Animated Bumblebees that are just waiting to be repainted into Gold Bug.

They also need to give Animated his remolded head and they could get two more toys out of him for Wasp though with me being color blind I wouldn't even know about about his color change if someone hadn't pointed it out to me. Crazy Wasp is too close to his original color sceme for me to notice the difference.

But anyway... I'd like to have another Legacy Pack of Bumblebees repainted into Gold Bugs. Not just a straight repaint from yellow to gold though, no I want the heads remolded, helmets painted blue. The only hard part would be movie Bumblebee because he's already got the face plate on and I don't like him with it off. Maybe remold the vents that cover his eyes into a visor with light pipeing. That would make the face plate look even better.  

 

Bumblebee is currently too big of a seller to give way to a Goldbug surge. I doubt they still have it trademarked.

Also, Goldbug is a really lame name.

 

They used the Goldbug name just 2 years ago, in the Shattered Glass set

 

Its going to be part of the upcoming Generations Legends class release sometime next year.

 

Man, Goldbug is one of those name (and head) changes that was just never really that satisfying. In the TV show, he becomes Goldbug for the last couple episodes and that's it. In the comics, he becomes Goldbug then just goes right back to being (Pretender) Bumblebee. His character change would have been better handled through actual, you know, development.

 

He was demoted to Bronze Bug, but really he looks liek a great Legends, and it makes sense that they built him from the old Bumblebee mold.

The old toy/cartoon was pretty much just a gold VW bug type car, and new head and robot colors.

 

Well, part of it is probably the fact that BB is waaaay more popular than his upgraded counterpart. On the topic of repainting Bumblebee into Goldbug, we do have the SG version....and this:



At least it's something.  

 

i call my elite guard bumblebee goldbug, so you can do that

 

They're right -- Bumblebee, name and character wise, has more notoriety. That and the current trend is to develop characters without changing names. (i.e., Cheetor, Hot Shot)
As for the Goldbug head, they were trying to make it look similar to the toy BB head.
Even Dan Gilzevan is said to have had issues with Goldbug.
I personally had grown to accept him, mainly because his car mode looked more like the VW Beetle he was supposed to turn into.

 

Ditto

 

I think the main problem with the cartoon Goldbug is that he wasn't actually Gold. Aside from the blue helmet and face plate my first reaction to him was "What's different about him?"

At the time they really didn't have the ability to paint characters in the cartoon with metalic colors like gold and silver so they ended up as yellow and grey. Being the case for Bumblebee that he was already yellow it's hard to convince an audience that he's now suddenly Gold.

However they could easily do this for the movie line as it would be easy to show Gold in a live action film. Even in animated there's a clear difference between the Gold coloring on Grimlock and Bumblebee's yellow where in the original Grimlock his Gold parts looked yellow in the cartoon. Though for some reason the box art for Elite Guard Bumblebee still looks yellow rather than the gold the toy has.

Personally weather or not it works for the cartoon I still like the idea of getting Gold repaints for toys. As for the whole name changing thing... what about Animated Elita-1/Blackarachnia, Wasp/Waspinator, Longarm Prime/Shockwave, and Sentinel Minor/Prime/Magnus.

 

I'll give you the cartoon comment, but I'll call you out on the comic. He was Goldbug for almost two years before being wrecked by Starscream during the Underbase saga so he hardly went "right back" to being BB. Also, being Goldbug - including his destruction at the hands of Death's Head, rebelling against Grimlock as leader, and being instrumental in the return of Optimus as a Powermaster - DID change him, and constituted one of the better examples of character development we got in the comics. When he returned as Pretender BB, he was far more assured, more of a leader etc etc.

Marvel did a great job with him, given it was a change mandated by the toyline.

 

Bumblebee is a massive IP for Hasbro now, in a much different situation than there was twenty years ago. It just doesn't make financial sense to turn him into Goldbug. Throwing a bone like that Legends repaint to the old fans who remember him and the wink-and-nod of the Botcon Goldbug is likely all we'll get at this point.

Did you read IDW's Spotlight Metroplex? Goldbug is in that issue, and he's a completely separate character from Bumblebee.

 

^^This.

Was quite surprised reading some old issues lately at just how distinct a difference there is between the two characters. Even when he changes physically back to Bumblebee he still retains the maturity and inner torment of Goldbug.

 

Yes, I agree. However, I dispute the idea that Bumblebee needed a new body in order to grow as a character. Especially since, as you point out, when the NEXT toy came along his name changed back to "Bumblebee" but mercifully his characterization underwent no similar conversion.

Just because BB's development and better storylines came when he was Goldbug does not mean that changing him into Goldbug was a good idea. Do you follow?

 

There actually was a Botcon exclusive in 2008.
Goldbug (2008) - Autobot Espionage - www.tfu.info

 

The Goldbug identity was used for a couple of solid years in the comic, and he was a fairly significant character for a reasonable chunk of that time. Hardly "blink and you'll miss it."

EDIT: Sorry, I see that someone got to this before I did. Should have kept reading.... However, I can add this:

Well, at the time, Hasbro was looking to retain one it's core characters while selling new toys. They didn't have the sense they do now that keeping the names consistent was (itself) a way to sell toys, and undoubtedly thought they had to give the character a new name in order to keep selling the character's toys.

That they made the effort to retain the character *at all* is a testimony to Bumblebee's popularity, given the different standards of the era.

 

^ I have no dispute with your historical analysis. I have invoked only the principles of story logic.

In both incarnations, Bumblebee was rebuilt from a largely coincidental destruction. His new head and color loosely corresponded with his maturation, for unclear reasons (note that no actual event around this time causes him to mature, he just decides to do so at just around the same time that he gets his head swap). He was later rebuilt in the comics from another destruction, and Ratchet made him BB again for aesthetic reasons. His name change is totally unconnected to his mental state/maturation, only to his body/toy.

In summary, Goldbug was an unneeded name change from any perspective other than "selling toys," and it is unsurprising that homages are a little thin on the ground. Bumblebee is the popular character.

Moreover, Bumblebee will never again be a VW bug, making a name change to Goldbug even MORE unlikely.

(Further, I did not mean to imply that Goldbug was "blink and you'll miss it." I just argued that it was a frivolous and unnecessary change from a STORY perspective. The toys have always influenced the fiction, but just because it has always been so does not magically turn it into the way writing ought to happen.)

 

Two things.

1. Classics Bumblebee is a VW Bug. It's a different style than the original but it's still a bug.

2. Shattered Glass Goldbug was not a VW Bug so apperently he does not even need to be a bug to be called Goldbug. Though I keep forgetting that version is Goldbug because he's painted mostly in black with some YELLOW accents. Kind of like Stealth Bumblebee from the movie line.

Anyway, I wasn't really asking from a character point of view. I don't actually exspect any Bumblebee to ever become Goldbug again. I was only asking from the perspective of selling more toys.

Hasbro comes out with toys of characters who never even appear in any cartoons, movies or comics. Toys have been repainted and remolded multiple times. So I'm just curious why they never thought that they're missing out on an opportunity to sell more toys by making a bunch of Gold Bumblebee repaints.

Aside from that I would also like Classics, Movie, and Animated Bumblebee's repainted as Waspinator. And just for fun, also as Waspinator, G1, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, Movie, and Animated Starscream molds. (Homage to Beast Wars "Possesion") Or do repaints of Beast Wars Waspinator and Animated Waspinator as their respective Starscreams.  

 

^ I guess because, contrary to popular belief, Hasbro exercises some restraint in spamming repaints?

Moreover, I'm pretty sure that repainting BB as BB (which they love to do) makes more business sense than repainting him as Goldbug. Gold Bumblebee is the homage you're looking for, man.

Bumblebee (G1)/toys - Transformers Wiki

Not even close.