My latest addition and the review I did last week highlighted a problem with the infamous Bumblebee Shelf beyond not having the paint I want to redecorate it. I’m running out of space for it and it’s not a very exciting display. They’re just standing there like their having their driver’s license photo taken and I’m not sure you need a driver’s license when you are the car. This week, as I have the okay to start doing more I wanted to dust off and reorganize my Bumblebees to make room and to have a little bit of life to it…at least the ones with any decent form of articulation.

And yes, Scooter of the GoBots is there as well. I didn’t have anywhere else to put him as he kept falling over on my computer desk and I like to pretend Scooter and Bumblebee are best buddies. In this space the Autobots and Guardians get along.

So take a trip with me through the Bumblebees, including the ones I haven’t reviewed on this site before.

My original idea was to group the various Bumblebees by series, the ones definitely focused on versions of the original yellow champion grouped together. That’s how I photographed them…though that’s not ultimately how I positioned them on the shelf. So we have (from top left clockwise) the War For Cybertron game inspired Generations Bumblebee, Alternity Bumble, last week’s new guy Buzzworthy Origin, the original Goldbug Throttlebot (Bumblebee in a new body), my original Bumblebee (second, since the first one broke as a kid but I still have it because Bumblebee), and either the Pretender or K-Mart Legends Bumblebee (there’s no way to really tell since I got it second hand). The tech spec comes from the keychain reissue of the original Bumblebee, which is handing in my car. The tech spec from the original is in a book of tech specs I can’t find right now.

Here is the part where I probably should have realized this wouldn’t work. The non-transforming Bumblebees–Action Master, Titanium with Autobot symbol stand, and Heroes of Cybertron with Spike Witwicky–number at three, so where they’d go I don’t know. There are only three shelves and more than three groupings.

 

Here are the Bumblebees that aren’t G-1 but were inspired by him. Top row has the Legends one that came with Blazemaster, Bot Shots Bumblebee, and both the Goldbug and not-Goldbug version of another Bumblebee…and at this point I can’t even keep all the lines straight. On the bottom row is a Tech Deck knockoff using Bumblebee for the skateboard graphics (there was another with Optimus Prime), a mini-bee based on the movie design, and the largest of my Bumblebees from the Rescue Bots. I think they have smaller ones so I might be able to get something smaller. Space is an issue, remember, which is why I’m not so Bumblebee crazy I buy anything with him on it.

Finally we  have two different version of Transformers Prime Bumblebee and because I didn’t have anywhere else for it a pack-in surprise “toy” thing that I don’t even remember what it came with. Based on the movieverse Bumblebee (my other Bayformers Bumblebee is packed with the movie figures) I think this is supposed to be a key or a ship or something, and it just opens up to a sticker of Bumblebee glued inside. I’m not even sure where I got it.

With so many of these being articulated I put what I could into some kind of ready for battle pose. Alternity Bumble has a floppy head in any position other than straight, WFC gameBee has a floppy foot, and Blazemaster is apparently too heavy for certain poses when Bumblebee is holding him in gun mode, but I figured it out. Scooter actually looks more out of place now that I look at him. The rest I put in where I could and the end result frankly still isn’t spectacular. It’s not the same old boring standing at attention pose for everyone (if they have a choice) and there’s more room for Bumblebees if another one catches my eye, but it still doesn’t wow as a display and it’s not the color alone. At some point maybe I’ll do it again but this is good for now. At least I got something done this week and I’m getting back into things. I’m hoping to dust sometime this week because on my CDs the flakes are so big they look like snowflakes but I had company today so I’m lucky I was able to do this.

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