When the Buzzworthy Bumblebee toy line first started popping up at Target, I had assumed it was just going to celebrate Bumblebee as a character in all his myriad forms and bodies. Now that they're branching out, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Has the toy line become Bumblebee and His Buddies? How does Kup factor into things, specifically? Is there going to be a whole series of Autobots who were damaged by the hate plague infected Superion as per "The Return of Optimus Prime" part 1? Because that's the only connection I can think of between Bumblebee and Kup.

I mean, I get that it's ultimately just branding and that it doesn't really mean much. But, there's so much branding information on the packaging that it's almost overwhelming. The front of the box alone says "STUDIO SERIES TRANSFORMERS 86 02 BB BUZZWORTHY BUMBLEBEE KUP" and that's just a lot to take in all at once.

The trade dress is kind of a mash-up of the previous Buzzworthy branding (yellow and black box) with elements of the Studio Series packaging (the large "86" on the side panel and the same "Battle of Autobot City" cardboard backdrop). The character artwork on the side panels suggests we may get Arcee, Mirage, and Optimus Prime as part of this ever-growing series at some point in the future. Hard to say for sure. (Maybe in ten years' time it will be this vast, sprawling multimedia experience, and we'll all be able to say, "Hey, remember when Buzzworthy Bumblebee was just a tiny little toy line you could only find at Target...?")

So, this is a redeco of the mass-marketed Stuidio Series Kup, released roughly a year ago, and which as of this writing is still widely plentiful at Walmarts all over the nation. (Walmart is still swimming in toys intended for the 2021 holiday season, but which languished on container ships for months and weren't shipped to stores in time for Christmas.) It was available for the briefest of moments from Hasbro Pulse, and I was lucky enough to get one through that channel. Still need the Cliffjumper redeco, though.

So there are, I think, two or three major differences that distinguish this Kup from the previous release. For one, the vehicle front windshield is opaque instead of translucent. I love this so much. It really helps to sell this as the animated character, whose windshield was a light grey color that honestly didn't look like a windshield most of the time. (On the G1 toy, it was also opaque, and a lot of kids just slapped his Autobot symbol right on top of it. That's how un-windshield-like it was.) It looks so much better than the previous release, which was translucent so the circuit detail or whatever was visible behind it. It just didn't look right.

Also, there's new paint deco to recreate the battle damaged look that Kup, specifically, included as part of his character design. He's an older character who has visible scratches and rust spots as part of his animation model, but it's never been reproduced accurately on a toy before. This version has tampographs resembling pen lines that capture this battle damage. It's like Hasbro has gone NECA (and that's meant to be a compliment). They even put a tampograph on the thermoset plastic comprising his left shoulder, what some people in the fandom likes to call "unpaintable plastic," so I'm sure they're busy puzzling over THAT one right now.

He's also got blue painted eyes instead of the light-pipe, which honestly works just fine for me, since the light-pipe eyes would almost always read as black and dead and empty. This is such a huge improvement.

His overall color scheme also got an update, though it's not quite as overtly apparent. His dark greyish-teal is pretty much the same, but his lighter secondary color is more grey now than green. Also, the color mapping on his vehicle mode has been revised. In some circles, there was considerable analysis over the colors of the first Studio Series toy, which may or may not have resulted from Hasbro using a single moment from The Transformers: the Movie as photo reference, during the Autobot exodus from Unicron's interior, when Kup is colored in heavy shadow and his various greens and greys are arguably open to interpretation. The demonstrable wrongness of the first Studio Series toy has been corrected here, with the section of the truck directly behind the windshield (the roof?) now a correct dark color instead of the lighter color on the previous release. His wheels are also grey this time instead of black.

Is that why we got this release? Because Hasbro made a goof and somebody wanted to release a corrected version? Or as a response to the complaints about the windshield and eyes? Or just because Target said "hay guise give us some exclusive toys, kthxbai" and this was a cheap and easy redeco? We may never know for sure. It's not a remolded Targetmaster Kup with weapon mount and Recoil, but it's still pretty awesome that this even exists. It's like the typical Takara response to the Hasbro Kup, only—surprise!—it was Folgers Crystals all along!

(I wonder how many unscrupulous collectors will stuff their regular old Kup into the Buzzworthy box and try to get their money back? Probably a non-zero amount, would be my guess.)

I would be in full support of a Rodworthy Hot Rod redeco in a bright magenta color so vibrant that it would give Steve Burns PTSD. (That's a Blue's Clues joke. Because, you see, the pink dog on the show was named Magenta. Steve is the guy from Blue's Clues. You know what, just forget it.) I can't think of a Blurrworthy variant we desperately need to complete the triumverate, though. Hmm.

I feel like Transformers has finally "made it" as a collector toy line. Remember how crazy Star Wars used to be with all its incredibly minor toy variations? Like, when they came out with a Build-A-Droid verion of U-3PO, that random extra silver droid who shows up for like three seconds behind C-3PO during his first appearance in A New Hope, only then Lucasfilm went, "Um, actually, he's sort of more of a champagne color" so they made a running change and then you had to hunt down six MORE action figures to build THAT version? There was realistically no reason to do that. But they did it anyway. And Kup here kind of reminds me of that in some ways.

But, honestly, it's great. Kup is arguably much more important than U-3PO. Really, he's the other main character of The Transformers: the Movie besides Hot Rod. He deserves to get an accurate toy. And it speaks towards the idea that Hasbro is so keenly tuned into the fandom right now that they recognized that this toy needed to exist and actually found a channel to make it available. And that blows me away.

Zob ( remember the days when "oh, you like G1? Here's a purple pterodactyl named Lazorbeak, now shut up" passed for fanservice?)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:

> So there are, I think, two or three major differences that distinguish
> this Kup from the previous release. For one, the vehicle front
> windshield is opaque instead of translucent. I love this so much. It
> really helps to sell this as the animated character, whose windshield was
> a light grey color that honestly didn't look like a windshield most of
> the time. (On the G1 toy, it was also opaque, and a lot of kids just
> slapped his Autobot symbol right on top of it. That's how
> un-windshield-like it was.) It looks so much better than the previous
> release, which was translucent so the circuit detail or whatever was
> visible behind it. It just didn't look right.

When the Titans Return toy can]me out, I was a little surprised to discover
it was a windshield. I mean, I guess it makes sense, and I must have known
at some level, because I though Animated Cybertronian mode Optimus could
have made a great “Young Kup”, with some light remolding but I had
forgotten.

> Is that why we got this release? Because Hasbro made a goof and somebody
> wanted to release a corrected version? Or as a response to the
> complaints about the windshield and eyes? Or just because Target said
> "hay guise give us some exclusive toys, kthxbai" and this was a cheap and
> easy redeco? We may never know for sure. It's not a remolded
> Targetmaster Kup with weapon mount and Recoil, but it's still pretty
> awesome that this even exists. It's like the typical Takara response to
> the Hasbro Kup, only—surprise!—it was Folgers Crystals all along!

I would have happily accepted just the weapon mount, if they couldn’t boost
the price point.

> Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
> > Is that why we got this release? Because Hasbro made a goof and somebody
> > wanted to release a corrected version? Or as a response to the
> > complaints about the windshield and eyes?

Part of me feels like we should have seen this coming. We should have recognized Kup and Hot Rod were not in 100% movie accurate decos in Studio Series (the movie accurate line) and expected a repaint. The not-a-windshield they've been given him since Titans Return just drives me nutty. But they got close so I was pretty happy with it, enough to buy SS '86 Kup the first time and not ask questions. It kind of does feel like somebody wanted a do-over with the Kupworthy release but maybe that was always the plan.

Rare is the retail figure nowadays that is not eventually redecoed, retooled, or rereleased or even some combination of all three. So on some level repaints are on purpose and expected. Despite their spin I don't give them credit for trying to please fans with a more accurate color scheme after some online outcry. They've advanced way beyond that. I also don't necessarily think it's the other way around and they deliberately anger fans with non-media accurate decos the first time around just so they can cash in later on with the one they 'should' have released first. It's just their redeco playbook and it's not personal it's just business. It's good business. They see markets for the different deco options and try to hit them but they're limited with what they can do for certain characters. I just hate all the guessing I have to do.

I'm sure 'We listened to the fans' is just spin. The majority of figures get some sort of rerelease be it Diaclone inspired, a toy/anime scheme, or Shattered Glass or just a recolor into another existing different character and most of the time nobody complains. They already know some will hate what they do no matter what. People have been complaining about battle damage since Siege began and they still put out Kingdom Galavatron that way initially. It's good marketing to say that a deco is some sort of 'listening to the fans' rerelease but really it's all part of the mold reuse plan. The pattern plays out and we are just on the sidelines hootin' and hollerin' not really making a difference with our voices when it's really our wallets they listen to.

I am waiting for my toy accurate Studio Series '86 movie Dinobot redecos and I'm pretty sure I'll get them, as I am sure magenta Hot Rod is coming.

On Sunday, March 6, 2022 at 5:53:29 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> When the Buzzworthy Bumblebee toy line first started popping up at Target, I had assumed it was just going to celebrate Bumblebee as a character in all his myriad forms and bodies. Now that they're branching out, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Has the toy line become Bumblebee and His Buddies? How does Kup factor into things, specifically? Is there going to be a whole series of Autobots who were damaged by the hate plague infected Superion as per "The Return of Optimus Prime" part 1? Because that's the only connection I can think of between Bumblebee and Kup.

Just because we never saw Kup and Bumblebee hanging out doesn't mean that Bumblebee wasn't hiding behind a bush watching Kup and Hot Rod go fishing with Daniel, wishing it was him and not Hot Rod that Kup spent so much time with.

Alternately, if Bumblebee is Spike's best friend, he's bound to have spent time with Spike's kid's friends. Kup would drop by asking for advice like "Ok, I'm not saying anything like this happened, but if it did, how would you reattach a human hand?"

> I mean, I get that it's ultimately just branding and that it doesn't really mean much. But, there's so much branding information on the packaging that it's almost overwhelming. The front of the box alone says "STUDIO SERIES TRANSFORMERS 86 02 BB BUZZWORTHY BUMBLEBEE KUP" and that's just a lot to take in all at once.

Is there a Buzzworthy Arcee? She's on the box...
> It was available for the briefest of moments from Hasbro Pulse, and I was lucky enough to get one through that channel. Still need the Cliffjumper redeco, though.

I think Kup is a more important character. There are no Cliffjumper Tales, after all...

> So there are, I think, two or three major differences that distinguish this Kup from the previous release. For one, the vehicle front windshield is opaque instead of translucent. I love this so much. It really helps to sell this as the animated character, whose windshield was a light grey color that honestly didn't look like a windshield most of the time. (On the G1 toy, it was also opaque, and a lot of kids just slapped his Autobot symbol right on top of it. That's how un-windshield-like it was.) It looks so much better than the previous release, which was translucent so the circuit detail or whatever was visible behind it. It just didn't look right.

I love the idea of the circuit detail or whatever windshields -- they are perfectly wonderful for toys where the windshield doesn't really have to be there. It's a jarring thing on Earth modes, and it definitely did not belong on Kup, who didn't really have a windshield at all on any toy or media appearance. He had a lighter blue section.

(It might belong on Kup from some time other than the cartoon, of course -- a young Kup, an even older Kup)

> Also, there's new paint deco to recreate the battle damaged look that Kup, specifically, included as part of his character design. He's an older character who has visible scratches and rust spots as part of his animation model, but it's never been reproduced accurately on a toy before. This version has tampographs resembling pen lines that capture this battle damage. It's like Hasbro has gone NECA (and that's meant to be a compliment). They even put a tampograph on the thermoset plastic comprising his left shoulder, what some people in the fandom likes to call "unpaintable plastic," so I'm sure they're busy puzzling over THAT one right now.

It really does look right.
> He's also got blue painted eyes instead of the light-pipe, which honestly works just fine for me, since the light-pipe eyes would almost always read as black and dead and empty. This is such a huge improvement.

"The eyes are the windows into the soul, if you have a soul..."

> His overall color scheme also got an update, though it's not quite as overtly apparent. His dark greyish-teal is pretty much the same, but his lighter secondary color is more grey now than green. Also, the color mapping on his vehicle mode has been revised. In some circles, there was considerable analysis over the colors of the first Studio Series toy, which may or may not have resulted from Hasbro using a single moment from The Transformers: the Movie as photo reference, during the Autobot exodus from Unicron's interior, when Kup is colored in heavy shadow and his various greens and greys are arguably open to interpretation. The demonstrable wrongness of the first Studio Series toy has been corrected here, with the section of the truck directly behind the windshield (the roof?) now a correct dark color instead of the lighter color on the previous release. His wheels are also grey this time instead of black.

I feel like he is still a little too dark and muted. Way better, but not perfect.

> Is that why we got this release? Because Hasbro made a goof and somebody wanted to release a corrected version? Or as a response to the complaints about the windshield and eyes? Or just because Target said "hay guise give us some exclusive toys, kthxbai" and this was a cheap and easy redeco? We may never know for sure. It's not a remolded Targetmaster Kup with weapon mount and Recoil, but it's still pretty awesome that this even exists. It's like the typical Takara response to the Hasbro Kup, only—surprise!—it was Folgers Crystals all along!

Petty sure it's the Target reason.

Meanwhile, somewhere else at Harbro, someone is trying to figure out what a Shattered Glass Kup would look like. (It's a trick question -- this *is* Shattered Glass Kup)

There aren't a lot of redeco possibilities for the mold. An old and withered Orion Pax? I think the Titans Return mold actually does that pretty well, but this is too Kuppy.

> I would be in full support of a Rodworthy Hot Rod redeco in a bright magenta color so vibrant that it would give Steve Burns PTSD.

Heatworthy Hot Rod, surely.

> I can't think of a Blurrworthy variant we desperately need to complete the triumverate, though. Hmm.

But we do need a Kupworthy Springer, to fill out the opening sequence.

> But, honestly, it's great. Kup is arguably much more important than U-3PO.. Really, he's the other main character of The Transformers: the Movie besides Hot Rod. He deserves to get an accurate toy. And it speaks towards the idea that Hasbro is so keenly tuned into the fandom right now that they recognized that this toy needed to exist and actually found a channel to make it available. And that blows me away.

I got him today from Harbro, and I'm honestly delighted with him. This is the Kup who tells long, boring stories that every tunes out of and misses how it is all his fault. I wish he had slightly more articulation in the legs -- a few more degrees in the hips and knees, since Kup leans forward while telling his terrifying stories, and this toy can't quite do it.
> Zob ( remember the days when "oh, you like G1? Here's a purple pterodactyl named Lazorbeak, now shut up" passed for fanservice?)

They really need to redeco fossilizer Wingfinger in black with red burning bits as BW Season 2 "Lava Bath" Terrorsaur.

On Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 4:16:06 AM UTC-5, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
> On Sunday, March 6, 2022 at 5:53:29 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> > When the Buzzworthy Bumblebee toy line first started popping up at Target, I had assumed it was just going to celebrate Bumblebee as a character in all his myriad forms and bodies. Now that they're branching out, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Has the toy line become Bumblebee and His Buddies? How does Kup factor into things, specifically? Is there going to be a whole series of Autobots who were damaged by the hate plague infected Superion as per "The Return of Optimus Prime" part 1? Because that's the only connection I can think of between Bumblebee and Kup.
> Just because we never saw Kup and Bumblebee hanging out doesn't mean that Bumblebee wasn't hiding behind a bush watching Kup and Hot Rod go fishing with Daniel, wishing it was him and not Hot Rod that Kup spent so much time with.
>
> Alternately, if Bumblebee is Spike's best friend, he's bound to have spent time with Spike's kid's friends. Kup would drop by asking for advice like "Ok, I'm not saying anything like this happened, but if it did, how would you reattach a human hand?"

"Bumblebee, which repair shops service humans?"

> > I mean, I get that it's ultimately just branding and that it doesn't really mean much. But, there's so much branding information on the packaging that it's almost overwhelming. The front of the box alone says "STUDIO SERIES TRANSFORMERS 86 02 BB BUZZWORTHY BUMBLEBEE KUP" and that's just a lot to take in all at once.
> Is there a Buzzworthy Arcee? She's on the box...

I thought there were mockups leaked of an Arcee in a Buzzworthy box, but it might have been me misremembering the Cyberverse Arcee

> > It was available for the briefest of moments from Hasbro Pulse, and I was lucky enough to get one through that channel. Still need the Cliffjumper redeco, though.
> I think Kup is a more important character. There are no Cliffjumper Tales, after all...
> > So there are, I think, two or three major differences that distinguish this Kup from the previous release. For one, the vehicle front windshield is opaque instead of translucent. I love this so much. It really helps to sell this as the animated character, whose windshield was a light grey color that honestly didn't look like a windshield most of the time. (On the G1 toy, it was also opaque, and a lot of kids just slapped his Autobot symbol right on top of it. That's how un-windshield-like it was.) It looks so much better than the previous release, which was translucent so the circuit detail or whatever was visible behind it. It just didn't look right.
> I love the idea of the circuit detail or whatever windshields -- they are perfectly wonderful for toys where the windshield doesn't really have to be there. It's a jarring thing on Earth modes, and it definitely did not belong on Kup, who didn't really have a windshield at all on any toy or media appearance. He had a lighter blue section.
>
> (It might belong on Kup from some time other than the cartoon, of course -- a young Kup, an even older Kup)
> > Also, there's new paint deco to recreate the battle damaged look that Kup, specifically, included as part of his character design. He's an older character who has visible scratches and rust spots as part of his animation model, but it's never been reproduced accurately on a toy before. This version has tampographs resembling pen lines that capture this battle damage. It's like Hasbro has gone NECA (and that's meant to be a compliment). They even put a tampograph on the thermoset plastic comprising his left shoulder, what some people in the fandom likes to call "unpaintable plastic," so I'm sure they're busy puzzling over THAT one right now.
> It really does look right.
> > He's also got blue painted eyes instead of the light-pipe, which honestly works just fine for me, since the light-pipe eyes would almost always read as black and dead and empty. This is such a huge improvement.
> "The eyes are the windows into the soul, if you have a soul..."
> > His overall color scheme also got an update, though it's not quite as overtly apparent. His dark greyish-teal is pretty much the same, but his lighter secondary color is more grey now than green. Also, the color mapping on his vehicle mode has been revised. In some circles, there was considerable analysis over the colors of the first Studio Series toy, which may or may not have resulted from Hasbro using a single moment from The Transformers: the Movie as photo reference, during the Autobot exodus from Unicron's interior, when Kup is colored in heavy shadow and his various greens and greys are arguably open to interpretation. The demonstrable wrongness of the first Studio Series toy has been corrected here, with the section of the truck directly behind the windshield (the roof?) now a correct dark color instead of the lighter color on the previous release. His wheels are also grey this time instead of black.
> I feel like he is still a little too dark and muted. Way better, but not perfect.
> > Is that why we got this release? Because Hasbro made a goof and somebody wanted to release a corrected version? Or as a response to the complaints about the windshield and eyes? Or just because Target said "hay guise give us some exclusive toys, kthxbai" and this was a cheap and easy redeco? We may never know for sure. It's not a remolded Targetmaster Kup with weapon mount and Recoil, but it's still pretty awesome that this even exists. It's like the typical Takara response to the Hasbro Kup, only—surprise!—it was Folgers Crystals all along!
> Petty sure it's the Target reason.
>
> Meanwhile, somewhere else at Harbro, someone is trying to figure out what a Shattered Glass Kup would look like. (It's a trick question -- this *is* Shattered Glass Kup)
>

SG Kup would spout out easily disproven conspiracy theories about how Cybertron is really controlled by lizard bot or how the 5G towers prevent mind control

Because if an old person isn't telling a story about the old days, they're spouting off weird stuff.

> There aren't a lot of redeco possibilities for the mold. An old and withered Orion Pax? I think the Titans Return mold actually does that pretty well, but this is too Kuppy.
> > I would be in full support of a Rodworthy Hot Rod redeco in a bright magenta color so vibrant that it would give Steve Burns PTSD.
> Heatworthy Hot Rod, surely.
> > I can't think of a Blurrworthy variant we desperately need to complete the triumverate, though. Hmm.
> But we do need a Kupworthy Springer, to fill out the opening sequence.

How will he be different than Wreckers Pulse Springer? Assuming all the rumors are correct.

It seems so long ago to be reaching back for exclusives. That was more than a pandemic ago that we got the original use of Springer and Impactor's molds, the last toy trilogy!
They're going even farther back for Saltman Twintwist! 2 trilogies!

> > But, honestly, it's great. Kup is arguably much more important than U-3PO. Really, he's the other main character of The Transformers: the Movie besides Hot Rod. He deserves to get an accurate toy. And it speaks towards the idea that Hasbro is so keenly tuned into the fandom right now that they recognized that this toy needed to exist and actually found a channel to make it available. And that blows me away.
> I got him today from Harbro, and I'm honestly delighted with him. This is the Kup who tells long, boring stories that every tunes out of and misses how it is all his fault. I wish he had slightly more articulation in the legs -- a few more degrees in the hips and knees, since Kup leans forward while telling his terrifying stories, and this toy can't quite do it.
> > Zob ( remember the days when "oh, you like G1? Here's a purple pterodactyl named Lazorbeak, now shut up" passed for fanservice?)
> They really need to redeco fossilizer Wingfinger in black with red burning bits as BW Season 2 "Lava Bath" Terrorsaur.

On Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at 6:56:31 PM UTC-7, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:

> I'm sure 'We listened to the fans' is just spin. It's good marketing to say that a deco is some sort of 'listening to the fans' rerelease but really it's all part of the mold reuse plan.

It could probably be proven by checking the date codes on the toys. Like, during the whole debacle during Combiner Wars with Slingshot and Wildrider being supplanted by Alpha Bravo and Offroad, the date codes demonstrated that Hasbro had always been planning to sell us Slingshot and Wildrider eventually. That whole business about how they finally caved in and gave us what we wanted? Lies, lies, dirty lies!

With that said, they really do scour the message boards and such, to see what the fans are saying and which characters we're talking about. They use that as evidence that it's a good idea when they present ideas to the marketing team.

> I am waiting for my toy accurate Studio Series '86 movie Dinobot redecos and I'm pretty sure I'll get them, as I am sure magenta Hot Rod is coming.

You're right about most molds eventually getting reused. I'm sure on some level it's part of the design process from the onset. Like, the concept artists at Hasbro probably put together a slideshow of what characters they want to do in a given toy line, along with potential redeco options. I would think that having redeco ideas on the table helps sell the idea of spending the money to put that mold into production in the first place.

We've had a handful of recent molds that have never gotten reused. Apeface and Snapdragon come to mind. Doubledealer. Astrotrain. Up until recently, Springer. I wonder if there are some toys they only think they can get away with selling to us once, and they just budget that in?

I would have been happier with the idea of buying multiple Dinobots in various colors (G2!) during Power of the Primes, but I don't know if I feel the same way about the Studio Series versions. At fifty bucks a pop, that's a big ask. (I keep buying Galvatron, sure, but I love Galvatron. He's like my third-favorite character ever. Sorry, Galvy, but you don't quite compare to Cyclonus and Soundwave.)

With that said, I hope you get your 1984 toy deco Dinobots. Aside from G2 colors, there aren't too many other ways they can reuse those molds, so it may yet come to fruition. Juicy, succulent fruition!

Zob (likes fruit)

On Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 6:41:26 AM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:

> SG Kup would spout out easily disproven conspiracy theories about how Cybertron is really controlled by lizard bot or how the 5G towers prevent mind control

I feel like a Shattered Glass version of Kup would just tell stories that are one hundred percent factually accurate.

> It seems so long ago to be reaching back for exclusives. That was more than a pandemic ago that we got the original use of Springer and Impactor's molds, the last toy trilogy!

Yeah, it's a bit shocking to see Springer back in action after all this time. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

Zob (never tell me the odds)