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Transformers:Scramble City

Rob

With the release of the Transformers animated movie being held until 1990, The Japanese market needed a filler show to bridge the gap between season two and season three of the Transformers cartoon series.

This show would introduce characters that only debut in the animated film. Ultra Magnus and many of the films co-stars needed to be seen as soon as possible as well as add them into the mythos of the Universe of the Transformers.

The show starts off with a recap of the Transformers coming to Earth. It quickly covers the story of Devastator as well, and then gets right into the action.

The Autobots are shown in the middle of constructing the powerful “Scramble City,” Metroplex for the G1 purist. Its construction is being held by Ultra Magnus. The Decepticons send out Soundwave’s minions Laserbeak, ravage and ratbat to see what the autobots are doing and soon learn of the build. Megatron sends out his mighty Combiners or if you prefer Gestalts and soon all hell breaks loose!

A battle between them and their Autobot counterparts turns into an old ECW match. This animated one off wanted to focus on their “Scramble abilities “which is their interchangeability of their outer extremities.

(Get it? Cause you can scramble the limbs up!)

So much so that at one point, Breakdown of the Stunticons connects into Superion’s leg to damage him (it looks a bit weird but I assume Cybertron doesn’t have a good sexual assault law). As the show comes to a close, Scramble City himself is activated and Transforms its super cool robot mode Metroplex!

The Decepticons however, have an ace in the hole and from the deep dark part of the ocean comes Godzilla ….wait no sorry about that, it’s the Decepticons’ very own base, Trypticon.

Scramble City is one of those amazing animated shorts that we wished was in our collection but due to a whole bunch of copy right legal mumbo jumbo its only a part of the Japanese continuity.

Hit up the Pop Culture Network forums and thanks for reading

 

“Till all are one!”

Convoy! Convoy! Convoy!

Rob

If you haven’t learned by now, I am a sucker for anything and everything Japanese related. Make them about the Transformers and I’m about sure to cry.

After the death of Prime, kids and adults alike cried their collective Autobot loving eyes out as they watched the beloved leader of the peace loving protectors of good die.

A real world problem solved with a real world emotion.

Daniel’s reaction was the reaction of us all.

In Japan, the Transformers animated film wouldn’t be released until 1990. It was almost certain that Prime would receive the same reaction.

When season 3 of transformers was about to debut on Japanese television, they needed to explain why good old Optimus Prime was dead.

So they started airing this commercial.

CONVOY, CONVOY, CONVOY!

I just love that this commercial has such a high level of detail given to the fallen Prime.

Hit up the pop culture network forum and let me know what you think and thanks for reading

“Till all are one”

Bumblejumper: The myth and magic.

Rob

During the Transformers’ hay day, no character was as popular as the best friend of Spike: the little underdog, Bumblebee.

In his toy release, Bumblebee’s figure was one of the highest selling Transformers mainly due to the fact that he was a mini-bot and thus was cheaper than the larger scale toys.

In the same series, we got Cliffjumper.

This was a very similar figure, but was painted red. A lot of kids thought Cliffjumper was Bumblebee and vice versa. This snafu could have been a confusion because of the paint opts. For some unknown reason  you would get a red Bumblebee

and a yellow Cliffjumper.

For collectors nowadays, owning both are prized possessions. You tend to pick up both figures for your collection.

One unique figure in the line that came out looked a little (for a lack of a better term) odd!  It was this guy..

who was either packaged as Bumblebee and/or Cliffjumper.

Being that he is neither, the Transformers community lovingly refers to this mini-bot as Bumblejumper or Bumper

for his combined look of both Bumblebee and Cliffjumper.

Bumblejumper was part of the Microman Microchange line.


There has never been an official release of Bumblejumper nor has Hasbro ever explained how he ended up on the shelves.

What I believed happened was that Hasbro got so many molds from Takara that this guy was just overlooked or forgotten. When he was produced, he looked so similar to the other two that they didn’t realize he was a different car entirely.

FYI: Bumblejumper is a Mazda Familia 1500 XG.

Sidenote: In South America Bumblejumper or “Robocar” was released in the Transformers line in white. He does not sport any stickers that identify him as an Autobot or a Decepticon.


He has now become part of Transformers lore due to his appearance in Dreamwave and IDW comics continuity.

OK hit up the forums at Pop Culture Network to tell me what you think and thanks for reading.

”Till all are one!”

Thanks to www.tf-1.com,www.toyarchive.com and boltax.blogspot.com for some of the bumbleJumper images.