Buzzworthy Bumblebee

Mega 1-Step Bumblebee, old product in new packaging, a staple of early Buzzworthy.

The "Troop Builder Multipack", more indicative of what the line became. Also, one of the names Grimlock called Fortress Maximus.

Buzzworthy Bumblebee is a very confusing toyline with a focus that has shifted over time. Exclusive to Target in the United States and Toys"R"Us in Canada, it was initially a cross-toyline subline imprint that focused on various incarnations of everybody's favourite yellow Autobot, Bumblebee. Toys from this line began appearing both in stock at online retailers and on store shelves in late 2020 and early 2021, while Hasbro never officially announced the line properly. With vibrant yellow packaging like the previous Transformers: Bumblebee toyline, and package art prominently featuring an "Evergreen"-styled Bumblebee, Buzzworthy Bumblebee centered around versions of Bumblebee from across the brand's history, as well as his closest human allies and most heated Cybertronian foes.

In 2022, the line began to diversify considerably, with the product output of figures that weren't Bumblebee or even Bumblebee-associated outnumbering those that were by a large margin, due to otherwise unrelated redecos of figures from the contemporary Studio Series and Legacy lines utilizing the Buzzworthy Bumblebee branding simply because. 2022 was also when Hasbro actually bothered to officially acknowledge and announce these redecos in advance.

As of early 2024, the line's future is... uncertain. In 2023, a few items were canceled, and a lot of Buzzworthy product ended up in clearance outlets for the holiday season. As of mid-2024, no new Buzzworthy product has been seen or announced since October 2023, but other Target-exclusive products that would nominally fall under the branding have been revealed, and they're main-line-branded. So it's not looking good.

Toys

Owing to the... unsystematic layout of the Buzzworthy Bumblebee line, as well as its general lack of any advance notice in terms of release schedule, we've elected to delineate this page into what toylines each figure (or multi-pack) supplements. The alternative would be to try and force a structure onto something that plainly doesn't have one, and that way lies madness. That said, the toylines being supplemented are listed in rough order of their introduction into the Buzzworthy line.

War for Cybertron Trilogy

Core Class Bumblebee

The War for Cybertron Trilogy portion of Buzzworthy Bumblebee features the majority of the subline's new tooling, including two all-new molds: a diminutive Core Class Bumblebee (retailing for five (or more) bucks more than the regular Core Class, owing to an included Spike Witwicky mini-figure), and a Deluxe Class "Origin Bumblebee", representing the character's Cybertronian mode from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1" for the first time in toy form. A "Worlds Collide" multi-pack also falls under this banner, and its selection of characters, combined with the volcanic environment depicted on Core Class Bumblebee's card art, more specifically ties these toys to the concurrent War for Cybertron: Kingdom subline in all but name.

Studio Series

Deluxe Class Revenge of the Fallen Bumblebee

Voyager Class The Transformers: The Movie Ironhide

Tying into Studio Series, this assortment copies that line's packaging design – including the cardboard diorama backdrops – but replaces Studio's ubiquitous red design elements with a friendly yellow. The first Deluxe Class assortment consists of figures mostly redecoed and/or retooled from previous Studio Series releases, with each toy gaining a "BB" as part of its ID number to differentiate it from its mainline release. The 74BB Revenge of the Fallen Bumblebee actually ended up coming out earlier than its "regular" counterpart. 2021 saw the addition of "Battle Packs", comprising of new backdrops and re-releases (or minor redecoes) of Studio toys dating back three years prior, and even a redeco of a toy predating Studio Series entirely! A second Deluxe Class assortment followed in late 2021, now diversifying, like the main Studio Series line, into screen-accurate toys of characters from The Transformers: The Movie. 2023 saw multiple new releases that resulted in all seven live-action movies being included in the line.

Age of Extinction

Outside of the "Generations"-branded toylines, Buzzworthy saw the surprise return of Age of Extinction's Robots in Disguise Mega 1-Step Bumblebee. The new packaging still features the iconography of that movie's toyline.

Cyberverse

Spark Armor Bumblebee and Trash Crash

Buzzworthy Bumblebee mostly goes for re-releases to represent the Cyberverse corner of the franchise, with the only exception so far being "Spark Armor" Bumblebee's smaller partner, a redecoed version of Grimlock's partner Trash Crash. In addition to the Spark Armor assortment, this segment of the toyline also includes a boxed set of four unchanged Warrior Class figures, an assortment of thus far eight equally unchanged 1-Step Changers and a boxed set of three unchanged Deluxe Class figures – the packaging for which doesn't actually say "Cyberverse" anywhere, but we've put them all here for the sake of convenience.

Bumblebee

The then-recent Bumblebee movie toyline was represented in Buzzworthy through unchanged re-releases starting with a repackaged Power Charge Bumblebee.

A two-pack consisting of two "Energon Igniters" figures was listed at Target's website as being co-branded as part of the seventh installment in the live-action film series, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, ahead of the official announcement of any toys connected to it. Later on, when the two-pack was listed again on the Toys"R"Us Hong Kong page, the branding on the packaging was changed to that of the Bumblebee film, presumably due to the one-year delay of the Rise of the Beasts release date.

Robots in Disguise (2015)

By this far down the page, the word "Bumblebee" has lost all meaning.

Apparently leaving no stone unturned, Buzzworthy Bumblebee reaches into the 2015 Robots in Disguise toyline and brings back some Crash Combiners, now rechristened as "Crash & Combine" toys. These partially automorphing toys curiously make use of "evergreen" designs for each individual character art – though the combiner identities are rendered in the characteristic Robots in Disguise art style. We've elected to keep things simple and put them on the Robots in Disguise characters' pages.

Legacy

Deluxe Class Autobot Silverstreak

The Legacy portion of Buzzworthy Bumblebee features a Diaclone-styled redeco to complement the Legacy-branded Generations Selects line, as well as redecoes of Kingdom figures based on the original Beast Wars toyline.

Rise of the Beasts

Beast Weaponizer Scorponok

Of course, with a big new movie in theaters, Buzzworthy wasn't going to get left out of Rise of the Beasts product.

Notes

• The "Worlds Collide" multi-pack made headlines for suddenly appearing at a Walmart store (due to an apparent shipment error) in the U.S., rather than the line's exclusive retailer, Target.^[1] Similarly, the two "Crash & Combine" sets popped up at a Toys"R"Us in Canada before any US sighting.
• The Buzzworthy Bumblebee toyline's exclusivity was split between two stores in New Zealand, with Kmart only carrying figures aimed at younger audiences such as the "Mega 1-Step Bumblebee", and even the Core Class "Bumblebee / Spike Witwicky" two-pack, while Farmers carried the rest. On the other hand, several items, such as the "Worlds Collide" pack, never saw release in New Zealand, but the Studio Series-branded "Battle Packs" did, and were sold through Farmers. While likewise not receiving all items, Australia saw a similar release split between Kmart and its version of Target for the majority of the line, with larger items like the "Worlds Collide" set instead appearing at Mr Toys Toyworld, JB Hi-Fi and EB Games/ZiNG Pop Culture.

References