 Patriot Prime Reviews is a channel for adult collectors and may not be suitable for children under 13 years of age. Viewer discretion is advised. Hey, what's going on guys? Patriot Prime here once again with another video review. But before I get started, I need you guys to do me a favor. If you're watching this video right here and are not a subscriber to Patriot Prime Reviews, please hit that subscribe button right now. It won't cost you a thing, but will help me and my channel out tremendously. Also, make sure and check out my sponsor, toyhacks.com. Toyhacks provides label sets, upgrade kits, and display backdrops for transformers toys of all types and generations. New for 2020, Toyhacks is introducing the Toyhacks Armory, where they'll be offering a variety of weapons for your favorite bots in multiple colors. Also this year, Toyhacks is introducing Robo Points. For every purchase you make, you'll earn Robo Points that you can redeem towards a voucher for future purchases. Toyhacks is a company run by collectors for collectors, so check out toyhacks.com and make your collection stand out from the rest. And tell them Patriot Prime sent you. Now, on to the review. The featured bot for this video is 1989's Generation 1 Classic Pretender, Bumblebee. Now Bumblebee, hitting the toy shelves in 1989, arrived a little too late to appear in the animated television show, though he did appear animated in his television commercial along with Classic Pretender's Jazz, Grimlock, and Starscream. Bumblebee made his first appearance as a pretender in issue number 58 of the Marvel Comics series. Now, up until this point, Bumblebee was Gold Bug. Bumblebee was destroyed by G.I. Joe in the Transformers vs G.I. Joe limited series. They thought he was a bad guy. He was rebuilt as Gold Bug, a more powerful version of himself, which was actually just a ploy to sell the Throttlebot toys, which sucked. One of these days I will review those for you guys. So anyway, Gold Bug is a major player in Marvel Comics up until he gets destroyed by Starscream in issue 50 along with most of the Transformers characters. So anyway, back to issue 58, Megatron had kidnapped Ratchet in order to help him revive Starscream as a pretender in order to exact his revenge upon the Autobots and Decepticons who had exiled him. Now Ratchet brought along the deactivated bodies of Bumblebee, Jazz, and Grimlock to try to repair them while he was on Cybertron as well, part of the deal with Megatron. Now, when Megatron was given Ratchet a tour of his facility, Ratchet noticed three discarded pretender shells that Megatron said were prototypes. As the story went along, you discover that Ratchet used those pretender shells to help rebuild the classic pretenders and they awoken and attacked Megatron. A battle ensued, the pretenders ended up fighting outside Megatron's fortress with the sports car patrol and the Decepticon power masters Dreadwind and Darkwing. Megatron and Ratchet, they were into an explosion happen blowing both Megatron and Ratchet into a space bridge and that's the last you see of them into another fantastic Marvel story. That leads into the classic pretenders including Bumblebee leading a resistance on Cybertron and in issue 60, the Decepticon leader Thunderwing, who was the main commander at the time on Cybertron, sent the mayhem attack squad consisting of bludgeon, stranglehold and octopunch after the classic pretenders to assassinate them. They intercepted the Autobots as they were trying to teleport back to Earth. They ended up teleporting to the center of Cybertron where a battle ensued in the chamber of Primus, the Transformers God. Now Bumblebee is trying to stop Grimlock from opening fire in the chamber to not wake up Primus, but unfortunately a Decepticon stray shot woke him up. Primus let out this huge scream and thus began the Matrix Quest where the Autobots had to track down the creation matrix in order to destroy the oncoming Unicron who heard Primus' scream and was hunting him down. This leads to issue number 65 where the classic pretenders are on a planet, I forget the name of it, viscus or something like that. They've tracked down the matrix, they found it, they're getting ready to take it back to Autobot headquarters and they're intercepted by Thunderwing. And here's where we learn an important bit of information regarding the pretenders. Bumblebee is getting ready to take on Thunderwing and uses his mind, I mean the inner robot could control the shell. Bumblebee sends the shell to attack Thunderwing, Thunderwing blows it apart causing Bumblebee severe pain because we find out whatever damage happens to the pretender's shell is felt by the inner robot as well. So that took Bumblebee out of the fight and pretty much out of the comic series, he's only seen very briefly in later issues. So that's pretty much it with the history of classic pretender's Bumblebee, let's take a look at the figure and welcome to Patriot Prime Reviews. We'll start things off by taking a look at Bumblebee's pretender's shell first and I must admit this shell doesn't look too bad at all. Normally I can't stand the Autobot pretender's, I'm just not a big fan of the human in the giant fat space suit, I much more prefer the Decepticon monsters and creatures, but Bumblebee here doesn't look that bad at all. He's got a great collar scheme and tons and tons of molded details, all the way around, I mean he looks really really good. Taking a closer look here you can see the molded details there along the chest, I love how they painted in those vents right there on top. Now the decals are brand new toy hacks decals that I just replaced on my latest toy hacks flashbacks video. Autobot decal right there on the AB, you got a maroon colored belt buckle, lots of molded in pockets, it's got pockets there, there. I like how he actually has wrinkles in his space pants, that's pretty cool. The armor looks really really good, the only flaw down here on the boot he has a little bit of a paint scuff. Now usually one of my biggest complaints with pretender's whether it be Autobot or Decepticon is when you turn them around the back of the figure loses a lot of paint or details. That's really not the case with Bumblebee, I mean the paint and the color goes all the way around matching up to this backpack here or leading up to the backpack rather and I think that looks really good. I mean all the way around this is a really good looking Bumblebee figure. I'm really not sure what the pretender is supposed to be, he looks like another futuristic captain power type soldier. Now articulation for Bumblebee, he's a pretender shell, the only thing he can do is the arms do a complete 360 and that's both arms and that is it. I never understood why they couldn't at least add a head rotation or a swivel or something else to these shells because only really the center portion is the hollow section. Now taking a closer look here at the head sculpt, the head sculpt with the helmet looks really good. I like the way that helmet looks on the face. Now removing the helmet you get a closer look at the human face and I've heard stories via the internet that this head sculpt is supposed to represent Dan Gilbson, the voice actor who played Bumblebee in the generation one cartoon. But I'll let you be the judge of that for yourself. One of the surprising things with this pretender too is I got him off eBay and there's no paint rub on the hair. Normally all the Autobot pretenders, you have the helmet, now this helmet came from a different pretender, see the paint scuffs on the inside. Normally these helmets coming on and off during play back in the day would rub paint off the hair. He just has a very little bit right there. Big bushy eyebrows, it's too bad the eyes are the same color as the hair. He does have a little scrape there on the nose, but not bad at all. A very, very good looking pretender shell. Now he also comes with a couple weapons. He's got this big giant cannon right here that can only be wielded by the pretender shell and this smaller pistol. Now the smaller pistol has a dual peg. If you can see it's got a five millimeter peg that kind of leads down into a smaller peg. That way the inner robot can use this weapon as well. Now speaking of the inner robot, let's go ahead and release him from the shell. The helmet is already off so all you do grab the arms, grab the back, pull apart and that releases Bumblebee. And once you get Bumblebee out all you need to do is flip the feet forward, fold the arms out. And there you have Bumblebee in robot mode. Bumblebee's inner robot has something that us Generation 1 fans wanted on our Bumblebee ever since we saw him in the Generation 1 cartoon. And that is a G1 cartoon accurate head sculpt. I love that, that looks great. This is an awesome looking Bumblebee figure. Yeah his arms are a little skinny but hey, it's G1. What are you going to do? Other than that, I love this guy. He looks great. Now unfortunately his articulation is the exact same as his pretender shell. The only thing is his arms can do a complete 360. Now they can go in and out but that's due to transformation. I love the looks of this figure. This is a great looking Bumblebee. Brand new decals thanks to toy hacks there on the chest and here on the arms. He does have a little bit of a fanny pack on the back but hey, when he's on display you don't see that at all. Bumblebee also finally gets a weapon. This is the smaller weapon from the pretender shell. The little peg right there will slot into the hole on his fist. So now you have Bumblebee all armed and ready for battle. Now without a doubt this is the best looking Bumblebee we had in Generation 1. Here he is next to his first figure and his throttle bot reincarnation Goldbug. Now to transform Bumblebee into his vehicle mode, the first thing we're going to do is remove the weapon. Then we're going to take his head and flip up. Yeah, the head really doesn't hide much there. Now we're going to take the arms, fold those down, fold the feet down and then slide the feet forward. And then underneath you're going to take his fanny pack, flip that up and that will snap in place. And there you have Bumblebee in vehicle mode. A great looking VW Beetle other than the pretty obvious robot head on the back. I love the looks of this vehicle, especially the big off-road tires. I think that's the first time I've ever seen an off-road VW Beetle. Great sculpting, great looking vehicle mode. Let's compare Bumblebee's vehicle mode here. Let's see there is classic pretender's Bumblebee, his first figure and Goldbug. Now he's about the same size as Goldbug. I mean all these beetles look really, really good and I love the looks of this vehicle. He is so awesome. And now for some quick size comparisons. Here is 1989's classic pretender Bumblebee with Generation 1 Optimus Prime, fellow classic pretender Jazz, Titan's Return Bumblebee and Studio Series Off-Road Bumblebee. Because, well, they have the same type of tires. Classics pretender Bumblebee really impressed me. I was not expecting to like the figure as much as I do. The pretender shell is awesome, great sculpting, great detailing with a great collar scheme. But Bumblebee, the inner robot is awesome. Dare I say it, Bumblebee is the best inner robot pretender that I have in my collection. And I have quite a few in my collection. I mean with Bumblebee, the robot mode looks great and when he transforms into vehicle mode, you can tell what he is. It's not some Cybertronian vehicle that you really have to use your imagination with. It's not some vehicle that requires parts forming in order to fully transform it. It is a great inner robot and I couldn't be happier. So there you go guys, 1989's Generation 1 Classic Pretender Bumblebee. So does a 1989 Classic Pretender Bumblebee belong in your collection? Absolutely, especially if you're a Generation 1 collector or a Bumblebee fan. Now, usually I would say hey, go for the whole figure here, but if you're not into pretenders, I highly recommend just getting the inner robot here. This is a fantastic representation of Bumblebee and you really don't need to shell if you're not that into pretenders because this figure himself was released as a Kmart exclusive legends toy. Though he came with Jazz's Blaster instead of his. But yeah, highly highly recommended, this is a great Bumblebee whether you're a Pretender fan or not. Now guys, if you enjoyed the video, don't forget to like, don't forget to subscribe and don't forget to click that bell icon to get notified when I upload new reviews. Once again, this is Patriot Prime, signing out.