Russell Clay
Russell Clay
Voiced by: Stuart Allen
First Appearance: "Pilot (Part 1)"
- Affectionate Nickname: His father refers to him as "Rusty", though Russell himself isn't too fond of it. Hank later uses the same name for him.
- Badass Adorable: A young boy who's not afraid to take on Decepticons who could easily step on him. He certainly counts even when you don't include his Adorably Precocious Child moments.
- Character Development: Early on in Season 1, Russell is shown to have a pretty pessimistic personality. He always doubts what he's capable of, and he's quick to throw in the towel whenever he's met with failure, so he constantly needs some encouragement. However, because of his adventures with the Autobots and his supportive friendship with Hank, Russell's courage and his confidence steadily grows throughout Season 1 and he becomes a more daring character, to the point where he's sometimes more willing to take big risks than his father and he's the one offering other people encouragement. The difference between Russell's personality in "More Than Meets The Eye" and "Lockout" is like night and day.
- Collector of the Strange: "Metal Meltdown" reveals that he has a cabinet that he's been using to collect momentos of his adventures.
- Extremely Protective Child: Whenever Denny is put in serious danger, Russell will always step up and do whatever it takes to rescue his father, regardless of the risk to himself. In "Even Robots Have Nightmares", Russell admits that something terrible happening to Denny is one of the few things he truly fears.
- Guile Hero: Russell can be quite clever and resourceful when he needs to be, to the point where he sometimes manages to outsmart a few Decepticons and set traps for them, like he does with Steeljaw's pack in "Lockout".
- Jumped at the Call: Like his father, he is more than happy to help the Autobots go after the Alchemor's prisoners throughout the series.
- Kid Sidekick: Russell serves as one to the Autobots. He frequently either helps Fixit look up information about the Decepticons as part of the team's mission control, or he helps his friends out in the field by trying to outwit their enemies.
- Like Father, Like Son: As the series progresses, it becomes apparent that Russell shares Denny's love for coming up with ridiculous disguises, and really throwing himself into a role as he tries to make up a cover story for the Autobots. Sometimes, in episodes like "W.W.O.D?" and "One Of Our Mini-Cons Is Missing", Russell tries to upstage him when it comes to which one of them can make up a more impressive-sounding backstory.
- Missing Mom: His mother is never seen and rarely if ever mentioned after the first episode (where Russell is dropped off at the junkyard while she's away overseas). It's implied that she and Denny are if not divorced at least separated.
- The Resenter: He originally resented the fact that he had to stay with his father, who he dismissed as being a weirdo who runs a junkyard. Not so much anymore, as helping the Autobots is probably the coolest thing any kid's ever done.
- Secret-Keeper: He helps keep the Autobots hidden from the humans.
- Tagalong Kid: Russell likes to accompany the Autobots on their missions whenever Bumblebee and his father will allow it, so he can watch them in action. He obviously can't fight the dangerous enemies that they face out in the field, but he still finds ways to be helpful from time to time nevertheless.
- Token Human: Like father, like son.
- What the Hell, Hero?: In "One Of Our Mini-Cons Is Missing", Russell makes it very clear that he does not approve of how Drift never seems to show Slipstream and Jetstorm anything more than scorn and constant criticism. Unlike his father, who's intimidated by the warrior's massive size, Russell has zero problems standing up to Drift and calling him out on his poor treatment of his students.
Denny Clay
Denny Clay
Voiced by: Ted McGinley
First Appearance: "Pilot (Part 1)"
- Audience Surrogate: For adult fans and collectors.
- Berserk Button: His former friend, Larry LaRue, is one of the few people who gets under his skin.
- Butt-Monkey: Lots of comical misfortune seems to befall Denny, as a result of his friendship with the Autobots - whether it's his scrapyard being repeatedly destroyed as collateral damage in their fights, or the man getting in way over his head when he tries to help them with some of their missions.
- Character Catchphrase: "It'll be a blast and a half!"
- Collector of the Strange: As one would expect of a junkyard owner, but some of the stuff he's got is really out there.
- Distressed Dude: As much as Denny and Russell try to pitch in, there's only so much humans can feasibly do against fifty-foot tall robots, and as a result, there are several episodes where the senior Clay winds up in a considerable amount of danger and needs to be rescued by either his son or the Autobots ("Pilot", "Collect Em' All", "Hunting Season", "Even Robots Have Nightmares", "The Champ" and "Lockout", to name a few).
- Gadgeteer Genius: For a certain value of "genius", of course, but we are talking about a human who's capable of repairing Cybertronian technology.
- Hidden Depths: As the show's first season stretches on, it becomes apparent that Denny is very clever with his knowledge of mechanics, more so than he gives himself credit for - to the point where he can help Fix-It repair and upgrade Cybertronian technology.
- Insistent Terminology: He runs a "Vintage Salvage Depot for the Discriminating Nostalgist." Not a dump.
- It's All My Fault: In "The Trouble With Fixit", Fixit requires a tune-up to do away with his glitches and he asks Denny to be the one to repair him, because he's grown to trust the man, which obviously alarms Denny, since he knows very little about Cybertronian technology and he's afraid of damaging his friend. Denny still goes through with the operation anyway, to honor Fixit's wishes. He accidentally awakens some lethal programming that no one knew Fixit had, and the Minicon goes berserk, shooting up the scrapyard. A guilt-ridden Denny blames himself for it and spends most of the episode worrying that he might have permanently erased Fixit's old personality.
- Jabba Table Manners: One of the shorts shows him messily eating (and spilling) tons of fast food inside of Bumblebee's interior.
- Jumped at the Call: In the pilot episode, he and his son take the discovery that giant alien robots exist incredibly well. They decide to help the Autobots round up Underbite, and throughout the following series, Denny and Russell eagerly try to help their Autobot friends hunt down some more Decepticons as much as they can.
- Made of Iron: He sometimes survives things that would kill an ordinary person. In "The Champ", he's forced to ride on Grimlock's back during an all-out brawl with a Decepticon fugitive, Groundpounder. Grimlock is repeatedly thrown around and the fight gets very intense, to the point where the two brawling titans almost bring down an entire stadium, but somehow, Denny emerges unscathed by the time it's all over.
- Manchild: Denny shows shades of trope from time to time. He's very attached to the collectible items in his scrapyard, to the point where he'll burst into tears if any of them are destroyed. In one comedy short, he's shown to be an incredibly sloppy eater (to Bumblebee's disgust), and in "The Champ", he's legitimately shocked to discover that professional wrestling is staged.
- Master of Disguise: Sort of. His array of costumes has come in handy on many occasions where the Bee team needs to interact with humans or get them out of the way, but it's also fairly obvious that any real examination will see through his disguises fairly easily.
- Papa Wolf: Denny will always try to rescue Russell from danger and keep his son out of harm's way. In "Hunting Season", he briefly toyed with the idea of stopping Russell from going on missions with him and the bots, because it might be too dangerous for a ten year old, before changing his mind at the episode's end.
- Secret-Keeper: He allows the Autobots to move their base to his junkyard.
- Shipper on Deck: Extremely downplayed, but he clearly notices that Russell doesn't complain when Hank calls him "Rusty." He even teases Russell about it.
- Token Human: He and his son are this to Team Bee.
- Unfazed Everyman: He reacts to the existence of Cybertronians remarkably well. He only takes one moment to process "Talking. Robot. Cars." before he accepts the idea unquestionably.
Hank
Hank
Voiced by: Bailey Gambertoglio
First Appearance: "More than Meets the Eye"
- Affectionate Nickname: Recognising Russell as "the kid who lives in the junkyard," she nicknames him "Rusty." Compared to his reaction whenever his dad calls him that, Russell doesn't seem to mind when she does it.
- The Captain: Plays this role among her friends, as she issues instructions, makes sure they get along and looks after the ones who are less confident or talented than the others.
- Cute Bruiser: She appears to be pretty tough, as some of her male friends get intimidated when she glares at them. She also loves playing football, a game not known for being gentle.
- Inter Generational Friendship: "King of The Hill" shows that she gets along well with Denny, Russell's father.
- Nice Girl: When Russell first approaches the football field where she and her friends are playing, she immediately asks if he'd like to join. When he shows he's less than skilled, she later visits him at the scrapyard to give him some encouragement and invites him to play with them again. In other episodes, she gets him to stand up for himself, and casually gave him what's implied to be a rare trading card simply because she thought he'd like it. The fact that she was nice to Russell makes Grimlock rather fond of her.
- Out of Focus: In season 2, she has only made a brief cameo during the events of "Impounded", gaping in shock at Grimlock's unexpected appearance at a carnival.
- The Bus Came Back: Plays a major role in the subplot of the first two episodes of Season 3, where she again leads Russell and the others in a football team and does her best to get him to cheer up when the opposing team negates Russell's skill at field goal kicks, crushing his confidence.
- Tomboyish Name: Her real name is Henrietta, but she dislikes being called that.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She visits the scrapyard to give Russell a trading card she thought he'd like, and an observing Fracture uses her appearance (through use of holograms) to break into the scrapyard. If not for the unexpected arrival of Optimus Prime, he would've killed Fixit, Denny and Russell.
Brother Gunther
Brother Gunther
Voiced by: Danny Jacobs
First Appearance: "Pretzel Logic"
- Cool Old Guy: Calmly accepts Grimlock's presence and doesn't bat an eye at the existence of giant robot aliens.
