The Bumblebee - Television Tropes & Idioms

Little. Yellow. 'Special'. Kids love him!

The Bumblebee is typically the kid-appeal character. Named after a set of recurring character types (and names) from the Transformers franchise. Cute, popular, tiny, and almost always the youngest character on the team, he's invariably obnoxious and thinks he's so totally cool, in a frantic effort to convince viewers that this is a family friendly show.

As well as that, The Bumblebee is all too often portrayed as seeing The Hero and leader of the Good Guys as his Father Figure. If the Leader is also quite young, chances are he'll see him as his Big Brother. In the same regard, he may look at The Lancer as being his uncle. Oh, and being yellow is not compulsory - but many kid-appeal characters are oddly brightly colored...

Depending on how young he is, how nice he is, or how old his father/brother figure is, The Bumblebee will usually take one of these roles:

Clown. Not just any clown either, this is the Kid Clown, who hurls humor at every available point. He may be funny, he may be clumsy (he's not called The Bumblebee for nothing), or he may just be the joker of the team, playing pranks and making wisecracks. Usually played for laughs but may have a serious side. Transformers Animated Bumblebee takes this role.
Weak but Lovable. Often getting into trouble, whether it's with the enemies or with the badass members of the good team. He's still kid-appeal heavy, but less of a prankster. Their bravery often backfires on them, but they have just enough nobility or good intentions to avoid being written off as useless. G1 Bumblebee.
Ankle Biter. Mega-brave young character who's awfully gutsy for his (or her) puny age, puny height, or puny strength. They may be swatted aside by the more powerful enemies, but their determination will not let them stay down. Often, these Reckless Sidekicks have to be saved by their comrades. Sometimes they'll make them a Cute Bruiser so he can match the big guys. Movie Bumblebee Smash!
The Smart Guy (Teen Genius) in the Five Man Band. So far, no Bumblebee like this in any series. Somebody get on that...
Some combination of all of the above.

Any version can become The Scrappy, which is fitting since the original Scrappy was one of these. The ways this can happen is: The Clown is obnoxious as well as a Karma Houdini, the Weak But Lovable one never shows any real sign of helpfulness or the Ankle Biter slowly takes up prominence in the story over the primary characters. Slightly more common is for the character to become The Barney: loved by those the producers intended, hated by everyone else.

In a Five Man Band, if there isn't a definitive Chick in the band, the Bumblebee can take over her duties by being the moral center of the team, always considering the little guys.

Kids love to purchase his toys. Fanfic writers love to give them massive sex roles and pair them up with their father figure.

See also Tagalong Kid, Bratty Half Pint. The Bumblebee is not quite the same as the Tagalong. The Bumblebee is an official full member of the team while the Taglong is either not a member or holds some sort of secondary membership status like team mascot. They will likely be great friends, though. Compare Cousin Oliver.

Not to be confused with the Fragile Speedster, although they sometimes overlap.

Examples

Anime

Seira, the Token Loli of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, pumps up the kid appeal and has a whole season revolving around her...
...though not as much as Sailor Chibimoon of Sailor Moon, who became a one-girl Spotlight Stealing Squad in season four after two seasons with her hanging around the older girls and playing with sparkly wands to match her mom's.
Pikachu of Pokemon. Very much a type 3. Its species is extremely weak, and particularly in the first season, it got beaten by pretty much every gym leader at least once, but it always got back up. It's far and away the most popular character, and it's yellow.
- Also, it's the mascot of the franchise. Somewhere a Clefairy cries.
Marcia Mouse of Blinky Bill easily fits the ankle biter type, being a fiery Plucky Girl of the bunch.
Chopper from One Piece. FourKids went as far as to skip several arcs of the story just to get to him faster.

Comic Books

X-Men usually has one of these characters, though sometimes it's less bright-coloured and more fuzzy. Either that, or Wolverine's young, female spunky sidekick. Whichever one he has at the time. They're usually female, the order for the main team was Iceman, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Jubilee, Cannonball, Husk, and now Armor.
- Lest we forget, Jubilee actually wore a lot of yellow.
- In New X-Men, Pixie was one of the youngest, had brightly coloured wings, and was otherwise comic relief. For the few issues that focused on her before Break The Cutie (Which really didn't break her very much at all).
Impulse in Young Justice and Kid Flash in Teen Titans, perhaps.
- The former Impulse is now a grown-up Flash.
- The former Impulse is now a dead Flash.
- The former Impulse is now again a Kid Flash.
  - Ain't Comic Books fun?
- Keeping to the point, Bart's mostly type 1 with bits of type 4 thrown in when necessary.
Bumblebee himself is usually portrayed in comics as being the sort who keeps trying to "prove himself" to his bigger, stronger teammates, and usually gets into trouble because of it. (Prime, for his part, thinks Bumblebee has proven himself well enough in his given role of a spy that he shouldn't feel like this.)
Batman's Robin was originally an obvious Type 2, and even has the yellow cape. In fact, most comic-book sidekicks in the Golden and Silver Ages were created specifically to give readers a character to identify with.

Literature

Gavin Darklighter plays this role in the first four books of the X Wing Series. Well, sort of. He starts out as a sixteen-year-old Farm Boy from Tatooine who is utterly naive and gets taunted by the rudest of his fellow Rogues, who for the most part are five to ten years older than he is. So he serves to be the newbie trying to find his place and being surprised by things that the older pilots find commonplace. While his subplots are pretty much in the background, he does go through Character Development and grow and mature. Eventually, by the New Jedi Order, he's the leader of Rogue Squadron.

Professional Wrestling

Rey Mysterio isn't the youngest in WWE and isn't (too) obnoxious, but he fulfills every other requirement as the Ankle Biter subset. He's tiny, wildly popular with kids, frequently wears ridiculously bright clothes, and gets picked on by the bad guys a lot. He's even had several of the bigger faces in WWE (Dave Batista most noticeably) in a big brother role at one point or another.
Hornswoggle's a recent example, fitting many of the same characteristics Mysterio does except he's much less competent, actually is either the youngest man on the roster or close to it, and is about a foot smaller than Mysterio is. And Mysterio's 5'3".

Video Games

Imoen in Baldurs Gate. Nothing like as sexy as other female characters (though that may depend on your tastes), Imoen is certainly the most innocent, and one of the best (and nicest) thieves you'll find. Pretty much a sister figure to the main character. And it turns out you're right, by the way.
Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog is probably the first Kid Appeal character Sega made, featuring in just about every cartoon as Sonic's best friend.
- This troper is pretty surprised that there hasn't been any mention of Charmy Bee, yet. He is seen as a joker, follows his boss' command and looks up to him, wears a ridiculous amount of orange,is the smallest and youngest character, is extremely obnoxious and annoying, and is a literal bee (although a honey bee, not a bumble bee). He plays his role as a mascot and tracker without clumsiness, though.
Pal-18 from Anachronox is a toy robot (though his owner has upgraded him with weapons and hacking systems) with a squeaky voice and a hip personality. You actually obtain his best weapon by letting him play in a playground for four hours (real time). Also, his theme color (relevant to the magic system) is yellow...
Relm from Final Fantasy VI is an extremely sassy ten-year-old girl who despite her grandfather's best efforts, keeps insisting on jumping into the fray. And she holds her own!
The Scout is one of these that stopped trying to convince people that Team Fortress 2 is a family-friendly game. He's all the better for it.
- After his weapon pack came out, it could be said he Took A Level In Badass and became one of the heaviest hitters around, to the point of needing a nerf.
- Wait, when was the Scout trying to convince people that TF2 is kid-friendly? He's loud-mouthed, swears (albeit mildly) more than any other member of the team, and makes jokes about beating people to death with a baseball bat.
Sakura Kusagano from Street Fighter Alpha. She was always out to prove herself against older, better-trained, and often bigger fighters. Surprisingly, she does very well (even holding her own against boss-level Bison).

Western Animation

Bumblebee from Transformers. Obviously. Down to originally transforming into a Volkswagen. Every single version of him - ever - is a kid-appeal character. (Weirdly enough, despite his being bright yellow, his function was espionage.)
- Given how ubiquitous Volkswagen Beetles were at the time, he's actually pretty well disguised for espionage.
  - This troper would like to point out that the Transformers are called "Robots in Disguise" for a reason. They're not supposed to stand out because, for the most part, they look like ordinary vehicles.
  - Okay, so why would a robot from a planet without organic life be named after an Earth insect?
  - Thinking too hard on the topic, aren't we?
  - Named after a car that was named after an earth insect, actually
- After the animated movie, the kid appeal role was taken on by—eeyurgh—Wheelie for the third series of Generation 1 and all of Transformers Headmasters, who was much more type 1.
- This role was then taken over by Holi in Transformers Victory, who was blue but otherwise a combination of all this trope's aspects.
- Cheetor from Beast Wars is also yellow, fast and the youngest one on the Maximal Team. Unlike Bumblebee was, however, he is actually quite a competent warrior and later became The Lancer to Optimus Primal.
- Hot Shot, from Transformers Armada, also yellow, falls under the third version.
  - His successor is Ironhide in Transformers Energon, who looks up to Hot Shot for this very same reason.
  - Physically though, this Ironhide is a subversion, being a larger, tougher model than most of the Autobots (including Hot Shot) and able to combine with Jetfire, a powerful veteran Autobot. That and there isn't very much yellow on him at all.
- This is all parodied in the Botcon script reading "Bee in the City," where Bumblebee from Animated is identified as the kid-appeal character and is asked if he's a Bumblebee or a Hot Shot (also referencing how he was originally supposed to be a new Hot Shot). Over the course of the program various characters also called him Wheelie, Side Burn, Cheetor, and even T-Bob.
  - Much to his annoyance.
  - And amusingly, it was Beast-era Megatron who called Animated Bumblebee "Cheetor," given he never actually referred to Cheetor by his name during Beast Wars or Beast Machines.
- The twins in Revenge of the Fallen, as Michael Bay states, were meant to be this (hell, they're even stuck with Bumblebee for much of the movie)... in spite of being violent Jive Turkeys who keep beating up each other.
  - Their toy bios essentially say that being among the few Autobots who made it to Earth made them living their dream of working directly alongside Optimus Prime, which is certainly a common trait for this type of character. Their immature wrestling and talking about being "quiet like a ninja" also highlights their relative youth.
And on that note, T-Bob from MASK fits here as well.
Scooter from Challenge of the Go Bots
Flash from Justice League. Though he's also quite popular with the older fanbase.
Scrappy-Doo from Scooby Doo was a famously unpopular one.
Jade from Jackie Chan Adventures.
Beast Boy from Teen Titans.
Tuck from My Life As A Teenage Robot.
Chameleon Boy from Teen Titans' Spiritual Successor Legion Of Super Heroes. Funny that they're both shapeshifters.
Snarf from Thundercats.
- This troper feels that Snarf was more of a caretaker. Wily Kitt and Katt fill this role better in the first season, and then Snarfer (*groan*) takes over in season 2.
Orko from He Man and the Masters of the Universe. He didn't exist in the original toyline, Filmation created him to appeal to younger kids.
Buji from Mi Familia es un Dibujo (originally introduced in the movie Dibu: La Película).
Upita from Patoruzito. In the original comic book, there was no such character, there was only Upa.
Wasabi from Sushi Pack.
Enzo from ReBoot was written in specifically for this purpose.
- And then, apparently to compensate for Matrix's pending emo-fication, they brought him back.
Ahsoka from Star Wars The Clone Wars was to give the show a kid-perspective in a series filled with adults.
- Really? This troper just thought she held the Idiot Ball a lot.
  - Same thing as far as executives can tell.