TRANSFORMERS: Revisiting the Characters of Generation 1 - RUMBLE

TRANSFORMERS:  Revisiting the Characters of Generation 1

"Destroy what's below, and what's above will follow!" - Rumble, 1984.

DECEPTICON

Name - RUMBLE

Function - Demolitions

Series Debut - 1984 / Wave 1

Sub-Group - None

"Rumble... eject..."

BACKGROUND...

    Rumble's Tech-Spec describes him as "your basic street punk".  A small guy with a bad attitude, always talking tough.  Due to his small size, he doesn't have a lot of physical strength, but he can easily keep his enemies at bay as he can create earthquakes.  This ability comes to him by the use of sonic waves or transforming his arms into pile drivers and striking the ground till it shatters.

    Long ago during the war on Cybertron, Rumble was among the group of Decepticons that raided an Autobot spacecraft which eventually ended with everyone crash-landing on Earth.  After getting revived in 1984, the Decepticons made it their plan to use energy from this strange planet to re-power Cybertron.  Rumble was called on often to use his earthquakes to help in Megatron's latest scheme.

    Rumble transforms into a cassette tape and as such, was often partnered with Soundwave (a cassette player).  Rumble and the other cassettes would often stay stored in Soundwave until called upon or needed.  Rumble's brother is the cassette - Frenzy.

MY THOUGHTS...

    I mean, come on, Rumble is an awesome character!  There is no dispute in the amount of fun this little guy could bring to your Transformer battles.  Both his robot and tape modes were great and the head sculpt was always a favorite.  I got Rumble (with Ravage) on the same Christmas I got Soundwave, so that worked out pretty well!

    Rumble is a perfect example of how clever Hasbro was with this toyline.  They were wise in the way they divided up the unique traits and abilities among the figures.  The Tech-Spec bios would tell you about the personalities and skills that everyone had.  Rumble, one of the smallest Decepticons, could cause earthquakes!!!  Not even Decepticon Leader, Megatron, could do that!  So when you are kid with your meager allowance in your pocket and Megatron was well out of your price range - here is Rumble!  One glance at the Tech-Spec and you read what he can do and Rumble is an easy buy!

    Of course, there is the debate... red or blue?  The figures were originally released as Rumble in red / Frenzy in blue.  This changed in the cartoons and Rumble ended up blue.  In my eyes, Rumble was red.  When the first Series of figures came out, it was hard to keep the characters straight.  So for me, it was the 3 R's - Rumble is Red and comes with Ravage.  This is what stuck with me even when he appeared blue in the cartoons.  So what are your thoughts?  What color do you think Rumble should be?

    I started this write-up quite a while back, when I originally came up with the SCC Transformer Month idea.  I thought "I'm definitely buying that Studio Series 86 Rumble when he comes out!  So I'll use that as my G1 Stand-in."  Well, that didn't happen, did it?  I can't find that figure at any store and I'm not paying double for it on Amazon!  The write-up was nearly done, so instead I decided to use Combiner Wars Rumble.  This figure is... okay.  The head sculpt is right on and the robot mode is okay, but the alt-modes of a tank and data tablet (???) are odd.  

    So thanks Hasbro for the short-sightedness of not releasing more of the Studio Series 86 Rumble!  I mean, seriously, this thing has no chance at retail, right???  Let's cram the shelves with lack-luster figures and make the ones people want, hard to find.  And now you just laid off 1100 people because of soft toy sales among other reasons.  Pretty clear how those "soft sales" are playing out.  I'm not bitter though...

Here are the original G1 cassette as they were pictured in the Series 1 catalog!

    (Information on the character's lore was taken from the Sunbow Transformers cartoon series, including the Movie and the figure's original Tech-Spec.)