Autoboot Camp

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Class of 2008. The ENTIRE Class of 2008.
"Autoboot Camp"
Season	2
No. in season	9
Production company	Cartoon Network Studios
Airdate	June 3, 2008 (UK) June 14, 2008 (USA)
Written by	Michael Ryan
Directed by	Heather Maxwell Christopher Berkeley Shunji Oga
Animation studio	The Answer Studio
Continuity	Animated cartoon continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

On the trail of an escaped Autobot traitor, Bumblebee flashes back to a previous encounter with the traitor when he first met Bulkhead in Autobot Boot Camp.

Synopsis

"Sayonara, suckerzzz."

Somewhere in space, an Autobot shuttle streaks through the solar night and crash-lands on an asteroid, where its lone occupant races off across the barren ground in vehicle mode. Hot on his trail is Sentinel Prime, who chases him to a space bridge node on the asteroid. The green-armoured escapee triggers the space bridge with a blast from a familiar pair of stingers, and Sentinel loses his quarry as the portal explodes with light.

On Earth, Ultra Magnus reports the news of the escapee to the Autobots. Bumblebee immediately recognizes the criminal in question as Wasp, a 'bot sharing his bodyform whom he met when during his Elite Guard training days.

Living rooms of America, do you catch my drift? Do... you... dig?

In the Decepticons' underground lair, Megatron contacts his double-agent on Cybertron and congratulates him on orchestrating Wasp's breakout. The double-agent is concerned that they are speaking so freely on the subject, but Megatron assures him that nobody will be able to listen in on the broadcast. Professor Sumdac has other plans, though, as he secretly taps into the communication frequency and bounces it to the Autobots' base. Bumblebee and Bulkhead are on monitor duty at the time, and the message comes through exceedingly scrambled, but they are at least able to comprehend the existence of a double-agent. Naturally, Bumblebee immediately assumes it to be Wasp, and he decides to settle his old score, with Bulkhead tagging along. Bumblebee remembers how it all went down...

Stellar cycles ago, on Cybertron, Bumblebee meets Bulkhead for the first time when they both attend boot camp to train under Sentinel Minor, alongside Wasp, super-durable Ironhide and telescopic-limbed Longarm. The two B's immediately earn Sentinel's ire—Bumblebee for his impetuous bungling, and Bulkhead for his desire to be nothing more than a space bridge technician—and the pair gets saddled with oil cleanup. Of course, Bumblebee begins goofing off, which results in a stack of oil drums collapsing on Sentinel, which results in Bumblebee being made to stand in the middle of the courtyard in the dead of night, holding up oil drums and repeatedly declaring himself a “worthless oil stain.”

Hardly a relaxing oil bath.

After a while, though, Bumblebee calls it quits, but as he is walking by a warehouse, he spots a shadowy figure speaking into a communicator, with the voice of Megatron responding! After a moment's hesitation, Bumblebee pops his stingers and commands the spy-bot to show himself...but the figure has vanished. When Bumblebee turns to leave, however, he spots Wasp walking out of the warehouse.

Unsure of how to proceed, Bumblebee confides in Longarm, who encourages him to gather some evidence and present it to Sentinel. Bumblebee tries setting up a trap, planting a box with the Elite Guard symbol on it in the open, hoping Wasp will grab it...except Sentinel is the first to come upon it, and it explodes, covering him in paint. Next, Bumblebee tries a listening device, but accidentally winds up broadcasting Sentinel over the camp's loudspeakers as he jokes about Ultra Magnus being too old to hack the commander role. In traditional boot camp manner, Sentinel makes the whole team suffer for Bumblebee's mistakes, and Wasp and Ironhide take it out on the little 'bot by disconnecting his legs and stuffing him in a locker. Longarm comes to Bumblebee's rescue, and urges Bumblebee not to give in.

Optimus must be kicking himself for having missed this.

But the bullying doesn't stop, as Wasp hits Bumblebee with a burst of “friendly fire” in a simulated combat training exercise. Of course, it's just a paint grenade, but when Bulkhead offers to help Bumblebee up, Bumblebee snaps and insults Bulkhead's lack of ambition before storming off. Turning a corner, Bumblebee yelps as he finds several auto-cannons pointed in his face, but then laughs as he remembers that they're only loaded with paint rounds for the simulated combat. Or rather, they were, as the shadowy figure from the warehouse slinks by the cannons and switches them to active ammunition. As the cannons open fire on Bumblebee, Bulkhead speeds to his rescue and takes out the cannons by dropping a building on them with his wrecking ball...only for Sentinel to get squashed under it as well. Bumblebee encourages Bulkhead to scarper, rather than risk his career by owning up.

Tracking the message Sumdac broadcast to them, Bumblebee and Bulkhead wander through the wilderness, reminiscing about the old days. When Bumblebee stumbles into a patch of quicksand, Bulkhead plucks him out, but the conflict between the pair from their boot camp days starts bubbling back to the surface, and Bulkhead leaves Bumblebee to the mission himself. Angrily stomping up a mountain, Bumblebee loses his footing and falls off a cliff, becoming buried in an avalanche.

Will go on to star in The Count of Monte Cristo.

Longarm informs Bumblebee that Sentinel is about to conduct a surprise locker examination, meaning that it's his last chance to find evidence on Wasp before Sentinel can take credit for it himself. Using his extensible limbs to trip up Wasp, Longarm allows Bumblebee to "help him up" and finger his locker key in the process. As Bumblebee quickly opens Wasp's locker, Sentinel appears behind him, demanding to know what he's doing, only to be quickly silenced when Bumblebee presents him with a Decepticon communicator. Impressed with Bumblebee's work, Sentinel plans to recommend him for an Elite Guard position. After Wasp is carted off, screaming his innocence all the way, Sentinel brings up the matter of the building being dropped on him. Since nobody has owned up, he decides to kick out whoever he feels like—and he feels like Bulkhead. Before he can give Bulkster the boot, however, Bumblebee steps forward and claims responsibility, sheepishly asking if it will affect his Elite Guard position.

Sometimes, when you stare into the abyss, it stares right back.

Some time later, Bumblebee and Bulkhead are on an asteroid, working on a space bridge node, as Bulkhead cheerfully announces "I have arrived!"

Buried under the rockslide, Bumblebee reflects on his friendship with Bulkhead out loud, and about how he saved Bulkhead's career, even if his friend never dreamed big. But Bulkhead did dream big; as the bulky bot appears above Bumblebee and hauls him out from beneath the boulders, he announces that he dreamed of being Bumblebee's friend. Bumblebee thanks his big buddy, and the pair drive off...having only been mere feet from the secret entrance to the Decepticon base.

Out in space, it turns out that Wasp didn't escape to Earth at all, and that he is still on the asteroid, huddled up in a ball. His mind clearly broken, the insectoid 'bot buzzes and twitters to himself about how he will find Bumblebee and make him pay for ruining his life.

Back at the Autobot base, our heroes contact Cybertron to alert the Autobots there about Megatron's double-agent. As it turns out, Bumblebee's old boot camp buddy Longarm is now Longarm Prime, head of Cybertronian Intelligence, and he promises to root out the traitor no matter what.

In the Decepticon base, Megatron communicates once again with his double-agent... Longarm Prime! But the deception is a dual-layered one, for Longarm is, in fact, the shape-shifting Shockwave!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Wasp (1) Sentinel Prime (2) Ultra Magnus (3) Bumblebee (4) Bulkhead (5) Optimus Prime (6) Ratchet (7) Prowl (8) Ironhide (11) (Flashback) Cliffjumper (14) (Flashback)	Megatron (9) Lugnut (13, voice only) Longarm Prime/Shockwave (12)	Isaac Sumdac (10)

Quotes

"Hey, little fella. Can you scan a picture of me with these big tall buildings? They'll never believe this back home."
"Mhm. First time off the energon farm?"
"How'd you know?"

—Bulkhead and Bumblebee, together for the first time.

Sentinel Minor: Wipe that smile off your face, dullspark!
Bulkhead: Uh, I'm not smiling, sir! My jaw is just tempered that way, sir!
Bumblebee: Forget Mudflap's jaw, check out the asteroid-sized chin on Sarge!
Sentinel Minor: YOU GOT A COMMENT, FUNNY-BOT?!
Bumblebee: No, sir!

—The future Sentinel Prime is a little sensitive about his chin. Maybe it's why he's such a jerk.

Sentinel Minor: Now here's a bot who knows his place. You should try to be more like your friend here.
Bumblebee: He's not my friend, sir!
Sentinel Minor: WE'RE ALL FRIENDS HERE!

—Mr. Personality does it again.

"You are nothing but a BUMBLER! From now on, your name is...BUMBLEBEE!"

—And thus, a legend was born, thanks to Sentinel Minor

"You would not believe the glitches the Commander's saddled me with this time. I'm starting to think that Ultra Magnus is a few circuits shy of a full processor, know what I mean? Oh, sure, he was The Bot back in the day, but now? Ultra Magnus is just a rusted-out, obsolete model sorely in need of an upgrade."

—Sentinel Minor is a suck-up only to the boss's face. Quelle surprise.

"I couldn't leave you all alone out here like that. I should've, but I didn't."

—Bulkhead is loyal, but not stupid.

"Bumblebot not hide from Wasp. Wasp swears he find Bumblebot. Wasp make Bumblebot pay for RUINING WASP'S LIFE!"

—There lies a broken Wasp...

Notes

Continuity notes

• Sentinel's speech about his troops being "cogs in a machine" is very similar to Optimus's comment at the beginning of "Transform and Roll Out" (although Optimus gets the message across without the attitude); it may be a standard message from the Autobot Academy.
• Clearly, when Bumblebee and Bulkhead noted that Sentinel Prime didn't remember them back in "The Elite Guard", they were referring to their boot camp days.
• It was explained back in "The Elite Guard" that "Prime" was a rank, and this episode reveals that before attaining the rank, Sentinel was known as "Sentinel Minor". Sounds a little familiar.

Transformers references

• When Bulkhead makes the comment about his jaw being molded a certain way, Bumblebee mockingly calls him Mudflap.
• In the final moments of the episode, the addled Wasp (who has spoken perfectly normally throughout the flashbacks) begins speaking in the buzzing, third-person style of Beast Wars Waspinator.

Animation and technical errors

• In the scene after Sentinel Prime rips off Wasp's insignia, you can see him still wearing it.

Continuity errors

• Bumblebee's stingers are shown to be powerful enough to knock down a building; yet in prior episodes they were only useful for zapping debris and bouncing uselessly off Decepticon armor. The discrepancy is somewhat explained in "TransWarped" when Ratchet gives Bumblebee battle-grade stingers to boost his power. Maybe when he was demoted to space bridge duty, his stingers were downgraded.
• If Professor Sumdac can reroute a Decepticon message between Earth and Cybertron to the Autobots on Earth, why can't he call for help too?

Trivia

• If Cybertronians live on a planet with no organic life-forms, how does Sentinel know that wasps and bumblebees exist? Because shut up, that's the whole joke of these names.
• Marty Isenberg has revealed that the other boot-campers being repaint characters was an idea of Derrick J. Wyatt's, that the inclusion of Shockwave was a late decision, and that originally Cliffjumper was going to be the falsely accused.
• Sentinel Prime has switched back to his Cybertronian alt-form, presumably since arriving back on Cybertron (since he still had his Earth form in "A Fistful of Energon"). Considering what he thought of Earth, it's not really a surprise that he'd want to change back as soon as possible. Ultra Magnus even muses over this in an entry in The AllSpark Almanac, where he also explains that the only reason Sentinel is seen with his Earth mode later on is because he (Ultra Magnus) decided to keep his.
• Transformation is apparently a form of work. Or, at least, repeated transformation is, being analogous to push-ups or sit-ups.
• This episode certainly explains a lot about Bumblebee's independent streak. His very first "team" effort was basically people being colossal jerks to him for no reason (well, except for Sentinel, really...drill sergeants are supposed to be like that) except for the big goofy country-bot...and standing up for said bot basically led to his dreams being crushed.
• On the other hand, if names get assigned by drill sergeants, you have to wonder exactly to what levels Ultra and Elita-1 stooped in order to get those names...
  • As later revealed in the Allspark Almanac, Elita-1 was named by Kup for her snobby demeanor.
• Lugnut is not shown, but is briefly heard saying "Megatron will speak to you now," when Megatron is contacted by Shockwave in the flashback, ten minutes into the episode.
• In this episode, when Sentinel gives Bumblebee his name, Bumblebee reacts as if he doesn't like it. However, in "Transform and Roll Out", when Bumblebee tells Sari his name and she responds, "I'm Sari," Bumblebee then says, "Oh, don't be. I like my name." Maybe he got over it?

Closed Captioning provided by the Zero Wing Translation Team.

• Bulkhead used to have a "hick" accent while in boot camp that he lost sometime after starting work on space bridges with Bumblebee and the others.
• What, exactly, was the point of Sentinel Prime keeping one arm in a bandage and sling? And for that matter, why do robots have slings?
• When commenting on Sentinel's chin, Bumblebee looks directly at the "camera", so to speak, making this one of the few occasions where animated Transformers media break the fourth wall.
• "Oil change duty" seems kind of weird in light of the oil-as-beer analogy in "Rise of the Constructicons".
• The closed captioning on the Paramount DVD release for this episode (contained in "Transformers Animated — Volume Six: Black Friday") mistakenly spells Shockwave's name as Chugway.
• This episode was adapted in comic book format using screen captures as half of "Transformers Animated Volume 11", with "SUV: Society of Ultimate Villainy" making up the other half.
• The Shout! Factory release of the entire series misspells this episode's title as "Autobot Camp" in the episode selection menu and on the inside of the DVD case, apparently believing that the episode's original title was a typo itself.

Foreign localization

Spanish (Latin America)

• Title: "Grupo Autobot" ("Autobot Group")
• Original airdate: 8 November 2008

French

• Title: "Formation et trahison" ("Training and Treason")
• Original airdate: 19 October 2008

• Sentinel Minor names Bumblebee this way because he is "as accurate as a blind bumblebee". Right after, instead of repeating his name, Bumblebee sadly answers "What kind of name is that?".
• The other names are given for the same reasons than in original, French Sentinel just wanted to prove he could also speak English.

German

• Title: "Der Spion-Bot" ("The Spy-Bot")
• Original airdate: 25 July 2008

Italian

• Title: "Antichi Dissapori" ("Ancient Hatreds")
• Original airdate: 14 March 2009

Japanese

• Title: "Double Agent" (ダブルエージェント)
• Original airdate: 4 September 2010

• Since wordplay is rarely translation-friendly, the Japanese dub uses new puns for the origins of Wasp and Bumblebee's names. In Wasp's case, his name (pronounced "Wasupu") is derived from combining the first syllables of the words in "Wow, nice precision" ("Wau, sugoi pure"), which is Sentinel's reaction to his aim. Upon witnessing Bumblebee (pronounced "Banburubī") use his weapons ("banban", onomatopoeia for gunfire) to destroy a building ("biru"), Sentinel initially dubs him "Banbanbī", then changes it slightly to make Bumblebee.

Polish

• Title: "Maszeruj, Autobocie" ("March, Autobot")
• Original airdate: ???

Portuguese

• Title: "Treinamento Autobot" ("Autobot Training")
• Original airdate: ???

Home video releases

DVD

2009 — Transformers Animated — Season Two (Paramount) — English and Spanish audio.
2009 — Transformers Animated — Volume Six: Black Friday (Paramount) — English and German audio.
2009 — Transformers Animated — Volume Six: Black Friday (Paramount) — English and German audio.
2009 — Transformers Animated — Volume Sechs: Schwarzer Freitag (Paramount) — English and German audio.
2011 — Transformers Animated — Vol. 6 (Paramount) — Japanese audio only.
2014 — Transformers Animated — Season Two (Madman Entertainment)
2014 — Transformers Animated — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)