Kid-appeal character

Cue the hijinks.

Transformers is, and always has been, a franchise aimed at children. And because most Transformers are always so broody and cool and all sorts of other things little kids won't get, most to all franchises have what could be called a kid-appeal character. This character often interacts with the token human character as one of his closest friends, and the two get into all sorts of wacky adventures together. They usually get pulled out by one of the older bots, completely fail to learn their lesson, and do it again. And again and again and...

List of kid-appeal characters

Finally, an kid-emulatable weapon.

Generation 1:

• Hound spent a good deal of time with Spike Witwicky in the cartoon's first three episodes, but was soon supplanted by...
• Bumblebee, who stayed with Spike for most of the series.
• Hot Rod was Daniel Witwicky's closest friend at the beginning of The Transformers: The Movie. This lasted for all of eighty minutes, as Hot Rod's upgrade into Rodimus Prime made him no longer "hip" enough, and he was replaced.
• Wheelie took over for the show's third season. Wheelie and Daniel went off on adventures like stealing a ship to figure out when Ultra Magnus's birthday was and nearly getting killed repeatedly in the process. Exactly the sort of thing we want kids identifying with.
• Arcee, the girl, filled in for the Daniel's Best Friend part in the final three episodes. Hey, kids, you like hanging out with your moms, right?

Popular amongst the blind kids, maybe.

Beast Wars

• Cheetor was not only yellow, he had the impulsiveness and disregard for authority every kid-appeal bot needs. The only thing he lacked was a human friend, until Chak and Una showed up in the show's third season. Except for the Transmetal 2 upgrade, and the whole of Beast Machines, he was a pretty friendly guy, annoying the others with his childish enthusiasm.

Beast Machines

• Nightscream replaced Cheetor as the youngster of the Maximals since Cheetor had matured. Hasbro had such high hopes for this kid appeal character, that they made his toy a giant Ultra class figure! Unfortunately, his character was angry and bitter, so he didn't get much love. By the way, there is no human character in Beast Machines show.

Robots in Disguise

• Wedge was the young, excitable hero who was hotheaded and naive, but was being primed for leadership. Sound familiar?

Hot Shot passes the kid-appeal torch.

Unicron Trilogy

• Hot Shot was the token kid-appeal character of Armada, hot-headed, unwilling to listen to his superiors, and suddenly thrust into a leadership role that lasted all of three episodes. Unfortunately, he grew up, something no kid-appeal character should ever have to do, and was shortly replaced.
• Ironhide took over once Energon rolled around. His tenure was mostly spent getting kicked by...uh...Kicker. They got along eventually, though.
• Hot Shot was young and goofy again in Cybertron, but the series' kids spent more time with the Recon Mini-Con Team, particularly Jolt (the only one who could speak English).

2007 Movie

• Bumblebee was the first Autobot to arrive on Earth. His mission to search for the All Spark led him to Sam Witwicky, a boy whom he befriended over the course of his mission, and stayed with once it was over. Sam repaid him by making out with Mikaela on top of him. Huh.

Animated

• Bumblebee (detecting a pattern yet?) is Sari Sumdac's closest friend, human and bot alike. Once again, he is irrational and impulsive, which has only helped endear him to his small, fleshy friend (assuming, of course, she is fleshy...).

Trivia

• They have an overwhelming tendency to be yellow.
• More recently, they also have an overwhelming tendency to be named Bumblebee. We're not sure why.
• Animated Bumblebee was once transported into the TransTech universe, where he was often mistaken for other kid-appeal characters, including Wheelie, Cheetor, and (although not really a kid-appeal character) Side Burn.