Bee in the City 2: Electric Bugaloo
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| "Bee in the City 2: Electric Boogaloo" | |||||||||
| Original presentation | April 29, 2012 | ||||||||
| Written by | Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop | ||||||||
| Continuity | TransTech and a Generation 1 universe | ||||||||
"Joe" escapes from Axiom Nexus with his most devious scheme yet: marketing clout!
Synopsis
Across the mutliverse, the Transformers fight their war, raging across all of space time, except for one universe. This universe, home to the the highly advanced TransTechs of Axiom Nexus, stands guard to multiversal threats, one of which is happening right now, one that could change the multiverse forever.
This is not that story.
Reporting from Around Cybertron on ANN, Andromeda receives a call from a "Joe", who reveals live on-air that he is in fact the Predacon Megatron! Hanging up from the payphone as Andromeda traces the call and signals the authorities, exactly as he planned. Interrupted by his supervisor, Snapdragon, Megatron tells him to inform Cryotek that he's done being a dishwasher, and explains to his lackeys Soundwave of Planet X and a Malgus Lugnut his plan. Having been previously defeated by the TransTech, along with a little yellow Autobot and his pre-teen friend, Megatron will finally have his revenge, which starts with being arrested. Officer Stungun arrives, and Megatron tells the three to comply. Reading their identification bolts, which Soundwave has hacked and edited to place their home dimension as Primax 984.17 Alpha, the underpaid Stungun sends them back to their "home universe". Arriving in the rocky mesas of Madagascar, the three quickly travel across the globe with a scene transition, where Lugnut finds the sign pointing to Autobot Headquarters. The three watch as three Autobots-Bumblebee, Blaster, and Road Rage, who has always been there-wander about. Megatron greet the three, introducing himself and his team as "Joe", "Soundblaster", and Lugnut, a group of publishing agents from Planet X. "Joe" entices Bumblebee with an offer to have him write his memoirs, but when Bumblebee sees that his "office" is a car wash, he gets suspicious. As he and Blaster banter, Megatron springs the trap, forcing the three Autobots into the carwash, which is really a giant burlap sack.
Meanwhile, Stungun, having realized his mistake, has enlisted the help of an Aurex Optimus Prime to go and hunt down Megatron. Knowing from his experiences with his Megatron that the Predacon will go for the closest plot device he can find, and the two set out. At Megatron's secret canyon based, Bumblebee and his friends have been wired up to a huge machine, as Joe reveals his true identity to the three. Before he can explain his nefarious plan, however, Optimus Prime and Stungun confront him, having bribed the writers with sandwiches. Megatron grabs Bumblebee, telling them to stay back, and Prime stops Stungun from advancing, realizing with this particular Bumblebee, the entire franchise could be changed forever. Megatron laughs, telling them all his plan; using Bumblebee's harmonic signature amplified through Soundwave and Blaster's sonic energies, and aided with the instability caused by this years "Invasion" exclusive comic, Megatron will rewrite his narrative structure and take Bumblebee's place. Doing so, he will gain the greatest power of them all: being the face of the franchise! And after all that is done, Megatron will send Bumblebee to the most horrible place of all: the world of My Little Pony fanfictions. Horrifed, the others beg Optimus to stop him, and Prime quickly uses Megatron's one weakness: flattery. Reminding him that he's already popular, and one of the most well regarded versions of Megatron by the fandom, the Autobots manage to convince him to let Bumblebee go, but he still plans on kill Optimus. Thinking fast, Bumblebee rushes to the red button marked "overload", causing the machines to blow up in Megatron's face. The other two are quickly defeated in combat, and Megatron rants, letting it slip that he hails from the Beast Wars. Stungun tells everyone to never speak of these events again, and they all agree, going home to their respective times and places, and everyone laughs as the day comes to a close.
The end!
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons/Predacons | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
Notes
- The cast:
Transformers references
- When Megatron reveals his identity to Andromeda (and the audience) near the beginning of the story, he mentions having returned to get his "extremely overwrought and melodramatic revenge", which he promised he would return to get at the end of the previous "Bee in the City".
- Also towards the beginning, Megatron, Soundwave, and Lugnut are said to have been employees of Cryotek, working at The Blue Deployer. Both Cryotek and his pub were first established back in "Gone Too Far".
- Road Rage is introduced as having "always been here!", poking fun at her being a later addition to Generation 1 lore having not yet existed back in the 1980s fiction.
- Prior to seeing each other, both Megatron and Optimus assume that the other is the Optimus and Megatron that each is familiar with, based only on each of them hearing the sound of the other's voice. This is a reference to how Garry Chalk and David Kaye, respectively, voiced the Optimus and Megatron of both the Beast Era and Unicron Trilogy cartoons.
- Later, Optimus notes to Stungun that he (Optimus) has dealt with Megatron's kind before and knows how to play to Megatron's vanity, furthering the reference.
- After recognizing that neither Megatron nor Optimus are the ones that they each knew, Megatron asks Optimus "Why is your CGI cel-shaded?!" This is a nod to how the Cybertron cartoon utilized cel-shaded CGI for its robot characters, as opposed to being fully CGI like the Beast Wars cartoon.
- Optimus's "Galaxy Force Punch!" attack is named after the Japanese name of the Cybertron cartoon, Transformers: Galaxy Force. The name was also applied to two Cybertron toy redecos: Galaxy Force Optimus Prime and Galaxy Force Vector Prime.
- As Megatron monologues about his plot to replace Bumblebee with himself as the face of the Transformers brand, he refers to how the live-action film series made Bumblebee a household name and mascot for the brand, along with the swathes of Bumblebee toys that were clogging the shelves at retail during the first three Movie toylines (and in others).
- Furthermore, Megatron refers to actor Shia LaBeouf by name, who starred in the first three live-action Transformers films as Sam Witwicky, the young human whom Movie Bumblebee helped to, ahem, have better luck with the ladies, so to speak (which Megatron also refers to).
- As the Autobots point out how popular and beloved a character Megatron already is in the eyes of the fandom, Bumblebee quotes Megatron's famous "Yeeesss" line.
Real-world references
- The title is a reference to the 1985 film Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.
- Optimus calls out his attack name "Galaxy Force Punch!" (complete with Garry Chalk physically performing a full punching motion) in traditional anime fashion, which is commonplace in most Japanese Transformers animated media, but not as common in the English dub versions of the Unicron Trilogy cartoons.
Trivia
- Though titled "Bee in the City 2", the story has very little to do with the first "Bee in the City" story aside from the return of Megatron and his manipulating a Bumblebee character. Towards the end, the characters even question why this story was even titled "Bee in the City 2" since it didn't take place in a city or really focus that much on Bumblebee at all.
- Having not played Blaster in over two decades, Buster Jones's performance in this script reading was far more laid back and unenthusiastic compared his more lively, upbeat Blaster in the Generation 1 cartoon, despite his dialogue in this script reading evidently meant to evoke Jones's more enthusiastic Blaster performance from the cartoon.
