Beachcomber

www.botchthecrab.com

Hippies.  I'm told that they smell like patchouli and are in need of a bath.  I wonder if that applies to Beachcomber as well?  Okay, bad hippie stereotyping over.  

Beachcomber is one of my favorite minibots; perhaps my favorite.  I'm not really sure why he's always been a favorite.  More than likely, it's the blue and grey combination of colors.  Or it could be his soothing voice from the cartoon where he sounded less like a hippie and more like Bing Crosby to me.  Which makes The Little Drummer Boy infinitely more interesting.

"Pa rum pum pum pum"  Also, I suck with Photoshop

Beachcomber is more or less famous for being a hippie and for the episode The Golden Lagoon.  The one where Beachcomber's hippie tendencies brought all sorts of ecological destruction to a little pond and the cute creatures that resided by it.

"Hi, little bird.  Would you mind if we destroyed your home?"  TFWiki.net

Other than that, Beachcomber has been a background guy.  In the comics and the rest of the animated series.  I thought that he had died during TF:TM, but it turns out I was wrong.  There I was, 9 years old, and I saw what appeared to be Beachcomber being dropped into a smelting pool.  It certainly looked like Beachcomber being melted.  Then he showed up in Five Faces of Darkness.  So...I guess that wasn't him?

For the past few weeks I've had minibots on the brain.  It's literally all I could think about. I'll take you back to when it all started.  A few weeks ago, I got two Detolf shelves so that meant I had to take down some shelves and do a bit of rearranging.  In the midst of moving my minibots, I started to notice that I was just short of finishing my minibot collection.  It was high time to finish them, I gathered.  I already own two Beachcombers, but they are in horrible, horrible shape.  Childhood toys tend to be in that kind of shape for me.  Off to find a new one!

There are two different versions of Beachcomber - one with a Hasbro copyright stamp and one without.  Here's a picture of the differences with a bonus shot of the G2 version stampings:

www.fredsworkshop.com

I didn't realize that there were variations on the stamping until I got my newest Beachcomber because I happened to notice that the stamping on the back of his head was for Takara only.  I looked over all three of my Beachcombers and noticed that all of them were the same!  I managed to get the full mesh version each and every time.  Nice.

Here's a shot of my first Beachcomber.  As you can see, the tires are cracked, one is missing, and the head doesn't want to stay up.  The tires that are actually still on him are actually from an old junker Cliffjumper or Bumblebee from when I was a kid.  They have "Dunlop" on them and the back tires are noticeably smaller than the front one.  There's also the matter of my name and first initial being engraved all over him.  No one could claim that he was theirs.

My second Beachcomber is in somewhat better shape.  His head stays up, and his joints are tighter.  He's missing his decal, but his tires are a wreck.  Apparently being stuck in a humid attic did some weird things to them.  I would've just replaced the tires, but they're melted and hardened on.  I cannot get them to budge at all.  His roll cage is also half off.

Beachcomber number 3, aka New Beachcomber, is in really good shape.  The rubsign is in really good shape.  His roll cage is still attached, so I'm excited about that.  I'm most excited about the tires since they're in great shape and there are no signs of cracking.  There is some very light rusting on the axles, but not anything to be too concerned about.

Finally, here's a shot of all three Beachcombers together.

Beachcomber - the hippie geologist.  Beachcomber - the latest addition to my collection.  Next up - a figure I've never even laid eyes upon until I received him in the mail.