Ah the Abominable Snowman, infamous monster of intrigue and even more infamous as the "Bumble" from the classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer 1967 TV Special. Of all the holiday specials, this old time retelling of Rudolph's origin from Rankin/Bass remains one of my favorites. It was no doubt my favorite Christmas special when I was a kid.


It seems that all the best holiday toys were made by companies that no longer exist. Yesterday it was Palisades and today it's Playing Mantis. Playing Mantis really started the holiday toy craze and if it wasn't for them Forever Fun wouldn't have the grip on the market they do today. I believe Forever Fun still produces this figure, but he's not single carded and I never see anything but the "Humble" Bumble after Yukon Cornelius has pulled out all his teeth.

Packaging:

Even though I've had this guy for years now, I've kept the original packaging. The reason for that is because this guy was a real elusive mystery for me for many years. I tried valiantly to find him but never had any luck.


I even had my GF try to get it for me for Christmas. She couldn't find this Bumble either, but she did end up getting me a Bobble-Bumble which was pretty cool. Until one day I walked into a K*B Toys Outlet center and there he was... And he was only $5! I still to this day don't know why I didn't buy 10 of this guy.



Articulation:
The articulation on this guy isn't super impressive, but it's still quite good for what he needs it for. His head, arms and legs are all cuts. They don't have a super range of movement because he's covered in fur, but he can still hit his couple of trademark poses.



Sculpt:
Everything about the Rankin/Bass design is here and present in perfect accuracy. This figure looks just like the Bumble, which is good because some of the other licensed Rudolph stuff is a bit off model. This figure is pretty darn perfect though.


His fur had to be the hardest part to engineer and still give him working and useful articulation. Major props goes out to Playing Mantis for finding a way to get this done and do it well. He looks right and he's quite fuzzy indeed.


The likeness here is the same as it was on the regular Ash figure, which isn't very good. Still if you can deal with the not so great head sculpt, he's otherwise pretty flawless. He's decked out in green and red for the holidays, although the red pants are almost a brown color.


Although the scale of the rest of this line is about 4-5 inches, the Bumble is massive. He's even bigger than Marvel Legends Hulk! I believe they also sold a larger deluxe Bumble, but this guy fits in well with the PVC figures which where I spent most of my money in collecting Rudolph toys.

Accessories:
The Bumble only gets his trademark star. Unfortunately it's kind of odd and can't really fit on any trees, but he looks good holding it like he's going to put it onto a tree. I've seen some newer version from Forever Fun with a slightly different star that's gold.



Value:
I got this guy for $5! I have no idea what he originally retailed for or I would have listed that price. I'm guessing closer to $10, but on Ebay now you're likely to pay quite a bit more for this version. I have seen Humble Bumble sets with several figures for about $30-$40.

Score Recap:
Packaging - 6
Sculpting - 9
Articulation - 7
Accessories - Star
Value - 10
Overall - 9.5 out of 10


I love this figure, I think he's perfect in every way. I can't find a single flaw and since I paid so little for him, he gets a near perfect rating from me. Hey, I'm probablyly biased, but there is no denying that this is a good toy.


The Bumble is always part of my Rudolph holiday town, which I build each year in different styles. I've included some photos of this year's Rudolph town. Certainly not my best setup, but the Bumble is there.