Beet-Gugal AKA Beet-Chop
In 1985, Hasbro licensed insect molds from the Japanese company Bandai that would become the deluxe insecticons.
These molds were originally made by the defunct toy company Takatoku Toys. The original versions of the deluxe insecticon molds came from a line called Beetras and were named Beet-Gadol, Beet-Zeguna, Beet-Vadam and Beet-Gugal. A fifth fembot figure named Beet-Papil was planned, but she never got beyond the design stage.
As the deluxe insecticons, these molds rarely appeared in any Transformers fiction… probably due to copyright concerns as Bandai moved into the North American toy market. What we do know of the deluxe insecticons is encapsulated in this description from a Hasbro advertisement.
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The Transformers
Deluxe Insecticon Assortment
These evil Insecticons descend upon unsuspecting humans to confront the Autobot defenders and wreak havok on earth. Swing out the wings, pull back the legs, fold down the head…each provides a challenging transformation from insect to robot and back. The Deluxe Insecticons are packaged with attachable weapons, character bio, Tech Specs chart and decoder. The special liquid crystal logo assures their proof of authenticity. Assortment includes three each of the four Deluxe Insecticons.
The deluxe insecticons were briefly featured in IDW’s continuation of the Marvel G1 comic book. They were used like a secret swat team to take out internal disorder within the Decepticon ranks.
All four of the deluxe insecticons came from the Takatoku molds that Bandai bought the rights to when Takatoku folded.
The figure Beet-Gugal would be recolored by Hasbro into Chop Shop.
Because Bandai owns the molds used to make the original deluxe insecticons including Chop Shop, it is doubtful that Bandai will ever allow their rivals Hasbro or Takara to ever reissue Chop Shop or Beet-Gugal.
However, Both Hasbro and Takara have used new molds for both of those characters.
Hasbro has released two new versions of Chop Shop in recent years.
Takara has released both versions of Chop Shop and Beet-Gugal in new molds. To avoid copyright issues, Takara calls its Beet-Gugal figure “Beet-Chop.”
It’s interesting that Takara would chose to release a version of Beet-Gugal since Takara never released the original toy.
I’ve included a picture of Beet-Gugal and Beet-Chop side by side.
Whether you call him Beet-Gugal or Beet-Chop, this is a great character to add to your Decepticon ranks. Since no media was ever made for any of the Takatoku Toys, we don’t have an idea of what Beet-Gugal’s character would be like; however, since Takara has retroactively made him an insecticon, we can assume he’s as evil and greedy as the rest of the insecticons as it seems to be inherent in their nature.
Interestingly, Botcon (the official Transformers convention) also created a version of Beet-Gugal that it named “Beet-Chit.”
I’ve personally added all three versions of “Beet” to my collection.