Talking about the Autobot Goldbug..

In the comic, Bumblebee's body was destroyed in the G.I. Joe Vs. Transformers mini-series by the Joes. Bumblebee then had a new body made for him. He changed his name after seeing he was now gold.

As for the cartoon, I remember in the Transformers series which was set after after the movie, Bumble Bee became Gold Bug after having his body upgraded. I think the reborn Optimus named him Gold Bug? I haven't seen that series since 1989 though...

I think they did something with Bumblebee becoming Goldbug in the Japanese Headmaster series. I've only seen bits and pieces of that.

Yeah, I think that must be what I'm thinking of. I remember the Head Masters story arc vaguely because I had several Head Master and Target Master figures which appeared in that series...I mostly remember it for the crappy animation though. :P

In the American Headmaster series he just shows up as Goldbug. No explanation.

Hasbro had a new toy to sell, therefore Bob Budiansky and Marvel had to come up with his backstory for the tech specs cards.

That's pretty much all it boils down to. That and Throttlebots were really pretty crappy as toys go.

I must agree. They were like Playskool Transformers, but as a completist as a kid, I still had them all.

He was rebuilt in the "Return Of Optimus Prime" 2-part episode

that was also the episodes where everyone contracted that evil hate plague

Bumblebee was, beside Optimus Prime, my favorite transformer. I particularly liked him because of the horns he had on his head. So when he was rebuilt into Goldbug in "The Return of Optimus Prime", with his unflattering new head shape, I thought it sucked! It marred my pleasure at watching the episode about Optimus coming back to life. OP was back, but Bumblebee as I knew him was gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMbNwdOSfx8 - it's here from about the 2.33 mark.

Interestingly, though, Bumblebee's head on the original toy, AND in the first 2 issues of the comic looked a lot like Goldbug's eventually did. The design must have been recycled when "Goldbug" was designed.

For more about Goldbug, see my impending post in the "your first Transformer" thread.