TV-Series
Description
Professor Humphrey Bumble is the eccentric inventor and owner of the Flying House in the anime The Flying House, known in the original Japanese version as Dr. Tokio Taimu. He is the creator of the story's two central pieces of technology: the Flying House itself, a one-of-a-kind time machine built into a house-shaped vessel capable of traveling through time, and Solar Ion Robot, or S.I.R., his robotic assistant.
In personality, Professor Bumble is portrayed as brilliant but absent-minded. He is a somewhat bumbling scientist whose intentions are genuinely good but whose actions frequently go wrong. His enthusiasm for experimentation tends to outpace his caution, and his well-meaning mistakes are directly responsible for setting the main adventure in motion.
His primary motivation is scientific curiosity and a desire to prove his inventions work. This is most clearly shown when he attempts to recreate Benjamin Franklin's famous lightning experiment by flying a kite outside the house to generate power for the time machine. The experiment does not go as planned; it temporarily alters S.I.R.'s personality, causing the robot to go berserk and sending the entire house on a course into the past. His misguidance and errors in time travel are the reason the children, Justin, Angie, and Corky, end up on such a prolonged journey rather than returning home quickly.
In the story, Professor Bumble serves as the owner and operator of the Flying House and the figure whose invention brings the main characters together. After the children take shelter in his house during a thunderstorm, he introduces them to his greatest creation and becomes their guide through the strange circumstances that follow. His failed experiment is the catalyst for the time travel that carries the group through numerous events of the Bible's New Testament.
His key relationships are with S.I.R., whom he built and who acts as his robotic assistant, and with the three children who join him on the journey. He is the adult authority figure of the group, and the children rely on his knowledge and his machine even as his mistakes complicate their efforts to get home.
Professor Bumble does not undergo a major personal transformation over the course of the series. He remains the same enthusiastic, error-prone inventor from beginning to end, and the resolution of the story arrives through circumstances rather than through a change in his character. The journey caused by his errors ultimately completes itself when a malfunction in S.I.R. sends the whole crew back to their own time.
His notable abilities lie in his inventiveness and technical skill. He is capable of constructing a functioning time machine disguised as a home and a working robot assistant, and he has enough knowledge of scientific history to attempt recreating historical experiments. At the same time, his absent-mindedness and tendency toward miscalculation mean his creations often behave unpredictably under his direction, making him both the source of the group's technological wonders and the cause of many of their problems.
In personality, Professor Bumble is portrayed as brilliant but absent-minded. He is a somewhat bumbling scientist whose intentions are genuinely good but whose actions frequently go wrong. His enthusiasm for experimentation tends to outpace his caution, and his well-meaning mistakes are directly responsible for setting the main adventure in motion.
His primary motivation is scientific curiosity and a desire to prove his inventions work. This is most clearly shown when he attempts to recreate Benjamin Franklin's famous lightning experiment by flying a kite outside the house to generate power for the time machine. The experiment does not go as planned; it temporarily alters S.I.R.'s personality, causing the robot to go berserk and sending the entire house on a course into the past. His misguidance and errors in time travel are the reason the children, Justin, Angie, and Corky, end up on such a prolonged journey rather than returning home quickly.
In the story, Professor Bumble serves as the owner and operator of the Flying House and the figure whose invention brings the main characters together. After the children take shelter in his house during a thunderstorm, he introduces them to his greatest creation and becomes their guide through the strange circumstances that follow. His failed experiment is the catalyst for the time travel that carries the group through numerous events of the Bible's New Testament.
His key relationships are with S.I.R., whom he built and who acts as his robotic assistant, and with the three children who join him on the journey. He is the adult authority figure of the group, and the children rely on his knowledge and his machine even as his mistakes complicate their efforts to get home.
Professor Bumble does not undergo a major personal transformation over the course of the series. He remains the same enthusiastic, error-prone inventor from beginning to end, and the resolution of the story arrives through circumstances rather than through a change in his character. The journey caused by his errors ultimately completes itself when a malfunction in S.I.R. sends the whole crew back to their own time.
His notable abilities lie in his inventiveness and technical skill. He is capable of constructing a functioning time machine disguised as a home and a working robot assistant, and he has enough knowledge of scientific history to attempt recreating historical experiments. At the same time, his absent-mindedness and tendency toward miscalculation mean his creations often behave unpredictably under his direction, making him both the source of the group's technological wonders and the cause of many of their problems.