Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Kinda obscure cartoons.

Some kinda obscure cartoons you may or may not remember.



There are shows from our childhood that everyone remembers. Who could forget when the Beagle Boys kidnapped Gyro Gearloose and used his telaportation ray to steal Uncle Scrooges money. Or when the Rescue Rangers crash landed in the BooBoo forest and they thought Dale was a god because he fell out of a flying machine. But, there are many other shows that have gone by the way side in this hustle and bustle world. With this being the last year in the Metrodome and everyone looking back over the past 20 some years, I guess it just tickled my nostalgia bone.

Street Sharks. Cashing in on the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this show focused on 4 surfing brothers are kidnapped by the evil Dr. Paranoid and have their DNA spliced with various species of Sharks. Dr Paranoid didn't stop with just the brothers. He also made his own underlings, Slobster and Killamari (can anyone say Beebop and Rocksteady?) This show was a total rip off, and other than the names of the characters (Ripster and Big Slammu being a couple), and the fact that they literally swam though pavement to get where they were going, it offered little. They did have one of the best catch phrases though "Jawesome! To the Xtreme!"



Eek! And the Amazing Thunderlizards. This show was one of my favorites back in '93. Not because of the hapless Eek, or his fat girlfriend. But for the Thunderlizards segment. The Thunderlizards were a group of dinosaur commandos hell bent on destroying all of human kind. All 2 of them, Scooter the inventor and Bill. (How did they reproduce?) No matter how hard the Dino's tried, they could never catch the fairly dumb humans. HUMANS RULE!

Wild West C.O.W. Boys or Moo Mesa. This one was a real gem, a comet hits in the old west town of Moo Mesa, giving all the animals opposable thumbs and the ability to speak English. The C.O.W. boys (Code Of the West) were deputized by Sheriff TerriBULL-o and answered to mayor BULLoney. This show was just a walking punchline, everyone had some silly name that had something to do with cows in it. The Boys tangled with the likes of the Wild BULLies, and the Gila Hooligans, which was made up of lizards.

Battletoads. You may remember the game, but do you remember the show? It was launched as a direct competitor to TMNT, but with little success. A super scientist from space lands in California and turns 3 nerds into super fighting amphibians. (Is anyone else sensing a trend?) They must fight the evil dark queen and her beast police to protect the good princess Angelica whose amulet has the power to conquer the universe. This one didn't catch on quite like the Turtles.

Biker Mice From Mars. Trying to capture the fading glory of TMNT, Marvel comics launched this show about 3 rough and tumble brothers who while trying to escape the Plutarkians, who were greedy and ravaged their home world, crash through the score board of Wrigley field and hook up with Charly, the saucy lady mechanic who helped them fix and build new and better bikes and weapons. While this one was violent, edgy and just plain fun, it also had a message about saving the environment. And look at how bad ass they were!

The mice enjoyed a slight renaissance in the mid 2000's when the original episodes were re-aired in an attempt to stir up excitement for another run in 2006, but financing problems kept that on the back burner and when it was finally released in late 2007 it was to little fan fare. But did become a big hit in Scandinavia.

Johnny Bravo. This one isn't quite from our child hood, but it was the first cartoon, besides the Simpsons, that I could enjoy as an adult (or I thought I was an adult when I first saw it at 15). Johnny was a total square who lived with his mom and his only friend was an annoying girl scout that lived next door. But he thought he was pretty sweet. He was just a guy on a never ending quest to touch some butt. Something I can totally relate too. It was a more family friendly Family Guy in that Johnny was totally offensive if you understood his jokes, and it was just a parade of pop culture referances. And, to this day I would rather watch Johnny than Peter and the gang any day of the week.

Most of these were total rip offs, but kids are dumb and if you find something that works just pump it down their throats and they will buy all the toys and games.
There are plenty I've missed, forgotten or didn't feel were good enough to reminisce about. But I would like to hear what all of our faithful readers have to say on the subject.

12 comments:

kjamison said...

I'm actually familiar with all of the above. I was a big cartoon nerd. Loved C.O.W.boys of Moo Mesa. Marshall Moo Montana and the Cowlorado Kid. Timeless. There was even an arcade game at the Godfather's Pizza in Owatonna that I frequently played. Konami.

Does anyone remember C.O.P.S. (Central Organization of Police Specialists)? It may have been my favorite cartoon.

It took place in Empire City, and included characters such as Baldwin P. "Bulletproof" Vess, Mace (not to be confused with Ma$e), Barricade, Bullseye, Mainframe, Buttons McBoomBoom, Berserko, Ms. Demeanor (not to be confused with Missy Misdemeanor Elliot) and Bowser and Blitz (my personal favorite, since blitz was a robotic dog), among others. Many similarities to another classic, G.I. Joe. Look it up and enjoy.

TwinsWin83 said...

Tailspin?

Daymonster said...

tailspin is not obscure. duh.

haasertime said...

Tailspin isn't obscure at all.

i liked gargoyles. There were like 5 guys named after NYC boroughs who were gargoyles from medieval times.

There was a legend that said if the stone gargoyles were risen above the clouds, they would come to life. So some billionaire built a skyscraper in manhattan and perched the gargoyles on top. Hilarity ensues.

bizmarkie507 said...

The most humiliating moment of my entire life involved Street Sharks. Haasertime and Brex can back me up on this.

bizmarkie507 said...

dude they had a back to the future cartoon. now that was a wtf?!

TwinsWin83 said...

Oh-ee-yeah
Oh-ee-yoh
Oh-ee-yeah
Oh-ee-yoh
Hey! Hey! Hey!
Spin it
Let's begin it
Bear 'n grin it
When you're in it
You can win it
In a minute
When you spin it, spin it, spin it
So spin it
Tale Spin

Daymonster said...

biz,

what happened with street sharks? Was it totally jawesome? or mildly jawesome?

tfrezac2002 said...

jammyman, I totally agree on C.O.P.S. It was also my favorite for a while. It was going to be the next one I was going to talk about, but I didn't have time.

bizmarkie507 said...

long story which involved a hot chick giving our putput boat a tow and when it was crunch time to try and seal the deal to have her think we were cool, "jawsome to the extreme" stumbles out of my mouth, and she goes, "uhh..what?" then haas goes, he really likes street sharks. and she was still like, what? then soon after she left and i cried a little bit.

Keep in mind we were like 14 and had no idea how to interact with chicks. Well Brex did, but I sure as hell didn't.

haasertime said...

i'm pretty sure that was a defining moment in our awkward teen years. We were old enough to know that we wanted to talk to chicks, but once we did, we were still young enough to reference cartoons. We just weren't quite there yet. haha.

soup said...

I love it.

I was actually going to do a post about COPS, but I didn't think anyone remembered it. Fight crime in a future time. I loved that show. You should go to it's wikipedia page. It's funny.

The names were great, especially Buttons McBoomBoom. The first name is kind of wussy, but that last name...well...

Here's how an encounter would go with some tough guy trying to intimidate Mr. McBoomBoom

Dumb Tough Guy: Hey old timer what's your name?

BMBB: Buttons

DTG: Ha, you hear that charlie? His..

BMBB McBoomBoom

DTG: *gulp*

Then everyone in a five block area would get tommy gunned to death.

I also got into Barn Yard Commandos in a big way. Darkwing Duck, was another goodie. Attack of the Killer tomatoes.

A good cartoon from my awkward early teen years: Dragon Ball Z. Though I wisely never talked about it in front of girls.