It’s 80’s nostalgia month here at the Circle of Nerds. I was born in the mid 70’s, so I spent the best part of my childhood smack-dab in the middle of the greatest decade of all time. So let’s lace up our high tops, roll up the cuffs of our jeans, and throw a mixtape in the boombox, because this week’s blog post is all about the most underrated cartoons of the Decade of Excess.
#5 G.I. Joe
I’m starting off the list with the most well-known of my favorite 80’s cartoons. Yes, I’m aware that G.I. Joe is far from being obscure, but it is criminally underrated. Of all the 80’s cartoons that I revisited for this blog post, it’s by far the least cringe inducing, and holds up pretty well. Although it has launched a few rather meh movies recently, it’s never really got the attention it deserves as an icon of animation in the 80’s, being eclipsed pretty solidly by the Transformers. I suppose one could make the argument that people who cosplay generally aren’t that into American nationalism, and that side of G.I. Joe might be a bit of a turn-off. But the PSAs at the end of each episode have certainly cemented themselves into the Gen X pop culture pantheon.
Why is was cool:
G.I. Joe was an elite special forces unit in the American military, whose job it was to defend freedom from terrorist organizations. It suffered from one of the most ubiquitous 80’s cartoon tropes: the Bad Guys (in this case Cobra) are laughably one-dimensional; their sole purpose and motivation being to rule the world. But kids don’t need subtlety and nuance.
What made G.I. Joe so fucking cool to 10-year-old me was war. Sure, no one died – everyone managed to jump out of the way when their vehicle was hit with an RPG, or parachute to safety just as the surface-to-air missile collided with their jet, but it was WAR damnit. Oh, and Snake Eyes. He was badass.
#4 Challenge of the Gobots
You may remember the Gobots as the poor man’s Transformers. Cheap knock-offs of a far superior toy. This isn’t entirely accurate. The Gobots actually came first, beating out the Transformers in the American market by a few months. The Transformers edged out the Gobots because the toys were bigger and far cooler (more steps to transform) and the cartoon was far superior in terms of plot and lore. Yes, both stories were thrown together as an excuse to sell toys (in true 80’s fashion), but the Transformers storyline was just better. And the fact that they are still making Transformers movies and still adding to the Transformer lore is testament to that. But I’m not here to talk about Transformers. It’s Gobot time.
Why it was cool:
They were transforming robots. The Gobots came from the planet Gobotron. There were two factions, the Guardians (good guys) and the Renegades (bad guys). Like G.I. Joe, there’s no shades of gray here. It’s good versus evil. The Renegades were led by Cy-Kill (who transformed into a motorCYCLE – get it? GET IT??), and the Guardians, led by the aptly named Leader-1. Other bad puns were soon to follow. The pilot episode saw the Renegades take the fight to Earth and that’s all a kid like me needed to imagine himself fighting with the Guardians against the evil Renegade Gobots.
I was the kid who asked for Transformers and got Gobots. I had to make the best of a bad situation and the kinda cool cartoon helped a bit. Despite the terrible character names and the weak plot, you just couldn’t go wrong with transforming robots in the 80’s. Challenge of the Gobots wasn’t bad. It’s just that… Transformers was better.
#3: Ewoks
I’ve mentioned in another blog post about the love I had for the Ewok creatures in Return of the Jedi as a kid, and this cartoon fed that love like mandalorians feed a sarlacc. The cartoon aired from 85 to 86, a short run of only two seasons, and it spawned an equally short lived line of action figures that I remember gleefully tearing open once they hit the clearance bins and my parents finally bought some for me.
Why it was cool:
Star Wars. Very few things that are Star Wars are not cool.
Although most episodes centered around Wicket W. Warrick and the Ewoks in their struggles against the Duloks and other baddies of the Endor moon, sometimes the occasional stormtrooper, or even Imperial Star Destroyer, would make an appearance. I know it’s no longer canon since the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise, but you still owe it to yourself to check it out. Might just make you appreciate the little hairballs a bit more.
#2: M.A.S.K.
This is not the shitty cartoon tie-in to the Jim Carrey movie. No, M.A.S.K. was an 80’s cartoon about an organization known by the code name M.A.S.K. (which stood for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand). Their mission was to thwart the criminal gang known as V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem. No, I did not make that up). M.A.S.K. was headed by Matt Trakker who had a son named Scott who had a robot sidekick named T-Bob. There were dozens of members of M.A.S.K., each with a code name and their own unique armored vehicle. At the beginning of each episode, after the main conflict had been established, Matt Trakker’s computer would select a short list of members who would be called up to help. Those members would immediately leave their day job (whether that be teacher, mechanic, or burger flipper), and rush to M.A.S.K. HQ for a briefing. Both organizations focused on vehicles that could transform from the mundane to heavily armored war machines, and the use of masks that conferred special abilities to their wearers and also helped conceal their identities.
Why it was cool:
M.A.S.K. was a cartoon that, like most other 80’s cartoons, existed solely to help sell toys. But for my money, M.A.S.K. had the coolest toys of the entire decade. I can vividly remember 3 solid years between the ages of 9 to 11 when all I wanted was M.A.S.K. toys. Specifically, and I cannot stress this enough, the Thunder Hawk, driven by Matt Trakker himself. Thunder Hawk was a red Camaro-styled sports car with gull wing doors THAT COULD FLY. Man, I loved this car so fucking much my first car I bought when I turned 18 was an 87 Camaro. Not the Iroc-Z, like Thunder Hawk, but it was close enough for me.
Another reason I loved it as a kid was Matt Trakker’s son, Scott Trakker, and his robot T-Bob. As a socially inept child who couldn’t make friends, what I really wanted was a robot that was programmed to be my friend. Something bound by incorruptible design to like me. That’s probably something I should keep to myself. Moving on…
#1: Lazer Tag Academy
In 1986, the now defunct toy company Worlds of Wonder created the first infrared remote toy gun game, Lazer Tag. Because it was the mid 80’s, the toy absolutely had to have a cartoon tie-in. Enter Ruby-Spears Production’s Lazer Tag Academy. Here’s the concept: it’s the year 3010 and 13 year-old Jamie Jaren is the champion of the sport of the future, Lazer Tag. Now, Lazer Tag is different in the year 3010, Jamie has the ability to use the Starlyte gun to control objects, and warp back in time. Enter evil criminal mastermind Draxon Drear. Drear comes from the year 2061, but has recently escaped his sentence of indefinite suspended animation. Drear travels back in time to 1986 to kill Jamie’s ancestor, Beth Jaren, who would eventually invent the Starlyte gun and create the Lazer Tag Academy, thus eliminating his only obstacle to world domination: Jamie Jaren herself. Phew.
Why it was cool:
The Starlyte gun. This was my Holy Grail of toys. And much like the mythical King Arthur, I never quite got my hands on it. The Christmas of 1987 I laid awake all night praying to God for a Lazer Tag Starlyte gun and Starsensor. When I didn’t get one, I was crushed. When I asked for it, my mother told me that Lazer Tag was a two player game, and I didn’t have any friends to play it with. Oof.
The cartoon itself was also my favorite cartoon of all time. I’m not entirely sure why. There were only 13 episodes and the fact that there is virtually no way to watch them online through any streaming service is testament to how wildly unpopular the show was. Youtube only has two low quality bootleg episodes. One, called “The Battle Hymn of the Jarens,” features Draxon Drear traveling back in time to the American Civil War to kill the Jaren’s 19th century ancestor. Watch at your own risk. It’s plum full of terrible voice acting and plenty of dad-gum southern stereotypes, I reckon. It’s legitimately bad on several fronts. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Did your favorite grossly underrated 80’s cartoon not make the list? Let us know in the comment section. Gnarly.
