Top 5 80s cartoons that demand to be a TV series or a Movie!

 

 

Transmission Date: Nov. 19 2012

Welcome Satellite Subscribers, I hope you all will indulge me in a purely selfish wish list of sorts. What five 80s Cartoon/Comic Book properties that I enjoy should be made into a Hollywood movie/Live Action TV Series. This is by no means an industry list of the most popular franchises, these are simply my own selfish picks. Lets go.

1. Robotech. This will piss off a lot of fans of Anime but its NOT the classic Japanese Super Dimensional Fortress Macross that I want remade but rather the Harmony Gold, Carl Macek U.S version of the cartoon that I think would be amazing if given the TV series treatment. The episodic nature of the cartoon is made for the small screen. With advances in the special effects industry with CGI, us Robotech fans can now actually see a Veritech come to life realistically before our eyes. Battlestar Galactica showed us that CGI has advanced enough to showcase elaborate space battles and realistic looking spaceships without looking cheesy on screen. Robotech The Macross Saga would make a fantastic television series and just the thought of seeing the opening scene of episode one when the giant Zentradi attack earth makes me giddy.

Why Robotech? As a kid this show absolutely caught me. It aired at 5PM weekdays on ASN here in Canada I did not miss an episode. Robotech replaced BraveStarr on ASN’s after school cartoon line up and I was upset at first. Who were these characters with big eyes, and wild hair? Why did the dialogue not match up with the characters mouths? I was convinced this was trash. Still I watched. 3 episodes later this became a daily addiction.

 

It was sequential unlike any other cartoon on at that time. Each episode had direct impact on the next. Story lines had consequences. Characters bled and died? The bad guys actually won a battle or two. There were love triangles that had relevance. I cared about Rick Hunter. I rooted for him to finally get together with Lisa Hayes. I was upset when Roy Fokker died. This was not an ordinary cartoon series. Something was clearly going on here. Every episode did not have massive space battles, in fact some of the better episodes were character based. The episode “Farewell Big Brother” is my favorite of the series and encapsulates everything that Robotech was that 99% of cartoons back in the day were not.

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2. M.A.S.K. stood for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand. GI Joe was hot back in the day and every toy company in the world were looking for their own answer to the Hasbro cash cow. Kenner who’s Star Wars toy line at the time was winding down created M.A.S.K. So in 1985 the television series began. The TV series began with an amazingly addictive theme song and was action filled from beginning to end.

 

The M.A.S.K. agency battled the diabolical Miles Mayhem leader of terrorist group V.E.N.O.M. Yes suspiciously similar to Cobra from GI Joe. The M.A.S.K. Crusaders led by Matt Trakker had technologically advanced vehicles that could transform to be come a plane, a missile silo and more creative things. V.E.N.O.M. as well has this technology at their disposal. So basically it was a war of really cool vehicles. As simple as it sounded it worked. The toys were on a weird micro scale. The toy line did not play well with other figure lines at the time as size wise M.A.S.K. was miniature in stature and cross over play was pretty well ruled out. Its hard to explain..the toys, the cartoon, the theme song, and the comics..M.A.S.K. was just cool.

 

 

Up next MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE!!!…Just kidding. That was my attempt at a rouse. Its close though. As much as I would love to see a decent He-Man movie there are already rumors swirling that this may already be a possibility..so I opted out of He-Man. What about his sister!

3. She-Ra Princess Of Power. With talks of a Big screen adaptation of Masters of The Universe its time to strike while the iron is hot. She-Ra, who’s name is Adora happens to be the twin sister of Eternia’s greatest hero Prince Adam..aka He-man. She-Ra like He-man lead a band of rebels against the evil forces of Hordak. Adora like her brother had a magic sword when held aloft transformed mild mannered Adora into warrior princess She-Ra. With a winged horse named Hope, She-Ra waged war every weekday and protected Etheria successfully every time. He-Man has been brought back to life on several occassion’s since its original Filmation debut but poor She-Ra still lives on only in the minds of nostalgia fans like myself. Was She-Ra really any good? in all honesty the answer is yes. It was the perfect compliment to those who enjoyed Masters of The Universe. It was like that extra drug for an addict. It was more of what we liked. The formula was in no way original but it just worked. It managed to rope in a solid female audience while retaining some of the males from the He-Man show.

Why She-Ra? As stated earlier Masters of the Universe is once again in the conversation for a big screen treatment so why not throw in the perfect television compliment and give She-Ra a live action TV series! We are years past Xena Warrior Princess and Hercules which in their prime garnered strong cult followers. Its time to go back to that well. She-Ra can have legs if given the right production team and a director who understood the source material. My only request is for someone to make She-Ra’s boyfriend Bo a little more masculine..oh and ditch the super stash.

4. Captain N The Game Master: Kevin Keene and his dog Duke are are sucked into a video game world called Video land. That was the brainchild of Nintendo and NBC back in 1989. Nintendo was vapor hot at the time and video gaming was on the top of every kids to-do list. Kevin represented the every kid who while accompanied by several of Nintendo’s core characters fought to save Video land from Mother Brain (Main super bad from Nintendos Metroid).

 

Kevin was joined by Mega Man, Simon Belmont (Castlevania) , Kid Icarus (Pit from Kid Icarus), and the random character created for the show Princess Lana. All combined the formed Team N. This show unlike the others listed above did not receive the syndication treatment and was regulated to Saturday Mornings and sporadically seen after its original airing. The show and the concept was good at the time. Gaming was hot, and Nintendo was on the top of every teenagers tounge so it made perfect sense that this show was a short lived hit.

 

Why Captain N? Times have not changed..but have evolved in this shows favor. Gaming is still popular and Nintendo’s core characters have become iconic. This show would make the perfect CGI animated Pixar/Dreamworks style movie. Of course some changes are needed. Princess Lana and Simon Belmont would probably be replaced with a couple of today’s more popular video game heroes and some depth would need to be done to the story so it does not become another “character sucked into a video game” movie. Link, Mario, Princess Zelda, and Samus, would all be box office draws if ever given the green light. This concept is money in the bank for some studio but seriously needs to avoid being live action. Just remember The Super Mario Brothers movie. I still have nightmares.

5. Last but not least..get ready for this… Archie. Not many franchises have lived on and changed with the times better and longer than Archie. If you have ever gone to a grocery story or a store that has a register then you have seen an Archie comic. Archie has been on TV in every era and in some form or fashion since the 60s. The Archie show was one of my favorite cartoon shows which I got to enjoy much later on VHS is the 80s. Many shows and movies spawned from the Archie franchise like Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycat’s, The New Archie’s, Archie’s Weird Mysteries etc. Outside of two very obscure TV specials in the 70s and 80s Archie has NOT had a live action TV or Movie treatment. This franchise is screaming for it. We all know the characters. Archie Andrews and his perennial love interests Betty and Veronica. Jughead, Reggie, Moose and the rest. Archie has been the franchise that has seemingly always been there. Archie’s gang has never been given the green light on a TV or Hollywood production. I say its time.

 

 

Why Archie? No franchise has changed more with the times and always remained relevant than Archie. This property has literally been everywhere. I dare you to go to a major retailer/grocery store and go to its magazine section and not find a Archie comic of some sort. When the comics industry began the shift to digital Archie was one of the first to the dance. Archie has been on the the forefront of innovation silently creating new comic book formats like their new magazine style comic book and their telephone book size mass market paperback digests for very low prices. It has updated its cast in recent years to reflect our changing society.

 

 

Diversity has been a huge part of Archie’s character base, with characters of color (Chuck) and as well the first gay character in the Archie series (Kevin)Heck Archie himself went out with Valerie of Josie and the Pussycats promoting interracial relationships Archie reflects today almost better than any other franchise and is ready for a prime time television sitcom series. Sabrina The Teenage Witch worked, with many viewers not even aware that it was even an Archie comics character. Josie and the Pussycat’s was actually one of the most underrated comic book movies out there and sported a great soundtrack. For all intents and purposes it was a success. So Archie fans if you are listening its time we let Archie comics know that we want our TV show!

Well Heroes, once again our transmission has reached its conclusion. I am sure there are those out there with their own list of shows that I did not mention. I would like to hear about your top five and your reasons.

As always if you have enjoyed this blog feel free to leave a comment here on the site. Contact me directly on Twitter @charlton_hero and as always join the conversation on Twitter using the hash tag #SuperHeroSatellite

Thanks for joining me see ya very soon! Heroes back to the Satellite!

Transmission Ended…