Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers – Phoenix + Chained
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: D
With the loss of Mego Toys, loosening of regulations on
children’s TV and toys, toy advertisements on TV and the comeback of G.I. Joe
in the 1980s, the darkest era of children’s television bankrupt of anything
positive or imaginative arrived. With
its mindless Rambo mentality, Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers
(1986-9) was a nadir of pathetic TV programming. It was reactionary, shallow, stereotypical, racist, sexist,
stupid and followed every bad 1980s formula possible.
Koch is issuing single DVDs of the show, four shows a
piece and we had more than enough with two volumes: Phoenix and Chained. The only recognizable name throughout the entire credits is Jerry
Orbach, but you otherwise get a bunch of unknowns doing a load of quasi-fascist
garbage. The animation is horrible,
sometimes mixing bad analog video in and looking like the vehicles are just
cutouts being moved along. The dialogue
is pathetic; the jokes as funny as being told you have cancer.
The goal of this show is to inspire young children to
blindly join the U.S. military and die for their country, while being
aggressive all the time in real life because that is the only way to be. This extended to young girls and minorities,
who look more like “colorized” white people.
No wonder Spike Lee was necessary.
In the meantime, these were really 65 very, very, very bad toy ads to
sell a Galoob toy line that crossed space wars, cowboys and military
tales. The hate, self-hate and total
despair it takes to like this show is overwhelming. No wonder Bill Clinton was such a relief.
The 1.33 X 1 full screen image shows its age and often
looks like a generic toy ad with all kinds of bells and whistles, but no
substance. The Dolby Digital sound is
here in 2.0 and 5.1 stereo, but shows its age badly, so it is a sonic dud
too. Even more aged is the warmongering
theme song “No Guts, No Glory” that is in the opening and closing credits, in
case you forgot to go out and kill someone.
This was bad as is, but is now disturbing and more pathetic than ever
after 9/11/01 and some other disturbing events. The “extras” are summaries of the shows (?!?!?!), “character
biographies” and stills on each disc. That
leaves you with either desperate nostalgia or a study of how NOT to do a toy
line or children’s television.
Fortunately, the show does none of the genres correctly it attempts and
that leaves it a hollow shell of echoing anger. Oh, and the toys are not worth that much either, though maybe
Rush Limbaugh can artificially pump up the price by celebrating the show. Fortunately, Galoob survived this fiasco.
- Nicholas Sheffo
