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When it's laser time put on the 3-d shades!
written : 03/06/03
Yes, that's right. Bots Master. So I add another old TV show to my ever-expanding list of articles. I hope you like this one as much as the first! Or more, if you didn't like the first one. I guess this is kind of a tenth anniversary thing too, because the show first aired 10 years ago.
Actually, some credit goes to my friend, from whom I got the idea to do the article on Bots Master. We were just talking about stuff and it came up. A couple nights later I was bored and this is the finished product of that boredom. Of course, there was a test I should have been studying for, but I have my priorities straight. And besides, no matter how much I study, I'm not gonna pass that test. It's not like history is important anyway.
It's kinda sad that on all the internet, there is very little dedicated to this show. It wasn't super-popular or anything, but it had a toy line, so you can tell they were hoping it was gonna go somewhere. But, I was able to find just enough info to fill up a whole article, and even some media too. We'll save that for later though...
Bots Master. Ah, yet another classic cartoon. Originally I thought it was another one of those 1-season wonders, but it turns out I made a little mistake. There was a walloping 40 episodes of Bots Master. But even then, that's not a whole lot.
Bots Master was run waaaaay back in '93 when robots were all the rage. Of course, Transformers were the leaders, and everyone else could only hope for a piece of their popularity. Bots Master just happened to be one of those wannabes, and one of the more popular wannbes in my household. For me and my brothers, Bots Master was the robot show to watch. Mostly because we didn't know when Transformers was on.
The show was about a kid named Ziv Zulander, or ZZ for short, his sister Blitzy, and their robot pals, the BOYZZ(Brain Operated Young Zygoetopic Zoids). Now I was pretty sure that "zygoetopic" wasn't a word. A short visit to dictionary.com confirmed my hypothesis. I'm not too sure how "zygoetopic" is pronounced, or even if it can be pronounced. Luckily for them, the producers set the show far into the future, so they can get away with making up words... this time.
Anyways, ZZ and the gang had a mission. Like all good heroes, they were rebels. Like all good plots, there was an evil company trying to take over the world. The Robot Megafact Corporation, or The Corp,was led by Dr. Hissss, Sir Louis Leon Paradim, and Lady Frenzy. They would take innocent robots, and put evil mind-warping chips in them. Yup, your standard take over the world scheme. But it had robots, so it was cool.
At this poitn, you're wondering "Who are these robots you speak so fondly of?" I guess I have to tell you. first we have the Street BOYZZ, comprised of Toolzz and Jammerzz. These two are prety standard street punk fare, except for they fight for the good guys. Next up are the Sports BOYZZ, Ace, Batzz, and All-Ball. I'm pretty sure there was another one of these guys. A few others were Genesix and D'Nerd, the smart bots and Watson, the doctor bot. There were a whole bunch of others, but I'm damn lazy so I won't be covering them all.
OK, you convinced me. One more. Luckily, he's my all-time favorite BOYZZ. Ninjzz. Logic would denote, that since robots are cool and ninjas are cool, a ninja robot(or a robot ninja if you will) would be cool X2. It's so very true. Ninjzz was indeed the best bot. He had three arms, three weapons, and rollerblades. Plus a whole lot of 1337 ninja skillz. Oddly enough, he was given a speech impediment that slurred his "s"es into long z sounds. But the ninja robot thing covered that blemish up pretty well.
Oh Hell, for the sake of the length of this article, I'll tell you about a few more bots. I can't remember(or find) their names, but they had a special talent. These five bots had a very unique talent. They could transform! As if that wsn't enough, they could turn into a big bot named Jungle Fiver! Wow! It's so original it blows my mind! *coughconstructiconscough* Did I mention how original this idea was?
Not only did Bots Master have a TV show, it also had a line of toys. Maybe they predicted it would be successful, who knows? Even if the show wasn't all that big, there were still toys which would last much longer than the show did, presuming you took somewhat good care of your toys. I can't be held responsible if you played so rough that they broke within the week. There weren't a whole lot of toys. A couple good guys, a few bads guys and maybe Jungle Fiver. Not as huge a line as say, Star Wars, but they were pretty fun. I think I still have Ninjzz.
You know what? As I was writing this article, I realized something. When I was little, I was really into Nintendo, still am, but almost moreso then. And because of that, I never really got into toys. Oh, of course I had (almost) every Ninja Turtle and Crash Dummy, plus some random other ones, but I was never into toys as much as the non-videogame-having kids. Some might say I was lucky, but now that I look back, I feel deprived. Maybe that's why I'm really getting into toys now. Nintendo, if you're reading this, I want my childhood back!!
While I'm on the subject of video games, I'm at least 74% sure that there was never a Bots Master video game. If there was I would have played it. And if I had played it, I would remember it. This could be for our own good though, because games based on TV shows rarely work out. The other way around has a much higher success ratio, in my opinion anyway. But yeah, I'm pretty sure there isn't a video games with Ninjzz in it. But I'm gonna go ROM searching just to make sure. If there is one, I'll be sure to make it available to my loyal readers.
Anyone who watched the show was also given a little treat. There was a small segment of the show which lasted approximately two minutes that was in mind-boggling 3-D. The catch was that you needed some fancy cardboard glasses to see it properly. Needless to say, I never had any such "3-D Shades", so I really can't tell you what that was all about.
I guess the last topic I need to touch on is how good the storyline of the show was. To be completely honest, I haven't got a frickin' clue. But if the general story is any indication of the episode plots, I'd say it's pretty weak. But on the bright side, it's a cartoon about robots. And of course, robots don't need a good story, simply because they're robots.
In conclusion, Bots Master seemed to be a pretty decent cartoon. Of course, I haven't seen it for about nine years, so I really can't be sure. All I know is I liked it back then. Then again, I liked everything back then. Except girl stuff. Oh no. I'm a manly friggin' man. Not some stupid girl-stuff liking girly boy. Not me. At all. Nope. So as I was saying, Bots Master was indeed a cool show. Although I'd much rather have the original MegaMan cartoon revived. After all, who can resist CutMan's charms?
~Ryan
E-Mail:
Tuominenator[at]gmail[dot]com
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