Premiering in 1986, Galaxy Rangers was not a big success here in America. Despite coming in at the height of the Toy/Cartoon merchandising craze that consumed my generation, Galaxy Rangers had a hard time finding a toy company to produce action figures for their show. This, along with the producers refusal to write cartoons based solely around introducing new toys, led to a lot of time slot shifting and eventual obscurity within the already over saturated action-adventure cartoon market. Interestingly enough, the same principles that made Galaxy Rangers a failure here in the US resulted in the show finding significant success overseas in countries like Germany (apparently European counties liked that the show wasn't a soulless merchandising machine, go figure). Personally, I remember liking this show a lot as a child. It had a good time slot (for a while anyway) on weekday afternoons, and I found myself enjoying the somewhat darker and more mature stories. Twenty-five years later - after watching every episode of Galaxy Rangers on DVD - I'm pleased to report that this show holds up amazingly well.
The story of Galaxy Rangers goes something like this. In the year 2086 two peaceful aliens came to Earth seeking our help. In return for this assistance they provided us with the plans for our first hyperdrive, thus mankind was finally able to open the door to the stars. To help maintain law and order throughout this new frontier, a group of unique individuals called the Galaxy Rangers was formed. Greatest among these brave men and women are four elite Rangers who have received "Series-5" enhancements. Their names are Zachary Foxx, Niko, Walter "Doc" Hartford and Shane Gooseman. Together, this team of courageous heroes must uphold the highest ideals of truth and justice while protecting mankind and its allies from the dangers of the universe.
The characters of the Galaxy Rangers themselves are a mishmash of archetypes and homages to various film personas. Zach is the stalwart leader of the group who likes to do things by the book. The creators of the show liken him to a John Wayne type commander, which makes sense even though the character looks nothing like Wayne. Visually speaking, Doc was obviously modeled after Lando Calrissian. The hair, mustache and general look of the character were clearly meant to invoke this comparison, but beyond that Doc is a lot more comedic than Lando (complete with eye rolling one-liners) and an expert in computers (something Lando never was). Niko falls into the somewhat overused archetype of "lone female of the group with psychic powers". While I thought this would limit Niko at first, I was pleased to find that the show's writers gave the character a decent amount of background, such as her passion for archeology. Gooseman ... well Goosman is pretty much just Clint Eastwood, both in appearance and attitude. He's got that wild, "play by my own rules" attitude made popular by Eastwood in a number of westerns and Dirty Harry movies, all of which were inspiration for the character. So obviously this isn't the most original cast of characters to ever make their way into a cartoon. But while the general appearance and personas of these heroes may come off a little cliché at first, they do grow on you and the writers provide some solid characterization as the series progresses.
That's actually one of the most impressive things about Galaxy Rangers, the writing. While most action-adventure cartoons from this time have very little good, a ton of average and far too many bad stories, the Galaxy Rangers had mostly good and even some great episodes by comparison. The biggest standouts would probably be "Galaxy Stranger" and "Psychocrpyt". Both of these stories featured emotion and character development rarely seen in other 1980s cartoons, especially "Psychocrypt" which I would consider on par with the quintessential Dungeons and Dragons episode "Dragons Graveyard". Though other installments lack this same writing excellence, Galaxy Rangers' lesser stories are still pretty good for their time. In fact I would say that at least 35-40 episodes in this series fall into the Good to Great range (the other 25 would be either average or poor). Of all the shows I've watched (ThunderCats, GI Joe, Defenders of the Earth, Transformers, C.O.P.S.) none of them even come close to having this kind of quality control. A fact that becomes even more impressive when you consider the whole show was done in an eleven month time span!
Another superior aspect of Galaxy Rangers was that the show had solid continuity and was consistent with its characters. Though the series was episodic, some of the characters had overriding storylines - like Gooseman's Super Trooper background or Zach's kidnapped wife - that carried over throughout the show. Character dynamics - such as the budding romance of Gooseman and Niko - are also well represented and consistent in presentation (unlike the confusing romance of Rick and Jedda from Defenders of the Earth). In short, this series had producers, writers and editors that cared; people with a sense of personal and professional pride lacking in far too many of their contemporaries.
Still, Galaxy Rangers did have its faults. For one thing the aforementioned storyline concerning Zach's kidnapped wife never gets resolved. This is doubly unfortunate since the show's best episode - Psychocrypt - does such a great job of conveying the tragedy of the situation. Then there were the stories that just plain sucked. From the shoehorned setup of "Showtime" (which featured circus slavery) to the horribly dated "Battle of the Bandits" (it was inspired by the music videos of a then young MTV) to the insanely surreal "Mothmoose" (that's right, it's an animal that's part moth and part moose ... I kid you not), Galaxy Rangers did churn out its fair share of crap. Fortunately, these stories were few and far between, and considering the overall excellence of the writing, they are forgivable.
It's also worth noting that Galaxy Rangers - like most action-adventure cartoons of that time - featured a number of episodes with "moral" messages. The bulk of these were actually environmental in origin, but others included ideas like not playing with guns. Unlike other shows of the 1980s, however, Galaxy Rangers actually does a good job of not forcing the moral into the story and rarely preached at their audience. This is a nice change of pace from the - all too often - heavy handed morals found in other programs like Captain Planet.
To say that I was impressed with the writing of Galaxy Rangers is kind of an understatement. The show had more attention to detail, character development and gumption than any other action-adventure program at that time. The fact that the show's creators actually respected their audience, and wanted to create a series they could be proud of is obvious, and the end result reflects that. True, the action-adventure standards we've come to enjoy today still make Galaxy Rangers look inferior, but this disparity in quality is not nearly as large, or frustrating as the other shows from my youth.
Visually speaking, Galaxy Rangers is - once again - a huge success. This is due in large part to the work of Japanese animation studio TMS. Turns out TMS was looking to get into the lucrative syndicated cartoon game that was so popular in the US back in 1986. So when Galaxy Ranger creator Robert Mandell came calling they jumped at the opportunity to animate the show. What's funny about this is that TMS had no idea what to expect from a mass-produced program like Galaxy Rangers. When Mandell and company would ask them to render unique aliens, environments and costuming in almost every episode, TMS didn't realize that other studios would have said no or looked for a compromise, they just did it. I'm sure this was huge burden for TMS, but the results are fantastic. Though the series had its fair share of recycled imagery, the overall variety found in Galaxy Rangers was astounding. Couple this with the beautifully detailed and fluid animation done by the studio's top artists, and you got one of the better (maybe the best) looking cartoons of the time.
Complementing the superior work of TMS was some of the best production design I've ever seen in a 1980s action-adventure show. Courtesy of Ray Shenusay, everything from the character to the weapons to the starship design looks phenomenal in this program. Given the quality - and cool factor - found in this show's hardware, it's hard to believe that toy companies weren't falling all over themselves to turn this stuff into toys.
Of course, given the large number of episodes produced - as well as the short timeframe in which they were created - not everything could look great. Like most studios TMS had A, B and C units for animation. The A unit was obviously amazing, but unfortunately the C unit was pretty awful. To be fair, the lackluster looking episodes of Galaxy Rangers really aren't any worse than the poorly animated episodes of ThunderCats, but that said, it's still a noticeable step down in quality. Fortunately, the producers of the Galaxy Rangers always requested that the best scripts be worked on by the A unit. That means stories like "Psychocrypt" and "Galaxy Stranger" not only have the best writing, they have the best animation as well. This may seem like common sense, but I've seen plenty of action-adventure shows from the 1980s ruin their best scripts with poor visuals, a mistake that was never made here.
Honestly, I could spend all day gushing over the visuals from Galaxy Ranger, but I'm guessing it would be best to spare you that. Sufficed to say, this show looks fantastic. The animation is mostly fluid, backgrounds are amazing and the design work is top notch. Yes, the production value of this program is still being graded on a curve due to the time period in which it was created. That said, the overall presentation of Galaxy Rangers is a cut above its peers and has nothing to be embarrassed about.
While not as strong in execution as the writing and animation, the voice acting in Galaxy Rangers is still decent. The main characters all sound good, though I did notice some stiff delivery from time to time. Secondary characters are unfortunately weaker with Robert Mandell's brother providing many of the voices. They're not bad mind you; it's just that Henry Mandell didn't have the range necessary to pull off what he was trying to do. Still, I thought the acting in this show was at, or above the standards of the time, and a far cry better than ThunderCats and C.O.P.S..
Rounding out my evaluation of Galaxy Rangers is the show's music. Normally the action-adventure cartoons of the 1980s would use a lot of recycled in-show music to set the tone for certain scenes. So, for example, whenever an episode of GI Joe would switch over to the Cobra villains the show would cue up the same Cobra "music" over and over. This repetitive use of an already limited musical score is one of the more frustrating things about cartoons from my youth, and I fully expected Galaxy Rangers to continue this pattern. So imagine my surprise when this series chose to purchase a music library of songs and then work them into the show. True, the program still had some pretty obvious repetition, but it also provided a lot of unique scores to go along with it. Don't get me wrong, Galaxy Rangers is no musical masterpiece, but much like the writing and animation, this show's creators went above and beyond the conventions of the time to create something far more ambitious and impressive.
I’ve never given a full recommendation to a 1980s action-adventure cartoon … and today will be no different. That said, I’m sorely tempted to do just that with the Galaxy Rangers. This show had excellent writing, beautiful animation and some of the best music you’ll find from a cartoon made during the Regan years. So if you’re a fan of 80s action-adventure cartoons – especially those with anime influence – you should definitely check out the Galaxy Rangers. All 65 episodes are collected in two wonderfully packaged sets, and feature some fun extras including commentaries and interviews. Hands down the best action-adventure cartoon of the decade.
