RoboCop (Animated Series) (1988)

Starring: Robert Bockstael and Susan Roman
Grade: D-

Taking a page out of the Rambo: The Force of Freedom playbook and making a Rated-R action movie into a children’s cartoon, 1988’s RoboCop came into the picture with one season of what could have been. Sandwiched in-between the first and second films, the tonal shift of the franchise began here. As fans know, the first movie was a satire of American culture, politics, and corporate greed masked as an ultraviolent and dark humored science fiction shoot ’em up. Regardless of the film’s success, it was obvious to everyone that audiences were responding to the action and RoboCop killing bastard criminals left and right more than the underlying messages of the screenplay. For people that understood both sides of the coin, they too were swept up in the fun and how could you not be? The RoboCop character and the world screenwriter Edward Neumeier helped create was engrossing. Even though they shouldn’t have been watching, there were a lot of kids who may have caught glimpses of the first movie’s shootouts and car chases and loved the action figure-like main character, and you can’t really blame them. This combined with the explosion of action-adventure cartoons dominating children’s television at that time, with merchandising and toy lines being all the rage during the 1980s and 1990s, resulted in the idea to turn the already legendary cyborg into an animated star who could rival shows like G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Okay, maybe they weren’t shooting that high.

Still, the popularity of the animation scene during this period could not be ignored, and RoboCop had a strong enough foundation that it didn’t take much convincing to see that it could succeed if it went in this direction. Nevertheless, 1988’s RoboCop was too dry to keep the viewer consistently engaged and gets progressively boring with repeat viewings. On one hand, RoboCop does do a good job with the protagonist. The performance is faithful to the first movie and improves the limitations they dealt with in the production of the film without changing too much of who Alex Murphy has become while wearing the suit. To keep up with the action of its peers, RoboCop is faster and noticeably more athletic. This sounds dumb to bring up as the animated program’s first pro, but it’s an upgrade worth mentioning. As great as the movie was, making the character exactly the same for a fast-paced action cartoon doesn’t really line up, especially when trying to keep up with the attention span of children who will flip the channel in an instant. With the take of the animated show, it’s a great move to make RoboCop more than likely what they wanted him to be in the 1987 film had the technology and special effects been up to par. In addition, the upgraded design of the suit with the red flash in his visor was a nice detail, and the vehicles he drives are very cool. They are much better than RoboCop trying to fit into a standard police car, which is about as realistic as Shaquille O’Neal trying to fit in a Buick in that commercial so many years back. A giant hunk of metal in the front seat would do serious wear and tear to a regular police car, which is why it makes much more sense for RoboCop to have his own car fit to his size like the Robo-1 and eventually the Robocopter (Menace of the Mind). Assuming they were trying to make the toy line a big thing to coincide with the show, these were both great ideas, and it allows for more story possibilities, as well as a way to keep the action at a frenetic pace. These vehicles are one of the two things that the live-action productions of RoboCop should have taken from this cartoon.

Really, both of these additions should have become staples of the franchise moving forward.

RoboCop 2 had one awesome chase sequence where RoboCop commandeers a motorcycle, and it’s one of the best scenes in the movie. Why they didn’t just issue RoboCop his own personalized bike to ride moving forward is beyond me because the cartoon and that specific sequence in the movie showed how great of an addition it could be to help the character get around, along with selling some action figures on top of that. Thankfully, RoboCop: Alpha Commando and the 2014 remake were able to succeed where the other productions failed. On top of this, the size of our beloved hero was corrected. The biggest problem I have with all the live-action productions of RoboCop was that he’s not very tall, despite being portrayed as this hulk of law enforcement. Along with the aforementioned use of Robo-vehicles, the other biggest pro coming out of the two animated programs in RoboCop and RoboCop: Alpha Commando are that they nailed what RoboCop should look like in comparison to everyone else in the show, a large and imposing figure that everyone takes notice of as soon he walks in the room with a gun in his hand. Along with Alex Murphy, he’s still partnered with Officer Anne Lewis (Susan Roman) who accompanies him in almost all of his missions. She handles action much better than Nancy Allen’s Anne Lewis in the movies, but the writers aren’t exactly sure what they want to do with her. Even through 12 episodes, it’s hard to define her personality because she shows so little other than defending Murphy’s humanness to anyone who questions it. In terms of her individuality, there is never enough shown for the viewer to truly care about her. At most, they attempt to show inklings of attraction between Lewis and Murphy, which seems complicated to pull off for a lot of reasons. Murphy is still trying to cope and understand his own feelings of being part human and robot and dealing with backlash from robot-hating co-workers and a society who are wishy-washy about it as well. In the middle of this, Murphy still has his prime directives that force him to constantly be on call to protect the innocent and uphold the law.

Lewis wanting the Robo-cock and getting mad when Murphy can’t sit still for a dinner date because he’s programmed to save people isn’t even funny (Scrambler). It’s just plain dumb. What is Lewis’s goal here? Kids aren’t falling for this because there’s no way this could happen! He’s still a fucking robot! Does she really think this relationship has potential? How come no one in the show is asking these questions? Someone like Sgt. Reed (Greg Morton) or Dr. Tyler (Barbara Budd) just proposing the hypothetical could have made for an intriguing episode with much more depth, but apparently no one finds it weird enough to say anything. This is strange because Lt. Hedgecock (Len Carlson) hates RoboCop and ALL robots in general to the point where he’s causing human resources issues within the department daily. Had he made part of his argument that human and robot relations are wrong and uses Lewis and Murphy as an example, they could have made sense of some of his anger, but it never gets to that point. No one seems to bat an eye about Lewis having feelings for the 7’0” robot. In “The Brotherhood” episode, where the robot-hating masked villain group looks so much like the KKK that that this episode would have news coverage if it came out today, Lewis takes out a few of them and shouts, “I got a date with Murphy!” as like an action hero catchphrase, implying it’s on her mind more often than not. In “The Hot Seat“, RoboCop requests to work alone because he doesn’t want to see Lewis get hurt and she’s like, “You do have feelings for me!”, prompting RoboCop to clarify he doesn’t want ANYONE to get hurt. Getting friend-zoned by RoboCop is probably terrible for the self-esteem, but it has to be done for the sake of humanity, which we can appreciate for logistics purposes. Even so, they start toying with the idea more at the end of the season and have Murphy showcase a bit of jealously in “A Robot’s Revenge“, with Lewis getting a lot of attention from the leader of Argania and RoboCop being annoyed with it.

He even laughs for what might be the only time in the entire franchise once the Arganian leader reveals that he has numerous wives and wants Lewis to be one of them, to her disgust.

A sexual relationship isn’t plausible with these two and doesn’t fit in the show’s ongoing storylines, but the other side of this is rather positive, as the moments where Murphy does showcase heightened emotion and human tendencies are some of the best parts of the series. It’s at its apex in the series finale when Clarence Boddicker returns, as RoboCop is at his most distraught, getting constant flashbacks to Boddicker killing him when he was Alex Murphy. Up until this point, RoboCop follows the rules to a fault, but this lone episode details how the human emotions he has are deep inside but still very much there, with him nearly drowning a guy in a pool for information and almost flat-out killing Boddicker until Lewis stepped in both times to remind Murphy who he is. It was a great source of drama that further highlighted the protagonist and made things interesting moving forward. Just that small sense of unpredictability made these episodes as a whole the best in the series and would have been a great thing to build on in a Season Two. With that being said, episodes and certain details like this are also reminders about how far off this show is from the canon of the movie since Boddicker died in the first movie, Bob Morton created RoboCop but isn’t even mentioned in the show, and the big “dramatic” reveal of Murphy telling the story of how Boddicker killed him was to Lewis of all people. It’s supposed to be shocking, but in the movie, Lewis was there for all of it. In the show, she literally has no idea about Murphy’s backstory, which is kind of insulting for RoboCop fans since she was the reason Murphy started investigating his old life once he became RoboCop in the movie. Her involvement literally changed the direction of the story! Regardless, the drama and humor of Murphy revealing his human side in spurts really helped, which is probably why RoboCop: Alpha Commando took this note and ran with it for their depiction of RoboCop because their portrayal of the character was quite entertaining, albeit a detraction from the true nature of the character in all previous productions and the two after.

No one is asking for anything too deep for an animated show, but there does need to be some kind of substance to keep things remotely interesting. The most lackluster attempt was the ridiculous “Rumble in Old Detroit” where they try to make it a motivational episode for handicap people, with Reed’s nephew being the focal point of the show. It’s idiotic because they talk ad nauseum about the boy being handicapped and how he can overcome it, but the reality of the kid’s situation is a massive overstatement. The kid just has an injured leg from football and is mad he’s missing games. However, all the characters act like he’s going to get his own parking spot when the time comes and try to speak words of encouragement to him to where it’s patronizing. For some reason, one conversation with a random criminal convinces the kid to join a gang until he regrets it all after helping them break into the police department to steal a bunch of weapons. By the end of the episode, he breaks his other leg following a train crash RoboCop tries to stop. Believe me, the entire episode is excruciatingly stupid. Then, they go as far as to say that he might not be able to walk again, but the next scene has Dr. Tyler help with an immediate surgery, and he physically walks out the next day with braces on both legs. Even if the heart was in the right place with the message, continuously calling the kid handicapped was insulting. He literally just broke some bones and was impatient waiting on the sidelines. It’s not like he was confined to a wheelchair or had a serious ailment. This kid was going to be fine. What a crock of shit. At least we had the cool hero moment of RoboCop getting in front of the train to slow it down and lessen the impact before it drove straight into a brick wall. This added a lot to the character’s legacy, and there are plenty more cool, action-packed moments that demonstrate his abilities that further his status as a hero throughout the show.

It’s the least they can do in this department since the show is almost completely devoid of humor, yet another reason why RoboCop: Alpha Commando did things better.

Though RoboCop is similar in style, animation design, and action to shows like G.I. Joe and He-Man, part of the reason the latter cartoons were successful was because of the entire cast of colorful characters and supporting storylines to latch onto. In 1988’s RoboCop, nobody outside of Alex Murphy himself is remotely interesting. There is a crop of characters RoboCop interacts with, but nothing special comes out of it, and it gets repetitive quick. At Metro West, Murphy sees the likes of Dr. Tyler, Dr. Roosevelt (Greg Morton again), Sgt. Reed, and Lt. Hedgecock every single day and it’s the same fucking thing every time. Roosevelt contributes nothing to the show other than being a positive person, and Tyler seems to switch every episode from being an ally to an adversary depending on what direction the episode is going in, so we never know if we’re supposed to trust her or not. Reed can’t help but be the one-dimensional angry leader of the force who deals with it from both sides, and Hedgecock is such a colossal prick that you can’t believe he’s technically on the right side of the law. Seriously, all signs point to him being a corrupt cop because he’s that disruptive, but he never officially crosses into that territory, even though we wouldn’t bat an eye if he did. He’s such a poison in the department with how much he acts against the good guys however that his characterization starts to become illogical. The Season One finale should have just been the writers having the character embrace his antagonism and become a villain because it makes no sense how he could be this angry and not cross the line at some point. Then again, maybe they were saving it for something down the line had the series continued. Even so, he’s nails-on-a-chalkboard abhorrent for someone who isn’t technically a villain. If he has personal issues with robots, that’s one thing, but he’s so unjustified in almost every action he takes that it makes you wonder why he doesn’t get into trouble. His position in the police department is unclear too, which is probably why no one yells at him when they should. Reed runs the place and directs everyone on where they’re supposed to be. Hedgecock is technically one of these people, but he also outranks Reed and works in SWAT, so it begs the question as to why he’s even there or how the hierarchy of Metro West works.

Still, Hedgecock is fucking ridiculous. At almost every turn, he’s willing to jackknife a mission just to make Murphy look bad, even if other people are affected by his lack of help or reaction. It gets to the point where you’re thinking, “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”. In “Project Deathspore“, Hedgecock sits back at one point and watches a gigantic tentacled monster destroy the city just because it MIGHT kill RoboCop in the midst of the action. It’s like he forgets his fucking job! Just because of this inexplicable deep-rooted hatred for the cyborg, he’s willing to just watch his co-worker die! I understand from Hedgecock’s perspective as to why he doesn’t like him but sacrificing all of Detroit because one cyborg might die? Are you of your fucking mind? Is that not insane? How does no one reprimand him at all for this sort of behavior? He’s not the fucking president! Right after RoboCop takes his ass kicking because the monster is too strong, Hedgecock has the audacity in telling him that he would’ve caught the Deathspore if Murphy didn’t get in the way. Mind you, this is following Hedgecock already failing with his SWAT team after the Deathspore broke through the electro-net and the sheet of ice they covered it in. He literally asked the Japanese doctor that created the thing if he had any more ideas. Now, Hedgecock is somehow fully convinced after RoboCop failed that he would have been the one to eventually figure it out? Oh, right because shooting the fucking thing would have made a difference! In “Night of the Archer“, RoboCop saves Hedgecock from being burned alive in a ring of fire while he’s unconscious, but as soon as he wakes up, he gets mad at Murphy for letting the villain escape! In “The Man in the Iron Suit“, RoboCop saves Hedgcock’s life there too, but it’s like there’s absolutely nothing he can do to have Hedgecock change his mind because he wants RoboCop to die that fucking badly. It’s strange. Even in the “Into the Wilderness” episode, he finds himself in the same room as the villain of the episode. The guy is controlling a robot who is attacking RoboCop, and Hedgecock has a chance right then and there to end the madness and have a chance at being a hero.

Plus, it’s his job as a cop, so he has to act in this situation. Instead, Hedgecock just decides to allow the guy to go through with it because “Fuck RoboCop” I guess.

He’s just an unhelpful asshole who doesn’t get checked until the satisfying “The Man in the Iron Suit” episode. This is where they have to face off in a one-on-one, with McNamara giving Hedgecock a robotic suit to control to take on RoboCop, as the hope is that OCP will shut down the RoboCop project if Murphy loses. Though RoboCop plays things fairly, he’s enraged when Hedgecock injures Lewis who got caught in the crossfire trying to check on Murphy. Murphy loses it and beats the ever-living fuck out of him and calls him out for the charge of attempted murder. It was a moment of greatness in a show that had very few, with RoboCop just decimating Hedgecock and pulling apart the robotic suit to expose him, winning handily. It’s one of RoboCop‘s best episodes, but they still find a way to ruin a good thing with the ending of the episode that is confusing for a lot of reasons. Tyler gives The Old Man (Allen Stewart-Coates) the tape of the incident willingly, so he can erase the evidence. Tyler knows Hedgecock is a massive asshole and just watched him nearly kill Lewis, but she agrees in erasing the tape without question. Even Roosevelt asks why she gave the tape up because it finally gave them a chance to nab Hedgecock. She says that somehow, it could have led to them losing funding on the RoboCop project, but how in the fuck does this make any sense? Murphy won, so he proved the funding was worth it! Tyler argues that “RoboCop nearly lost control out there” in reference to him showing his anger for the guy who just tried to kill a fellow officer and his best friend. However, is “losing control” the right way to put it, or does his response just prove his worth and importance as a cop cyborg? The human side of Murphy in his anger and respect for his friend motivated him to win when he was down on the scorecards, so wouldn’t that vindicate Tyler and her team? Is it really worth letting a Hedgecock keep his job on the force after almost killing a fellow officer? Not really. Arrest that motherfucker! In addition, the Old Man calls McNamara’s suit a pile of junk after it loses to RoboCop, but this is a huge overreaction considering how close Hedgecock was to winning the fight initially.

You’re telling me the Old Man couldn’t find any use at all for this thing? You’re telling me it didn’t show an OUNCE of promise? No wonder McNamara is pissed off at the world. He got shafted here.

Speaking of which, RoboCop‘s main villain in Dr. McNamara had potential but doesn’t quite reach the level he should. If anything, he’s outdone by Hedgecock at being the asshole and surprisingly gets bitched out by other villains in the show more than you would expect (The Hot Seat, A Robot’s Revenge), which just makes him look like less of a threat with each passing episode. Plus, he works on and off for OCP, so though he’s actively trying to destroy an OCP product in RoboCop, he’s never going to lose his job because he still regularly designs things for the company and is just continuously told to go back to the drawing board by the Old Man, which is really counterproductive for everyone involved and is confusing as to why he’s allowed to work for them since he’s actively sabotaging their one successful product. To give you an idea as to who he is, McNamara contains elements of all the 80s cartoon villains we know and love like Cobra Commander, Skeletor, and Dr. Claw. However, he’s too derivative of them and never finds his own identity within the show. The only thing he has going for him is that he wears the same sunglasses Morpheus wore in The Matrix a decade prior and he has the haircut of an older Lenny Wilkens. Besides this, it looks like he has either the hands of a robot or really cool gloves, but it’s never addressed or discussed. It’s just part of the design. Had McNamara’s backstory been that he too is a cyborg and he’s a self-loathing one, which is why he has this vendetta against RoboCop, or he had some terrible injury that led him to just having his hands be robotic in an Anakin Skywalker-type of way or something, this could have been an interesting development for the villain to explain some of his personality. Unfortunately, they never go past the surface with him. The same could be said about Hedgecock really. His deep hatred of robots and RoboCop as a result is almost ridiculous at some points considering Murphy saved this dude’s life on more than one occasion. The only semblance of an explanation we get of Hedgecock being such an irritable prick is a throwaway line he states in the midst of their plane going down in “Into the Wilderness“.

Hedgecock mentions how he flew a plane like this in the “Cybernetics Wars”, which is why he can figure it out. For the record, he makes things worse and the plane crashes, but the question remains, what was all this about? What were the Cybernetics Wars? Was this a war against the machines? Did a robot kill someone he loved or something? This one comment could have gave a backstory for the entire show including the different timeline we are in, considering how different this show is from the movie’s canon. How could you say something like this and not expand on it, produce a follow-up of any kind, or have a flashback episode to go into further detail about an ENTIRE WAR that happened before this show commenced? It literally could have saved the character development of like five different people who were not only one-dimensional but annoying as all hell. Yet, it was just that, one line that was said and never mentioned again. It’s maddening at times to watch because there were so many avenues the show could take to save itself but never went down any of them, choosing to go the tired route of RoboCop facing a “new” line of derivative robots or faceless gang members every episode to middling results. Then, you have inconsistency problems even in the drawings like the Archer character (Night of the Archer). His eyes are covered with a mask, but the rest of his face is exposed, and he looks like Errol Flynn, complete with a pencil-thin mustache. He is revealed in a “twist” to be Walter Maddox, which is impossible because Maddox has a thick mustache and they look nothing alike. You can’t mask facial hair, and his face was exposed either way, so they should have the same mustache, no? Forgetting this detail to try and throw the viewer off in guessing who it can be is not only lazy but insulting just as well.

On a side note, “Project Deathspore” is eerily similar to The Real Ghostbusters‘ episode “A Ghost Grows in Brooklyn“, along with the use of energy vampire NOS-4-A2 in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Is this type of “energy” or electricity-fueled antagonist a staple of science fiction animated programs? I may have to do more research into this, but there seems to be a lot of overlap in this genre.

It’s hard to pinpoint the best episodes of RoboCop, but it’s because they were all so painfully average that not many stood out as better than the other. There were great moments, but the number of great episodes were few and far between. Still, there were some that showed the potential of the series and had better energy than the rest, such as when RoboCop and Lewis find themselves protecting Prince Zoras of Argania and Ilmar of Zokistan in the midst of their arguing over a peace treaty because terrorist Abu Zyndal wants to instigate a war between them to make oil money for Grovia (A Robot’s Revenge), the aforementioned showdown between RoboCop and Hedgecock where Murphy shows his rage (The Man in the Iron Suit), the closest RoboCop ever gets to dying after a system failure and a trash compactor almost smashing him until Lewis proves her worth (The Hot Seat), the return of Clarence Boddicker and the introduction of the Ultra Police consisting of Ace Jackson, Wheels Wilson, and Birdman Barnes who realize they desperately need RoboCop (Menace of the Mind), and the best example as to how good this show could have been if RoboCop was just inserted into random situations all over the country to solve crime instead of being bogged down by his boring supporting cast (Into the Wilderness).

A special shoutout goes to “No News is Good News” as well. The episode isn’t great or anything, but Julio Selara being a subtle parody of Geraldo Rivera was welcomed.

RoboCop is not as corny as you would expect from a cartoon from this era, and there is a ton of action to please fans of the titular star. Nevertheless, this is where it ends, as it’s hard for the viewer to give any shred of a shit about anyone outside of the protagonist. Anytime RoboCop is removed from the others to embark on something on his own, the potential of the show is seen. There is anticipation surrounding the possibilities of a super cool science fiction character like RoboCop, and the cartoon does a good job at getting the viewer excited for what could happen. Unfortunately, it almost never matches the hype. Despite the idea being quite the prospect, it doesn’t take long for the show to get into a routine, losing its momentum completely as a result. The show gets bland early and gets too deep into its repetitive style to fight its way out of it. No one is saying this could have been as good as G.I. Joe or anything, but there were enough similarities between the two that RoboCop could have had a similar trajectory. Sadly, the show crumbled under the pressure of what could have been.