Star Wars Follies: This Wasn't the "Droids" I Was Looking For - Classic Cartoon Review
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- Опубликовано: 25 янв 2014
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RetroBlasting's latest Star Wars Follies looks back at Star Wars: Droids!
#RetroBlasting #StarWarsFollies #Droids 
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![Star Wars: A New Hope - Luke Skywalker Meets R2-D2 and C-3PO [CLIP] | TNT](/img/1.gif)
"Too star wars-y" The office executives at ABC must not wanted this show to be good.
indeed, then again these were the same executives whom allowed Q5 to sabotage TWO shows on ABC
That’s such a strange thing to say, considering it was a Star Wars show.
I hear those ABC executives now work for Disney
We're talking about a network that hired a white, blond UCLA Asian studies major that spoke Cali to teach Korea American comedian Margret Cho to be "more Asian" for her sitcom. They thought she wasn't acting Asian enough.
_"Now Margret, what do we do every time we enter a building? We take our shoes off..."_
@@jefflehoux9619 I mean ABC is indeed a mouse subsidiary.
I freaking LOVE this channel
Minty I found this channel thanks to your channel
Minty Comedic Arts
Two of my favourite channels (you and retroblasting) love each other, that’s awesome
Jesus, Minty comedic arts, Cool! Can you do 10 things you might not know about Empire Strikes back... I've been requesting this for a while now...
I do too I also love your channel Minty
Minty! You're awesome too
It just occured to me recently that one of the characters is named Kybo Ren. It's like it is said here, that this cartoon was the blue print for future movies.
Eric So I guess animation based on a video game or movie helps with innovation?
Me too, and your channel also Minty.
I'll freely admit I loved Droids as a kid. It was great seeing more of the "seedier" elements of Star Wars as opposed to more battlegrounds between the Empire and its Rebellion. (You also have to remember that the Marvel comic book continued until the mid-80s as well. And that series featured a lot more action on "strange new worlds" without Force users and recognizable aliens. So maybe I was primed to like Droids...) Plus, the music was catchy, the animation was fun and colorful, and ... hey, Boba Fett and IG-88! Kids in the 80s couldn't get enough of the bounty hunters from Empire!
The marvel comics also had Luke, Wedge, Han and basically every enlisted and junior officer in the Republic navy threaten to exterminate an entire species if they didn't heal Lando after he'd saved their species. That issue or was it a multi issue story arc was actually REALLY good and a culmination of several other story thread. I loved it.
But that opening theme; thirty years later and I still get it stuck in my head every now and again...
The animation looks a lot like the movie Heavy Metal.
Now I want to take a montage from the show and over lay it with Don Felder or Sammy Hagar
this show was animated by the same studio as Rock and Rule, Nelvana...whose work George Lucas was a fan of.
Yeah, God awful.
@@dcb99filmz No, you're wrong. The animation staff changed.
11:40 that b-wing is flying backwards!
I loved Droids. Great theme song, and I still enjoy the show.
Love that picture of the A-Wing pilot in his ship in front of the emperor. He looks like he's just realised where he's landed and is looking at the camera like: "Oh Shit."
I can remember the disillusionment felt when watching Droids in that post-ROTJ period. Knowing the trilogy was over and all we had was Droids/Ewoks and the awful TV movies. A dark time!!
It is incredible that Lucasfilm, who love reissuing the 6 movies constantly, haven't been tempted to completely reissue the other SW spin offs. Can't be because they wouldn't sell - maybe George thinks they weren't up to scratch after all and would like them to remain in the vaults along with the Holiday Special?! :-) All that's came out was those single DVDs a few years ago that edited a few episodes together.
Agree about the A-Wing - if it had been released in the Jedi line a year earlier we wouldn't be shelling out so much for one now - they would have actually sold some at the time!
Another great review Michael!
Then the sequel trilogy came along and said Hold My Beer!
We had the West End Games RPG.
As i understand it George held veto power over what could and couldnt be released, and anything he didnt look kindly on in retrospect was usually stricken from the record going forward (cough, cough OT theatrical releases)
I also believe Lucas wrote some of these veto decisions into his sale deal with Disney, which is likely why we havent seen them try to re-release any of this material.
I'm sorry...... I adore this show. It's adorable, and hilarious!
LivieLightyear I agree
LivieLightyear same here
I've watched so many of these video's in the past few days that i catch myself singing the Retroblasting theme song. Thanks for the free entertainment!
Yes, I've, too, watched so many of these video's in the past few months that I WISH I could catch myself singing along with the Retroblasting theme song. Only, I can't quite hear all the whimsically-clever lyrics to such an infectious intro, and I want so bad to hear them so I could sing along with it! Regardless, awesome show!
Look Sir, Droids!
"Too Star War-sy" were they on drugs?
Well...
I loved this show when I was a kid. I recently saw the first episode on RUclips. It didn't age well. The Ewoks cartoon has held up better in my opinion.
The physical comedy elements and general goofiness of “Droids” do parallel the sense of humor it seems Lucas wanted to incorporate into Star Wars. This is the man who thought Jar Jar Binks was going to be the comedic core of the Prequel Trilogy.
" you heard right
TINES HORKY"
😂😂😂😂
The beginning of the video reminds me of what surprised me most when I was in Japan. When an anime ends, so does the marketing. Figures and merch of those animes completely disappear from the stores, it seems. In the west, if something is over, you can buy merch of it for years everywhere.
I've noticed that too. Older Dragon Ball merch from Japan is viritually impossible to find yet where I live,you could find Dragon Ball merch well into the 2000's
11:39 B-Wing learned a new trick: fly back wards ... tsk
You know what? Singing along to that intro tune never gets old.
When I was 6 or 7 (I'm 18 at the time of this posting) my parents gave me an A-Wing fighter and a copy of the Droids TV show on DVD for my birthday. The A-Wing is collecting dust in my closet somewhere the DVD and case is tucked away in a cabinet in the living room and I lost the action figure years ago. Watching this makes me want to go dig them up again for the nostalgia.
A day at the studio...
Director - Hey, how's the new STAR WARS show going?
Worker - "Pauses" Wait, this is a STAR WARS show?
Producer walks in the room - As long as it has R2 and C-somin' o, it'll be just fine.
Gotta love how the canon was so malleable back then. Supposedly, this show takes place before A New Hope, but the show has B-Wings. In an expansion to the X-Wing computer game, which is set after A New Hope, the B-Wing was just built.
all episodes are on youtube
Great video!
I also had the same feeling when seeing this cartoon for the first time, with the two punks and no main characters from the movies.
I have better memories of the Mongo storyline, though.
You have a De lorean?
I'M HITTING THE SUBSCRIBE BUTTON!
Great video! Currently watching a few of the Droids episodes on Disney+. It’s making me oddly nostalgic for simpler times
08:13 Kybo Ren...TOTALLY not the weird helmet wearing villain who's name...*ahem*...inspired the weird helmet wearing villain Kylo Ren in the sequels...
Lol,I love when Mike almost goes Angry Video Game Nerd at 4:57
This playlist is awesome and these replay so well!
I don't give a shit what anybody else thinks. C3p0 is at his absolute best ever in Droids.
I didn't watch a lot of Droids only because the other shows I watched were on NBC and CBS...It really does deserve a full release on DVD.
I saw the clip of the Imperial Shuttle, any idea when we'll see that in a future episode? I wanted that thing so bad...I was even going to get it for Christmas, but the store had sold the last one. I got Zartan and the Drednoks instead.
Your reviews are wonderful, Sir. Very well analyzed, I liked that.
I liked that show. It reminds me more of Heavy Metal than a Star Wars property though.
Just discovered this channel. Your vids are so much fun!
Great video! Droids did give us one of the rarest figures ever the Brazilian Vlix from 1988 and in the UK mastertronic made a terrible Droids game for the likes of the Commodore 64! Hope U do a similar vid about the Ewoks cartoons!
Loved the show as a fifteen-year-old, love it now. One of the best examples of other people's hands on the Star Wars license. Extended storylines...character development...
*So* much better than anything we've gotten since the Clone Wars. Ewoks is fun, too.
Great job!
The best in-depth look at the Droids series and toy line on the internet.
Another excellent video, informative and entertaining. I still have a store bought Droids VHS movie but I think it was the only Droids media I remember being available.
+CF-105 Games They "special editioned" it, though. All of the background music and some of the dialog has been replaced.
not to mention if the show is taking place before episode 4, the a-wing and the b-wing did not exist in the timeline yet.
EXCELLENT REVIEW AND WRAP UP!
Droids is where C-3PO came out of the closet.
The "Great Heep" episode was awesome! Imagine a vehicle sized version of him. Had Droids came out today, Hasbro would make figures and playsets of everything from the show.
Great episode guys. I remember watching this when it first came out. I might able to answer why no one could have a gun on the show. Because it was on ABC there were/are guide lines that cartoons were forced to follow, this included that no type of "gun" was allowed to be shown let alone fired at other characters.
The reason G.I. Joe got away this was due to it being on syndication. The guide lines did not cover shows on syndicated, allowing them to get away with things that you could never do on CBS, ABC, or NBC.
I literally have no recollection of this show from when I was a kid; but man oh man did I love the Ewoks cartoon. It's pretty interesting how that one isn't brought up nearly as much as Droids. I'm sure I watched this show one time and thought it was garbage, so I just stuck with the Ewoks.
Awesome video as always, guys! :D
4:50 - Yeah, I wonder, too. A cartoon about Droids from Star Wars with one of the original actors ... "too Star Wars-y." I'll even say if one made that up...it sounds like something an executive is likely to say.
RUclips won't let me post a link here, but there's a RUclips video called "Marc Zicree Talks About Mighty Orbots" where Zicree mentions that Tokyo Movie Shinsha (now TMS Entertainment) did a pilot film for a Star Wars cartoon in the 1980s. (He thinks he has a copy on a videotape in his closet.) I sure wish TMS would've gotten the job instead of Nelvana!
I enjoyed it as a kid cause the droids were my favorite characters at the time. It doesn't hold up as well for grownups, but some of the stuff like the fingers thing is nitpicking.
Wow- quite a complex assembly. Good thing that guy has you for a friend!
Another great one guys!
Great job again . I was so happy last year to find a POTF II A Wing & Jabba's Skif. Does anyone else have landing gear issues with there a wing ?
I love that the show when I was younger
I still like watching it every year
Great info..good job. I think that skiff would have amazing playability back in the day...all you need is to dig a hole and you can do the Jabba executions from Jedi
interesting episode- your channel is great!
I remember hearing about how strict the rules were on childrens cartoons in the late 80s and 90s, with many shows replacing modern day guns with lasers. Death wasnt allowed to be mentioned etc.
i wish there where some more vids from you guys, nice video
I watched the show & had the Thall Joben action figure - but he was never Thall to me. He was a stand-in for Longshot of the X-men!
A very engaging episode Guys! Much Enjoyed, I wonder whether the series was 'wrapped' prior to being aired or the constant changes were as a result of the cartoon trying to find its audience as it was received. I think if it were released now I'd probably pick it up to have a better view as I would a uk compatible version of the p.o.t.a. cartoon series. Once again a fantastic watch! Cheers Fuzz.
Amazing channel addicted love your stuff
I remember being so excited that Star Wars was being continued in cartoon form.
And then I actually saw Droids and Ewoks.
There were also the live-action Ewoks movies...nevermind, you're right we had nothing to look forward to.
Those movies were fun. And they helped get younger kids into Star Wars.
I remember kind of liking Droids when I was a kid.
Making this comment a week after viewing the episode...
Your A-wing remark, true, sold it for a rather nice price to a now happy collector!
Here is another kicker about Droids, it was originally set 25 years *before* 3PO and R2 first met Luke, also keep in mind they referenced the Clone Wars in passing and the Empire was around at the time of SW: Droids which means the Empire had been around for a lot longer then a mere 19 or 20 years and through the old comic strips (as I remember) they also mentioned the Empire being involved in the Clone Wars at some point in the past...all that forgotten by Lucas as he "re-wrote" everything understood at that time for the dreaded prequels.
I mowed lawns all summer and had my own money. The only way to get the A wing was to mail order It from SEARS. I still have mine, but I put a night camo paint job on It when I was in my 20's. It looks very cool, but I didn't help the value any.
Nice video guys. Will you be reviewing Ewoks next? Seems like a natural progression. lol
After watching your video
I went to Target they have an exclusive of this series vintage Droids line
3:22 they look like rejected characters from the animated movie heavy metal
Its on Disney+ now!!!
Terrific video Michael, great insight to a show I didn't know existed until well into my adult years...I actually watched the video twice (long story) My question is this...I'm not well versed on the expanded universe, but I realize there is a long storied history and timeline...Is the droids series included in that? I know from hundreds of hours of various SW video games, the A-wing is considered an upgraded, more modern fighter, vs the X-wing...but if droids happened some few decades before, doesn't that cause a big ole continuity mess?
snake2006 How is the show referenced in the prequels? For that matter, how CAN the show be referenced in the prequels since the events it depicts haven't happened yet?
The ATL Interceptor vehicle was awesome.
I loved Droids as a kid still do. I have "The Great Heep" on VHS
Is it just me, or does Mungo Baobob sound like one of those fancy drinks with a mini kabob of sliced fruit, a frosted rim, and a tiny bamboo umbrella?
Hey Star Wars follies you have inspired me to start collecting retro toys I know it may not important to know but thanks
As far as the no guns on Saturday Morning....the pressure was already felt in the Star Wars toy line before Saturday Morning came into play...... Return of the Jedi line 29 figures...9 came with guns.... Power of the Force only 5 came with guns. Empire Strikes Back only 6 came without a gun and 4 of those were droids!
He made a whole video about the stick accessories in Return of the Jedi
The other cool thing about the B-Wing toy was that the cockpit rotated like in the movie.
I wished they had done just a star wars cartoon in the 1980s
Well this seires is on Disney+ in HD so that's something to be thankful for. Also a member of 'The Police' sang the theme song? Nice!
Nice look back Mike. I have to admit when I first saw the ads for this on tv back in the day I knew this was one to skip, but then again I'm a bit older than you are. I was 15 when this came on so maybe my age gave me an edge in knowing what a car crash this was going to be. My tastes were evolving as I got into that age between kid and twentysomething, so at the same time MASK, GI Joe, Thundercats (dont bug out) and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians all debuted but so did Spenser for Hire, MacGyver, Street Hawk, Misfits of Science (yes I liked it! lol) and Moonlighting all debuted so I began leaning towardsmore grown up tastes. Its funny it seems the Lego Star Wars specials airing on Cartoon Network & on DVD The Padawan Menace, The Empire Strikes Out, & The 3ptr The Yoda Chronciles, all which take place before A New Hope are more true to the franchise than Droids is. Now I realize the writers had more to work with, but I am wondering if Lucas had a little input like you said about seeing certain elements then (say Grievious' Wheel vehcile) and after Driods hit the 'bastard realitive table' as it were Lucas may have seen a couple things he knew he could recycle for Pts 1,2,&3. As a writer I've done this myself. I'll save ideas & notes for years, even decades and then sometime down the road BAM its the right time to bring that puppy out.
It was interesting hearing someone who grew up in the 80s talk about this cartoon, but I want to talk about how absolutely weird this cartoon was for someone who grew up in the early 2000s, because hot damn do I have a story with this because it was such a uniquely odd experience for me as a kid.
Back during the day there were only the three films and a couple of bad cartoons afterwards, and for a kid nowadays, there's 12 films with the three trilogies, solo, rogue one, and the CGI clone wars movie which is probably the most unusual thing of the group, but with it being obviously set between two and three, it's just kind of an obscure start for the most beloved show of the series, but when I was a kid, there were 10 movies: the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, the tartokovsky clone wars series split into two 90 minute movies, and then...... pirates and the prince, and treasure of the hidden planet. There was so much unusual about them. The DVD (which that and the DVD menus were a majority of my memories with it as a child) had art of decent quality making it feel less dated, but it still had all the oddities of the cartoon like the drastically different designs, such as Kleb Zellock, Zatec Cha, Jessica, Uncle Gundy and Kaziban (also the weird orange and yellow robot in the background of the front cover, even after watching the show in it's entirety recently I still don't know what that is). Then when I occasionally tried to watch it, the old artstyle of the actual show(which I was probably too young to understand that it looked like that because it was an older cartoon, because I actually thought the OT came out after the prequels) and other inconsistencies with the box like Zellock's pronounced eyelids and Tosh's darker colors really threw me off. It also didn't help that they removed all of the context like the obviously 80s music with generic bargain bin garbage and the fact that it was a tv show and not a Frankensteined together dvd movie make it feel timeless, but not in a good way, more of a paradox "what even are you!? How can I even understand you!?" type of way. I couldn't even tell when it took place, because it was before luke and han solo since they're nowhere to be seen and had the empire, but also they used stuff like a wings which weren't a thing in universe until return of the Jedi, something my brother pointed out to me as a kid, and the adventures were so drastically different than that of the other things. I knew of the ewoks cartoon and movies despite not having them as a kid, and while those felt elusive too, I at least could understand that they took place on Endor and were around the time of RotJ, with droids, NOTHING made sense.
One more thing, I was told that Ig-88, my favorite bounty hunter was actually in it, and I did see him one time, but he was barely in it and escaped our heroes, and considering I only watched the entirety of Pirates and the Prince start to finish only ONCE as a kid, and he was in the middle of a film that was on a double sided disc and I couldn't remember where he specifically was, it made it very strange, like a fleeting memory I was given the opportunity to experience only one time. I do remember finally seeing him and Zatec Cha, the big baddy on the DVD menu which I saw a lot as a kid, and getting excited, but then not remembering where they were, which was also a mess because half the time I only watched the beginning with Kleb Zellock a lot and the ending with artoo and threepio messing around with a cake, but not with the supposed big bad and IG-88, and the other half when I tried to watch the DVD to find them, it was treasure of the hidden planet, and I didn't understand how dual sided discs worked so I thought I lost it. Also, Treasure of the hidden planet was even MORE mysterious and odd, because unlike Pirates and the Prince, I NEVER watched it as a kid, not even a little outside of MAYBE the intro with them talking and stormtroopers having staffs. Couple that with the completely different characters on the menu which were nowhere on the boxart outside of gaff on the skiff (also the DVD didn't have the final episode with Tosh leaving the droids to join the empire to add to the confusion), including a giant yellow monster, and the name being "treasure of the hidden planet" which sounded so mysterious made everything about it feel so absolutely incomprehensible.
When all of that is combined with the fact that the only major times I had strong experiences were in places I'd only been to once, the first time being me watching Pirates and the Prince at my grandparents house when I was very young before they switched houses, and in 2017 when I was at a temporary house in the mountains where I learned about Kybo Ren's name being so similar Kylo Ren and the woman from the first arc of the show looking like Rey in her introduction (also linking them with those places is that my older brother watched an episode of spongebob where they turned into puppets when Mr Krabs got poked by a hook at that old grandparents house, and he told me that it wasn't on RUclips so I didn't believe him, that was until that piece of lost media was found and I watched it with my own eyes in the same place in 2017, which is even more insane), all of this to say is that these "movies" were EASILY the most mysterious pieces of Star Wars content ever as a kid, they were basically liminal spaces but in movie form. It was almost like a creepypasta, not like a hyper realistic eyes way, but more like a forbidden piece of star wars media that only I knew about but could barely understand because of how unusual and dream like it felt, very similar to the creepypasta Pokémon green where his first Pokémon game was some obscure ass game where he couldn't do much in it as a kid and he later got the real games, but green always sat in the back of his mind as an impossible to understand anomaly, waiting for him to fully grasp the true horrors of it as an adult.
Of course, I eventually understood what droids really was as I got older, like finding out that there existed vintage toys of C3P0 and R2D2, but not the other ones until MUCH later, and seeing Jontron play some old ass awful game in StarCade. I eventually learned that it was actually an old almost immediately non canon cartoon that was compiled half assed into DVD. But then, things STILL were mysterious, like finding out that there was a Vlix toy in a droids toyline I only thought had two toys being of a character I didn't know of, assuming they were probably in an omitted episode of a show I knew so little about, and also that it was THE most expensive star wars toy ever, and the aforementioned Rey lookalike being a character I did not remember.
Nowadays, I know pretty much everything about the show, which includes that it is INCREDIBLY awful and one of the worst pieces of media in Star Wars, but what makes me so intrigued with this series was how absolutely elusive and unusual it was back in the day, so despite it being one of the most painful experiences to witness in the franchise (which is saying a LOT), I still really like it, and most likely always will love droids for what it means to me in the most unusual way possible.
The theme song to the show really does something for me. In trouble again. Later, I have to see if I can find it.
Great video, learned a lot (:
Great review. But, weren't there also other Star Wars cartoons that aired in the same block? I remember an "Ewoks" cartoon special at least...
I remember being obssesed with this cartoon when i was a kid. I rented a VHS from the video store where my grandma used to work...seeing it now..i question my tastes.
The theme song by Stuart Copeland that opened the show was pretty cool.
You forgot to mention the Droids light saber toy, whose blade was exactly as long as the hilt. It was only cool because you could extend the blade with the push of a button. It may have been the only light saber toy that even tried that.
I heard there was an Ewok episode where a TIE Fighter pilot makes an emergency landing on Endor and befriends the Ewoks. The pilot is then left with a dilemma to either partake in their subjugation or defend them in his TIE Fighter. The episode was shelved because as Michal stated ‘Too Star-Warsy’.
Looks a lot like scenes from Heavy Metal. Yeah at this point I was picking these figures up as background in my cantina.
This was straight up to the honest truth. It's about time that a video like this was made. So I have to ask, are you going to do a video about the Ewoks cartoon and the Ewok movies? Looks like Mark Demeo has the same question. I really think that you should!!!!!!
*****--If you get to do it, that video will just spell out all of the wrong that George Lucas did. Maybe not down to the last drop, but it will be close enough!!!!
Dude you absolutely must do a segment on the power of the force line.
Hey, I liked the Rebel Transport! That was my surrogate Millennium Falcon as a kid.
I never saw the Skiff or A-wing as a kid. The skiff scene was one I played out a lot so I would have picked it up had I seen it. I remember it from the catalog though.
"What a piece of junk!" (?)
Ha, ha, ha...pickled Wookie
Happy to say I have a copy of the complete series and even some vehicles. The imperial side gunner and the ATL interceptor.. the show is hard work to get through alright, but back when it was canon, seeing a sea plane type version of an x-wing fighter floating on a body of water was something else. B-wings did appear, but eagle eye viewers may notice the one shown in this video was shown to be flying backwards lol
Next to the Ewok movies this series was AMAZING!
I loved this show at the time, and was disappointed that it didn't get renewed for a second season like Ewoks did. I am hoping with the new movies coming out, Disney releases complete seasons/series DVD sets for Droids, Ewoks and the Holiday special.
Really?
some episodes of ewoks and droids are on two special edition dvd sets as double features star wars animated adventures and they are on amazon
@@mauromesa78 I bought the official DVDs and bought bootleg DVDs on eBay and have seen the stuff on RUclips. And in the 90s I kept finding places that listed the VHS, but they were always unable to get them, no matter how enthusiastic about it the sales person was.
This year I have come to the point of selling off DVDs/Blu Rays of stuff I can get on VOD or is part of Disney+. Since the Regal/Sony promotion that got me Charlie's Angels, Jumanji, Bad Boys and Bloodshot on VOD, I have built my VOD library to well over 800 titles.
So at this point I want the complete Droids/Ewoks/Great Heap/Ewok movies/Holiday Special to hit Disney+ and/or VOD.
@@MickDansforth ok i know the filing i too like too have a complete series i to i'm a collector of the classics and i tray super hard too complete them some had missing episodes and i was lucky too find and get them but there are still some that are incomplete but i will tray too complete them it may tack some time
I really liked Droids as a kid. And the first season of Ewoks. Also, Droids has one of the best opening theme songs.
There is a character named Kybo Ren in a few episodes. Same production company that made Rock n Rule.
You didn't mention The Sidegunner? I love that thing! And yes, Uncle Gundy is worth bragging about, at least to me it is. :-/
awesome guys!