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P R E S E N T S
-= EARTH =-
- The 23rd Century -
- A time of Robots and Aliens -
- And of destruction and terror! -
Can the Galactic Patrol, defenders of the United Planets, stop the evil computer Umbra?
YOU BET THEY CAN!!
Greetings! Welcome to a page dedicated to a unique Saturday Morning show that ran in the mid '80s on the ABC Television Network. The show was about the adventures of 6 super robots and their creator, Rob Simmons, and their battles to save the galaxy from the evil empire known as Shadow. But before we get caught up in all of that history, let's look at what makes this show stand out first.
During the '70s, US animation started a marked decline in quality. In the rush to crank out new programs and stories in the extremely strapped budgets of that time, stories got lame, artwork suffered, and animation became limited. This was the time of mouth moving fixed heads. An animation standard called the 'cycle' (for example, where a character is seen walking in the same motion over and over again) became an over-used way to keep costs down. 'Stock cycles' became the norm. Limited detail was given to artwork. And don't even THINK of changing a character's wardrobe! And as the decade continued, the material being sent to the airwaves started to show some of this deterioration. Major flaws started to appear in shows that would have been edited out or re-shot in earlier years. As the decade drew to a close, animation on US television needed a major overhaul.
As the '80s opened, many of the major studios must have noticed the decline, or at least realized they needed to look to their futures. Hanna - Barbera opened their animation school, and for a short time showed their students creations on a show called 'Jokebook' on NBC. This show also presented shorts from foreign animation studios. And to see some of the foreign material was to see where US animation went wrong. The foreign studios never limited their artwork, or their stories. And they still managed to use about the same amount of animation that the US producers did. Even their 'stock cycles' looked good. When West Cape/Claster's 'STAR BLAZERS' (Space Cruiser Yamato) first started showing in the early '80s, the story lines and the artwork blew everything else on the air at that time away. Disregard that some of the early animation was flat out bad, you could see as the series went on that they were improving. Details were carefully looked after, and sharpened. The series just looked great.
Even Sandy Frank's 'Battle of the Planets' had an excellent look to it, even though the story lines were completely blitzed from its Gatchaman roots. And BOTH series started out in the early to mid '70s in Japan. This was one of the roots to the resurgence of animated television in the US.
Another improvement came from the independent producers. DIC produced 'INSPECTOR GADGET' for Field Broadcasting. Canada's Nelvana Productions were creating some interesting specials using FULL animation (including the animated sequence from the Star Wars Holiday Special). The renaissance of animation had begun.
During this time (early '80s), another occurrence began in animation. What some critics called 'Half-Hour Commercials' began to appear. Star Wars spurred a surge in action figure sales that made the idea of shows based on toy manufacturers figures hard to resist. Now, instead of toys being based on films or shows, films and shows were being based on toys. Filmation's 'HE-MAN and the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE,'Rank & Bass' 'THUNDERCATS' and all of their spin-offs, and DePatti/Freleng-Marvel Productions' 'G.I. JOE' and 'THE TRANSFORMERS' were only the beginning, a trend that continues to today. (Didn't/Doesn't stop me from writing scripts, though!) In most of these, the animation became limited again, mostly because these shows were meant to be shown on a daily basis. But the general detail in the artwork was much better. These shows also created a need for animators. And the hot bed for detailed - needed the next day - animation was Japan.
As TRANSFORMERS took off here in the US, and their show began to run in syndication, ABC Television decided to get into the act themselves. Robots were a hot item. The Droids from Star Wars were popular, as were GoBots, and our friends, the Autobots and Decepticons. So they decided to take a pilot offered to them by Fred Silverman, former Program Tzar of the big three networks. The show was produced by Silverman and Tokyo Movie Shinsha, the Japanese animation equivalent of Disney. And thus, MIGHTY ORBOTS were born.
The first thing that hit me when I watched MIGHTY ORBOTS for the first time was the artwork and style of the show. If at all possible, NOTHING STAYED STILL. The background moved, the foreground moved, everyone in a stadium or a city moved. There were very few stationary objects. And the characters were rendered with great detail. The only thing that Orbots lacked was in the writing for their endings. You'd get a great slam-bang story during the show, but the endings were always a bit too cute. Unfortunately, this was due to the fact that MIGHTY ORBOTS was meant for young viewers, not us old crotchety ones. But still...
Orbots performed many of the moves associated by Transformers. All but one of the Orbots have a triple-change ability. They also were made with a 'Superman' type cloak. They all had 'secret identities' as standard Galactic Patrol robots. But, just like old �bermench, you had to be blind to not see that they weren't the same robots that became Mighty Orbots. Same goes for Rob, their human leader. Drop his glasses and lab coat, morph his clothes into a flight uniform, and he becomes The Orbots Commander. Righhhht!
Their second mode was 'Orbots Mode,' where their body shells would become bulkier, boxier, and flat out larger. The series used what many Trans-Fans FanFics referred to as a 'sub-space shunt' to hold mass. Orbots actually showed this process at work. Their third mode showed it even greater.
With the call of 'ORBOTS, UNITE!!' the 5 large robots would begin a ballet of folding and expanding. Tor would drop his head into a storage shunt, fold his arms into his sides, and turn his feet into receptors for Bort and Crunch, who
became legs. Bo and Boo also dropped their heads into storage areas, pop out locking pins and hold down straps, and deploy fists from their sub-space storage nooks. They would then lock themselves to Tor's open shoulder sockets. With this, Mighty Orbots' head would flip up. From robots no larger than 12 feet tall (Tor) came an expanded mega robot roughly 10 stories tall. Then the ballet would move to the inside of Mighty Orbots, as
chest doors opened, allowing Rob to pilot his "Beam Car" into the gestalt. Once inside, the car itself would begin to transform, expanding and deploying the control systems for the multibot, while riding a lift to the top of the
chest. The final call for "IGNITION!" has Ono, Rob's little assistant Orbot, open her chest, extend a computer up-link probe, and engage the control systems, bringing Mighty Orbots to life.
The series had two excellent stock versions of this transformation, and a few stray versions scattered throughout the shows. All were fun to watch just 
because they all worked so well. There was only one stock version of the Orbots separating, but this was also done nicely. It was modified twice. The first time it was shown (in the pilot), Tor announces "Separation complete!" which was later deleted. The second modification came late in the series, when they had the Beam Car bounce out of chest doors out of control.
Otherwise, the animation remained the same.
Now, many of you may ask why I am waxing nostalgic for this excellent, yet little known series... Simple. Robert Jung wrote a great FanFic about the Orbots titled "MISTAKEN IDENTITIES." You will find it
here.
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