Cartoon Network India 1990 - Blast from the Past Series - The Big Power Zone Action Cartoons
In my previous blog post, I discussed about the smaller filler Hanna Barbara cartoons that filled us with smiles and brightened our childhood days in the 90's here in India. In this post, I am continuing where I left off but here, I would like to talk about the bigger cartoons of Power Zone which could, in a way, be considered the Power Zone Hanna Barbara Torch Bearers (of which a few are from other animation studios too) because these were the easiest to remember and I am sure that most of you would already be able to relate with me on this, since you may already be knowing about or at least be able to recall all or some of them.
i) The Centurions:
The Centurions are 3 men wearing exo-frame suits (Ace McCloud, Jake Rockwell and Max Ray depending on their respective areas of operation - Ace takes care of air operations, Jake is the ground specialist and Max is the sea ops commander) to which weapon systems of different kinds can be beamed down from an orbital space station above the Earth called Sky Vault when they contact a lady there called Crystal Kain who beams them down based on their coordinates. When the weapon systems are beamed down, they raise their hands shouting "Power Xtreme" and the weapon systems get integrated to the exo-frame suits enabling them to fight against cyborg sharks, cyborg panthers as well as robots (Groundborgs, Seaborgs, Doom Drone Traumatizers and Doom Drone Strafers) sent by their enemy Doc Terror and his right-hand man Hacker, Doc Terror has a daughter named Amber who helps out her Dad in their terror operations. Crystal has a pet Orangutan named Lucy who is also intelligent enough to beam down the weapon systems in Crystal's absence, Jake Rockwell has a dog called "Shadow" who has his own exo-frame suit and weapon system which also gets beamed down on request. Ace wears the blue exo-suit, Jake wears the yellow one and Max the green one.
This was both my favourite as well as that of many other kids who watched Power Zone in the 90's. In a world of anthropomorphic felines, T-Bone (Chance) and Razor (Jake) were 2 pilots serving the paramilitary agency named "The Enforcers" of Megakat city under commander Feral and his niece Felina, Chance and Razor were given a dishonourable discharge by Feral for disobeying the commander's orders when engaging in a dogfight with a villain when ordered to return to base by Feral, to add insult to injury, they were sent to work in a scrapyard.
They later build their own base at the scrapyard using the used parts that they got there and built their own fighter aircraft which is their most favourite and primary weapon system-
a) the "TurboKat" which has VTOL (Vertical Take Off And Landing) capabilities owing to thrust vectoring nozzles with 3 engines at the rear, the outer 2 nozzles at the rear are fixed whereas the middle one can be vectored in a downward direction when coupled with the TurboKat's 2 air intakes which also serve as vectored nozzles in VTOL setting (hover mode), the Turbokat has heat shields for the cockpit canopy and another set of 4 special engines that pop out from the rear fuselage of the plane for high altitude flight at the edge of space and stealth features like an internal weapons bay with robotic arms within to release missiles when the latter are fired, the TurboKat's weapons include an assortment of exotic air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles alongside a primary 6-barrel gatling cannon that fires cement slugs, as well as a host of other secondary vehicles like the
b) Cyclotron (a bike with its own weapon systems) that can be deployed like a pod from the internal weapons bay of the TurboKat,
c) the Turbomole (a ground drilling vehicle with missiles and grappling hooks) for underground threats,
d) HoverKat (a hovercraft with exotic weapon systems) and
e) the Thunder Truck (a radical off-road vehicle having a rear-mounted DEW (directed energy weapon)) which is its primary weapon.
T-Bone and Razor finally gain their autonomy to act as they see fit in their pilot outfits hiding their identity whenever the villains of MegaKat city rear their ugly heads like the Pastmaster, Dark Kat, Dr.Viper, Metallikats, Madkat as well as some rarer villains that appear only in 1 episode each. The TurboKat is based off of some real-world fighter jets like the Saab Draken, F-14 Tomcat and Harrier. T-Bone's specialty is his excellent ability to pilot the TurboKat in adverse conditions when missiles and gun rounds are flying all around the plane and Razor is the RIO (Radio Intercept Officer) who is also in charge of the TurboKat's weapon systems. Together, they fight crime whenever MegaKat city's Mayor Manx's secretary Molly presses a button which sounds the alarm in their underground hangar tucked away in the MegaKat city scrapyard indicating to the Swatkats that something is wrong in Megakat city and that their help is needed, commander Feral's niece Felina joins in on the fun of fighting crime alongside T-bone and Razor occasionally to Commander Feral's dismay and indignation. This cartoon gave me an interest for military aviation and fighter aircraft in general which led to my wanting to join the Indian Air Force at a younger age (which did not happen!) but I still love the cartoon and military aviation because of Swatkats.
iii) Ninja Robots:
This is one of Cartoon Network's first animes set in the 23rd century with Mars as an outpost of the Earth ruled by Commander Hazzard Pascha who is an oppressive tyrant of Mars' earthling inhabitants in which 3 youngsters named Joe Maya, Jenny Ai and Mike Coll are seen as fugitives. They find a space ship Xenos 5 (shaped like a pink and white metallic swan capable of intergalactic travel at speeds exceeding the speed of light) from the Andromeda galaxy with 3 humanoid aliens in it - 1 being the beautiful princess of an alien race in Andromeda in a planet named Ladorio - princess Rowina, her maid Jade and commander Icelander, arriving at a time when the ship was under attack by robots. Joe gets into a golden robot in the spaceship called black lion (golden ninja), Jenny into another robot called "Phoenix Thunderhawk (scarlet ninja)" and Mike into the third and final robot called "Burst Dragon (Blue Ninja)", these 3 robots are located beside another more powerful robot called Cybertron and they destroy all the enemy forces and robots rescuing the space ship to Rowina's amazement. Later, Icelander becomes jealous of Rowina's feelings for Joe and joins forces with Hazard piloting an evil robot called the mantis and in 1 of the later fights, the Mantis gets destroyed by the Black Lion in a special mode when he fuses with the true Mantis (Zerokage) robot whose powers are on par with those of Cybertron which rises up to defend the ninja robots when their pilots are weakened or they are overwhelmed. When Cybertron merges with the Golden Ninja, it leads to the formation of the Black Lion which can run, claw and fire at an incoming army of robots annihilating them in the process, when the cybertron fuses with the scarlet ninja, it leads to the formation of the Phoenix Thunderhawk which is a bird like robot capable of wiping out vast swathes of enemy robots with the energy from its wingtips alone and when the Cybertron and Blue Ninja fuse, it leads to the formation of the Burst Dragon with its lightning powered electrically charged flames that can wipe out enemy robots from Hazard and his ally King Annex who originally was responsible for attacking Rowina's home planet Ladorio. Together the series continues with further battles finally leading the Xenos 5's ultra light-speed drive of its engines being repaired after which Rowina, Jade and Icelander leave for Ladorio. Towards the end of the series, a 4th person Damian joins the trio and operates the Black Lion whereas Joe fuses with Cybertron to defend the Xenos 5.
Captain Planet and the Planeteers is a series that focusses on the environment and how the planeteers fight against eco-villains like Skumm, Plunder, Hoggish Greedly, Duke Nukem etc., who seek to harm the environment in the name of industrial development or otherwise. Captain Planet is summoned when the planeteers from various continents use their magical rings - Kwame (earth), Wheeler (fire), Linka (wind), Gi (water) and Ma-Ti (heart) to summon Captain Planet to come and save the day for the common good of the environment. Captain Planet foils the evil plans of the eco-villains and saves the day. Each episode is followed by a segment where the Planeteers and Captain Planet give a piece of advice on how to keep the environment safe and sound like giving advice on reduce, reuse and recycle. Hence, Captain Planet is about raising awareness on environmental conservation in children and inclucate the need to protect the environment in children.
v) The real adventures of Johnny Quest:
Dr. Brenton Quest, his son Johnny Quest and his friends Jessie Bannon, daughter of Dr. Bannon who is a family friend of Dr. Quest as well as another friend from India- Hadji travel to various parts of the globe on various adventures and as they do so, they get into troublesome situations in cyberspace in a world designed by Dr. Quest called Questworld where they fight villains and save the day. Each episode takes them to a different part of the globe with its own set of challenges as they do so. Questworld is a mix of virtual reality and motion capture and when they use special headsets that transport them to Questworld and after the problems are sorted out, they return from Questworld. The main antagonist in the series is Dr.Surd who misuses Questworld and seeks to take over the real world from Questworld which Dr. Quest and friends successfully foil.
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