Bring Back That Classic! #5 - SilverHawks (Cartoon Series & Toys)
Where we review classic products such as toys, games, fashion, and food!
This cartoon was so cool to me when I was a kid. Even though I didn't get to catch much of it, as I was still pretty young and the only kind of stuff we got to watch in the pre-cable era of the mid-to-late 80's Singapore were re-runs from a few years ago, so we were always late on the bandwagon. However, my cousin did have a few of their toys (he still collects toys now at forty years old and having a son of his own now) and I was inspired by their toys. I still get the theme song stuck in my head now as I write this. Anyone else with me?
Followed by the success of their previous cartoon, ThunderCats, which I'm sure I'll be covering on a future article, show creators Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass of Rankin/Bass Productions wanted to make a space-adventure equivalent of ThunderCats and so it was aired in 1986 with the help of distributor Lorimar-Telepictures which is now currently owned by Warner Bros. The series also featured many of the same voice actors from ThunderCats. It was aired five days a week for one season.
The plot goes as follows: A bionic policeman named Commander Stargazer recruited a group of "partly metal, partly real" heroes known as the SilverHawks to fight an evil escaped mob-boss known as Mon*Star who can transform into an armor-plated monster with the help of Limbo's Moonstar (can't find much information on that, sorry, if anyone knows more, please drop a comment) and he is followed by the villains in his mob: Yes-Man, Buzz-Saw, Mumbo-Jumbo, Windhammer, Mo-Lec-U-Lar, Poker-Face, Hardware and Melodia. They are known collectively as the Limbo Mob.
Drawing of the Limbo Mob by Deviant Art user Crash2014
The SilverHawks team consists of their leader, Quicksilver (formerly known as Jonathan Quick), his metal-bird companion, TallyHawk, and is followed by Lt. Colonel Bluegrass, twins Steelheart & Steelwill, and The Copper Kidd. There are also minor SilverHawks known as Hotwing, Flashback, Moonstryker, and Condor. The show would begin on September 8th, 1986 and end on episode 65 on December 5th, 1986.
The cartoon would produce spin-offs in forms of comics, which were produced by Marvel Comics' imprint Star Comics, and toys, which were produced by Kenner. The comics were written for a seven-issue series and one of the writers for the comics was show writer, Steve Perry.
Well, I was hoping to have more content for this one, but there isn't much to write about for this short three-month-long series. Hopefully it leaves an imprint in your minds and hearts as it did mine. We can't find cartoons like this anymore, unless you're into Japanese anime. I'm half-tempted to find the DVD or Blu-Ray for the series now that I'm into it! Is there anything you want to contribute? What would you like me to cover next?
Thank you for reading and supporting! If there is any product you would like me to cover for Bring Back That Classic!, please leave a comment below! One Love!
It's beastly not just clean!