The Final Episode #53: Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986 - 1987)

 

One of my favorite things about this blog is finally getting to dig into the weird and obscure stuff that doesn't get as much attention as say Transformers. I feel that Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers is an example of a somewhat obscure thing that I've brought to the light of day. Probably not the most obscure seeing as I like to review weirdo religious movies but still. That the best thing about The Final Episode is no matter how obscure or well known the show is it had an ending and I'm able to talk about it. Boy howdy is this a great one. 

Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers is a cartoon series from the 1980s. It has a lot of history behind it actually. The company behind it Gaylord Entertainment Company. It started as a tabernacle all the way back in 1892. A tabernacle is some kind of religious building or something? It became a hotel chain in 1925 and ran by Edward Gaylord. That was back in the day when you could have the name Gaylord and not be made fun of. I don't know why they mention it was a tabernacle first on Wikipedia but I felt like I had to mention it. It became the home for the Grand Ole Opry for like 30 years! Who doesn't love the Grand Ole Opry??? It went from hotel chains to making entertainment for people because they wanted more money. That's pretty much the whole reason. One of the things they made was this show.

Tokyo Media Shinsha did the animation and I think it's time for me to discuss them because holy hell did they do a lot of animation work. The Name clearly shows that they were a part of GLORIOUS NIPPON! They started all the way back in 1946, must have been one of the first anime companies ever. They did Lupin the 3rd and Detective Conan and one of the Golgo 13 movies. Those are the only animes they've done that I've heard of. For American audiences they worked on Inspector Gadget, Batman: The Animated Series, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, The Real Ghostbusters, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and a bunch of others. You totally saw TMS animate something as a kid. They were bought up by the Sega Sammy Corporation. You know Sega games and AMERICAN SAMMY (my favorite name for a video game company ever!) Yeah they own them now. Everyone owns everyone else even all over the world. It's sad.

So what is The Adventures of Galaxy Rangers even about you ask? Well my dear sweet inquisitive person I just made up! This show is about two aliens coming to earth to ask for our help. They give us blueprints for the hyperdrive and we go out and live in space. We need a space police force of sorts so they get the Galaxy Rangers and they give them horses like its a western because the horse would be an extra toy for your parents to buy. Yes this had a toy line too. Yes I do think the people who made these cartoons still put effort into them but they clearly were only made for the toy lines. It can be both people who rag on 80s cartoons while masturbating feverously to some terrible shit like Adventure Time. I will never get the popularity of that show. The big bad of the show was the Queen of the Crown who well wanted to take over the universe. I'm guessing they fought other bad guys too but this is the first episode of the show I've seen. Yeah, I was lazy so I didn't watch more than one. 

The Final Episode is well a pretty big doozy. It's not like they finally stop the Queen of the Crown because it wasn't one of the 80s cartoons that got a definite ending. I can't even think of one that had a definite ending right now. Some just ended on cliffhangers like The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin. This is a better episode than that because this is action packed and ridiculous. It makes sense that this was animated by an anime company because holy hell this series finale is buck wild. It starts with one of the Galaxy Rangers named "Doc" who is well the guy whos good with mechanics and stuff I think. He wants the people of this planet that's based around medieval stuff to awaken the HEART OF TARKAN but the King's advisor doesn't want this because well he's the secret bad guy of the episode duh. They have to wake up the HEART OF TARKAN so that they wont be destroyed by the Queen of the Crown.

He finally gets the King to agree to at least put on the All Seeing Eye (for people who apparently hate machines they are using these things that uh pretty machine like) and he sees that TARKAN will be destroyed if they open up the HEART. He then joins the Galaxy Ranger and his daughter against the Kings Advisor and a bunch of pissed off people. They escape via cool airship. Not as cool as Teddy Ruxpin's airship but that's a hard bar to press. Despite the fact they are in stormy weather. They need Doc to help fix some shit on the airship. There's a second airship ran by the King's Advisor who jumps out on a damn wind ski thing and so does Doc. They end up fighting and then a LIGHTING BOLT hits the Kings Advisor and he turns into Scarecrow! I love this crazy fuckers design. I think they fought before but I can't be sure on that but man this Scarecrow would have probably scared the shit out of me. 

Doc stops him and then cuts into the Airships balloon and they make it to the HEART OF TARKAN. The Heart turns out to be a big machine. There's a hologram and it tells them they need a lifeforce to keep living. The Shaman ends up giving up his lifeforce to the machine and becomes the Hologram. Scarecrow is back and is talking about his ancient foes of Tarkan. So I guess Tarkan was in more than just this episode and after he fights Doc and the others the Shaman gets sick of his shit and BLOWS THE MOTHER FUCKER UP. Holy shit. I would have watched this cartoon daily if they had shown it on YTV. I would have made sure this show was on the air until 2020. They save Tarkan and the King gets everyone to agree to be okay with machines. They agree and everyone is happy.

FINAL VERDICT: This episode was pretty wild. Like absolutely nuts. I don't think the plots perfect or anything because these Tarkans have technology and someone does mention alien technology is what they hate but thats like once and that technology is clearly not the All Seeing Eye or the HEART OF TARKAN. I think this could have used a second part to fix up some stuff. I dunno. I was entertained and it was pretty fun. I say check it out.