Os Centurions

You're not going to find "Centurions" on many "Great Cartoons of the 80s" lists. Or any lists, good or bad, for that matter. It is a repetitive toy commercial show, atypical for it's time. Despite being cancelled after 1 season, it still managed to go 65 episodes.

So, imagine if you will, three elite soldiers. Each specializing in land, sea, and air combat. Each with unique suits capable of being equipped with certain levels of weaponry, depending on the threat level. It gets beamed down from an orbiting space station where their support operator (and her pet chimpanzee) keeps an eye on the evil plots of one "Dr. Terror" and his sidekick "Hacker" who are more cyborg than men with evil doing gadgets.

Dr. Terror and Hacker try to do bad guy stuff for world domination or some such, or sometimes a one-off villain of the week, the good guys show up, struggle a bit, and win the day with firepower and one-liners (while never killing anybody) Makes for a great commercial. As a kid, I remember getting very thrilled when they'd break out their heavy stuff. Had their been action figures available to me, I'd have bought them.

The main characters share the spotlight rather well. Each get developed well enough. Later on, more Centurion members are added with their own specialties to go with newer bad guys. Meet the new plot, same as the old plot. I could see this show getting a reboot somewhere. Michael Bay would have fun with this, I think. It's by no means deep subject matter, but you can tell some genuine effort was put into it. Worth a look for some retro, cheesy fun.

For some reason cartoons made by Ruby Spears haven't done well outside of the 80s, mainly because they were truly a product of their time: fast and disposable fun for kids and young teenagers. Look at the line-up: Mr.T, Heathcliff, Rambo and Thundarr the Barbarian to name a few. None of these have survived outside the 80s and with good reason – they're not much better than the 15 second cartoons used to sell toys that were so popular back then. Centurions is basically that – a glorified ad for the toy line aimed squarely at boys under 16. Given to Sunbow or Lou Scheimer this would have done well but in the hands of Ruby Spears it's become something embarrassing after all these years.

Take He-Man, Transformers or G.I.Joe: what makes those cartoons so enjoyable after all these years is the time they took to distinguish the characters. Despite some huge casts they all managed to find a distinct, recognisable trait and voice for every star of the show. The late great Christopher Latta is instantly recognisable as Cobra Commander or Starscream and Alan Oppenheimer's Skeletor has the most marvellous villain's voice in cartoon history.

No-one ever took that kind of care with the Centurions. You'd imagine it would be easy to give the 3 leads some personality but they remain bland and lifeless, distinguished only by the colour of their suits. Every week their ineffective nemesis Doc Terror would hijack/brainwash/terrorise some research facility or city for some rare metal or source of energy and the Centurions would beam in, select an outfit and blast him back to Dominion. What made me laugh was that there was always a river or lake nearby for Max Ray to use his 'sea-weapons'. If you've seen the episode of the Simpsons where Bart dismisses 'Kinght Boat' you'll get the joke.

Time hasn't been kind to this show. I loved it as a kid because it worked as an ad for toys I wanted. I watch it now (I have all 65 episodes on VHS) after 20 years and I wind up fast-forwarding most of the episodes. For the sake of your childhood memories, don't try to watch this now as you'll find yourself floundering badly, wondering what on earth you saw in this show. Remember it as it was, part of that wild, glorious decade and leave it there.

80's cartoons were just full of excitement and colorful ideas, along with the toys. This show was one of them and is another under the radar gem, it was a slight hit and popular for it's time, but as became forgotten as time went on.

The Animation is solid, I really like the color and character designs, I wouldn't say it's anything totally mind blowing but I feel the animation quality is a pass because it's practical and looks like effort was made. I really like the plot and it's setting. The concept now seems slightly plausible with our drone technology today as well as some robotics we're coming up with. I really liked this futuristic world and how technologically driven it was, as a kid this kinda blew me away and made it a place I'd love to visit.

The protagonists are pretty solid, their not deep characters but hey it's a cartoon from the 80's what can you honestly expect. Four of the protagonist that stand out persona wise are Jake Rockwell whom is pretty much battle hardened and has a gruff persona and charisma.

Crystal whom is hot to trot, I like that she's intelligent, can hold her own against danger, has some charisma; the only problem is that she doesn't have much to do just relay some intel for the guys, run communications and beam them down, but doesn't really get to fight with them which isn't entirely fair; but oh well.

Though my favorite was always Ace McCloud whom is a typical hotshot, arrogant, has plenty of charisma. Also kinda a flirt, always trying to charm Crystal.

So, the characters serve their purposes, but really like with most 80's cartoons were in it really for the action and this show has got plenty of that. The action sequences I think are solid, their well choreographed and most of the situations they fight in our different. Even like the robots they get to fight, their's a solid variety of them and they have unique functions.

But the real joy is seeing the Centurions use the power suits. I love the concept of them which is different, their not in mechs but it's really just a combination of weapons and technology. Depending on what you mix up and put together will give you the weponization and capabilities based on the arena of your choice, the land, sea, or air. The way these things worked, I wanted a power suit of my own because it literally makes you a one man army.

Second Favorite suit was of course Jake's which is based on ground assault. I always loved it whenever he fired the big machine guns and the sound they make, just always did the most damage.

My favorite suit was Ace McCloud's suit since it was one based on flying and that I always found cool and to me I felt the most balanced of the bunch because you can not just attack enemies in the air but also on the ground and water, which I feel is a real big step up from the opposition.

The theme song is excellent, it's both one of my favorite theme song in both animation and in general. It's just one that is heroic and fuels you with excitement.

My only real problem with the show is that the Centurions don't really have much of a rogue gallery. It's just they don't really get to meet their match, we don't see Darkterror have a power suited team of his own, I feel the lack of this was a lost opportunity. But all of the action and situations the Centurions are put thought makes up for this limit.

And yes this is another animated series I feel deserves a revival. With the animation and writing style of today it can be done. Could go into darker and more in depth with the plot and characters; but also could do even more with the power suit technology like small upgrades every once in a while, or have them mix up their combinations. Have Darkterror with a power suited rogue team of his own and more robot types to sick on the good guys.. But also have a few other different Centuions and power suits and weapons, may'be Crystal could have a power suit of her own that seems more than fair. I don't know but still this is something to consider.

Centurions got the power.

Rating: 3 stars

"The Centurions" is one of the best adventure cartoons ever. Sure, its nothing deep, but the paper-thin stories where gorged with high-flying action that never let up. This was an exhilarating show.

There's not much to the story. Four or five special soldiers are equipped with ultra-cool armor, sent from a beam projected from a large spacecraft hovering over Earth, to fight international crime. In these sequences, we would see this mysterious ship and meet the under-developed ally who had a purple monkey named Jane used for comic relief (!)

Anyway, this was one entertaining show. The villains were always cool and the action was a whole lot of fun. There is signaturely campy wit, a surplus of explosions and awesome gunplay. The unrelenting fun make this one better than "G.I. Joe" and comparable to the "Spiderman" cartoon (but "Batman the Animated Series" would be a stretch). Any fans should look up "Cowboy Bebop", a show no action lover should miss.

The Centurions is about the battle between the cyborg Doctor Terror, who is aided by his assistant Hacker, and the United Nations. The force dispatched to stop them is the Centurions who can have assault systems beamed to them from space. This show is just as good as it was in the 80's and is still enjoyable today. Anyone who likes 80's cartoons will love the Centurions. The animation is a little primative but the story lines are great and the show, overall, is a real treat to watch.