Flashback To The Present: ‘SILVERHAWKS’ Shining or Tarnished?

Welcome to the first installment of Flashback to the Present and I’ll be your contributing writer, Charles Knauf.  First, a little background:

I’m in that weird generation between Generation X and the Millennials.  Being born in the infancy of the 80s, I adored most of the rad stuff you mid-to-late 30 somethings enjoyed in your youth; my earliest memories included playing around with my He-Man action figure, I was blown away by the ’89 Batman, and my father specifically told me at the video rental spot, “Now make sure to pick out a tape that says VHS, not Beta.”

However, my high school years were definitely formed through modern technology: I never had to step foot in a library after 9th grade, I had easy access to internet porn, CG effects were flooding film and television, and we all had cell phones.

Yet still, in this day and age, I find myself fondly remembering the times before the internet revolution of the 1990s.  Unfortunately, there’s a problem: some of my memories are hazy and I could very well be remembering them with nostalgic-colored glasses.

So, what’s a generational in-betweener like myself supposed to do?

The only thing to do: revisit the toys, games, shows and movies that I kind-of, sort-of remember at the time and see if it holds up.

My first review: the 1986 cartoon SilverHawks.

The look of the characters and the relative obscurity of the show really made me want to cover this one, so I got a copy of a few episodes and decided to give is another go.

Truthfully, I have a vague memory of actually watching reruns of the show; however, I have a solid memory of totally loving the Copper Kidd action figure I got one Christmas.

That thing was sweet!

Let’s start with a little history.

SilverHawks was a cartoon developed by Rankin/Bass Productions; you know, those dudes that practically built our childhood holidays with all of the stop-motion animated features (Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Clause is Comin’ to Town, etc.).   They developed ThunderCats, which aired in ’85 and was a smash success – going 4 seasons and totaling 130 episodes (not to mention the toys and other merchandise that raked in the dough).

Like most absent-minded cartoon production companies in the 80s, instead of venturing into new territory they went, “Well, hell; these kids liked the ThunderCats.  Make more like that!” … and it kind of worked.  Most companies did that back then and, even today, you can see the remnants of that mindset – for instance, when a show like Adventure Time comes out, notice the other shows that suddenly have a similar style.

The other driving factor to use this formula was the merch.  Keep in mind, anyone born after the invention of the PlayStation, kids back then didn’t have fully immersive videogames; the only way we could interact with our favorite characters was through the movies, the television show or the toys.  With a show geared towards kids between the ages of 8 and 14, and those kids up in arms if they don’t get the Quicksilver toy seen in the strategically placed commercial following the latest episode, their parents will gladly shell out 12 bucks to shut them up.

So after ThunderCats, came SilverHawks; a show that, in essence, was a carbon copy.

It’s a team of heroes with bitchin’ powers and awesome vehicles fighting one main bad guy (who would change into a more powerful version of himself) and his various evil cohorts.  Hell, they even used the same voice actors from ThunderCats.  The whole thing was simply made to cash in on the merchandise.  This approach, in a weird way, was the first solid use of transmedia.  If you’d like to see how this all works, check out James Waugh’s excellent article “The Three Es: The Value of Transmedia Fiction For Franchise Development.”

Now we get to the part where I take off my cynical, 30-something hat and evaluate the show itself.

The SilverHawks are heroes in the 29th century who are “partly metal, partly real.”  

They include Commander Stargazer, the cybernetic chief of space police who’s in charge of the operation (and happens to be kind of a dick); Quicksilver, the one-dimensional field leader of the SilverHawks (think robo-Lion-O); twins Steelheart and Steelwill, apparently the technician and strong-guy of the team (think Donnie and Marie with elbow lasers); Col. Bluegrass, the cybernetic, guitar-playing pilot; and the Copper Kidd, the obligatory Orko or Snarf-type from the planet of the mimes. 

Ugh, the planet of the mimes has got to be the worst place ever; right behind “the planet of the Juggalos.”

They were recruited by Commander Stargazer to fight a crazy-evil space criminal named Mon*Star. 

Mon*Star, a badass-looking malevolent villain, is serving hard time in space prison – until he gets a blast of power from a “moon starburst” that gives him super-strength, the ability to cover himself in epic armor and escape.  We’re not even going into the reasoning why the jail had windows with manually controlled shutters in a cell holding a supervillain who gets his powers from space.

So Mon*Star gets together his futuristic criminal minions and vows to cause all sorts of tomfoolery throughout the Galaxy of Limbo.

Here’s the deal – as much as I want to roll my eyes at the pure, 80s-style corniness of creating a show purely to sell action figures, I can’t hate SilverHawks.  That’s not to say I loved the show, but it was unexpectedly cool – and that’s not looking at it through nostalgia-colored glasses either.  It was truly a pretty cool product.

It’s not just the look of the series, although that is surprisingly impressive, but also the concept.  Essentially, they’re intergalactic cops cybernetically enhanced to withstand both the rigors of space and pumped-up alien supervillains.  I mean, think about that for a minute: SilverHawks is a team of cyborg cops.  This was a year before RoboCop would really blow the cyborg scene up – so, in a way, this show was ahead of its time.

However, there are some of you out there that will point out SilverHawks may have been a rip-off of the Japanese anime Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.  If this is the case, then it is simply serendipitous timing.  Hell, it still could have been, but since I don’t feel like comparing the two series so I’ll move on.

Here’s another cool thing to consider: the SilverHawks, ThunderCats and TigerSharks (a later show brought out by Rankin/Bass that followed their formula) could very well have been in the same universe!  I’m sure Rankin/Bass weren’t thinking of this at the time, but it was explored in an updated (and kind-of cool) ThunderCats in this scene.

How rad is that?

Now it’s time for me to put that cynical, 30-something hat back on. 

SilverHawks, as a whole, really trips over its own, 80’s-era feet.  The story is thin, the protagonists are weak, and the antagonists are so arch it’s not even funny.  However, there’s something there – much more so than other 80’s toons you could think of.   

SilverHawks may actually be a property that could work with an update and a new release; seriously, it’s a very cool idea that could work if it had a legitimate redo. 

… as long as it involves blowing up the planet of the mimes.