This came out my first year of college. We used to sit and watch and giggle over the fact that a hundred soldiers from both sides could be firing automatic weapons at point-blank range and never hit a thing. Did anyone else ever notice that? I actually thought, college student though I was, that it was a somewhat cool concept in its day. Then a friend pointed that out, and I never was able to watch it again. I just spent my time giggling when I did.
shareAll of those 80s cartoons were like that. Characters shot guns and explosives at each other and no one ever got killed because of concerns about violence on TV.
shareOn Robotech people got killed left and right. It used to come on right after GI Joe where I lived.
shareSure, showing children that no one ever gets hurt during a war is far better than teaching them that guns are dangerous weapons to be respected, like Jonny Quest! I always found the idea that they were firing "lasers", not bullets, to be even more ludicrous. They couldn't hit anything with a coherent beam of light!
As for Robotech, it was originally produced in Japan, where the violence concerns were far less than in the US. They did edit out some portions, though. The original Gatchaman was filled with violence and killing, but the US adaptation (Battle of the Planets)edited out most of it, replacing missing scenes with the robot 7-Zark-7 to bridge the gap (always explaining that exploding planes and ships were robot-controlled).
Being an old timer, I watched cartoons morph from Jonny Quest, where people were shot and killed, to Challenge of the Super Friends, where they were neve allowed to touch the villains, to GI Joe, where missle would hit planes, but the pilot always ejected at the last minute! When I was a youngster, Bugs Bunny and company were shown on Saturday morning complete and unedited. By the time I was in high school, they were heavily edited, with things like shotgun blasts removed. The jokes all fell flat, ruining classics. My friends and I grew up with Jonny Quest, Bugs Bunny, tv shows like the Rookies and SWAT, and we didn't all become serial killers.
LMAO! I picked up on that as a kid... Always thinking.. What a Waste of Taxpayer money!!! Elite force?!? Ha! They cant even hit a direct shot (much less capture the enemy)! ..and why are shells poppin out of a laser gun anyway? lol
shareLOL at laser blasts and A-Team style aim. I never realized the original Johnny Quest showed people actually being shot. The farther back you go, the less hung up on safety kids entertainment is.
They used to let kids have BB Guns and play outside unsupervised. I was like that growing up too, except since it was the 90's and not the 50's, I was a "problem child".
GI Joe is a cool concept, but the lasers and the nobody being hit despite it's military units fighting each other is absurd. Y'all should check out this modern GI Joe cartoon on Adult Swim, it actually has them using real guns and killing people. Snake Eyes alone murders like 8 or so Cobra dudes! It seems like things are slowly going back the other direction.
"Bulls**t MR.Han Man!!"--Jim Kelly in Enter the Dragon