Everything Action Theater: Robocop: The Animated Series

Between a new extensive documentary, RoboDoc: The Creation of Robocop, and the new game Robocop: Rogue City, which releases tomorrow, it’s been a great time to be a fan of everyone’s favorite cyborg police officer and the perfect time to highlight one of the weirder sides of the Robocop canon, the 1988 animated series.  A product of Marvel Productions, Robocop debuted in October 1988 as part of the Marvel Action Universe, which also included the Dino-Riders animated series, the 1981 Spider-Man animated series, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.  While sharing some similarities in plot and setting to the original film, the animated series was obviously much more toned down from Verhoeven’s bloody masterpiece.  Alex Murphy is still gunned down in the line of duty and turned into Robocop but the weapons are all turned into lasers and the world is more kid-friendly and sci-fi.  Robocop and Lewis spent most of the show’s 12 episodes battling Dr. McNamara, an OCP scientist who wanted to see Robocop fail so that his creations, like the upgraded Ed-260, could become the main robotic force in Detroit.  In the show’s final episode, Clarence Boddicker made an appearance to battle Murphy.  Robert Bockstael voiced both Robocop and Dr. McNamara while Susan Roman voiced Anne Lewis.  Normally a series like Robocop would get a standard 13 episodes, but the budget for what would have been the 13th episode was instead used to fund the X-Men animated series pilot Pryde of the X-Men, which would become the beloved 90s Fox Kids X-Men animated series.  The 1988 animated series wasn’t the last time Robocop appeared in kid-friendly animated form, as 10 years later in 1998, Robocop: Alpha Commando, which ran in syndication for 40 episodes.  You can watch the first episode of the 1988 series, “Crime Wave”, below thanks to YouTube.