Everything Action Theater: Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles

There’s a long history of taking ultraviolent, over-the-top, R-rated movies and turning them into kid-friendly fare. Paul Verhoeven’s action satire masterpiece Starship Troopers got that treatment in 1999 with Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles.  Unlike most kid-friendly adaptations, Verhoeven was on board as an executive producer, and the show combined elements of his movie and the original novel by Robert Heinlein, with elements like a second antagonistic alien race, the “Skinnies” and the power armor of the novel mixed with plot and character elements of the movie.  The show followed Alpha Team aka Razak’s Roughnecks, led by Jean Razak (Michael Ironside’s character in the movie), who commands soldiers like Johnny Rico, Dizzy Flores, Francis Brutto, and Doc LeCroix.  Characters like Carmen, Zander, and Carl also appear in the show, but none of the movie’s cast returned to reprise their roles.  The show ran in syndication as part of the Bohbot Kids Network but there were tons of production and distribution issues, including the rights to the show being sold to SyFy Network without the proper authorization.  The entire series was on Crackle but now you can watch episodes on the Throwback Toons channel on YouTube, with the first episode available below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TBugM7PdpY