I was 12 years old when this came out... Just off of the previews I stayed up every Friday night into Saturday morning to make sure I didn't miss the episode... It still stands up to this very day! 👍🏾 ✊🏾 💪🏾 💯 😎
We all need to petition Yuji Ohno to release the music he composed for this show!!! The theme is amazing but the rest of the sound track is flat out amazing. The tapes have to be around somewhere.
I turn 50 this November and this scene make me feel like a kid sitting on the floor with a bowl of cereal on a Saturday morning once again. Man, it went so fast…
So go get some cereal and watch some cartoons on Saturday morning. Nobody says you can't. I do it all the time. You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing. Cocoa Pebbles were and still are my cereal of choice.
This show is available on DVD. Totally worth it. Watched it with my 9 year old. Felt like watching it for the first time all over again. An underrated gem!
I had it in my head that this was Fred Silverman's ("InterMedia") attempt to make up for the debacle that was "We Got it Made" - a series so bad that one cast member bailed by the fourth episode, subsequently striking gold in a cop show
Man, I miss the 80s! A magical time to be alive! So much imagination and intelligence seemed to go into every genre back then! I won't restate the obvious about the current generation we live in.......ugh.....
For context this post was written at the time of or just before the premier of Avatar: Legend of Korra and Gravity Falls so... this opinion might be trash.
terrorhawks,transformers,mighty orbots,voltron, i could go on and on!!! no playstation,no xbox or internet, just straight imagination and fun with neighborhood friends!! man the generation now missing out big time!! oh well!!! thank you god for blessing me the life of being a 80s kid!!
I was around 6 years old when I found "Battle of the Planets" on early morning Saturday cartoons. Later found it was "Gatchaman" in Japan where it came from. My first anime. I've not stopped loving anime ever since. "Mighty Orbots" is a unique creation between American writers and Japanese anime artists.
@chuckmorrissette It's wild how people actually try to hate on this brilliant work. Modern animators are so jealous of this stuff that they can't even stand to bring it up in a conversation without spitting venom. Ironically this masterwork is what got THEM into animation. Although it is not often admitted it is understood that this era produced the GOLD STANDARD in animation. It touches people in a way no animation can rival. Not even close.
The sequences, screenplay, storytelling through the animation is all top tier. But you're right, for obvious reasons, a lot of animation series' in the genre couldn't come close.
This is how you make Saturday mornings great. The show had so much potential. If it wasn't for that frivolous lawsuit from Tonka, it would've been one of the greats of the 80's. The visuals were excellent & animesque seeing as how one of the production companies & main animation studio was TMS (In Japan).
We all need to petition Yuji Ohno to release the music he composed for this show!!! The theme is amazing but the rest of the sound track is flat out amazing. The tapes have to be around somewhere.
I remember running through the streets as a kid pretending that I was rob transforming into the orbots commander! This was one of my favorite shows as a kid along with Galaxy Rangers!
Omg..this song is so on point..even down to the horns and the japanese sound effects..lol..from late 70s to 1989 cartoon intros were so soulful..I'm 43 and i still get hype when I here this and voltron transformation music..honestly this transformation will give the lion voltron and car voltron a run for the money...
I will always love the look of 1970s and 1980s mecha. I sometimes wonder where the attraction came from. Was it because my mom owned a 1985 Nissan Maxima, and the interior was loaded with gadgetry? Maybe I was born to like certain Japanese goods? When I was watching G-Force (Lame Gatchaman translation) at age 11, my dad said it reminded him of how much he loved Godzilla films when he was 11.
The sad part is that the people of Evilon had been in the middle of a massive PR campaign to counter prejudice against them based on their homeworld's name.
Just watching this video and seeing the 5 different areas where the Mighty Orbots emerge from they're recharge chambers reminds me a lot of the Lion Voltron series where they show the 5 Lions emerge from they're hidden lairs well with the exception of the Black Lion that sits atop the Lion Monument in front of the Castle of Lions whereas the Blue Lion rests at the bottom of a lake,the Red Lion rests inside a volcano,the Green Lion rests inside a tree deep in the forest around the castle and the Yellow Lion's lair is deep in the desert where it's lair is shaped like and it actually looks like one the Yellow Lion's lair is shaped like a Sphinx.
Seriously! This show was SO the shit.. I'd trip down the damn stairs trying to get to the TV on Saturday mornings just to watch this. My parents always laughed at me. "why don't you like things normal girls like" BECAUSE ORBOTS YOU SHUT YOUR FACE >:/ xD
This cartoon was one of my all time favorites I still sing this tune even though I'm nearing 50 years of age.. In my heart I'm still a kid.. : ) I'd gladly run down the block and shout... Orbots unite!!! Lol... Let's play mighty orbots.. Wanna know the best part... My name is Rob!!! What's funnier ... There was a kid up the block from me in the mid 80's with a knight rider big wheel.. Guess what his name was... Yup Michael lol.. So i'd get on my dirt bike and we spent many an afternoon playing Knight rider.. And mighty orbots
I alone have probably added a 100 views to this video. I remember watching this on Saturday mornings.This transformation sequence has so much eye candy. An absolute banger.
God how I love how excessively animated this whole sequence is, the moment each Orbot is revealed you can immediately tell their personalities, Thor is big and powerful and just smashes right out of the rocks, Bo and Boo are graceful and expressive the way they spin and loop in the air, Bort starts out as a plane and then transforms, and Crunch, well, he's in a space scrapyard, and look! He's still eating while he's flying off!
Yeah, you can't see it until later, but Bort was so versatile he couldn't make up his mind on his shape, especially when he wanted to impress the girls. As Tor said later: "You've got a built-in identity crisis!"
I couldn't remember the name of this show for years after not seeing it since it aired when I was maybe 4 or 5years old. I thought I was losing my mind. Glad to see all of the comments in my fever dream.
I remember September 1984 like it was yesterday. Looking at robot animation and transformation was unlike anything else everyday of the week except Sunday. Lol. Voltron, Transformers and this. Not many people talked about the Orbots then as they did Voltron, Gobots and Transformers but they probably did on Saturday morning. All the kids back then wanted to watch nothing but the cool serious looking stuff. The funny comedy stuff like Rocky and Bulwinkle on Saturday morning just prepped us for the stuff that started at 8am until 12 noon. After that, the day just got boring and it was time to clean up or go outside or to the mall. 🤣🤣
Funny how my dad criticizes us about anime when he was watching it too back ina day 🤣 hate that this was cancelled the music was lit asf, I'm sure they'd beat voltron
2 things really need to happen here: (1) an official release of the whole Mighty Orbots series on Blu-ray or DVD and (2) a Bandai Soul of Chogokin release of Mighty Orbots in toy form. I would gladly buy both offerings. This was such a great show. It really needs to see more love!
The toy will NEVER happen. Besides Tonka threatening to sue over the Orbots name, the actual Orbots mecha was wholesale stolen from Godmars, a show TMS was hired to animate but didn't own. Nonetheless, they stole the design, made a few changes and used it again for Orbots. Bandai owned the toy rights to Godmars and was extremely unhappy with TMS about this. The actual IP owners of Godmars were livid. There was so much bad blood from this, the companies involved barely ever worked together again. They would have sued too except the lawsuit threat in the US, and poor ratings, took the show down anyway. Bandai is probably still angry about this 40 years later. TMS ripped them off. Not a surprise. They have a history of borrowing IP they don't own and daring anyone to stop them.
@ShingoEX This cartoon was actually produced by TMS, the very same people who made "Bionic 6", like "o82774" said. They also made "Galaxy High", as well as worked on animation for other companies, such as Filmation's "Zorro", Sunbow/Hasbro's "Visionaries", some episodes of "Tiny Toons" and "Batman:TAS", and so much more.
+MrGarchyn _Protecting The World From The Shadows Of Evil & Doom!_ _Champions Of Justice & Truth!_ _Soar - Mighty Orbots!_ _Attacking The Tower Of Darkness With One Fighting Force!_
@@BryonYoungblood *_Mighty_*_ Powers To Fight Anywhere!_ *_Orbots!_*_ (These) Heroes Will Never Be Scared!_ _Bright Lights Shining Together As One!_ _Orbots! Protecting The World For Both Me & You!_ And A Few Years Ago I Was Only Getting To Know This... I Was Born In The Late 90s While This Was Around In The Mid 80s
DAMN. The animation here just shat all over Gobots AND most of Transformers G1. And this show was hilarious. I shed tears of sorrow. Who owns it now anyway? They need to get their DVD money stat.
This animation is divine. It is too magical to exist in today's era of entertainment that is driven by low quality and degenerate standards. The aesthetics that exists in this show (and MOST 80's cartoons) was so highly creatively developed that these works represent a cultural miracle that cannot be duplicated, mainly because it is totally beyond the abilities of fully grasp. This was the closest thing tv came to art and pure animation. Tv for brilliant children and adults with imaginations.
This was the beginning of the "Transforming Robot" era of cartoons. The Mighty Orbots, Transformers, Voltron, The Big O and the live action series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It was a great time to be a kid or at least, a kid at heart! Fun shows and excellent animation.
Also was, I hate to point out, a blatant rip-off of a Japanese anime called "God Mars." If you search for images of the God Mars toys, they strongly resemble the Orbots with different heads and colors. The combined robot especially. In fact, a boxed set of the toys was repainted and sold in South Korea as the only MO toys to hit the market. The God Mars people had their own lawsuit, along with Tonka, which helped pull MO off the air in America.
1:11 - Can we just take a moment to appreciate the brazenness of the 80s that allowed for a robot to blast off into space using ignited gas from his ass?
Since MGM distributed the show and its pre-1986 library were sold to Turner Entertainment, the show is likely held by Time Warner. We can only hope that Warner Archive will release it. Considering that they've been digging out several forgotten gems, and that "Orbots" has a sizable following, I'd say it's very likely.
Orbots, Unite!! Taking me back to Saturday mornings, 1985. Eating cereal or if i was lucky, my pops would get me a couple of sausage Crossiandwiches from Burger King. After dropping Mom off to work. Good times to be a kid, lol😂
I loved the animation on this show, and while I thought certain elements were cheesy, the combination of the music (starting with the key change at 1:53) and the "giant robot double biceps" pose still gets me. (No coincidence that my single favorite shot in "Pacific Rim" is the Gipsy Danger kung fu salute.)
I know everyone mentions how they increase in size when they unite. I have wondered about that as the size difference is always apparent. What I found interesting is that an obese robot and a skinny robot became blocky legs and the female ones became jointed blocky arms. Suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy this show and that I did growing up with this show. It may have lasted one season, but I have so many fond memories of this show. The song ROCKED!!!! The activation of the Orbots got you thrilled!!!! And just seeing them merge together got you pumped up as you knew they will save the day.
At first i thought this was going to be another generic 80's cartoon with sub-par animation, but it turned out to be pretty badass. OVER BADASS in some parts though.
Summer/Fall of 1984...I saw the commerical for this and knew it was on...I was 12/13 years old...Saturday Mornings @ 0900AM were a magical time...Orbots........Unite!!!!!
Sadly, as awesome as the theme is, I don't think they ever played the full song at one time. This one cuts out most the final chorus except for the last line - you can hear the abrupt cut at about 2:13. Another episode - I forget which one - has the final chorus, but cuts the "Five lights shining together as one" bridge. The opening is the most abridged version, cutting out most of the song to squeeze in a "Robot roll call". I'd love a soundtrack album, but I doubt it after all this time.
My favorite dopamine transform sequence from orbots was the one where they turned into colors and swirled together. Oh, I realize it was probably the cheapest in terms of animation but man.. felt good!
You know it's funny that the guy who voiced Rob in this show was the same guy who voiced Doyle in the intergalactic highschool cartoon series Adventures at Galaxy High and I think he was the same guy who voiced Eric Bennett/Sport-1 in the superhero family themed cartoon series The Bionic Six.
