The Cartoon Controversy of Rambo: The Force of Freedom 

We almost got an Aliens cartoon too.

Miss those too,went through them roll of snapcaps in minutes,the ED-209 (or 260 or another number on the package) was awesome too

mmmmm robocop commercials mmMmMMmmm

I think Robocop kinda got a pass because of the sci-fi angle. "Robot cop fighting crime" is easier for parents to swallow than "Traumatized Vietnam veteran with a machine gun."

@mojo Damn, beat me too it. 😂 That and "Can you flyyyyyyyy Bobby?" 😁

Same kind of lunatics that threaten to kill (and sometimes actually kill) abortion doctors

You call it irony. I just call it moral activism in a nutshell.

@@yusukeelric nut job is more like it

Stupid is its own kind of wonderful.

if this cartoon had Sci-Fi stuff, perhaps wouldn't suffer cancellation.

My little girl is going in to 2nd grade in a couple of weeks and one of the books she has to read before school starts back is a book about these kids that live in a tree house and even IT has ninjas in it! LOL!!! You're right about the 80's though. I was born in 82 and ninjas were the bomb back in the day.

Ninjas! Just like Spider the Mark 4 Cybercommando!

NANJAS

David Loewen 80s kids still buy ninjas but now they’re household appliances

The ninjas was pretty popular back in the day. That's why these shows had one.

Yep the 80's was a golden age for toys and cartoons and also a great era for gaming. We had it all back then. I'm still a collector to this day actually.

Damn, growing up in the 80s as a kid, and living out your teens in the 90s? That is so damn lucky.

We had it good but didn’t know it. I’d love to go back to 1986....

Likewise!

We got toy guns that looked like guns, candy cigarettes, lawn darts, and helmetless bike riding. So many scabbed knees, road rash and ankles torn up by metal bike pedals... with a cheese-grater attached to stop your shoes from sliding off of them. Today's kids would be winded by lunch.

There was also that really cool machine gun but I thought that knife was super awesome. I will tell you what's funny though is I don't know if you're an 80's kid or not but I am and I always thought the sets where they filmed the commercials would have been awesome to go play on and still to this day they don't make cool looking commercials like that anymore. Did you ever also want to go play on the sets where they filmed the commercials because you thought they were like "real" places and looked cool with all the fog and jungle type atmosphere?

@@SimpleManGuitars1973 Nerver thought of it, lol, but it's an interesting thought. I'm also a 90's* kid like you, by the way. We were born in the late 80's, but missed all of the cool 80's shit :P

@@DudeWatIsThis I feel like I got the best of both worlds because I was born in 82 and got to be the target audience of every legendary brand of toys and games. It was a golden age for both.

@@SimpleManGuitars1973 Aw man, must have been sweet. I'm quite happy I grew up without Internet, in any case. Kids today are spoiled. Remember having your first VHSs?

@@DudeWatIsThis Yeah actually my mom would record stuff for me and I'd watch it over and over. I also had a vcr in my room and would watch Ghostbusters 2 and TMNT on a daily basis. LOL!

@Joseph Shmo ahhh....if you hate the character, you must then love the actor. 😃

@@shaider1982 Same thing happened to the actor who played 'Joffery' in 'Game of Thrones'... He played the role so well that he actually started getting death threats and had to completly drop out of social media.. thankfully that whole thing has died down.

RIP

Irish Jester those movies are just great . Same as Avengers

Any idea if Malcom McDowell got death threats for playing Alex in A Clockwork Orange?

Colonel traupman was total punk who actually made things even worse for the situation involving johnny rambo

Yep. Gotta love UHF just kinda spliced in there.

@@AaronAbbotttheoncomingstorm I'm glad to know other people remember UHF the movie heck I wonder if people remember UHF the TV reception😂

@@johnathan7258 I own UHF on Blu-Ray and I still remember tuning knobs on TVs. UHF, VHF...good times.

@@johnathan7258 I do, there was some good programming on there. As a child of the 80s and 90s I remember the good old days when they had some great stuff on there.

😂😂 UHF classics!

It was a tie... because both are awesome!

Police Academy was baffling to begin with. But EVERY cartoon based on a movie back then was strange. And I don't just mean R rated indie flick Toxic Avenger becoming Toxic Crusaders. Go back and watch Ghostbusters again, and remember they made a kid's cartoon based on that.

That crossover would have been EPIC!!! Lol

I would love to see that.

Police Academy was essentially a live-action cartoon by the 4th movie.

The FIRST Police Academy was "R" rated. It's adjoining sequels were "PG". Though as addressed, the "R" rating was rarely ever a serious enforcement unless it was for something like "Basic Instinct". Remember, we're the United States: violence against people not like "us" = A-Ok! Boobies! = Nooooooooooo!!!!!!! 🙄

Exactly. Really underrated action star.

They never made any toys for Gymkata either . . .

Expendables 4 with Michael Dudikoff and Cynthia Rothrock! Now that, I’d love to see!

When I was a kid in the 80s, I remember purchasing a Ninja action figure. It had the American Ninja artwork all over the package, the still of Dudikoff swordfighting with the main bad guy at the top of the card, but the figure was pretty generic. Fairly certain it was a knockoff.

Yep, yep - totally agree First blood film along with American ninja 👤 Were the best 2 action movies ever made

Hell yeah! me too, lol.

Oh hell yes. Chuck Norris, Rambo, He-Man, and Lion-O would always team up against Cobra, Skeletor, and Mumm-Ra when I was a kid. That was a great time to be a kid.

And Karate Kid toyline. It had multiple action stuff but more expensive than Rambo.

Inhumanoids were great toys, that chuck norris cartoon was amazing, only the blockbuster by my aunt had it, I miss blockbuster

Yes....imagination...the best toy I ever had...(and all those action figures sure did help foster it).

I can't imagine John Rambo in a PSA telling you to trust your friendly local Sheriff when you are in trouble.

I miss that simpler time so much.

It was all fun and games until the old peoples got in the way and took it all away..

Me Too! I was born in 1982, and I have fond memories of my childhood. From music, to television shows, to movies to toys, the 1980's seemed to have all a person could want and more.

Real action figures in the 80's were the most fun especially with action moves, projectile weapons, talking & projectile vehicles, and action lairs.

@@edwardstewart6372 I want a toy Trautman, fucking absurd

That stood out to me in the story too. Stop putting violent ideas into kids... or we'll kill you.

Reminds me of a Berkley protestor accusing someone of inciting violence, and punching him 50 seconds later.

How ironic

@@behindthescenesphotos5133 More like Antifa, where they clam to fight against injustice, and violence, when they are ones wearing mask, and beating up innocent bystanders with lead pipes nearly killing them, yet they mostly get off scot free, and most the MSM stands up for the worthless scum.

Holier than thou types are always full of shit. They're often the sickest people of all behind closed doors

No doubt!

My vote would be somewhere between the 1990's and now. I'll agree it would probably be better than the 70's!

I was a '90s kid (well, mostly, since I was born at the end of the '80s) and that was pretty great, but I hear stories of what it was like growing up in the '80s and I can't help but feel a little bit jealous of all the fun things there were for kids back then. I'm hooked on these videos of expanded universe toylines. If only kids toys had the same effort put into them these days.

Toxic 'Cruisaders

Police Academy , cartoon and action figures.

what about Spawn? Yes i know it was not specifically marketed to kids, but I know a few kids in school who really got into it, and bought the toys, comics, video games, and watched the short lived HBO cartoon after seeing the movie.

Tales from the crypt keeper

The Alien franchise got a toy series as well. Before the whole "video nasties" thing, movie ratings weren't as strictly enforced. I used to regularly, at 10 years old, pick up horror and war movies at my local video shop and no-one would bat an eye. Then the Bulger case happened and suddenly it was a hot topic. Suppose it was a good thing but I never felt traumatized by the blood, guts and gore.

Best comment with sound logic!!!! Haha!!!

TheBd62 Rocky would have never sold.

What the hell was Rocky going to do in animation? Fight aliens?

Rocky had nothing special for making toys, he didn't have a special car, no weapons, no planes, no boats...

It was because of GI JOE - they were just looking for a way to jump onto the GI JOE bandwagon, and that's what they had their sights firmly fixed upon. Rocky just didn't fit with that pre-conceived agenda.

That's what war does to you. Your programmed to kill with no questions asked.

The novel FIRST BLOOD is incredible. As much as I enjoyed the Stallone film series, I've always wanted to see it adapted faithfully to the screen.

Marvin Harrison Smith II 👏👏😂

We did but you could only buy them in Turkey.

Only action feature would be a strategic placed little wire

Death Race 2000 figures would RULE! If you've never seen that movie I'm telling you right now it's one of the best cult classics you'll ever watch. Sylvester Stallone is a bad guy in it too. David Carradine is also in it and so is Martin Kove who was Kreese on The Karate Kid. It is about a cross country race set in the future where you get "points" for how many people you can literally run over and kill on the way to the finish line. Seriously. LOL! You should DEFINITELY watch it if you can find it.

@@SimpleManGuitars1973 they missed a bet with the cars and die cast version if the drivers included

@AKIRA ASMR I've seen Berserk and read the Manga. I can't agree that they are similar.

mightyfilm you literally just found out about the Rocky GI joe thing.

Worse, we were denied seeing John Rambo amongst the Joes! Hokey schemes to build a weather dominator or hypnotise people via subliminal messages in music hold little terror compared to the crap he had to put up with in First Blood. Or indeed in 'Nam. Duke: We know Cobra are hiding out in the rainforest, but we don't know where, so we're going to need these signal trackers -- Rambo, put your hand down. We're not just gonna 'defoliate the area and croak the survivors'... Rambo: Really? That's a relief. I got buddies messed up bad by agent orange, Duke.

Totally. I remember reading it back when Cracked was a website. I started even typing that before it was mentioned on the video. I don't know about anyone here, but a mediocre Rambo cartoon vs G.I. Joe with Rocky in it, yeah. We lost out. Would Clubber Lang be a Cobra operative then?

@@mightyfilm Cracked are kinda hacks though.

Hey,it's the adawbawng manacc guy

You are a man among men

Nerd'

i display mine in the houseplants.

Me too. I had all of my 80's action figures in various boxes that I recently took out of a storage unit. I still even have the M-60 machinegun and RPG-7 rocket launcher.

It's weird that this was your take away from that book.

@@adamplentl5588 thats not my only take away from the book,but considering this was a post about the cartoon, I thought I would just highlight some differences between the movie and book.

I remember the M-60 sectional toy weapon.

That's because most of the video games back then sucked but now the video games are amazing the action figures are better than ever and the adults buy them

I second that!!!

That one needs a DVD release

Yes I still have Matrix and a couple of the bad guys.

I actually wanted a few of these. GI Joe sized, right?

Hey, I was born in 2002 and _I_ got the joke, so I think you’re good there.

Yeah that was right on the money. James Avery, Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker, Allen Oppenheimer, Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Alan Young, Rob Paulsen, and Don Messick were some of the greatest voices of my childhood.

I think you got them mixed up. I believe it was Shredder who said he wanted to dine on turtle soup. Uncle Phil made the statement about the lawsuits. And yes. They were both played by James Avery.

@@melissacooper4282 ...Dats da joke.

@@melissacooper4282 r/whooosh!

Yes. Yes it was.

I was gifted the knife from a cool uncle. He got it from an ad in the tv guide. It was a chunk of shit and fell apart in a week. Lol

@@steveguy7165 LOL! That's hilarious because I also thought that knife was the bomb. I also loved that big machine gun you could get too. I seriously miss the days of non politically correct toys and am still a hardcore collector of 80's toys to this day.

@@SimpleManGuitars1973 with the plastic ammo belt the feed out the side? Cause I had that too :-)

Now that's Toumuch

What amazed me as a kid was you pulled the string to fire the rocket.

I bet you want to play with the action figure too.

They did make action figures of Over The Top.

Strangely, the Demolition man movie is structured like the pilot for a Tv series. They gave him all this retro stuff that you know was going to feature weekly, like that car.

If it's any consolation, Demolition Man did get a toy line if I remember correctly.

@Bob Cook I LOOOOOOVED Over the Top back in the day. If they were gonna make another Stallone cartoon though it should have been from Death Race 2000. LOL!!!

Sadly there are always zealots out there trying to ruin other people’s fun.

Fortunately Peggy Charren is finally dead, so we won't have to hear from her anymore.

Looking back, we really did watch some crazy shit. I think I turned out alright, but I also had parents that taught me right from wrong and weren't afraid to challenge my intellectual growth as a child. I can't really say if it did some sort of harm, or distorted world views, for those with less attentive parents.

I can't believe one of the richest countries in the world that is responsible for the proliferation of a great deal of popular culture influences is having massive issues with public violence, over-saturation of media culture that distorts their perception of reality and an obesity epidemic. Huh. I wonder why that would be?

I was always surprised at the political clout a bunch of meddling, nosey women who didn't want kids to watch ANY tv at all, and if they absolutely had to (you know because some Libyan terrorist was holding a gun to their mother's head or something) they could watch Mr. Rodgers (and even *he* could be edgy - he spent a whole week on the set with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno talking about that nightmare inducing Hulk show!) had in Washington, DC. These are the same people who considered the magic in Smurfs problematic! They zealously tried to stop ALL non-PBS/educational children's programming and advertising aimed at kids (because the poor little sheep couldn't resist whining about buying what the commercial told them to - and parents were too weak to tell them to take a hike and would buy the stuff). The 22 minute toy commercial was one of the best things to happen to television and it gave us some of the best storytelling on TV. Yes, a lot of it was formulaic, and the 5-minute Filmation "moral of the story" segment (an attempt to convince FCC police that their shows were actually "educational") was old when they were doing it at the end of their Batman and Tarzan TV shows (long before He-man). My little brother was young enough to get in on all of this. When I was little in the early 70s boys had four toys: Hot Wheels, Cap Guns, plastic army men or the big GI Joe (a Ken doll in fatigues) - but there was a degree to which these weren't all that attractive as we pulled out of Viet Nam, and sporting equipment. Even Legos only had 4 colors. My little brother got Adventure People, Star Wars toys, Micronauts, Space Legos, and Transformers. My little sister got My Little Ponies, Strawberry Shortcake, and Care Bears. Our younger cousins got GI Joes, He-man, and Ninja Turtles. (Still waiting, Toy Galaxy, on that Adventure People vid). And that was all born out of the success of Star Wars and toy companies borrowing Japan's business model of marketing toys with TV shows (or marketing TV shows with toys - it works both ways), and Reagan cutting the tv-should-be-so-boring-all-kids-will-go-outside-to-play-baseball (football being too violent, of course) regulations on programming for kids.

Rambo was not a horror film.

No no not even close Sir.

Ever saw The Expendables which is a throwback to that era