My parents let me name my baby brother - so I chose Mark from Battle of the Planets (spelt ‘Marc’). My favourite show at the time, but had he come a little later I might have pushed for Jayce!
Except for Saturday morning toons, many of which seemed to play the same 5 or 6 episodes over the course of several years and then when those desperately needed new episodes get aired once, the show then got cancelled.
@@abrahamlupis9354 that wasn't a restriction. It was syndication. for something to be ran 5 days a week they required 64 episodes as a "season". Saturday morning cartoons only required the normal 10-14
65 episodes a season for weekday toons. 13 for Saturday mornings. This was typical. 5 days a week a new episode would air for the weekday shows so they needed more.
I know! Isn’t it awesome! Think of all those drawings and paintings cells used! Of course some was reused! The work ethic is Awesome! Try that today… sure computers make it faster. But probably many complainers too!
Somewhere in Strazynki’s house, in his office buried between tax forms for a long forgotten year, is the unmade script for the Jayce movie. I wonder if he’ll ever dig it out and show it off.
IF there is, lets be honest, while he may have written it, it's not his, it's belongs to whoever the rights holds are now... and seems to have no love for the series, among others he's worked on
So. Jayce & the Wheeled Warriors ran some sort of mail in contest back in the 80s. I wrote in and won one of, like, 50 VHS tapes of a Wheeled Warriors episode. I still have it--unplayed and in mint condition--in its original case. I'm just waiting for the Jayce nostalgia to really take off and I'll sell it at auction and move on up to easy street.
As a child I had only passing exposure to Wheeled Warriors. However, one hook was so strong that it maintains mindshare to this day: Saw Boss is a badass name.
I know it might not mean much, but I must write in and say... For years I have listened to your channels essays and feel that I have learned so much about my childhood. From roaming the toy aisles to going to garage sales. I like to know why and when things happened and enjoy finding the information from a source that is also both curious and enthusiastic about the information. Thanks again. You will always have my eyes and ears.
As a person whom my siblings and I grew up with TV much like my parents did back in the 60s, 70s, and 1980s, we had our shows enjoyed but all of them wouldn't be able to compete with the phenomenon of monster franchises hitting US shores in the late 90s early 2000s. And by the time RU-vid came around in 2005/2006, it allowed me to enjoy tons of media that I never thought I would be able to discover, let alone experience, on the internet. Before I knew secret galaxy was a thing I thought I knew pretty much every 80s franchise I've known in the past. But it turns out there were some that fell through the cracks, and thanks to this channel, now I can understand the history as well as the rise and fall of each show, just like Saberspark does with his video content for certain specific niches and media he finds interesting to watch and rant about.
Back in 2008, my brother was about 5 years old at the time. We found this show by chance and he absolutely loved it, in fact he liked it so much later on I introduced him to the original Thunder Cats which he also enjoyed.
That was an upgrade. So, he's twenty now (time flies!). I wonder if there are any lasting effects of growing up with different media influences than his peers at an early age?
@crimsonmask3819 he enjoys certain media from back in the day. Recently, he introduced some of his friends to Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge. I think there's a nice balance as he appreciates certain classic media that allows him to choose modern content. I am unsure if this is a good example. But I am 36 years old. However, because of my brother, I am able to keep up with modern trends and even get extremely well with younger people (18 to 25). In exchange, he is able to get along with older people (25+) and is able to make well-informed decisions based on my personal experiences. Essentially, he learned from my mistakes.
@@MiiDev69 Yeah, it's cool that he's got someone to help navigate the early twenties who isn't too far removed from the situation to have relevant insights. The world changes fast these days. Kudos for being a great sibling!
@@Jaserocks2 Never saw Robotech, watched Macross/Macross 7/Macross Plus in the 90's and really enjoyed them. Original Macross has a good story, Macross 7 had a great soundtrack and Macross Plus had amazing CGI for the time.
@@Jaserocks2 my step brother and I would *race* home from school every day and fly through getting our homework done before our mom would lets us even think of turning on the tv in time for Robotech. That cartoon blew my mind, especially when they started killing off characters! Rick chasing after Minmei when Lisa was so much better for him really really pissed me off as a kid hahahahaha
I remember this series and was suprised that it only lasted one season. Loved the interchangeable parts on the vehicles, similar to the Legions Of Power toy line that didn't get it's own cartoon show. Seemed like every good guy team had a "walker" mech back then. All I remember from the cartoon was that Battle Base was awesome, Jayce's car reminded me of Robotix with the claw, and the good guys' Walker got absolutely WRECKED in a fight with the Monster Minds' version of Battle Base.
It's so interesting how many of us kids (at that time) were more invested in the characters of these shows than the companies that were just putting out scripts to sell toys and collect paychecks.
Stranger things basically did the evil plant thing lol so we know there's a market for it. I would love it if they used practical effects and kept cgi to a sfx minimum. Like no fake animals or plants or people... But fake fire, smoke, gunfire, lasers, etc, that's ok. Nothing takes me out of a movie quicker than a clearly animated dog, person, or monster. Like it should NOT look like a video game cut screen
No, no remakes, no reboots, just leave it as a good memory. Remakes and reboots are almost always bastardized and woke-ified. The good guys are remade into the bad guys and since Jayce was white, well we already know he'd be the ultimate villain.
Again man! YES! OH MY GOD YES! There aren’t enough words to even express my love for that cartoon! It’s one of my obsessions, the music, the intro/ending themes (both English and French), the animation! I’ve been watching this entire series over and over for decades with no plans on stopping! It had such an influence on me and my art growing up so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Great video and so glad you did this!
@@ishotmyboss I will take your "Mysterious Cities of Gold"(1982), and raise, with a cartoon theme that was better...that, was produced by the same (co-)company(DIC Audiovisuel) as "Mysterious Cities of Gold"....Ulysses 31(1981)!
I adored this show when I was a little kid. The USSR had just fallen and we were getting a bunch of tv from the west, and this was always on. I didn't even know there was a toy line, I would have lost my 5-year old mind.
I had two of the vehicles, a good guy and a bad guy. They were great toys, well made and concepted. The company who made them, Mattel, were known for their classic line of die-cast toy cars called Hot Wheels. The Wheeled Warriors toys were evidence of their proficiency at making this type of toy. Btw, glad you got to enjoy some cool 80s 'toons, even if it was a bit later on!
@@CB-ke7eq nice! And yes, I know Hot Wheels, I'm not quite that young lol. Kids' tv was honestly pretty great over there in the early 90s, in addition to 80s American shows we also got a bunch of anime that I don't think ever made it over to the US, all dubbed by a single VO doing all the voices.
WOW. This episode is both dramatically engaging yet so hilarious! I actually laughed hardest at the commercial break: "The battle continues; don't go away!" as unintentionally funny it may have been. I always forget how bizarre this thing is. That guy could find an optimal planet *in a distant galaxy,* but didn't see that one of its suns was about to explode?? Anyways. Thank you, Dan and Producer Greg. We appreciate you!
Dude didn't think "okay, the two halves of this root will defeat the evil monsters- lemme send one half to my son, somewhere out there, instead of just putting them together right freaking now." GENIUS!
Mattel needs to give Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors another chance. It was such an amazing concept. It blended fantasy and sci-fi real well, with the same vibes as King Arthur, Star Wars, and Krull. If it had a live action film, the Lighting League’s battles with the hordes of Monster Mind troopers would feel something akin to fighting swarms of bugs from Starship Troopers. Fans really need to appeal to Mattel to have them reinvest interest into the Wheeled Warriors IP.
@@benkayvfalsifier3817 Maybe not. What if they did it with scrupulous treatment? Respect the source material while giving it quality treatment when it comes to the movie and perhaps even the series reboot.
@kingbeef66 If this was 2015-16 maybe, but ever since 2018, I don't trust any studio in hollywood to not screw up a reboot and, quiet frankly, I'm tired of reboots.
@@benkayvfalsifier3817 Reboots have been doing well here and there nowadays, besides nobody knows about Wheeled Warriors since it's so obscure and esoteric. At least with a new reboot and film it can breed new life into it and continue the adventure and have a conclusion instead of just remaining on the self collecting dust.
I think it mainly suffers from weak concept designs compared to other toy-based projects. Nor was modularity a new or unique idea by that time; it was just the toy craze of the moment that JatWW jumped on. Even the Robotech name was used for a modular vehicle and robot toy line in 1983-84, prior and unrelated to the Tatsunoku anime import it would ultimately be associated with. The toy concepts for JatWW seemed poorly designed, and the cartoon wasn't much more visually appealing. So, how many kids even invested enough time to appreciate Straczynski's efforts at polishing the writing?
I was an army kid, and my parents were stationed in europe during most of the 80s. I would see some other kids with the Wheeled Warriors toys, but I didn't get to see the show until it was available to rent on VHS. When i finally saw it, all i could think of is why is that wizard wearing a pair of shorts on his head?
I had that Battle Base! The toys were actually pretty cool, but the lack of the cartoon characters did hurt it. The Show was good too, and, yeah, it's definitely a contender for that absolutely raddest theme song of all time!
I actually loved the toys but hated the show. Then again, for some reason I remember only finding the toys themselves at the Dollar General for like $3 for the boxed vehicles and $1.50 for the accessory packs, loved building up these huge ridiculous vehicles and using them in my Transformers adventures.
I remember watching Jayce and the Wheel Warriors! Man! I really missed these characters from the 80s! Space Stars! Teen Force! Mightor! Birdman! Space Ghost! Thundercats! Brave Star! Silverhawks! I wish. Someone would buy some of these characters converting them into a comic book series or make a movie! The storylines were remarkably awesome, especially the artwork! coloring! inking, best writers, producers, and more! The people who bought these broadcast stations have removed children's animation along with Saturday mornings! I thought it was downright cruel! Some of these characters have so much potential locked up inside of them! Thanks for posting here guy! Take care and Be safe!
I miss how everything in the 80s had that vacuum formed chrome on it. Destro from GI Joe, and the Wheeled Warriors were some of my favorite toys because of that highly reflective plastic shininess made them feel like top quality. It must have been too costly (or possibly too toxic) to produce since I haven't seen it much since the 80s. Even the GI Joe Classified figures just have flat silver/gold paint on things that should be highly polished.
As a kid, I had the Silverhawks figures that were made of plastic chrome. They stopped using this material because it wore out quickly, leaving the figures looking beat up
With the laws preventing advertising to children no longer holding them back (Thanks Ronnie!) and a mountain of inspiration straight from Columbia the 80's was packed full of awesomeness! Nothing but the wildest booze and powder fueled fever dreams to sell these kids toys! So snort a rail and down a couple shots, we have children to influence!
Often forgotten that for every Thundercats, where there's actual writers and talent from other industries involved rather than just toy companies, we got ten He-Man's, where the co-creator was snorting cocaine off of Franzetta paintings.
We need to see a revival of that. But no one is cashing in on that market. They just don't understand how bad we want good animation unleashed and uncensored with tons of toys, video games, and other tie in products.
@@flashback7273 So many using nostalgia to draw us in, but they hate consumerism and capitalism. Here we are wanting to throw money at reliving our childhood, and they don't want it. They just want to lecture us. 🤦♂ Do they not understand that we learned plenty of life lessons from the cartoons they bastardize? 50% knowing, 25% red lasers, 25% blue lasers. etc.
The theme song still rocks so hard! I was so geeked when I found two partial vehicles from the toy line at a garage sale. I never actually even seen one IRL but d@mn are they as cool as I imagined!
This was shown on Channel 4 here in the UK and it was broadcast on a Sunday morning if I remember correctly, so I always associated this cartoon with that Sunday feeling of dread for school on Monday. I'm 49 years old now and when I saw the clip of the gun being fired off one vehicle to another I had that same feeling in my gut. Funny how the mind works, even all these years later.
This is one of those cartoons I remember but if you asked me about any of the plot points outside of the general concept of the show I'd be at a loss to say I can remember any of it.
My brother and I loved the series but the toys never made it into our country. Jayce, Ulysses 31, Captain future, G force, Captain Harlock and more were our favourite series, most running on a now defunct channel; simply called Super Channel or German TV. That was the only motivation to start learning English and German we ever needed. : ) It was a glorious time for us. Transformers was not quite as good (but got steadily better later), but we still liked it and the Mospeada/Diaclone/several other anime based toy line had some amazing robots in it. : )
I’m glad to see that I’m not only one who still remembers Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. I wish Mattel would bring this franchise back for today’s generation.
I already had my MOTU, GI Joe, TFs, Robotech, Voltron, and Real Ghostbusters. There just was no room left over in my kid brain for any of these derivative clones.
So as a 46 year old cat, I remember these toys fondly. I cannot remember the cartoon at all except that I was aware there was a cartoon too. It was the toys. Sawboss in particular was just something amazing. Black and gold with green for the roots, it had an aesthetic that was completely unique at the time and I couldn't get enough of the green bendy monster brain. Loved those toys.
I only ever had the Saw Boss toy, but it was one of my favorites of all time. I was heartbroken when I came home from college one weekend to learn that my mother had given it away. (And my entire massive StarCom set! (I had all of the small ones, Starmax Bomber AND Shadowbat!))
apparently the secret subtext of the entire 80s was "everyone screws over JMS". one can only imagine the amazing projects he could have done if he was only credited and appreciated appropriately before an entire decade or so went by with him being shoved into the shadows.
So glad I just discovered this channel and have been binging all your content the last couple of days. I've been trying to remember this vague memory for years and I finally know what the weird images in my head are connected to! ...I probably need to reevaluate my life.
I spent my early years in the 80s trying to get up early enough to watch this on TV on the weekend. I think i saw 6 episodes at most. Thankfully somebody has uploaded it all on the internet so i have finally been able to watch it all.
This show reminds me of what happens when someone describes a Anime to someone who has never heard of one and then tries to make a series out of what they were described
Jayce and The Wheeled Warriors was one of the best fantasy animated series next to D&D. Roll On is also up there with The Galaxy Rangers’ No Guts, No Glory.
My friends and I found these toys at Kaybee Toy Stores in our local malls. They were all on clearance. I think our parents got us the ENTIRE line for under $20. The cartoon was still on the air at 6am before school and it was surprisingly good! We all loved the toys, but the fact they were discontinued meant that we all got into them after they had run their life, and it was kind of amazing that the cartoon remained on the air as "filler" in the mornings for many years following. The toys themselves were really dang cool, you could make some badass looking vehicles, and they were quite large and played well in sandboxes and on dirt mounds. We all had a blast with them. With so many parts since we bought so many, it was just insanely fun.
I remember seeing these toys on the shelves of the toy stores in the larger towns, but they never made it to my local Wal-Mart/K-Mart/etc. We also didn't get the animated show in my market, so the boxes, which lacked any backstory or mythology were just mysteries to me. The cars looked cool, but like most '80's kids, I needed to have my play pattern clearly mapped out for me. Who were these people/things? Why were they fighting? I never knew, and thus, never bought any of the toys. Much like The Bionic Six and Air Raiders, these were intriguing designs, but as a kid, I just couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be.
Dude, Air Raiders were some sweet toys! My dad had a buddy that worked at Hasbro right when that launched, and when I was visiting we went over to Pawtucket to their company store and I was able to get a bunch. They actually asked my opinion on them. The vehicles were AWESOME, but the figs were small, like Wheeled Warriors, though there were distinct guys as well as nameless troops. Without a cartoon show to create the workd though it just would never take off.
1:38 I was so enthralled by the trivia regarding "A Bad Mom's Christmas" that I missed everything Dan said for the first ten seconds post-ad break and had to rewind.
I have never seen a single episode of this show nor owned a single toy. But the song lives rent free in my head for the last 35 years and will probably be played at my funeral!!! I had the VHS tapes of Silverhawks that had an ad for this show at the beginning of the tape. And it blasted the awesome ear worm that was the theme song for what felt like 15 minutes of awesomeness to go along with some of the coolest looking animation my mind had ever seen!! I’m sure it has aged terrible now, but that song will never die. Why have no metal bands released a cover????? Disturbed… we need you to step up
Some writers don't deserve their jobs and a lot of studios are using this chance to revaluate all of their projects and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, there has been a rash of poor shows with terrible writing, of course, one of the worse mistakes a studio could make was to take a pair of nobodies with NO credits to their name and give them the rights to one of the most expensive TV shows of all time and a popular set of books and then do a prequel, based upon a chapter worth of notes and pretty much then go and dunk all over established history and lore!
@@superomegaprimemk2 don't punish the majority of writers that to their jobs right for what the majority of writers don't do right, besides, whose to say some writers don't server their job, and who are you to decide who does, and doesn't deserve a writing job? if there's a writer attached to a project don't support it but your money where your mouth it
Pfff, they should learn to write first before whining. There’s plenty of good stuff already out people haven’t discovered yet that runs circles around the hacks today. It doesn’t help when they call you evil when you point out plot problems either. Get good or go home.
@@manicpixiefangirl4189 whose to say some don't know how to write maybe the millennial writing it seems like they don't, but I'm not sure that's what you're referring to
I remember watching this show, but don't really remember anything about it except for the modular vehicles. It inspired me to build modular vehicles from my LEGOs. That and I remember the way "Wheeled Warriors" was sang...
As a Brit we got the cartoon and loved it but I have no memory of the toys on the store shelves. Looking back at the toys in hindsight, the lack of a connect between the toys and the cartoon I'd imagine is what killed it.
as a mexican not always my country got the toys based on the cartoon, like the Wheeled Warriors and especially the Incredible Crash Dummies Fortunately as a kid living near the border I knew the dummies by the psas as well as other things that one wouldn't get if one doesn't live near the usa In fact as a kid I didn't realize until later that certain products advertised in Mexico were from the usa and others from the uk like the case of Where's Wally?
Wheeled Warriors looked badass, but Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors is just _bizarre._ Like a bizarre, badly written show that had to shove the toys in last minute as nothing but overglorified vans. What Mattel SHOULD have done, instead of wasting money on licensing out to a show that wound up having nothing to do with the product besides using them as transportation, was also release toys based on the Mad Max trilogy (namely 2 and Beyond Thunderdome, though the customised Interceptors from 1 could've cut it too) alongside the original Wheeled Warriors molds, THAT would've boosted sales for the toyline whilst tying it to something that has to do with the subject at hand. If someone were to do another customisable combat car toyline like Wheeled Warriors, I'd happily look into it.
I never actually realised that Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was a toyline. I never saw any of them on the shelved in UK stores (maybe I just missed them) and the only thing I can recall seeing on TV was a feature length animated movie that would get shown occasionally during the school holidays.
I was a huge fan of the show. I entered a Bradlees department store in the mid-80s, found all of the Jayce vehicles on clearance, and bought them all.. Compared to other toys, they were flimsy, and all the removable parts got lost soon after.
I love this series. Here in Mexico, it wasn't aired until the early 90s, along with Defenders of the Earth, so the toys were long gone by the time we saw the cartoon.
For years, I imagined this was a fever dream- shown back in the days when UK TV was regionalized and when I moved nobody I spoke to had ever heard of it.
While I've never heard of Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors until watching this video, I do wish the creators got more credit and respect for their work. Cause NGL, this series is way more interesting than all the live-action remakes of nostalgic TV shows.
fun fact not mentioned: the voice over for the toy commercial at around 6:00 was done by Ernie Anderson. Ernie "reprised" the role of voice over for the intro of the cartoon, setting up the premise of the show.
Still have my Monster Minds Gun Grinner sitting on the shelf. Got it for Christmas back in the 80s as a kid and had no idea it was connected to a cartoon until years later.
The school bus always arrived just as Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors came on. I always hoped it would be late enough I could hear the theme song before I had to go.
I remember this showing in Australia. It was weird but I enjoyed it. It was similar to other stuff that I liked (He-Man, Star Blazers, Ulysses 31) and I didn't care that the premise was bonkers.
This is one of the 80s toons that I have absolutely ZERO memory of. Not of the toys, the show, or even the theme. It just is a void in my mind. I thought it was practically a fake when I first saw it in compilations of 80s cartoons on RU-vid decades later.
What would the world be like if the Wheeled Warriors cartoon had the same Juice Newton-esq theme as the toy ads, INSTEAD of that absolute banger theme anthem by Levy and Saban?
This cartoon had the best singing in all the cartoons I can recall from the 80s. Galaxy Rangers being the second. But how could they go so wrong with the commercials?! No wonder they never did well in selling. That music and dialong was atrocious!
I remember watching Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors early in the morning before going to school. However, I was quite surprised at how many people either have never heard of it or had completely forgotten about it but to be honest, I still can't tell you why I remember it myself.
You can see the problem just from the fact that the show was called "Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors" but the toys were just called "Wheeled Warriors". There was no thought put into personality or story when they made the toys, and so it was just glued on top by the cartoon later.
@@abrahamlupis9354 Masters of the Universe was awful because the toy line was already dead by that point. The toy line was literally never called He-Man. Nobody was confused that the movie was awful.
@@lutherheggs451 Right. The point that I'm making is that when they made the toyline, they did not put any personality into it at all. Just, "Hey kids, look at the cool mechanics!" with no story or characters to inspire the kids.
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was awesome. The theme song by Nicolas 'Nick' Carr was one of my favorites besides a song in an episode of Robotech called Look Up! The Sky Is Falling performed by Michael Bradley. Thanks Dan and crew. Great video. 🤘
When I was like, 5 years old, for some reason I had a coloring book with these characters. But the show never came on where I was and I never saw it. I thought maybe it was a fever dream. Now I know and am at peace. Thank you.
Damn, I always wondered what happened to this show. It was a morning show on Channel 4 in the UK. I can't remember if it was every morning or just weekends but I do remember my love for it. J. Michael Straczynski writing this as well as the other stuff comes as the biggest surprise. To learn that guy had as much influence on my childhood brain, as Disney, Loony Tunes or Marvel and DC it's wild.
I don't remember really anything about Wheeled Warriors when I was a kid except for that I only saw a few episodes and had about half dozen of the vehicles.
