Friday, August 1, 2014

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Guardian Bob (Reboot, 1994)

CGI (Computer Graphic Imaging) was a new concept in animation in the middle 90's, and it took a Canadian studio to bring the first computer-animated Saturday morning cartoon to the US.

Reboot was imported in 1994, and spent 2 seasons on ABC, which was forced, really, to cancel the show after the network was acquired by Disney, and slowly began to refill the schedule with Disney programming.

The series was built around Guardian Bob, who was in charge of defending the Mainframe (which was also the name of the studio that produced the show) from the evil Megabyte. Bob's two closest allies are a brother-sister duo, Dot & Enzo, the latter of whom later becomes a Guardian himself, but American audiences didn't get to see it. After a year in syndication, which I didn't know about because Reboot wasn't picked up by any of the local stations in my district, the series was taken off American airwaves, seemingly for good.

There was merchandising to be had, not just action figures, but also trading cards. Fleer, later absorbed by Upper Deck, obtained a license and produced 1 set of cards based on the show. You'd be hard pressed to find them today.

Following is the opener, "The Tearing":



To be honest with you, I wasn't really that into the show, though I did watch a few episodes during the ABC run.

Rating: B-.

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