Battle Force 5, cars and cartoons

Ever since cable TV killed Saturday Morning Cartoons and the fact that most of today’s cartoons are just pretty much crap, it’s been pretty boring. Of course, the fact that I don’t actually get up on Saturday mornings anymore isn’t helping either. Thankfully the internet is doing it’s part to save Saturday morning, and Hot Wheels is helping. Their new CG cartoon Battle Force 5 is a good old fashioned action ride.

If you ask me, when you combine two of my favorite things - Hot Wheels and cartoons - it’s hard to miss. But I must admit I didn’t have high hopes for Battle Force 5 (BF5) when I read about the new cartoon. I had been hearing about it for a while through blogs and Twitter, but not since The Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack have there been any good action cartoons that can appeal to us big kids while also serving the needs of the young ones.

Battle Force 5 isn’t very complicated, nor should it. You have good guys versus bad guys. One good (classic) twist is there are two factions of bad guys and they’ll fight each other, all while the good guys are fighting both of them. It seems in BF5 that the Earth is under attack and the only way to save it is to enter inter-dimensional portals, retrieve a little key, and then leave, sealing off the world from evil forever. Easy.

After watching the first intro episode(s) it’s great to see some car action. Unfortunately, but understandably, all the cars in the show are pretty fantastic. If you saw these cars on store shelves - and I’m sure you will - they’d be the Hot Wheels with all the chrome and fantasy designs. I’m a classic muscle car Hot Wheels guy so I hope that in the show one of the space dimensions has a gang of inter-galactic mobsters that drive hot rods or something. Of course, the fantasy cars lend themselves to crazy super powers and transformations, all of which are presented spectacularly throughout the episode. It’s really a lot of fun.

It’s great to have a show that’s all action, but when that action is carried out by cars it’s all the better.

Now that I’m older and have lived through 25 years of cartoons, I can unfortunately (or fortunately) look at other side of cartoons, namely, selling toys. Ever since He-Man, cartoons have been the greatest sales pitch for toys ever. It worked on me and it will continue to work as long as their are toys to sell. Battle Force 5 is no different. When the BF5 team enters a space portal to find the magic key, each universe is conveniently designed like a Hot Wheels playset with lots of ramps, jumps, spinny things, and loops. Not only can I forsee BF5 playsets in my local Target, but such a thing lends itself to video games as well. I haven’t played or seen any BF5 game yet, but given the context it has the potential to be a decent arcade driving game. Unfortunately, I’m guessing game will seriously lack fun except to the under-14 crowd that also liked Wii Music.

Let’s just say that the first episode of BF5 was strong enough to get me to come back next week. Maybe not up at 9am to see it on TV, but as long as they post the episodes on-line I’ll be watching. And I’ll keep watching as long as there is plenty of car stunt action and a nice simplistic plot to keep characters motivated. The only thing I hope happens in the show is a variety of cars. The three main groups fighting for the universe all have their signature cars and if week after week they just fight each other then it will get pretty boring, even with new playset worlds explore.

Mattel and Hot Wheels has a great platform to launch a whole new line of cars, playsets, and games. Much like any other fantasy collect-em-all type concept these days, it’s expandable almost indefinitely. Let’s hope it’s doesn’t get too ridiculous, otherwise I’ll just throw in my PPG and Samurai Jack DVDs on Saturday morning.

You can catch Battle Force 5 on Cartoon Network Saturday mornings, on-line