ANIMATED TRIVIA
RoboCop: The Animated Series was produced in the 1980s by Marvel Productions and is based on the character and events of the first RoboCop movie.
Alpha Commando is the second animated version of the RoboCop character, It premiered on September 7, 1998, and ran until February 3, 1999. It was the final animated series from MGM Animation.
Much of the team that worked on the original did Alpha Commando. It didn't have much of a budget (blame Orion)
and it didn't have much to do with the original RoboCop at all. While it does have a RoboCop character, it is not the same storyline as the RoboCop movies or television show. The series begins when Dr. Cornelius Neumeier, creator of RoboCop, is asked to bring his cyborg hero out of storage to serve on an elite team of clandestine federal agents, Alpha Division. This elite group scouts the globe fighting crime and combating villains. Well thats the idea anyway.
When the Marvel series was made (1980's) much of the cartoons of that time had very high budgets, remember G.I. Joe? It costed approx. $25,000 per episode, which brings us to $2.5 million for the whole 100 episodes. Robocop was only one of the many high quality animations of that time.
In AC, they decided to sacrifice details for the sake of smooth animation which explains the simple character designs. But obviously something didn't work out right, the quality of the 2D animation in A.C wasn't very good.
Among the more notable changes were the removal of bullets (replaced by laser weapons) and a more science fiction setting. Robocop, in the original cartoon had some red light in the middle of his visor which occasionally panned the whole visor. This was inspired by "2001 A Space Odyssey"s HAL computer, that had a little red light for its eye. Many anime/cartoons today borrowed this element in their robot designs.
They brought this red-light idea over to Alpha Commando, obviously they were too lazy to animate it so they just coloured Robo's visor red. Note that his robo-cruiser and bike also had the red eyes.
Both the Robo-cruisers in the original cartoon and Alpha Commando have licence plates with the word Robo-1 on it.
The original cartoon was more seriously done and they even mentioned about Robo being human, unlike Alpha Commando. Unlike the movies, and previous TV incarnations, RoboCop never takes off his helmet in Alpha Commando.
The Marvel cartoon dealt with themes of racism ("The Brotherhood"), prejudice at work ("Man in the Iron Suit"), environmental espionage ("Into the Wilderness"), terrorism and the Middle East peace process ("A Robot's Revenge") and reprogrammed assassins ("The Scrambler"). These all show the series had darker scripts than one would find when compared to the 1999 animated effort RoboCop: Alpha Commando.
The creators of Alpha Commando decided to choose an Asian-American single-mother (Agent Miner)to give the show some kick. Good idea, but unfortunately they didn't flesh her character enough and it messed up the whole show.
Rexor from Alpha Commando also has a code-name: ED-509.....cheesy huh? He also has the "HAL" eye
Two of the characters names in Alpha Commando is named Nancy MINER and Cornelius NEUMIER, wich of course is a reference to the script writers of the first RoboCop movie, Michael Miner and Ed Neumier. Besides RoboCop himself, Sgt. Reed is the only character from the movies in the Alpha Commando series.
Robocop in the original marvel cartoon was described as a 7-foot giant, BUT he was still fast and agile (he can dodge shots from tanks and scale the OCP building!). Robo in AC however, has such a big head, humongous shoulders to such an extent that he's practically a walking bullseye!!
The date in Alpha Commando, according to the pilot episode, ''Justice Reborn: Part 1,'' is 2020. Accordingly, RoboCop has been off for, lets say, 5 years, and was RoboCop even before that. That means that IF that photo was taken even as late as the day of his death, (here prior to 2015) or even after, while he was RoboCop, his son was, let's even say, for the case or argument, ten or so in 2015. Well, add to that the five years while RoboCop was off-line, and the extra ten years as shown at the beginning of EVERY episode in the opening-credits (2030). Then you have a kid that would be about 30, minimum, yet later in the series, his son and wife seem to have retained the ''Forever Young'' syndrome... He even has the same shirt as in the photo!!
