History of EXOSQUAD - 1990s Cartoon Retrospective & Toy Documentary

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: "We are the ExoSquad." Historically, toys and cartoons have been targeted at younger audiences, but in the 1990s we'd see a rise in serious storytelling where the themes and plot elements would be aged up, thus providing a different type of entertainment. And certainly, ExoSquad was one key example of this. "Jump into [00:00:23] Speaker 2: episode 1 and hold on tight because you won't be disappointed." "It is absolutely worth that watch." "The overarching story is really well done." "Every single episode is linked together." "The injection of themes, though heavy at times, are well executed." [00:00:40] Speaker 3: "Mex, space, intergalactic war, revolution. What more do you want in a series?" [00:00:47] Speaker 2: "ExoSquad: The Show was a sleeper. I watched the show at 6 a.m. It's the only time as a teenager [00:00:54] Speaker 1: that ever set my alarm to get up." And with this kind of a show, it was only natural to have an accompanying toy line, and these toys were especially unique for the time. "Everything on [00:01:04] Speaker 2: the toys was functional." "Once you pop those bad boys out, you get to pop on the little antennas, you're popping on the sensors to the side, extra rocket boosters, putting in the missiles that are [00:01:12] Speaker 1: spring-fired, but you also put your pilot's name on the back." Thus, between the toy line and the cartoon, there was potential for a lot of fun, and you had quite the story to follow. Primarily about the rise to power and declaration of war from the Neo-Sapien race, who end up locked in battle with the ExoFleet. And perhaps a more personal story with the day-to-day struggles of our protagonists in Able Squad, [00:01:37] Speaker 3: led by J.T. Marsh. "There are very few heroes as heroic as the quintessential leader of the team, [00:01:44] Speaker 2: who is J.T. Marsh." "He takes a very honorable approach. He's a very Paladin-esque type character, [00:01:50] Speaker 1: right?" As such, all the things that we've mentioned here makes ExoSquad an easy recommendation when discussing it amongst others. With that, let's go back and have a look at the history of ExoSquad with this retrospective. So let's frame up, and let's begin. "Frame up, people. We leave now." [00:02:32] Speaker 3: When cartoons started off in the 80s, they were really for kids. Sometimes they'd touch on more mature things, but they knew that these kids who were playing with He-Man and stuff when they were little are eventually going to grow older. And when the 90s hit, everything kind of got a little grittier. [00:02:51] Speaker 2: You definitely saw the transition, especially like Gargoyles, Batman, right? They're not there just to sell a toy line. Those were really trying to focus on plot, and you started seeing people flexed more of their writing talents, right? Like you had less of the, "Let's push out something campaign quick to sell the next toy or next item." And you actually got into storytelling. [00:03:12] Speaker 3: So where we were very much the good guys win and all this sort of thing, we entered into 90s, which is spawn territory essentially. And in that spawn territory, we got the bad guys winning an awful lot for a long time. And the good guys racking up big victories, but not particularly frequent victories. And the same could be said for ExoSquad, which is the topic we're talking about today. For the majority of the show, the good guys were losing. They were always on the back foot. [00:03:39] Speaker 2: There actually was an ongoing saga that continued, a campaign that followed the war throughout the [00:03:45] Speaker 3: series. So the good guys were dealing always with this overwhelming force over them. But that also went along with what the audience wanted. We wanted higher stakes. We wanted more. Created by writer, [00:03:59] Speaker 1: producer, and director Jeff Siegel through company Universal Cartoon Studios, the show was initially going to be known as ExoForce before the name was eventually changed to ExoSquad. And ExoSquad would become a syndicated series that ran for 52 episodes through two seasons between 1993 and 1994. While we know it to be very much a well-written, well-written, serialized space opera cartoon involving mankind's terraforming of Venus and Mars within our solar system and taking place in the early 22nd century, it's worth pointing out that the series included several great voice actors known in US animation circles. Namely, Robbie Benson would voice JT Marsh among others, and he famously voiced Beast from Disney's 1991 Beauty and the Beast. Lisa Ann Belay would also be among the voice cast, and she would voice several characters for the English version of multiple series within the Gundam franchise. There was also David Kaye, known for his voice as Trey's Cushmanata in Gundam Wing, but also famously voiced Megatron in 1996's Beast Wars Transformers. And additionally, Gary Chalk would voice a few ExoSquad characters, and he'd also be known for voicing in Beast Wars as the iconic Optimus Primal. [00:05:14] Speaker 2: So, the ExoSquad storyline. Jump into episode one and hold on tight, because you won't be disappointed by it. The basic premise is there's a human-made race of Neo-Sapiens, right? So this is, you know, man's great hubris. They created a life form. [00:05:29] Speaker 3: And of course, in that same hubris, we created a race that was bigger than us, stronger than us, and arguably smarter than us. And then we did the dumbest thing we could, which is, of course, enslave them. So naturally, of course, this caused some degree of, you know, revulsion, [00:05:44] Speaker 2: this resentment within this new race. They got fed up, said, "Hey, you can't treat us like that." They rebelled. First Rebellion failed, but they kind of started getting some equal rights in there, very [00:05:53] Speaker 3: civil rights-type movements. And then eventually, they start to wage a more soft power war, at least initially. All the while, they're building up their own armies and building up their own support. At least one guy is, and his name is Phaeton. You have the main antagonist, Phaeton, [00:06:11] Speaker 2: who becomes the leader of the revolution, who tries to go about the right way through politics. Very kind of Hitler-esque sort of rise to power, right? Very charismatic, very smart. And he raises a revolution in the background, siphoning off funds. Every time I see that, I'm like, "I love that you went to the extra effort to prove to us how you funded this war." He blames some problems on pirates, [00:06:35] Speaker 3: who are essentially other humans who live outside the norm. And he convinces Earth to send all their soldiers out there to fight this "pirate threat." You start with the humans being [00:06:45] Speaker 2: distracted by pirate conflict and Phaeton being like, "Yeah, go get those pirates. They're not good for business. Don't worry about us back home. You'll be just fine without your fleets here." Sure enough, [00:06:54] Speaker 3: when Exo-fleet leaves. Phaeton triggers this huge intergalactic war. So the Earth's fleet is way out [00:07:00] Speaker 2: by Saturn and Jupiter, and then the Neo-Sapiens are primed to attack. The Neo-Sapiens are then easily [00:07:06] Speaker 1: able to take control of Earth, Venus, and Mars from the humans, or Terrans as they are called in the series, thus leaving the Exo-fleet in an uphill battle to get their homeworlds back. Beneath him, some of Phaeton's higher ranking Neo-Sapiens would include Typhonus, Shiva, and Draconus. There was also the female Neo-Sapien named Livia, and the ultra-intelligent Galba, who would play a key role in betraying Phaeton later on. But with all the gray areas that this show would venture into, viewers could find themselves empathizing with certain characters on the Neo-Sapien side. [00:07:43] Speaker 2: "I have an affinity for the struggling villain, right? And that's how I felt about Thrax. Thrax is this dude who believed in the cause. He's like, 'Yeah, Neo-Sapiens aren't allowed to be kicked around. We are equal to humans. I believe in this cause, and therefore I will fight.' And he turned out to be a fighter ace also. He had a legendary reputation about him. The Red Barons. As the series goes on, he shows this conscience, right? He and Kaz Takagi, who flies a fighter E-frame for Able Squad, they get in a couple dog fights. They're grounded at one point in time, and Kaz is vulnerable lying on the ground. And Thrax is standing there, and he's got him at gunpoint. And Kaz says, "Go ahead." And he's got it in his sight. He lines up and he goes, "No, there's been enough killings today." It just shows the morals of this character that still has a moral compass, even though he's on the opposition. And as the series goes on too, he continues to show this goodness in him. They echo this sentiment throughout the series towards the back end. This isn't our war any longer. This is Phaeton's war. It's become corrupt. It is about his ego. It is about his ambition and his pride. It is not about us the Neosapiens anymore. "It has become Phaeton's war, not ours." Now I just want to point out that if [00:09:03] Speaker 1: you happen to be enjoying this video, please make sure you're subscribed to the channel, press that like button, and ring that notification bell so that you don't miss out on any future Toy Connections video content. Yes, it's a small effort for you, but it'll go a long way towards helping me with growing this [00:09:19] Speaker 2: channel. Then again, people you can learn the right lessons from would be our core cast of heroes in [00:09:39] Speaker 1: this show, namely the members of Able Squad within the Exo Fleet. "There are very few heroes as heroic as [00:09:47] Speaker 3: the quintessential leader of the team, who is JT Marsh. But then again, I feel that way about most of the leaders of teams. I feel the same way about Captain America. I feel the same way about Cyclops. They're not the most powerful guys. They're not the best pilots, but they take this bunch of people and they glue them together by sheer will. And JT Marsh is the same thing." JT Marsh, the main [00:10:10] Speaker 2: protagonist leader for Able Squad, that theme runs concurrently with JT Marsh. It's his responsibility, right? He takes a very honorable approach. He's a very Paladin-esque type [00:10:19] Speaker 3: character, right? Very Captain America. Underneath him, you have a fantastic cast of characters and none of them are throwaways. All of them have moments in the spotlight. So he has younger members in his squad like Nara Burns and Kaz. We have parallels there. So Nara is very scared. She's always very worried. She's insecure. Kaz is overconfident. He's got that hubris thing going. Marsala, who is a Neosapien who led the first revolt on Mars against the humans, which was put down. [00:10:49] Speaker 2: "And I said this on one of our streams for that Marsala is the snake eyes of the Wolverine of the show, right? He is the Neosapien that works for Able Squad. He's on the protagonist side, but he's very intelligent and insightful, right? He's kind of like the data on the Star Trek crew. Like, [00:11:02] Speaker 1: he comes up with these little quirky observations of human behavior." Then you had Rita Torres, who was the Toughest Nails member that preferred to play by the rules and operate by the book. She ends up having an interesting bond with some young exo-scouts on Mars when she is shot down and stranded near their area. Maggie Weston was the technical and mechanical expert and had a field repair e-frame to match her skill set. Alec de Leon was the team's intelligence and communication specialist, often thought of as J.T. Marsh's right-hand man. And then there was the slobbish Wolf Bronski, who was good friends with Kaz and was the senior experienced member of Able Squad, albeit his rude habits and mannerisms were often used as comic relief during the show. While we certainly can't cover every single character, we'll note that there were other members who would be part of Able Squad for a period of time, be it through temporary assignments or if they were killed in action. Ultimately though, at the top of the exo-fleet military structure would be Admiral Winfield, a seasoned veteran who also fought in the first Neo-Sapien Uprising 50 years before the events of the main series. There was also the temperamental Captain Marcus and the brilliant Professor Algernon, to name a few out of many other characters. Nera Burns' brother James would also become a resistance fighter during the series, as would the dynamic former Chicago Security Force member Sean Napier. [00:12:37] Speaker 3: Another character I can really talk about is Sean Napier. While exo-fleet is out in space doing battle, we have Sean Napier. The way he starts the series, he's a police officer and he saves Phaeton from an assassination attempt. He saves the big bad. That could have been the end of the series right there. But he chose his duty and saved Phaeton. And then Phaeton and the mayor go to, I think it was shake his hand or thank him. And Napier refuses to shake Phaeton's hand because he is fundamentally against Neo-Sapiens. He doesn't like them. And he loses his job because of that. And for the whole [00:13:14] Speaker 2: series, he is on an uphill struggle. My favorite of all of them are the dropship troopers. Because the show is about the e-frames and the technology and that's really where the toys sold. But the dropship troopers are these bold, I guess space marines for lack of a better term, but it was very, very StarTrip troopers based. You actually read the book, not opposed to the movie, right? Seeing them actually be able to deploy and bound and use tactics to take terrain. I was like, this is fantastic. I want to show just about the jump troopers. Like these guys are awesome. I always appreciate the fact that AxoSquad used a lot of military terminology, right? You had offenses, you had counterattacks, you had spoiling attacks. Like they actually use this lingo a lot. And it's one of the things that actually made me really connect to military sci-fi. Some of the key moments that stood out to my mind were towards the back end of the series. When the neo-sapen empire has fallen, but it happened with the slow attrition and strategic taking of each planet. And it's almost like the campaign in World War II for the Japanese, right? The island hopping strategy. You have to slowly get in and then they focus on core. You have seen these moments in history before. And this whole time, Phaeton cuts to him. He shifts into paranoia, but he never does it publicly. He does it privately. Very classic dictator. He begins to isolate himself from the [00:14:36] Speaker 3: naysayers, getting rid of them, becoming paranoid. More than that, that kind of comparison you can make with Adolf Hitler kind of make him perfectly despicable. But that is him to a core. Like [00:14:50] Speaker 2: he continues to believe this. He cannot fail. They are too big to fail because he thinks we are the superior race, right? Neo-sapiens are destined to rule humanity. He survives falling in lava. He has physical deformities from this that, that begins to not only ruin his body, but also his mind begins to appreciate throughout the series as well. And you could feel this campaign coming to a closure. You could feel the series coming to a closure and it just made all the moments really count. And then he gets [00:15:17] Speaker 3: into eugenics essentially, where he's like creating the next race. Smarter, starting to make stronger, starting to make this, starting to make that. And they came up with these beasts, which were, [00:15:28] Speaker 2: I accepted the weird animal hybrid things towards the end because I was like, okay, I get this, but they were weirdly drawn, they were crudely drawn. And I, I just was like, man, I can't wait till this is [00:15:39] Speaker 3: over. I remember being a kid and not being cool with how these things looked and how they acted. And man, oh man, these things were freaking out. Regardless of the strange elements or the many [00:15:49] Speaker 1: good aspects of the show that we've already discussed, ExoSquad had a lot going on. From the Neo-Sapien cloning technology or giving kids the chance to mimic the Cyberjack Link with the E-frames during playtime, to simply seeing the ultra cool, resolute flagship of the ExoFleet during episodes, to the romantic relationships that began to develop during the show's run, it's unfortunate that ExoSquad never got to continue beyond the second season. There were also plans for an ExoPirates spin-off show, as well as a feature film. Unfortunately, none of this would come to fruition, and the second season of ExoSquad left off with a cliffhanger ending, as the third season would be cancelled. Sadly, a shift in the industry at this time saw independent companies and studios being bought up or absorbed by larger networks that were all hoping to produce their own content. Thus, shows like ExoSquad got pushed to undesirable time slots that were inconvenient for its audience, which affected viewership. [00:16:48] Speaker 2: ExoSquad, the show, was a sleeper. It like sprang up. In fact, I watched the show at 6am, like I would set my alarm. It's the only time as a teenager to ever set my alarm to get up motivated, and it was on at 6am on weekdays. That is not a prime slot. And then it was on like Sundays at 10. [00:17:05] Speaker 3: The ones who do remember it, and remember it fondly, it's left a mark on them. And luckily now, it's kind of allowed the people who remember it to mention it to those who may have missed it, and hopefully inspire enough curiosity, because it is absolutely worth that watch. [00:17:23] Speaker 2: And like it has absolutely impacted how I judge other sci-fi animations. Like that's the standard. [00:17:31] Speaker 1: The accompanying ExoSquad toyline was produced by Playmates and launched in 1993, just like the show. That said, this was not without some stumbling blocks. FASA Corporation, who had launched BattleTech years earlier, had initially approached Playmates about developing the BattleTech toyline. While BattleTech would eventually go to Tyco toys, the existence of ExoSquad led FASA to taking legal action against Playmates, as they felt ExoSquad was too heavily inspired and overall too similar to the BattleTech toys that had been presented to Playmates earlier on. That said, FASA was ultimately unable to prevent ExoSquad from having products in stores, but there were certain changes to ExoSquad's plans along the way. For example, the ExoSquad Heavy Attack E-Frame never made it into production, and you'll notice its striking similarities with the BattleTech Mad Cat. In the end though, kids still got ExoSquad toys to play with, but like the cartoon's less than ideal programming schedule, the toys themselves would vary in availability from one region to the next. [00:18:36] Speaker 3: The ExoSquad toyline was one of those strange anomalies. [00:18:41] Speaker 2: It was almost like the hidden, you see the normal toy lines and you're like, wait, what was that? There was something right between here. You have to like open up the toys like, oh, there's another thing here and it's ExoSquad. And the presentation of these things, they just showcased, there's a lot here. There's a lot going on here. And I remember opening up and be like, what the hell am I looking at? Right? So you've got this cool mech suit. You've got this fantastic art. You've got all the little tiny pieces. You've got the pilot. You're just immediately overwhelmed. There's graphics. There's call out cards. You're just like, I need to sit down and having a panic attack looking at these toys. And they didn't disappoint. Once you pop those bad boys out, you get to pop on the little antennas, you're popping on the sensors, the side, extra rocket boosters, putting in the missiles that are spring-fired. You also put your pilot's name on the back and there's a little cyberjack to hook onto the back. They were intricate. They were well-designed. There was also, I mean, the same way the [00:19:33] Speaker 3: G.I. Joe toys had like removable engine covers and such, there was like a small power cell that went into the back. The colors may have been very neon nineties, but everything on the toys was functional. And interestingly enough, as fun as each of the robots was, the sculptors and the playmates themselves didn't actually use the figures as kind of throwaway things. They were painted just as much. They were sculpted with just as much detail. They were given their own personalities. They weren't just drivers. They maintained their characterization. And I think that was brilliant. Alex De Leon is my favorite of [00:20:09] Speaker 2: Able Squad. He's the first toy that I actually saw at hand. I was like, what is this? This incredibly over-engineered with a million pieces in there. Not quite G.I. Joe scale, but it's got actual moving pistons in the arms, rotating cannons, all the works, right? Antennas that can come on and off. He was the first figure I saw and I love the style of the frame. You know, that one stuck out to me. [00:20:31] Speaker 3: J.T. Marsh's Aerial Assault E-Frame was, it's not the first one I got, but I knew it's the one that I wanted. My mom would go to Canada to visit her mother and then she'd pick us up stuff. So we'd sit down there with little pieces of paper and we'd write, you know, what we want. And I wrote that down and she brought J.T. Marsh. And I remember she gave it to me for Christmas. J.T. Marsh and the other figures [00:20:52] Speaker 1: would be sized a bit smaller than G.I. Joe, even if they had comparable articulation. But their scale would be a little closer to that of Mask or Dino Riders. With several waves worth of toys, the later waves would be met with varying degrees of critique amongst collectors. And there'd be a few smaller play sets as well to give you some semblance of world building during your interplanetary adventures. Do note that while they didn't get included in the storyline of the cartoon, the Robotech toys by Matchbox from the 80s would see a re-release under ExoSquad branding with some slight updates to the toys themselves. This, of course, was made possible by the company Harmony Gold, who, while allowing Playmates to produce these, were locked in legal battles with the aforementioned FASA Corporation and their Battletech line over the course of many years, due to both Harmony Gold and FASA using likenesses from the Macross franchise. The ExoSquad toy molds themselves would see some reuse in 2001, as the company Replay toys would release them under the line Tech Wars, thus bringing some of our favorite E-Frames back into action. And in regards to Playmates' other toy lines, their releases of Muta Force Ninja Turtles in the 1990s would see some similarities in terms of the usage of mechs in an E-Frame-like style. There'd be a bunch of other merchandise, like a single comic produced by Topps, a board game, and a Sega Genesis console game, to name a few. And in modern times, you can continue to learn more about ExoSquad by visiting sites like exosquadarchive.com or in various social media groups that continue to talk about and reminisce about the franchise. With such a serious story involving character deaths and so many intense moments during episodes, you'd think ExoSquad came out at just the right time. Pop culture as a whole was trending edgier and encouraging more rebellious themes in the 1990s. But unfortunately, the toy line and cartoon wouldn't last, taking a backseat to things like the gargantuan franchise of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which also debuted in the US in 1993. All the while, ExoSquad still had to compete for Toy Isle Space, with established lines like Transformers now experiencing its Generation 2 rehash, as well as the final years of G.I. Joe, a real American hero. As such, it can be said that ExoSquad doesn't get the recognition it deserves. But hopefully, the revisitation that we've done here can do justice to what its fanbase feels is an absolutely amazing franchise worth every bit of praise possible. [00:23:27] Speaker 3: "I don't know if ExoSquad is as well remembered as it should be." "ExoSquad is still one of my favorite toy lines to this day." "It may be above some of the older toy lines that came before." [00:23:38] Speaker 2: "Because this is my go-to show." [00:23:39] Speaker 3: "If people do remember it, I hope they remember it because it delved into difficult topics." [00:23:44] Speaker 2: "The heroes still win, albeit there's consequences." "The show operates an excellent gray zone when it comes to morality, when it comes to executing prisoners." [00:23:53] Speaker 3: "It's not episodic. Every single episode is linked together." "And more than that, the characters change from the beginning to the end of the story." [00:24:02] Speaker 2: "Most people who I've introduced ExoSquad to have appreciated being like, 'Oh, this actually is well written. This actually is well drawn.' And they've come back with comments and feedback like, 'Yeah, it holds up to this day.'" [00:24:11] Speaker 3: "If there's nothing else, that's a legacy that stuck out to me." [00:24:14] Speaker 2: "I'd say that the storytelling has really got me hooked and all the other things are what kept me going throughout that series." [00:24:22] Speaker 3: "And I absolutely think it was gold." [00:24:26] Speaker 1: And if you happen to like this video, don't go anywhere just yet. I'm going to put another 1990s cartoon retrospective that you can click on right over here, or to choose your own history topic from an existing playlist, you can click on that playlist right over here. Otherwise, thanks for watching, and I'll see y'all next time. Take care. [00:24:44] Speaker ?: Thank you.