Wednesday, September 22, 2010

From the Vaults of ETTM: Biker Mice From Mars

I wrote this over a year ago (7/5/09, according to Blogger), but never published it for some reason. It was literally exactly like this, minus an updated ending. Strange that I didn't like it, because I used to love this show. Anyways, here are some lost ETTM archives!

In the late 80's and early 90's, every single children's programming company on the planet tried to match the commercial success of the ever-popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Numerous companies tried (lookin' at you, Street Sharks), but only one succeeded (partially). This is it's story.

DUN DUNN.

Biker Mice From Mars
According to this show, which ran 65 episodes between 1993 and 1996, a race of mice-people live on Mars that enjoy leather vests, big shiny guns, and motorcycles. Their home planet (yeah, Mars) is taken over by another alien race called the Plutakians who apparently smell really bad. These Plutakians wipe out the entire "biker mice" race (which doesn't have a witty name, surprisingly) minus three, named Throttle, Vinnie, and Modo (respectively).
I'm not making this up.
Anyways, these three mice-people crash land a ship in Chicago, and some crazy, fucked up shit goes down that basically adds a non-lesbian female mechanic (apparently they exist) named "Charley" to their ranks (seriously though, not a lesbian). Then some Plutakian dude shows up and tries to kill them all, and his name is Lawrence Limburger. Even better, he's a fat, 1930's gangster-type fellow whose stupid plans are always foiled by the Biker Mice at the end of every episode.
Again, I assure you that this is all fact.
Even better, I forgot to mention that the giant mice-people are all three cyborgs, and were all three apparently damaged in various ways during the same disaster (which the show never explained).
Even better, one of the "standout quotes" from the show (according to someone on Wikipedia with way too much time on their hands) was as follows:

"In this wild and woolly universe, there are three things you can count on: your brains, your bros and your bike!"

I think the brilliance of this quote speaks for itself. You have the reference to the fact that the characters are mice ("wild and wooly," though "wooly" is a poor adjective to use when describing mice), the fact that they are brothers ("bros"), and the fact that they ride motorcycles ("bike"). It's an all-encompassing quotation, really.
As a kid, I ate this shit up. Having crack for breakfast every morning probably helped. I mean, look at this fucking intro:


NOTE: You may want to go view it on its YouTube page, the sizing is a bit funny here. God forbid you miss a half-inch of biker mice'd goodness.

Have you ever seen anything more 90's in your life? Listen to that fucking gut-bucket guitar solo wailing through the entire video. And the robot voice at the beginning, reminding you seven times that you are, in fact, watching some fucking Biker Mice From Mars?

Want to know the best thing about the Biker Mice From Mars?

IT'S STILL ON THE AIR (kinda)!!!

In 2006, some British cartoon network got a wild hair up their ass and decided to start making new episodes of Biker Mice From Mars. It ran for two years before going on hiatus, and promised to make its return eventually. In April of 2010, it aired a few new episodes in the U.K., none of which have made it stateside.
Now, I haven't seen any episodes of the new series, but the general consensus is that it is essentially the same, if not funnier. The Brits seem to love it, but since the show is essentially a caricature of mid-90's American biker culture, it could just be the show that their hipster-types love ironically.

On an interesting side note, while researching this, I noticed that Beverly Hills: 90210 alums Luke Perry and Ian Ziering both have done voice acting for the show. What sort of weird coincidence is that?