It’s my favorite time of the week! Time to celebrate the arrival of the weekend with some of our favorite cartoons!
This week, we’re checking out another fan favorite whose toy line I would LOVE to see reintroduced…EXOSQUAD!
Exosquad is an animated television series created by Universal Cartoon Studios for MCA TV’s Universal Family Network syndicated programming block. The show is set in the beginning of the 22nd century and covers the interplanetary war between humanity and Neosapiens, a fictional race artificially created as workers/slaves for the Terrans. The narrative generally follows Able Squad, an elite Terran unit of exoframe pilots, on their missions all over the Solar System, although other storylines are also abundant. The series ran for two complete seasons in syndication from 1993 to 1994, and was cancelled after one third-season episode had been produced. Reruns later aired on USA Network.
This cartoon was so much fun and the toys were so different, that many of my friends that weren’t even in to toys has to stop, check them out and some even had to add a figure or two to their own shelves.
Ah, simpler days, my friends. On that note, enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by to watch cartoons with us!
SURVEILLANCE PORT 
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Exo-Squad is very arguably the most densely-packed and thoughtful toy tie-in cartoon ever produced for a Western audience (I realize that that’s a fairly narrow field, but the series rises above it). Drawing direct inspiration from the venerable Japanese mil-sci-fi Gundam franchise, Exo-Squad examines war in all of its aspects, from the adrenaline-fueled elation of combat to the cameraderie of a small, tightly-knit fighting unit and the hundreds of small acts of heroism that comprise a soldier’s life on the frontlines, and on the flipside, the pain of lost comrades, the mistreatment (and often, outright murder) of captive civilian populations, the issue of collaboration with the designated enemy for reasons of personal gain or genuine sympathy (misplaced or otherwise), the often unexpected (and sometimes horrifying) results of the inevitable arms-race between the belligerents and even outright attempts at genocide.
The development of individual characters within the show was likewise similarly daring and profound, with most of the young and initially-inexperienced soldiers of the titular Exo-Squad having to grow up *very* fast as their military duties suddenly shift from occassionally interdicting pirates to fighting a full-on, system-wide war, but some of the best and meatiest character-development has to have been that accorded to Sean Napier, an impulsive young Chicago police officer with a violent racial hatred of Neosapiens (blue-skinned, 8-foot-tall synthetic human offshoots initially created as heavy labour to help colonize Venus and Mars) which is only barely held in check by his sense of duty and honour.
Trapped on Earth when the Neosapiens (Neos for short, or ‘Sapes if you want to be *really* rude) occupy the planet, Napier starts off as a lone trouble-maker, but gradually rises to the position of de facto commander of *all* resistance forces on Earth, growing and maturing along the way, helped along in great part by interactions with Marsala (another wonderfully fleshed-out character), a Neosapien soldier in the human military who has remained loyal on the basis of his genuinely profound philosophical convictions, and who helps Napier look past his reflexive anger and prejudice and ultimately come to a place of sympathy for the Neosapien cause even as he fights to dismantle their war-machine.
Over all, I can’t recommend this series enough. It’s just brilliant. Utterly brilliant.
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Thank you so much for sharing such thoughtful/insightful commentary. This is exactly what I would want to read about/know if I wasn’t familiar with the series, so for that, I can’t thank you enough!!
I couldn’t agree more with your synopsis. ExoSquad was most definitely ahead of its time, not only in terms of content, but in terms of quality content.
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