Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers

I'd rather slam my head into the wall.
Dic: 1994

Well, hey. Whaddya know? After 16 months of inactivity, I've actually decided to return to the realm of the awfully animated. so with that said...


Welcome once again, ladies and gentlemen to the long awaited return of Tooncrap: Animated Atrocities. The review article that dives headfirst into the realm of the animated, and pulls out the grimy, gooey, cruddy gunk that lives within it. And to celebrate my 16 months of procrastination, I bring you a cartoon about pogs.

Remember Pogs? Those little milk caps that everyone was collecting for a couple of months? Quite frankly with the reboot of so many toys as of late, I'm surprised there hasn't been a second coming of pog yet. But with us slowly getting into the 90's revival, I wouldn't be shocked if we see pogs coming back big time in the next few years. It's time to bring pogs back, in pog form.

So yeah, Pogs dominated the world for about a year or so, and of course were extremely popular. And as I've said many a time on this blog, anything popular has had a cartoon made out of it. And of course, this was another classic Dic move. We've talked about Dic a lot haven't we? They've had their fair share of bad failed pilots. From the bland Battletoads, to not very dynamic Defenders of Dynatron City. So, it's only natural that they make a superhero cartoon from flippin' pogs. And thus, Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers was born.

So, let's slam into this slop, and review this thing.

The opening theme song is pretty much your standard mid-90's theme song. All the footage is from the episode, just like every other Dic pilot you've seen at this point. The theme tells us that the Hawaiian Slammers (Hawaiian Slam, Slam Slammers) strike like hammers. There's Slammers of Darkness and slammers of Light. And when they get together, they fight fight fight. And when I hear this song, I get annoyed, annoyed annoyed. Now I'll be fair, the song has a strong beat and all, but I realize that this is still a cartoon about trying to make fucking pogs sound awesome.

We open the episode near a volcano in Hawaii, as we see our villain, a mad scientist (as if there are any other kinds in cartoons) breaking apart a piece of stone with a laser. inside the rock is a slammer of darkness. The doctor spins the slammer on the ground and it begins to crackle and glow. Smoke fills the room, and suddenly we see the appearance of...

                 Wow, No-Heart got quite the overhaul for the 90's.

Actually this cheerful fellow is known as the Shadow Slammer, who can bring darkness to the heart, and terror to whoever he touches.

                                     "Bitch, Please"

And despite his clear badassery, he is bound to the control of the one who freed him. Namely Dr. Sheamus here. He tells the doctor that there are nine other slammers. Five slammers of darkness, five slammers of light. Collect them all, one in each McDonald's happy meal!

We then head to a playground, where we meet our protagonist, Ronnie. Because, you know, for a cartoon based on Hawaii, it's only right to have our main protagonist be a blonde, white kid. He proves to be a master of Pog.. I mean Slammers (Don't want to get our butts sued now), which is apparently done by spinning the slammer over certain flipped over caps. I don't recall playing it like that, but then again, I mostly collected the caps, I barely ever played the game.

Meanwhile, inside the volcano, Shadow Slammer and the mad doctor find another slammer, one with a sun emblem on it. But before they can claim it, lava begins to fill the area, and the volcano erupts, shooting the slammer out in the process. Well, clearly we wont be seeing that slammer again, so there's like 8 more to collect, right?

Late for his guitar lesson, Ronnie takes a short cut through the tall bamboo, to which he happens to find the sun slammer after tripping over it. He cuts the metal slammer out of the lava, and heads off to his lesson with Mr. Capamaui, and gets scolded for his gnarly cap gaming leading to his lateness.

Mr. Capamaui seems like that one old guy who just sounds really dumb trying to be so hip. He also has a weird Jamaican accent that goes in and out from a normal accent. 

                  Even Wolf-Mon would be slightly offended

While he teaches Ronnie how to do "the riff by Eric Clapton", the doctor finally arrives, and wants the slammer that Ronnie took. Shadow Slammer appears, and Mr. Capamaui is quite impressed, but then again he's already high as fuck. Shadow Slammer presents his distaste in rock music by smashing Mr. Capamaui's guitar. Ronnie drops his caps on the ground, along with the sun slammer. It spins about, and from it comes...

Captain Planet's even lamer brother?

This slammer is one of light (duh), and pledges his loyalty to Ronnie. This pisses off the doctor, who sends Shadow Slammer to fight him. Of course, since Ronnie didn't command him to fight, the sun slammer won't attack, so Ronnie tells him to. I know there's this whole loyalty thing and all, but dammit, YOU'RE STILL GETTING YOUR ASS HANDED TO YOU!

He uses his Care-Bear stare to get rid of No-Heart (actually, he shoots a beam out of the logo on his... no wait, I was right the first time) as well as light beams from his hands. Wait a sec... Our main hero is blonde, powered by the sun, and can shoot beams from his hands?

Smooth move Ronnie, you fucking summoned Nuclear Man!

Shadow Slammer gets his ass handed to him, and the doctor (who we finally learn is named Karl Von Fragmen) swears revenge on Ronnie. the day is saved for now... with the exception that Mr. Capamaui's house is destroyed and all, as he laments about it with his accent that shifts from Jamaican, to a weird sorta Scottish. With police and news teams heading to the scene, Ronnie fears about being seen by his folks. The sun slammer, (or simply knows as Sun) uses a bright light to blind everyone as they make their escape.

And it's time for backstory. 3000 years ago, Hawaii was calm, peaceful, and serene. That is, until the big volcano woke up, and somehow created a rift in space and time, because you know, lava has the power to do that. It managed to release the five slammers of darkness.

The Thing with a sunburn, Flurrie from Paper Mario 2...

Generic rock guy, Rule 63 Firestorm, and of course No-Heart.

Or Fire, Storm, Lead, Fire, and Shadow Slammers respectively. The five of them spread havoc and destruction all over Hawaii. To stop them, five light slammers arrive.

Let's see, water chick, tree guy...

She-3PO, Ice Guile, and finally Sun

Or, respectively known as Rain, Earth, Gold, Ice, and Sun. Really, Gold? I guess the slammers of light just like to be really gaudy. The ten of them brawled for a hundred years. Though I'd like to imagine a couple years of downtime, maybe some romantic situations. I mean, who wouldn't want to bone the Storm slammer?... Uh, I mean, 100 years of non-stop brawling, keeping them distracted to protect the world...

Judging by the look of the village, you've been doing a bang up job on that.

But Slammers are immortal, so this would just keep going for centuries. So, to stop them, the light slammers, managed to hold the dark slammers long enough to turn them into round metal discs for collecting. The slammers were buried inside the volcano in a really nice looking burial site. Over the years, earthquakes and eruptions eventually led to the release of Shadow and Sun. And then we get some obvious filler that only good people can control the light slammers, and only evil can control the dark ones. Let's be honest, he spun it on the fucking ground, and it worked. That's the trick, it could probably have been anyone, instead of this generic kid with no interesting gimmick, or anything that makes him worthwhile.

Knowing that Von Fragmen would be after the other slammers, Sun and Ronnie head into the volcano to recover them. At first Ronnie is tepid to do it,  but, as Ronnie says "If Indiana Jones can do it, so can he." Did Indy ever enter a Hawaiian volcano? Don't recall that.

*waits to be immediately corrected*

Of course, after a while, Ronnie begins to moan about not being able to do it, despite Sun's attempts to give him a dose of added vigor. Ronnie tries to convince Sun that he's no hero, and that he just tripped over a piece of Lava. Sun tries to convince that he was drawn to him by fate. No, HE FUCKING TRIPPED OVER A PIECE OF LAVA!

Seriously, I don't see much hero potential in this kid.

.But it turns out Ronnie does have some connection to the slammers, and suddenly has the power to sense their location. As they head to the location, Von Fragmen follows behind. Before they can make it further, Shadow Slammer darkens the area, making it hard for Ronnie to see. He ends up falling down a hole, sliding to his doom, while Sun goes the wrong way. Ronnie survives, unfortunately, and journeys onward.

However, Ronnie's wild ride actually gets him to the burial site of the Slammers, but unfortuanately, only a couple seconds before Von Fragmen and Shadow Slammer. Sun finally shows up to help, but is too late, as Von Fragmen releases Storm Slammer to deal with Sun. He gets ready to summon the rest, but Ronnie stops  him and Shadow by, what else... throwing caps at them. In the midst this summons Gold Slammer.

"Don't just stand there gawking. Command me!"

Aw, why do the kids always get the submissive sex-bots?

Ronnie and Von Fragmen summon the rest of the slammers, and they all brawl. It's an okay, yet forgettable fight. However, the volcano begins to erupt in the middle of the fight. Despite Ronnie's plea for the light slammers to escape, Sun tells him that they must stay to stop the Shadow Slammers. So much for that whole "command them to do whatever" stuff. Ronnie and Von Fragmen manage to escape the volcano before it erupts. The rest of the slammers turn back into caps, and Sun places them all back in the burial site. Ronnie laments on the whole situation, and trips over another rock...

That just so happens to contain Sun Slammer. What a coninkydink!

And thus begins the adventures of Ronnie and the Hawaiian Slammers. Too bad we don't know what's next, because there was never another episode.

And that's Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers. And boy, is it bad.

Admittedly, on paper, there is some cool ideas, decent designs for the slammers, and even though milk toast and bland, we have an okay protagonist in Ronnie, and a stock yet decent villain in Karl Von Fragmen. But everything else is just stupid. The plot is so rehashed from damn near every mid 90's superhero cartoon on the market at the time. And it's a forgettable toy commercial cartoon, about pogs. POGS! I mean, how silly is a cartoon idea about pogs. That would be like making a cartoon about magical playing cards.

Oh right.

Or a cartoon about spinning tops.

Oh right. That too.

Okay, then I know for damn sure there wasn't any cartoon about the Rubik's Cube.

OH, COME ON!!

I guess the moral of the story is, we really were given a bunch of crappy toy cartoons. And I guess I gotta be the one to review them. TOONCRAP IS BACK BITCHES!!! And I promise it won't take 16 months for the next review.