From Bloodbath to Breakfast Cartoons: How RoboCop’s R-Rated Badassery Got a Kid-Friendly Makeover That’ll Shock Your Inner Child!
Added on September 3, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards, Movie News Cards
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Ever wonder what it’d be like if the cosmic forces aligned just right to turn a gritty, R-rated cult classic like RoboCop into a kid-friendly Saturday morning cartoon? Well, buckle up—because that’s exactly what happened when someone decided that the bullet-riddled streets of Detroit needed a shiny, laser-blasting, cartoon version of our favorite cyborg cop. It’s weird, it’s wild, and honestly, it’s way more fascinating than you’d expect. Just like Mercury retrograde creating some unexpected chaos, the transformation of RoboCop from an adult-oriented dystopia into a children’s animated series is a perfect storm of marketing madness and creative audacity. From Marvel’s surprisingly wholesome animation efforts to a bizarre sequel series that feels more like a toy commercial than a crime-fighting saga, these cartoons tried their darnedest to clean up one of the ’80s most violent properties for younger viewers. So, why did RoboCop make this surreal leap, and how did it hold up when aimed at kiddos? Let’s dive into the oddball history of RoboCop’s Saturday morning makeover. LEARN MORE
Marketing for kids is and always has been where the money is at. Turning existing properties like Barbie into TV shows, movies, books, video games, and anything else you can think of for little girls to get their parents to buy has done quite well for Mattel over the years. Star Wars actors and especially George Lucas knew that merchandising was the key even if his movie wasn’t expressly made for children. Speaking of not expressly made for children, I know a lot of us, both the creators on this channel as well as our audience, got to see a ton of stuff that we weren’t supposed to at younger ages. I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to see Species in theaters as a 10-year-old but here we are. Thanks, Mom. Where it got really interesting, really outside the box thinking, was when someone decided to take those not made for kids’ properties and make them for kids. Rambo, Toxic Avenger, Swamp Thing, Starship Troopers, and yes, RoboCop were somehow inexplicably turned into children’s cartoon shows. Let’s fire up Detroit’s finest for not one but TWO attempts at making one of the 80s most violent and inappropriate properties into Saturday morning cartoons and see what happened to these RoboCop cartoons.
Kids cartoons have been big forever. Now we have streaming services that either premier new ones or just show entire seasons of ones that already aired but for a long time it was either movie theater shorts or specific time blocks, most famously of the Saturday morning variety. Saturday mornings could have a whole block because there was no school to take their viewership away from the TVs and they could get more ad revenue with more shows. The kidization of adult properties started with Rambo, which decided not to take the bleak PTSD of the first movie but instead the action-packed fighting of the second movie and make it into a G.I. Joe like property called Rambo: The Force of Freedom in 1986. A little while later we would get a second stab at this when RoboCop, maybe one of the least friendly kid properties, would be made into a cartoon show called, well, RoboCop. This is hilarious on two fronts as one, the movie had to be toned down several times to avoid an X rating, ya know, great for kids, and the fact that marketing and advertising was a big satirical part of the movie and here they were, making a cash in cartoon on that very thing.
RoboCop was produced by Marvel of all things, with help from Orion Pictures, who was responsible for the movie as well. The show was actually part of this weird block of TV called the Marvel Action Universe which included RoboCop, Dino Riders, and the pilot episode of what would eventually become the beloved X-Men TV series. It would also fill out its time by running older series from earlier in the decade like Dungeons and Dragons, The Incredible Hulk, and Spider-Man among others. This block, like the cartoon we are discussing, didn’t last long though only running from 1988 to 1991. RoboCop would only end up being 12 episodes even though it was commissioned for 13. That 13th episode was scrapped and turned into the pilot X-Men TV show and even if that didn’t come to fruition right away, it became the one we all know and love with the absolute BANGER of a theme song. That also gave us the sequel series recently that you should go watch.
RoboCop the animated series takes place in a bizarro alternate universe. It still follows Alex Murphy who was badly damaged by a gang and turned into RoboCop. RoboCop has the same captain and partner in Anne Lewis, is a product of OCP and deals with other attempts at peacekeeping, the OCP is run by “The Old Man”, and RoboCop operates in the city of Old Detroit. What changed, what HAD to change really, are that the guns were turned into laser weapons, the violence on humans was toned down and supplemented with a huge influx of robots, and it follows a kid TV show format. Oh, and Clarence Boddicker didn’t die and actually comes back in the series finale.
RoboCop moves a bit faster and has the ability to be more coordinated with his flow and has a red eye that moves across his visor to tie into the much more sciifi theme. The show follows your typical “message” episodes with stuff like racism, towards actual races but also anti-robot sentiments, PTSD, classism, environmental danger, terrorism, and even work prejudice. The show looks like an 80s cartoon, but I feel it leans more towards Real Ghostbusters than a G. I. Joe. The voice cast includes Robert Bockstael as Robocop, Susan Roman as Lewis, and Harvey Atkin as a couple other voices amongst a few other voice actors. Atkin may be the most famous, at least for a certain generation, as he also voiced Bowser in multiple Mario Brothers cartoons. The creative team was spearheaded by Rich Fogel who helped write for shows like Duck Tales, Muppet Babies, and the New Adventures of Batman amongst others.
While the show only lasted 12 episodes, it’s pretty fun. It’s slightly more mature than your typical kids show but is still very much aimed at a younger audience. It has some good callbacks to the movie and while it doesn’t have any of the voice cast from the original film, it has the feel of an amalgamation of children’s TV and RoboCop. The animation is solid and it’s a perfectly acceptable version of our favorite Detroit police officer. The villains range from bad guy humans to other robots made by the same guy that made ED 209 with the aforementioned Clarence Boddicker coming back in what would end up being the final episode along with three new cop action heroes. This of course would lead to Kenner action figures which was almost assuredly more profitable than the TV series and unfortunately the series has never made it to physical media stateside with only a couple UK releases. While it was a Marvel animation production, don’t expect it to show up on Disney Plus anytime soon. It is, however, very free on YouTube even if the quality isn’t anything to shout about. It’s worth checking out as a forgotten piece of history and for Robo Completionists.
Just 10 years later, we would get a very different version of RoboCop with RoboCop: Alpha Commando. This also ran only 1 season but instead of 12 episodes we were “gifted”, and I use the term loosely, with 40 episodes. This is a very different type of show and unfortunately, I don’t mean that in the better type of way. While the 88 version felt very much of its time in terms of animation and style in a good way, this is the Street Sharks or Mutant League of the Orion RoboCop universe, even failing to match the enjoyment of some of the lesser video games. Also, I didn’t mean to use Street Sharks as a pejorative, those toys rule. RoboCop: Alpha Commando was developed by Eric and Julia Lewald who had their hand in all time classic like X-Men: The Animated Series, The Tick, Chip and Dale, Exosquad, and even lesser stuff that’s still fun like Mummies Alive. This was in conjunction with MGM animation studios and Fireworks Entertainment. Cartoon shows in the 90s were big business and even if you had a miss like this show, you could just as easily come up with a massive hit like most of the other shows that they worked on that I mentioned.
The show takes place after the movies in the year 2030 where RoboCop has been reactivated after a 5 year hiatus to help a government agency called Alpha Division with their Cobra-ass enemies called DARC which is the Directorate for Anarchy, Revenge, and Chaos which sounds like it should be led by Doctor Evil himself. These adventures take Robo not only all over the country but also all over the world to help stop any DARC plots that arise. RoboCop is voiced by David Sobolov who may be most famous as the mid 2010s voice of Drax in several Marvel animation projects and the other voice actor of note is Dean Haglund as the hippie sandal wearing Dr. Neumeier who activates and upgrades Robocop for his missions. Out is Anne Lewis and in is agent Nancy Minor who is voiced by Akiko Morison.
The show has its issues. I can deal with the animation style and voices that don’t always land as well as the subject matter of the episodes that are very of its time. It’s the inconsistencies that take me out of it. There is no explanation of what happened to Anne Lewis nor why RoboCop was decommissioned. The timeline jumps from 2020 to 2030 after the first episode and at first RoboCop’s son is in a flashback but then he just shows up at the same age as the flashbacks while he and his mom have different names from the movie. While that is later explained, it also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. While I understand the need for changes, and RoboCop is right on top of the pile for Grade A violence that needed to be changed, you can change too much. They almost take the fun out of RoboCop.
Some of the less egregious things done to the character are the fact that this is the only time on screen we don’t get a human face Murphy sans his helmet and it takes him out of Detroit. Two of the most endearing things about RoboCop are the fact that every now and then we get to see him as kind of human when his mask is removed and that he is the protector of a specific city, even getting a statue in real life. The biggest issue, however, is how the character is written. Not only is he a go go gadget kids toy with all of the extra tools and weapons that don’t suit him, but he’s also kind of a shitbag. As soon as he asked the doctor “who the babe” was, I knew we were in trouble. He has really “cool” and that’s in quotes humor and dialogue that make me want to watch RoboCop 3 to get a better version of this hero as a kid’s property.
Did I watch all 40 episodes, no. I watched enough to get a good idea of the show and even bounced around a bit to see how it evolved. It really doesn’t. That show also received its own toy line, which makes a lot more sense than the show from the late 80s but even the toys weren’t as good. If you are interested in an animated version of Detroit’s finest cyborg cop, then watch the 12-episode run that’s free on YouTube and if you need to explore more then there are plenty of wonderful comic books and not so wonderful but still fun video games to explore. Theres a reason these aren’t available on any physical media or paid streaming service. Stay clear of them or there will be trouble.
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