For a Saturday morning cartoon from 1985, Droids was surprisingly ahead of its time. For one thing, it’s serialized. There are a lot more Saturdays in a year than there were new episodes of any given show, which means animated series were going to be repeated quite a bit. This often meant that episodes were made to be shown in any order, for ease of scheduling. That meant episodes had to be self-contained, with the reset button hit at the end of each. (Kids’ cartoons were far from the only shows made this way – plenty of live-action sit-coms and dramas were made with no strict episode order, to make syndication easier.)
But the first four episodes of Droids form a neat little arc, telling the story of C-3PO and R2-D2 meeting new friends Thall, Jord, and Kea, helping them take down the Fromm crime family and win the Boonta speeder race. Both the gangster and the race plot strands come to a head in this episode; in the end, the droids choose to leave their friends so that they won’t have to pass up an exciting job opportunity (space capitalism!) that doesn’t allow droids. The episode ends with our mechanical heroes drifting through space in an escape pod, ready for a new adventure. 80s aesthetics abound, but the structure is recognizably modern.
And of course, there’s another aspect of Droids that’s much more common now than it was then – continuity! A very key element of the Star Wars mythos makes a surprise appearance in this episode: 3PO being a complete and utter dick to R2.
No, wait. That’s a key element of the Star Wars mythos, yes, but not very surprising. No, actually, it’s everyone’s favorite badass bounty hunter, Boba Fett! The makers of Droids knew their audience – kids obsessed with Star Wars – and they made good use of that audience’s knowledge of the films, and how that knowledge can be utilized to build anticipation. I imagine many a 1985 child staring in disbelief at their TV when the shadowed figure stepped out into the light, then screaming in delight when that trademark armor was revealed in all its glory. I mean, that’s what I would have done, if I hadn’t been so stupid as to pass up this cartoon the first time around for being kids’ stuff.
And of course, Boba’s appearance, apart from being oh-my-god-so-awesome, brings with it a cornucopia of continuity to sate the hungriest of geek appetites. We already knew this show took place pre-A New Hope from references to the Empire, but Boba – last seen being slowly digested over a thousand years in Return of the Jedi – showing up alive and well clinches it. And what’s more, the show trusts its audience enough not to spoon-feed them the timeline. Adults might need to think it through, but the kids get it.
And he references Jabba the Hutt! Oh my god so awesome!
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