Anime has been aired on U.S. television ever since the 1960s, but it really took off in the 1970s and ’80s. In 1984, American network ABC collaborated with Japanese production companies TMS Entertainment and Intermedia Entertainment to deliver the one-season-wonder Mighty Orbots. Veteran anime director Osamu Dezaki helmed the 13-episode series, with his brother, Satoshi Dezaki, working on storyboards, and character designs by Akio Sugino. Shingo Araki oversaw the animation. The series aired on ABC in the United States and was released on home video in Japan.
Set in the 23rd century, Mighty Orbots followed the exploits of scientist Rob Simmons (voiced by Barry Gordon) who creates a team of robots who can operate on their own and can combine into a larger mecha, called Mighty Orbots. This of course follows the pattern of other anime including Voltron which took off in the U.S. around the same time.
Rob is often accompanied by a childlike robot named Ohno (Noelle North), who frequently exclaims “Oh no!” The Mighty Orbots also include the hulking Tor (Bill Martin), the slender Bort (Jim MacGeorge), the chubby Crunch (Don Messick), and “twin” females Bo (Sherry Alberoni) and Boo (Julie Bennett). The series’ main villain was Lord Umbra, a robot the size of a small planet, who led the force SHADOW.
Mighty Orbots was a pretty decent hit when it premiered, but it didn’t last long, because Tonka, the manufacturer of Go-Bots, sued claiming that Mighty Orbots created confusion among potential customers.
Just for the record, a toy line was planned, but to my knowledge, it was never released, possibly because the show didn’t last very long.
(They looked pretty crummy anyway.)
On the plus side, Mighty Orbots is one of the rare cartoon series that got a finale. The 13th and final episode depicted the “final” defeat of Lord Umbra and SHADOW.
As mentioned, Mighty Orbots was released in Japan in the 1980s on VHS, but it can also be purchased in the U.S. on DVD courtesy of Warner Archive (available on Amazon).
This series may not have lasted for very long and may have gotten lost in the flood of other robot shows of the time including Voltron, Transformers, and Go-Bots, but it retains a cult following to this day and the animation is still pretty top-notch. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’ve never seen it!