Review of InHumanoids

Introduction

Once upon a time when television was still square, a wise man came up with an ingenious way to market new toys. Weekly cartoon series that would showcase entire ranges of toys, with the characters regularly engaged in the kind of battles that children would recreate in their bedrooms. Instead of paying the networks to screen adverts, the networks would pay them for twenty minutes of schedule filler. The theme tune would invariably be an annoyingly catchy jingle that would succinctly describe the show. And thus was born the childhood memories of millions, as they gathered around television sets to watch the adventures of their favourite toys, be they Transformers, Thundercats, MASK or Centurions. From 1986, a toy range that completely passed me by was the InHumanoids, but the animated series comes to DVD regardless. The movie, The Evil That Lies Within is presented on disc one in five parts, while eight further episodes are on disc two.

The InHumanoids are an ancient terror from beneath the Earth, awakened when the villainous Blackthorne Shore unearths the monstrous Tendril. Soon the leader of the InHumanoids, Metlar and his other lackey D`Compose reunite with the tentacled monster and start attacking civilisation. Standing against them are the heroic Earth Corps, four intrepid geologists equipped with powerful exploration suits that allow them to venture into the Earth`s core. To aid in their battle, they find allies in the Mutores, including the mysterious Redwoods, the subterranean civilisation of the Granites, and the only being that can keep Metlar imprisoned, the gestalt Magnokor. The battle for civilisation will be fought on these discs.

Video

The picture is a wholly unimpressive 4:3 transfer. The transfer is adequate in that it relates the original viewing experience without any digital artefacts, but the stodgy animation is hardly going to win any awards, with characters sometimes wobbling on the backgrounds. The print shows its age, with the occasional tape artefact hinting at its origins. The character design is unimpressive, and the style will appear familiar to anyone who enjoyed cartoons in the eighties.

Audio

The sound is similarly functional, with a DD 2.0 track sufficient in recreating that Saturday morning ambience. There aren`t any subtitles, which is a shame as Metlar`s minions are usually incomprehensible beyond the vehement exclamation of "Decompose!" The theme tune is excruciatingly bad, and you`ll be humming "InHumanoids" all day long. It should be noted that the sound drops out for a couple of seconds in Episode 7.

Features

There are few extras with this title, and those that are included are repeated across both discs. That is except the episode scripts, which are presented as PDF files on the appropriate discs. You`ll need a computer to read them though. Via your player, you can view a brief advert for the Redlen character (with authentic tree action), and you can peruse a gallery of toy packaging that the hawkeyed can use to gather character info with.

Conclusion

I never realised how much nostalgia counted for in these things. If I was reviewing Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Turtles, Pole Position, He-Man or God help me, Bravestarr, then I could gaze wistfully through a pair of rose-tinted spectacles. Never having seen InHumanoids before, I could only take it at face value. Oh my! We used to watch a load of tat in the eighties, didn`t we?

InHumanoids is the typical cartoon designed to sell as many cheaply and flimsily constructed plastic contrivances as possible, with each successive episode introducing a new addition to the range. The characters always follow set stereotypes, a lantern-jawed leader, a brash brawny brawler, a smart scientist and a compassionate humanist. The dialogue is typically bombastic and every episode has an action sequence designed to show the newest toy`s special action. There is a moment of deprecating humour that allows each episode to end in a collective chuckle, and I think I`ve hit all the relevant clichés. It has a simplicity and repetitiveness that is remarkably boring for someone outside the target audience. As for the character designs, well even as a child I would have felt shame at owning a toy that looked like any of these.

Oddly enough however, there is an aspect to InHumanoids that was missing from many of its contemporaries. The first five episodes are presented as a movie, and the story flows quite logically through humanity`s first battle against the subterranean menace. Surprisingly, there is also a strong continuity through the final eight episodes as well. Events in one episode have ramifications I the next, and even more amazingly, there is a degree of character development as well, something that is practically unheard of in these glorified adverts.

It`s just a shame that every other aspect of the cartoon, the animation, the characters, the dialogue and the story all did a good job at putting me to sleep. Children today are amply catered for with shows like Spongebob Squarepants, and would find the archaic and low budget nature of InHumanoids tedious. People like myself who are in the right age bracket, but never experienced the charms of InHumanoids firsthand, will find it hard if not impossible to enjoy it today. These discs are aimed at those people who watched and bought the toys 20 years ago. Only they will have the rose-tinted spectacles necessary to appreciate the show. Personally I hope there is enough of an audience to guarantee these discs success. If a minority title like InHumanoids can find an audience, then maybe I am justified in holding out hope for Ox Tales, or Baggy Pants And The Nitwits.