by Kroze Kresky, Media Editor
ReBoot, by Mainframe Entertainment, was one of the groundbreaking shows that hit televisions in the early 90s. It ushered in a new wave of animation, blowing audiences away with its crazy, newfangled, polygon-filled imagery. Hitting the airwaves an entire year before movie audiences were dazzled by Pixar’s Toy Story, ReBoot quickly gained a following in Saturday morning cartoon watchers who have begged for years for the series, which had been previously locked up in various legal battles to be released in a full set. But now the entire series of the first fully computer-animated TV show finally comes to DVD for the first time ever.
The show follows the exploits of what would happen inside of your computer if it were alive, and each bit and byte had its own personality. The series centers around a Sprite named BOB who is a Guardian created to protect the system of Mainframe from evil viruses and other threats. To assist him, BOB has various friends, such as the brother and sister combo of Dot and Enzo Matrix, who own a Diner in Mainframe and have grown close to BOB. Other cohorts are the ever- annoying TV named Mike who everyone just wants to shut up, and a waiter named Cecil; who looks remarkably like an old Apple Macintosh and berates everyone who comes in his path.
Since the show takes place inside a computer, another character is the god-like being known only as “The User” who likes to play various games he puts. Our heroes end up having to play these games (which, most of the time, are very much tongue-in-cheek parodies of actual video games) in order to prevent the system from being destroyed.
Also living within the system are a pair of viruses. Megabyte (voiced by the late Tony Jay, who is also well-known for voicing Judge Frollo in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame), a very intelligent and sinister virus who acts like a mob boss slowly executing his plans to drive all the bits and bytes of Mainframe to be corrupted so that he may rule over them all. Hexadecimal is a being who thrives off of pure chaos and randomness and may or may not have some weird connection to Megabyte, despite them always being at war with each other.
ReBoot gained lots of love from the geek population due to its use of very geeky terminology that it used to make tons of puns throughout the series, as well as its many many pop-culture parodies of TV shows and video games. But the series quickly broke away from its silly-and-comedic-stand-alone-
Episode Highlights:
“The Medusa Bug”: Hex has a plan to make all of Mainframe bow to her every will. Sending a package out that contains a bug which infects the entire system turning everyone and everything all to stone, can BOB stop the bug before it turns him to stone as well?
“Enzo the Smart”: Enzo, who is finally sick of playing second fiddle to the rest of everyone, decides to try and become smarter than everyone else. He finds his way into the Central Processing Unit of Mainframe and tells it he wishes to become four times smarter than everyone else… sadly the plan backfires, Instead of making him smarter, it makes everyone else in Mainframe (Including BOB) four times dumber. Now with a game cube entering the system, can Enzo, being the only one smart enough to still win, beat the user by himself or will everyone end up nullified?
“Wizards, Warriors And A Word From Our Sponsor”: When Mike the TV ends up hanging around (and slowly annoying) our heroes, a game cube hits and brings them all into a parody of Dungeons and Dragons. Can BOB, Enzo and Dot beat the user and deal with Mike’s annoying ramblings both at the same time? Will Mike ever be useful? Will people ever stop saying that I am as annoying as Mike? Find out the answer to all these questions (except that last one) after these commercial messages from our sponsor!
“Painted Windows”: Hexadecimal gains access to Mainframe’s Paint command and uses it to paint all of Mainframe! Harmless fun? Not when her antics wreak havoc on Mainframe’s communication systems. This episode starts off a new tone for the series, starting a story arc that lasts all the way up until the end of Season 3.
“Web World Wars”: A portal to the web has been opened bringing in various creatures from the web who are attacking Mainframe in the epic Season 2 finale. All of the main characters are forced to work together with Megabyte and Hex once they learn that no help is coming from Guardian Command. But how long could this fragile alliance possibly last?
“Game Over”: This is the real turning point for the series where Enzo and AndrAIa are forced into a no win situation where they play in a Mortal Kombat-like game against the user who has become very skilled. Is this really the end for our heroes?
“The Episode with No Name”: We are finally introduced to the Guardians and their leader Turbo as we find out about a much bigger threat named Daemon, a trojan virus that has infected the net and was behind the attacks on Mainframe. Turbo tells Matrix that he needs to find BOB since he is the the only Guardian left that can be trusted. This episode sets into motion the storyline that winds through the rest of the series.
“Showdown”: Finally it has all come down to this, BOB, Matrix and everyone has rallied to take down Megabyte and his corrupted army in an epic battle which the entire fate of Mainframe lies in the balance. This is what it has all been leading up to and not everyone is gonna make it out in one piece!
“Dameon Rising”: The first of two feature length movies that made up the entirety of season 4. Every guardian has been infected and now serves the lethal trojan virus known as Dameon. Now with Mainframe as the only system left uncorrupted by Dameon’s rule, its up to BOB, Enzo, Matrix, Dot, AndrAIa and even Mike the TV to fight back against the entire net and delete Dameon for good!
“My Two Bobs”: In the aftermath of the Dameon incident, it turns out a second BOB has appeared untarnished and clean with no memory of his time surfing the net. While the first BOB doesn’t trust the duplicate Guardian, he slowly wins everyone else in Mainframe over leading everyone to wonder if the BOB they have been fighting along side since finding him on the net is even the real BOB.
Special Features:
-Audio Commentary on Episodes
-Fast Forward: The Making of ReBoot
-Looking Back At ReBoot With Co-Creator Gavin Blair
-Animated Character Models
Overall:
ReBoot is a classic and well-done series that any fan of CG animation owe it to themselves to have this piece of history in their DVD collection. Much of the series still holds up along with the jokes and the stories are still engaging as ever. Granted most of the CGI looks a bit dated, but that can’t really be helped due to being one of the pioneers of CGI animated shows, and much of that time you may hardly even notice it due to being sucked in to the wacky adventures the crew of Mainframe get into episode after episode. Seasons 3 and 4 deserves extra recognition for bringing the series into a more mature themed and serialized episode setting from its original stand alone, lighthearted beginnings. As the series progresses you can see the vast improvements Mainframe Entertainment had made over the course of the years to both their writing and CGI animation. ReBoot was the first entirely CGI animated show and its still one of the best despite showing it’s age a bit!
ComicsOnline gives ReBoot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition – 4 glitches out of 5
Get your copy of ReBoot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition at Amazon.
Boot directly to ComicsOnline.com for more DVD reviews and everything geek pop culture!
