Five Awesome Kid's TV Shows (Watched By Me)

As a child of the 90's, I grew up watching some of the greatest children's television programmes ever conceived. They captured my imagination- and my mother's wallet, too, as the awesome toys that followed ensured that I would not settle until they were in my sticky mits. So, follow me for another stroll down memory lane as we look at my five favourite TV shows from my childhood.



Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

Previously described by myself as "some of the money-makingest copy/pasting ever", Power Rangers would become an institution of Western children's TV, but was in fact 75% recycled from the even-longer-running Japanese live-action Super Sentai Series. Power Rangers has, for the past two decades, been refreshed annually with a new series comprised of new Rangers- however, the longest-standing and probably most popular/memorable series was the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.

Five stereotypical American teenagers transform into tight-bright spandex-wearing superheroes and ride around in giant robots in order to do battle with an extra-terrestrial evil bent on taking over and/or destroying the Earth, and then some. Sounds standard fair for a 90s' kids show right? Well it certainly was, but it was also certainly awesome.

They see me rollin', they hatin'...

Power Rangers taught me a couple of valuable lessons. First of all, if it says "don't try this it home" then you probably should, because that stuff is cool. Secondly, once you've tried it at home, you might as well try it out at school on your resident bully, because Jason, Billy, Trini, Kimberly and Zack took no crap from anyone, and would lay the smack down in a second if you messed with them.




Biker Mice From Mars
Teenage Mutant Ninja Who?

Forget the Turtles, because for me, it was all about the Biker Mice From Mars- 7-foot tall, muscle-bound mice descended from the planet Mars upon their tricked out martian motorcycles. They beat up the alien bad guys and cracked terrible puns for the good of planet Earth- and for my enjoyment.

That's pretty much all their was to it- and nothing has cool has ever really been done since. It held the similar distinction as Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for having an awesome, electric guitar-driven opening theme, and it also had an awesome toy line- of which I didn't get many of...

Beast Wars Transformers


A long enduring franchise, Transformers has captivated the imaginations of many a child, and when I was a child it was the Beast Wars variety that I grew up with.

As you might expect, the Beast Wars television series stemmed from a toyline of the same name released in 1995. And, if you ask me, if there's one thing cooler than robots turning into cars, it's robots turning into mechanical animals. The Beast Wars TV series was somewhat of an innovator when it came to CGI, as it was entirely computer-animated.

The Autobots were now the Maximals, and the Decepticons became the Predacons, and they did battle with each other for total transforming robot domination. The toys that followed were sheer plastic awesomeness- albeit with one or two stinkers- and needless to say I had quite a few of them.

There's no way that this isn't awesome.

Street Sharks

So when the Street Sharks came along, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got demoted to third place in the list of best anthropomorphic, crime-fighting animals. Yet another mid-nineties invention, Street Sharks  told the tale of four regular teenage males who become unfortunately mutated into freakishly strong, wall-chomping, curb-stomping humanoid sharks as part of a mad scientist's devious experiment.

And so another line of toys was borne from the Sharks' success, all sporting a thick plastic-rubber skin to make them look and feel that bit... sharkier.

Oh yeah, and there was a freakin' killer wale with a three-foot tongue. Fantastic.

Sonic The Hedgehog &Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog

So if you've not gathered by now, I was a massive Sonic the Hedgehog fan as a kid (and still am to be honest), and as if being able to play Sonic on my Mega Drive wasn't enough, the Blue Blur even got himself on TV- with not one, but two TV shows which debuted in the same month.

The first of these was simply named Sonic the Hedgehog. It was quite different from it's initial subject matter, as these particular Sonic universe was that of a dystopian, post-apocalyptic setting. It was kind of like Sonic the Hedgehog meets Terminator, as Sonic and his gang of freedom fighters fight to resist and overcome the sinister Dr. Robotnik and his robotic regime.

The second Sonic TV show was The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and was a far sillier, slapstick alternative with a smaller caste that simply featured Sonic and Tails, along with a goofier Robotnik and two dim-witted robot sidekicks, Scratch and Grounder.

I was serious about my Sonic, and hence preferred the more serious TV show, but I still loved both series, because it was Sonic on TV, and Sonic was awesome.

And that brings me to the end of my nostalgia trip. Suddenly I wish I was a kid all again...