Holy crap! I thought I was done updating the ‘Complete list of 80s cartoons on DVD’, but today while in the grocery store picking up some lunch I spotted the above DVD on the discount rack by the checkout. I did not realize that the 1986 Rambo and the Force of Freedom cartoon (produced by Ruby Spears) had made it to DVD, 3 years ago no less. Even though it was volume 4 and a single disc release I couldn’t help myself so I picked up the only copy left on the rack and was excited enough to whistle a little on my way out. When I got back to work I took a quick detour to Amazon and found out that all 65 episodes of the series were released in 2005 by Lion’s Gate over 6 individual discs.
Normally this would irk me a bit as I’m not a fan of single disc releases, but these are that bad considering each one has 11 episodes (vol. 6 has ten) and they’re modestly priced at about $6 a disc. That’s about $20 for the equivalent of a 33-episode set, not bad. My main gripe about these DVDs are that the episodes are presented wildly out of order, though like most 80s action cartoons there is little to no continuity so I’m sure the episode order doesn’t matter all that much. Also, even though it’s cool that there are 11 episodes per disc, I’d be willing to bet this has hampered their quality a bit. Oh well.
All in all I’m really excited to have found these episodes as I never saw the show in it’s original run (I was more of a G.I. Joe loyalist when it came to military cartoons I suppose.) Can’t wait to get home and pop this disc in…
Also, since I’m updating the list of cartoons anyway I thought I’d throw out a shout out to the release of the Lone Ranger and Zorro Volume 2 which should hit store shelves July 15th…
