Karate Kommandos


Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos is an American animated television series that originally aired in 1986 as a syndicated five episode mini-series. It was created by and starred Chuck Norris as himself, and produced by Ruby-Spears Enterprises. Re-runs of the cartoon have occasionally aired on Boomerang and Adult Swim.

Plot

This fictionalized version of Chuck Norris is a United States government operative with a team of radically diverse warriors known as the Karate Kommandos. Together, they fight against the organization VULTURE led by the Claw and his right-hand man Super Ninja.

Production

The series follows the framing device of Mister T. At the beginning of each episode, a live action segment with Norris, usually at a gym or a martial arts studio, is shown to explain what is going on. At the end of each episode, Norris narrates a moral lesson for the audience to learn.

Characters

Karate Kommandos

The team includes:

Home media releases

In 1987, a VHS tape of Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos was released by Worldvision Home Video.
On April 1, 2011, Warner Archive released Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.

Comic book

There was also a comic book series published by Star Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics which produced comic books aimed at young children. Steve Ditko provided the art. Issue #1 found Too-Much daydreaming in class about being as great a martial artist as Chuck Norris, even taking down the Super Ninja singlehandedly. Without warning, Too-Much's teacher calls on him to give his book report on James Clavell's The Children's Story. Then Too-Much, his classmates, and their teacher are taken hostage by the Klaw's ninjas...who demand the Super-cruiser in return for their release. The Super-cruiser, which looks like a U-Haul truck, is a new anti-terrorist weapon created by Norris for the government. Pepper drives the Super-cruiser to the school, where she and her trusty dog take on the ninjas...while Chuck himself barges into the classroom and knocks out more of the ninjas. One of the ninjas tries to shoot Norris, who stops the bullet with a copy of The Children's Story; he then sells Too-Much a bill of goods about what a great book this is, while the police haul the ninjas off to jail.

Action figures

To coincide with the airing of the show, Kenner Products made a set of action figures based on the main characters of the show. Kenner also made many accessories, including weapons and vehicles, to go along with the figurines.

Reception

In The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows, David Perlmutter writes, "This short-run series was a blatant exploitation of Norris' popularity among child audiences, for whom, it seemed, the action-oriented narrative was directed. It was rather standard fare, save for the racism inherent in making the villains Asian people, as well as the public service announcements at the end, where Norris unconvincingly asserted that violent acts of the kind featured in the program were "my last option" when it came to problem solving."

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