Ring Raiders


Ring Raiders is a 1989 animated television series based on a 1980s toy line made by Matchbox. The series began with a two-hour special by DIC Enterprises, followed by one week of five half-hour episodes.

Synopsis

Set in the year 1998, the world is on the brink of a cataclysmic war. An organization dedicated to taking over the world, through the brutal use of air power, is about to realize its goal. It is known as the "Skull Squadron", founded by a band of renegades whose planes are capable of time travel. These pilots fall in love with the power they hold and see that they can use their planes to take control of the world. There are always pilots who, twisted by war's cruelties, are willing to join the Skull Squadron, causing it to grow bigger and more dangerous. In the 1990s, Skull Squadron is finally powerful enough to scramble for the master mission in its bid for world domination.
By now, almost too late, the great nations of the world are aware of Skull Squadron's plot. They band together to produce an aircraft that gives them a fighting chance against the onslaught—the Justice-class air carrier, which can travel through time. The carrier is outfitted with a small crew, then sent back in time. The Justice crew beams the best planes and pilots right out of history's greatest air battles to train them to fight against the Skull Squadron.
A handful of pilots are selected as "Ring Commanders" to train and supervise the hundreds who remain. Ring Commanders are identified by their special signal ring, through which they can summon a fellow Ring Raider in times of need.
"Ring of Fire", "Scorch's Revenge", "All the Right Stuff", "The Best Man for the Job is a Woman" and "A Pilot's Faith" were all pilot episodes, but the series was never taken up as a full season show.
The animation art design was done by Peter Chung, based on the Those Characters From Cleveland art and toy designs of Mark Spangler and Jim Groman.
The show used the catchphrase "The command is in my hand" when characters wished to transform their planes, using their rings to make them more powerful. Their improved forms could only be held for a short time, or the pilot risked burning out their nervous system.

Pilots and planes

Justice Crew

  1. "Ring of Fire" : Cub Jones, a novice US Navy pilot from World War II, is recruited by the Ring Raiders when the Skull Squadron emerges in his era. The plot of the first episode is Cub's rescue from peril at the hands of the Skulls and initiation into the Raiders — and the subsequent mission as the Skulls' delayed-reaction weapon sets off volcanoes all around the world.
  2. "The Best Man for the Job is a Woman" : Jenny Gail must focus on rescuing the other Ring Raiders when they are in trouble and prove she is a capable pilot.
  3. "Scorch's Revenge" : In this episode, viewers learn that Scorch's real name is Stanley Smith. He attended the Top Flight Academy with Victor Vector, who scarred Scorch's face after a challenge to see who was the better pilot. Seeking revenge, Scorch kidnaps Jenny Gail and challenges Vector to discover who is the better pilot and stop Jenny from being sent to the Jurassic Period.
  4. "All the Right Stuff" : In the year 2038, Yinsu Yakamura was a member of the World Air Force and rescued astronauts in a space shuttle from a meteor shower. He also tried to rescue an alien life form on the shuttle but the meteor shower was too strong. The Justice air carrier rescued him as he was crash landing and a starflyer became his alien pet parrot. Also in this episode, Scorch time travels to 2020 to steal a satellite that will enable him to take over the world. The Ring Raiders escape to Kansas in the year 1860 in order to prevent the Skull Squadron from attacking them. Yinsu suggests that the Ring Raiders travel to Edwards Air Force Base in the year 2023 to get a Gamma 2 Space Fighter to help defeat Scorch.
  5. "A Pilot's Faith" : A mysterious plague is striking the world and the Ring Raiders have been asked to deliver a cure for it. "Cub" Jones learns he must rely on his pilot's instincts rather than technology when the Justice air carrier autopilot is out of commission.

    Home video releases

The Ring Raiders toyline consisted primarily of small plastic toy planes mounted on plastic rings via a detachable display stand. The stands allowed the aircraft a small degree of mobility. Relatively few molds were produced for the toyline; most of the aircraft were repainted three or four times each.
The line was rather short lived, lasting about six months.

Wing Packs

The bulk of the toy release consisted of packs of four aircraft, each squadron sporting their own distinctive color scheme. No two packs had exactly the same aircraft in them, but several had three shared aircraft.
Twelve packs were released, six Ring Raiders and six Skull Squadron.

Battle Packs

These packs consisted of two aircraft, one Skull Squadron and one Ring Raider. The aircraft were simply repackaged versions of ones that had previously been sold in Wing packs.
Towards the end of the line, these packs were sold bundled with other items from the line.

Bases

Four bases were released as a part of the line, three Ring Raiders and one Skull Squadron.
The Air Carrier Justice was the largest single item in the line; it was a massive Flying Wing design, resembling a scaled-up version of the YB-49.
The Skybase Freedom and Skybase Courage were two smaller bases. Both were able to connect to the Justice. The two bases were of similar design, and their toys shared almost all of their parts, albeit recolored.
The Skull Squadron Mobile Base was a heavily armed and armored flying fortress. The toy was based on the same design as the Freedom/Courage and shared about half the parts.

Battle Blasters

A pair of accessories, these toys consisted of a soundbox shaped like a flightstick that was worn around the wrist. It had three sound effects, each triggered by a separate button.
Two versions were produced, one Ring Raiders and one Skull Squadron. Both were virtually identical, save for the color scheme. The Skull Squadron version played a "revving" sound when it was started up, but apart from this it was identical to its Ring Raiders counterpart.

Action Packs

Released at the end of the line, these are probably the rarest items in the Ring Raiders line. These packs consisted of eight aircraft, four from each side. The aircraft were a mixture of previously released molds and new ones that had not yet been featured, and all had new color schemes.

Featured aircraft

The Ring Raiders toy line featured an array of aircraft dating from World War II to the present day, including the then-"Futuristic" designs. With the exception of the fictional Nightingale helicopter, Airborne aircraft carriers and both Monogram and Testors versions of the F-19 Stealth Fighter model kits, all were based on real aircraft. Almost all of the designs featured were Western aircraft.
Real-life Aircraft in the toy line include:
The cartoon featured numerous other aircraft that weren't featured in the toyline, including the F6F Hellcat, B-58 Hustler, BAE Hawk, Fokker Dr.I, MiG-21, MiG-25, Tu-22 and A6M Zero.
In Europe, a second line of Ring Raiders toys was released. Though no new characters were affiliated with the new aircraft squadrons, their colors bore immense similarities to those of the previous series. Brand new aircraft included the F6F Hellcat, F7U Cutlass, BAE Hawk, Me 262 and MiG-21.

Comic book

A Ring Raiders comic book was published by Fleetway Publications in mid-1989. The comic was published fortnightly and ran for six issues. Rather than running self-contained stories, each issue would run 5–6 serialised stories. One of these was usually a one-shot featuring the origin story of one of the featured characters.
Like the TV series and the toyline, the comic was a short lived. It was abruptly cancelled at the 6th issue, with most stories ending in cliffhangers. Save for a brief notice on the letters page stating this was happening "beyond our control", there was no indication that this was a final issue aside from the "Next issue" boxes at the end of each story now being blank.
As promised, Fleetway released a big, thick special edition the following year around March, which concluded all the stories which had been left hanging and included another origin story. Also included were "mini posters" which were the already completed covers for what would have been the next few issues, and a couple of the airplane fact-files which had also already been completed for publication.
The comic followed a different continuity from the cartoon series. The characters looked rather different from their animated counterparts, with several having radically different origin stories, their looks and origins tying in more with the original toyline on which the comic and cartoon were based.
Like Saban's Adventures of the Little Mermaid, Masked Rider and the English Dub version of the Dragon Quest anime, most of the music composed by Shuki Levy in this cartoon was later reused for the English Dub Saban versions of the first two seasons of Digimon.