Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Invasion America"

This has been on my "to review" list for a long time. When you think of DreamWorks shows, you probably think of the ones spun-off from their animated movies, don't you? The Penguins of Madagascar, the various Kung Fu Panda shows, Turbo F.A.S.T., etc.? But, before DreamWorks made a name for themselves doing CGI animated movies with pop culture references and celebrity voices, they dipped their toes into cartoon series. Their first cartoon, Toonsylvania, aired on Fox Kids. Their second cartoon is the one that we'll be looking at today: a little show called Invasion America.

This show was created by Harve Bennett (of Star Trek fame) and Steven Spielberg himself, who also served as executive producers, and served as a way for The WB to cash in on the success of The X-Files. Television executives, it would seem, agreed with that pigeon from Bolt...

The show's plot? In the 1980s, an alien named Cale-Oosha (voiced by Lorenzo Lamas), the ruler of a planet called Tyrus, believes that his uncle the Dragit (Tony Jay) wants to establish contact with the people of Earth. But the Dragit actually wants to invade Earth and conquer those puny Earthlings because of course he does. Cale refuses to do that, and a civil war gets started. Eventually Cale and his bodyguard Rafe (Edward Albert) escape to the Utah desert and meet a human woman named Rita (Kath Souice). After living on Earth for a few years, Cale returns to Tyrus. In the present day, the Dragit finds Rita and her young son David (Mikey Kelley) and all sorts of chaos ensues.

The original plan was for Invasion America to air on Kids' WB, but it was deemed too dark and violent for kids, so The WB aired it in prime-time. It premiered on June 8th, 1998... and promptly got cancelled after thirteen episodes because most people were going on vacation in the summer instead of watching television. To this day, the show hasn't gotten a single home video release, nor is it available on any streaming services.

Did Invasion America deserve to fail? Let's find out, shall we? Since this show has an overarching plot, I figured I should probably review the first episode, "The Legend", so I have some sort of idea what's going on. This is Invasion America!

The episode starts off in the scenic Utah Badlands. Just as the sun sets and night falls on the Beehive State (nicknamed that because the early pioneers that lived there considered themselves as hardworking as bees... hey, if I can't be funny, I should at least try to be educational), a helicopter appears, taking photos of random animal bones it can find. Eventually, it lands in front of a cave, and out step Major Phillip Stark (Greg Eagles) and Sergeant Angie Romar (Kristy McNichol), who meet up with a guy voiced by Jim Cummings (which automatically makes the show more awesome) who's checking out a dinosaur skeleton... or at least what LOOKS LIKE a dinosaur skeleton. I think the indication is that it's actually the skeleton of an alien that resembles a dinosaur. Say, wasn't there an episode of Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers with dinosaurs that were actually aliens? Maybe this fossil is of a dinosaur from that planet.

Before we can get any more information about this mysterious fossil, we cut to Glenport, Massachusetts. It's here that we meet our main character, David. As he does some nifty gymnastics, his inner monologue tells us that he's always been a loner, different from the other kids, and he doesn't know why. Probably because main characters of cartoons that happen to be teenagers are social outcasts more often than not. It's kind of a rule.

Maybe the other kids are just jealous of his epic gymnastics skills.

David's pal Jim (Rider Strong) enters and after some banter between them, they go for a motorcycle ride through the country. David's driving, even though five seconds ago he claimed that he isn't allowed to take Driver's Ed. Isn't that illegal?

"Getcha motor runnin', head out on the highway..."

Apparently it is, because a police car starts chasing after them, and David pulls over. Nah, I'm just kidding, he keeps going and we get a chase sequence. Because David is COOOOOOOOOOL, and COOOOOOOOOOOOL teenagers have no respect for the law. Just ask Jim Hawkins from Treasure Planet.

Of course, Sheriff Oozes Awesomeness here doesn't agree.

"My large forehead does not approve of this situation."

David reveals that this sheriff's name is Rafe... say, isn't Rafe also the name of Cale-Oosha's aforementioned bodyguard? I wonder if this guy is secretly an alien. Considering that after his little confrontation with David he wonders how long he can keep "this secret" from him, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "yes".

It's flashback time! Seventeen years earlier, we see a spaceship painted the same colors as a Coca-Cola advertisement flying through space. Inside the spaceship are all these humanoid figures speaking in a weird made-up language. Fortunately, there are subtitles. Unfortunately, they're in Spanish, so I still have no idea what the humanoids are saying.

I'll have to make up my own translations. I'm going to assume that "Dragit, prepardos
para lanzamiento a Tierra." is Spanish for "Dragit, I look like a girl."

Actually, according to Google Translate, it's Spanish for "Dragit, ready for launch to Earth."

The spaceship unleashes these smaller red spaceships that head for Earth. Then it's revealed that the aliens CAN speak English... or, as they call it, "Earth-Speak". Two of the aliens are Cale-Oosha and the Dragit, and they're talking about how they're going to visit the Dragit's Earth facility. Rafe is there, too, and he gives Cale a magic glowing glove "to remind [his] uncle that [he] is the ruler".

"I love the Power Glove. It's so bad."

At that very moment, a blonde-haired woman is driving around the Utah Badlands in a Jeep, and she winds up being a front-row spectator of one spaceship's landing at the Earth facility. The aliens on board are greeted by Tyrusian air force general Colonel Konrad (Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy), who takes Cale on a tour of the place... and promptly lets it slip that they're getting ready for "the invasion" and that the Dragit (not just ANY Dragit, THE Dragit) gave them the order to do that.

Why does the Dragit want to invade the Earth? Because he thinks Earthlings are a threat to the Tyrusians. "Earth is a war-like planet with weapons of mass destruction," he claims. "Most of which are in this place called 'America'. The only thing Americans respect is superior force. We will use this place to support such a force."

Honestly, Cale should've known that the Dragit was evil. Those eyebrows totally
give it away.

The Dragit goes all Mark Zuckerberg and insists that they need to expand, but Cale declares, "There will be no invasion." But the Dragit and his minions aren't going to just abandon those invasion plans so easily, and if that means committing treason, they're okay with that. It's not even treason, the Dragit claims, it's revolution. Totally different.

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the evolution! Uh, I mean, revolution..."

"Dang it, Steve, we rehearsed this ten times!"

The laser guns start a-blasting and eventually Cale and some other invasion-hating Tyrusians make a run for it. Cale and Rafe manage to escape in one of the smaller ships (which repeatedly switched back and forth between 2D and early 1990s CGI, distractingly enough), but they're not out of the woods yet. They still have to deal with... pausing for dramatic effect... the MANGLERS!

What are the Manglers? Well, if you stuck the Xenomorph from Alien and the velociraptors from Jurassic Park in a blender, a Mangler is probably what you'd get. I imagine that the Dragit wanted to use them are part of his invasion plan - Earthlings are probably powerless against these ferocious sharp-toothed beasts. Then again, if we could domesticate wolves and make dogs, maybe we could domesticate these guys too?

They really don't like being compared to Xenomorphs, as Cale and Reif learned the
hard way.

Cale is rescued by the blonde-haired woman in the Jeep, whereas Rafe is cornered on the top of a building by the Manglers - at least until he jumps off and blows the place sky-high. As for Cale and the blonde-haired woman, they wind up making a helicopter explode. The Dragit and Konrad believe that they destroyed Cale. I bet when he eventually ruins their plans for invasion, they're gonna feel really stupid.

Cale and the blonde-haired woman take refuge in a cave, where Cale reveals to her that he's an alien... and the blonde woman reveals that her name is Rita. Romantic music starts up... oh jeez, is this going where I think it's going? Is Cale actually David's father?

"Fun fact: Mars isn't the only planet that needs women..."

Well, before any Tyrusian mating rituals can get started, a Mangler shows up and attacks Cale. This is where that magic glove Rafe gave Cale earlier comes in handy (no pun intended). It has some sort of weird Mangler-KOing powers.

And guess what? Rafe is alive!

Rafe's voice informs us that in the days ahead, Rita would become a guide to Cale... and a friend... and much more. Yes, it turns out that Cale and Rita DID wind up having a kid together. I was initially disappointed that they made the main aliens in the show just look like humans, but honestly, if they were going to have one of them marry a human being I think that might've been for the best.

I mean, could you imagine if Rita wound up marrying and having a kid with, I dunno,
Roger from American Dad? THERE'S a creepy mental image...

Alas, Cale is eventually needed back on Tyrus, which means he must leave his wife and son - otherwise, when the Dragit finds them, they'll be in great danger. We end on two creepy guys watching them from the shadows as the words "To Be Continued..." appear on the screen. Maybe I'll review the second episode of the show, maybe I won't. For now, I'll have to leave the review on a cliffhanger. Sorry...

What's the Verdict?

This was good. I legitimately thought this was good. Decent animation, great voice acting, genuine suspense and drama... this show had the potential to be a big hit!

So why wasn't it a big hit? Well, for one thing, airing it during the summer was probably a bad idea. There's a reason why new seasons of TV shows start up in autumn - people are more likely to be home and watching television regularly when the weather gets chillier (though apparently this began because it helped automobile advertisers promote their new car models). Of course, there are a lot of cartoons that premiered BEFORE fall and were huge hits - Futurama first premiered in March, SpongeBob SquarePants and Family Guy in May, and Cow and Chicken in July - so there had to be another reason. My theory? Maybe the world just wasn't ready for a serious animated show yet. Look at most of the cartoons that aired in prime time during the 1990s: most if not all of them were comedic. Everyone wanted to cash in on the success of The Simpsons, which was a comedy, so they made comedic cartoon shows. This didn't always work either (see also Capitol Critters), but most cartoon shows in the 1990s as a whole were humorous by nature. The only cartoon shows from the 1990s I can think of that took themselves seriously were superhero cartoons, which I imagine became popular because people already knew and loved the main characters from comic books and movies.

If Invasion America premiered nowadays, where more serious cartoons are beloved BECAUSE they take themselves so seriously, I think it would be a bigger hit. But alas, as is it's just a cartoon that could've been something great if people just gave it a chance. Who knows? If the show had been more successful, maybe it could've had a big impact on animated shows as a whole. Food for thought.