Ruby-Spears: Ice Age

The Ruby-Spears cartoons are not well written, well animated, or well constructed. That said, usually what saves the show are some of the hilarious performances by Dr. Wily and Proto Man, and occasionally something so ridiculous happens it's a must see. This is not one of those occasions.

Plot Synopsis
Ice Man and Air Man break into a refrigeration research plant or something, and kidnap Mr. Zero (no, not The Zero) and force him to give up his liquid nitrogen formula, which they will use to freeze the planet. It becomes apparent very quickly that Ice Man and Air Man do not get along well at all, as they are constantly trying to one up each other and are arguing non stop.

Meanwhile, Mega Man is at the local school trying to reach out to some terrible stereotyped teenage characters. What does it say about your show if you don't think super fighting robots will appeal to kids? Anyway, the teenager characters are horrible actors, have horrible lines and are so stupid they could ruin the show on their own if they were on screen longer. One kid as a "Don't" symbol on his shirt. You know, the circle with the slash through it? I guess he is rebellious for the sake of it? Yay, there's an original character...

Anyway, Mega Man has to cut the party short because of Wily's attack. Of course the teenager are twats, laughing at Mega Man as he fails to stop Ice Man and Air Man from getting away. Anyway, Dr. Wily plans to create a new ice age and starts freezing the city. Mega Man gets to Dr. Light and they come up with the most convoluted plan ever. They're going to trick Ice Man into thinking he destroyed Mega Man, then show him footage of Dr. Wily and Air Man planning to betray him, which will convince Ice Man to attack Wily. This plan even goes so far as to have Mega Man take a direct shot from Ice Man, so we can see how useless Ice Man's attacks are already.

Ice Man attacks Wily, for maybe ten seconds before Mega Man shows up and fights them all anyway making Dr. Light's stupid plan worthless. Mega Man saves the day, and Wily escapes, but what are they going to do about the frozen cities? Oh hey! The Liquid Nitrogen just melts in a matter of seconds, making Dr. Wily's plan fruitless as well. But at least Mega Man and those teenagers finally connected right? I think I'm going to puke.

Critique
Dumb plans, dumb characters and hardly an ounce of anything funny to watch. It's not so bad it's good, it's just so bad it's bad. One part of this I did smirk at, when Guts Man chomps a big ole bite out of a block of ice he's made into a popsicle and only did I smirk because the animation was so awkward.

I don't think anyone out there who is taking the time to watch these shows plans on skipping any of them regardless of what I say, but this is the type of episode that gives this show the label of mediocrity (at best) it deserves.

Rating: Thumbs Down.