Back in March of 2011, I shared my excitement that the 1994 TV series, ReBoot, was finally out on DVD for $69.00. ReBoot was the first ever half-hour completely computer-animated TV series. It was groundbreaking in its technology and set the stage for computer-animated TV programs we see today such as Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
ReBoot told the story of the inner world of a computer system known to those who lived there as Mainframe. The inhabitants were sprites and binomes (creatures that were either ones or zeros). The sprites were humanoid and were the protagonist of the series. The main heroes are sprites Dot Matrix, her brother Enzo Matrix and a guardian named Bob. The enemy? Viruses named Megabyte and Hexadecimal.
While the animation was painfully blocky and awkward looking
at times, the writing and storytelling was sensational. The writers included D.C. Fontana, best known for her work on the original Star Trek series and master storyteller, Len Wein.
The series came into its own in the third season when Enzo Matrix and his companion AndrAIa (the left most pair in the above photo) got trapped in a game cube as children and literally grew up together in the game trying to survive long enough to get back to Mainframe. During this arc, there were parodies of Star Trek, Star Wars, The Prisoner, Austin Powers and the western, A Fistful of Dollars.
I mention this series and how good it is because there is a series on Netflix streaming now called Reboot: The Guardian Code. It is a live-action/computer animated series that is as bad as the original was good and I refuse to go into anymore detail on how terrible the Netflix series is. Amazon is currently selling the complete original series for less than $40. But I’m not telling you to buy it from them. You can the see all of the shows for free at ShoutFactory TV. Check out the episodes – especially the 3rd season. Then if you like the ReBoot series and want to add it to your library, buy it from Amazon.
