The BOTS Master



""It's Laser Time, Boyzz!""

The BOTS Master was an early 90's animated sci-fi/action series created by Jean Chalopin and Avi Arad set in the year 2025 about a guy that invents robots. Yeah, it seems pretty cliche, doesn't it? Did we also mention that this guy basically invents a multitude of robots, each with their own distinct personality and appearance, skills, and he uses them as his team to take on the evil corporation he used to work for? Uh huh.

This show focused on the exploits of Ziv Zulander (no, the name was not coined by Ben Stiller) and his sister Blitzy. Ziv works for the RM Corporation, run by Sir Lewis Leon Paradim. It was responsible for all the technological robotic advancements of that time, partly thanks to Ziv's inventive streak. Life was good for the two siblings, however LLP, as he was referred, decided that being the owner of the wealthiest conglomerate in existence just was not enough, and that ruling the planet was much more in line with what he wanted. He decides to utilize the robotic creations sold by the company to secretly lay the foundation for a coup d'tat of the world, and wants everyone in the company on the team. Ziv is obviously shocked at this, and wants no part in it. This in turn, makes him the prime enemy of the entire Corp, and he goes on the lam with his sister, converts his family's old fallout shelter into a secret base, and retools his own group of robots, known as the BOYZZ, to assist in the battle to save the world from RM Corp's sinister schemes.

Notable for being one of the few western shows about mecha not coming from Japan. The show was really intended to be Merchandise-Driven due to its 3-D gimmick. Whenever the show would enter a mecha battle, someone would shout out "Laser Time!" Signaling the viewer to put on 3-D glasses that you could only get by buying one of the toys. However the toyline failed and became one of the reasons the series didn't last longer.

The BOTS Master contains examples of:

 * Action Duo: Ziv and Blitzy, although usually not until things are completely FUBAR.
 * Action Girl: Blitzy, albeit as a back-line commander rather than the front-line attacker ZZ tends to act as. But what did you expect from someone with a name like that?
 * Alliterative Name: Ziv Zulander.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "The call came from Venezuela. It also came from Cathmandu, Montevideo, Paris and a shoe store in Ohio."
 * Artistic License Biology: It's never explained how Ziv is able to scan holograms of deceased historical figures to obtain DNA scans, or why DNA would contain their personality, memories and skills.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: Ninjzz is the one BOYZZ made specifically for fighting, but LLP mops the floor with him in a vicious Curb Stomp Battle.
 * Badass Adorable: Swang. She took down a small army of greenbots, securitybots, and TANKS, BY HERSELF. And all she did was hop around taking spy pictures. Either that or those bots just suck really bad to be taken down by one robotic hopping bug that didn't even lay a finger on them.
 * Same with Birden, who caused a small bot army to accidentally destroy each other AND a world leader's private plane simply by flying around haphazardly.
 * Badass Automaton: The BOYZZ in general.
 * Badass Bookworm: Considering that his main purpose is to provide medical care, Watzon is surprisingly ready to risk his neck to help the rest of the team out. Applies to the rest of the non-combat Boyzz as well, to varying degrees of willingness.
 * Badass Crew: The Boyzz Brigade.
 * Betty and Veronica: Alicia and Lady Frenzy, respectively.
 * Big Red Button
 * Brainwashed and Crazy: RM Corp is offering free processor upgrades to all owners of the Triple-A bot models without telling their customers that the upgrade will push their bots into this trope as part of their Take Over the World scheme. It's kind of surprising that no one seems to be alerting the media about this since the crazy behavior starts immediately after every individual upgrade rather than waiting for all Triple-As worldwide to be upgraded and activating them all at once.
 * Bratty Half-Pint: Not Blitzy (who also subverts or averts Scrappy tropes in general), but Kiddie. In fact, it's not totally clear what his purpose is, as he's basically just this trope in Boyzz form.
 * Brother-Sister Team: ZZ & Blitzy, of course.
 * Combining Mecha: Several - ZZ's car and Twig is the first one we see, followed by the Splitvan and then Jungle Fiver.
 * Cool Car: ZZ has one that can sprout wings and fly, or transform into a humanoid form. It consists of two parts - the car itself, and Twig, a large humanoid Boyzz who combines with it and provides the mind to drive/fly/move it. Let's also not forget Splitvan, which is several vehicles in one.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: LLP and, by extension, all his chief executives.
 * Cut Short: The last episode had Ziv exposing RM Corp's plot to the world and being hailed as a hero, while . And that's where the story ends.
 * Dating Catwoman: There's a lot of Unresolved Sexual Tension going on between Ziv and Lady Frenzy. It isn't lost on the bots: in one episode, they kidnap her while she's sleeping because they think she'd make the perfect birthday present.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Everyone's got a bit of snark in them.
 * Distinctive Appearances: The show is made of it - the Boyzz particularly are designed asymmetrically (with the exception of Batz and All Ball), and can be recognized from their silhouettes.
 * Conversely, while the Boyzz are painted in such a way as to imply that they were built out of spare parts, there's not much explanation or reason (other than this trope) for the RM 'bots to have the varying, often jarring color schemes they do.
 * Enter Eponymous: The second episode, "Enter the Ninjzz". Flipped for the first episode, "Adios... ZZ".
 * Evolving Credits: There are actually two versions of the credits. The first used scenes from the show itself (mostly episodes 2 and 3). The second was made scratch, and looks far more polished - AND it opens with a Street Boyzz high-five.
 * Expository Theme Tune and Theme Tune Rap: "GREETINGS FROM THE STREET BOYZZ!"
 * Femme Fatale: Lady Frenzy
 * Fun with Acronyms: BOYZZ = Brain-Operated Young Zygoetopic Zoids. Also, Momzz = Maxi-Organized Mature Zygoetopic Zoid.
 * Humongous Mecha: Jungle Fiver.
 * Hypno Trinket
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The Boyzz Brigade typically comes back without receiving much damage in combat due to this.
 * Also played with, as there aren't many laser weapons amongst the Boyzz Brigade, who generally rely on either melee combat (Ninjazz, Street Boyzz) or indirect fire (the Sports Boyzz, themselves very accurate with their own sports-themed weapons - which mostly act like explosives rather than projectiles).
 * Hero with Bad Publicity: Ziv has been branded a terrorist by the RM Corp.
 * Hopping Machine: Swang the bug BOYZZ.
 * I Know Madden Kombat: The Sports Boyzz. Their actual attacks, however, are explosives in the shapes of various sports balls, delivered via expert sports skill (kicking, batting, golfing, serving...).
 * Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninjazz
 * Jive Turkey: The Street Boyzz. To a lesser extent, Ninjzz.
 * Laughing Mad: At least one of the Talking Heads.
 * Logic Bomb: Done rather humorously. Dr. Hisss ordered all his bots to fire at Jungle Fiver while commanding the others to aim at ZZ and the others and wait for his command. Ninjzz hits Dr. Hisss with a sleeper device, putting him to sleep. Jungle Fiver leaves, but the bots ordered to shoot at it was not shooting at an unpresent target while the bots aiming at ZZ and the BOYZZ on the ground just stood there awaiting commands which won't come on account of Hisss being asleep. ZZ and the BOYZZ simply walked out of the battlezone unscathed.
 * Loophole Abuse: In one episode Batz loses his memory and falls in with the members of a little league team. Officials protest when they have him play since teams are allowed to own a bot but it's supposed to carry their gear and stuff. But the rule only says they're allowed to own a bot, so Batz gets to play.
 * Mad Scientist: Dr. Hisss
 * Mama Bear: Momzz.
 * Mecha-Mooks: Very common adversaries, especially the generic security-bots.
 * Mega Corp: RM Corp, which even has its own private city (appropriately named RM Corp City).
 * Merchandise-Driven
 * The Napoleon: Momzz. It was inevitable, given that her personality template was the short guy himself, Ziv lampshades it when he figures out this important detail.
 * Non-Lethal Warfare: ZZ is adamant about this, and tries to avoid casualties. To that end, the Boyzz are unarmed (Science Boyzz), technically unarmed (Sports Boyzz, Twig), or melee-armed (Ninjazz). The Street Boyzz do have built-in laser weapons, but generally prefer melee combat.
 * An Offer You Can't Refuse: Said almost verbatim.
 * Once Per Episode: The 3D action sequence.
 * Personality Chip: Ziv's bots have them, and RM Corp's trying (and mostly failing) to replicate his success.
 * Phone Trace Race: RM Corp initially tries to find out where Ziv's hiding by keeping him on the phone while they trace the call, but since he bounces the signal all over the world, it doesn't do any good. They still make the attempt each time they deal with him over the phone in later episodes, just as a matter of course, but they never really expect to get anything back apart from a random list of cities.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Boyzz, Ziv had built them for other purposes before taking on RM Corp; his first combat robot, Ninjazz was built after starting his campaign.
 * Red Right Hand: Dr. Hisss's deformities and tubing, verging on Obviously Evil.
 * Rhymes on a Dime: Jammerz tends to rap everything he says.
 * Ridiculously-Human Robots: The Boyzz are very obviously mechanical, but have wildly differing personalities whilst displaying self-initiative and emotions (and, in at least one case, amnesia). The 3M-produced robots avert this most of the time, uniformly speaking with a "Steven Hawkings-voice" and demonstrating no personalities or sentience: one of the RM Corp's goals is figuring out how Ziv made his robots so human. One episode revolved around ZZ trying to sell the secret to a rival of RM Corp,.
 * In another sub-type of this trope, there are at least two episodes with robotic body doubles of main characters used by the RM Corp.
 * Robot Kid: Kiddie.
 * Rollerblade Good: Jammerz, Toolz, and Ninjazz are the only BOYZZ with rollerblades built into their feet, which they use to great efficiency.
 * Schmuck Bait: The plot in about two of three episodes.
 * Science Is Bad: Played straight by the RM Corp who wants to use it to take over the world. Inverted with ZZ and his BOYZZ.
 * Sibling Yin-Yang: Ziv and Blitzy, naturally. They agree on the goal (stop LLP and co.), but generally take different steps towards it. ZZ prefers surgical strikes as part of a guerrilla war (less chance of civilian deaths/injuries); Blitzy leans towards full assaults and a hot war (it'll end sooner that way).
 * Spoiler Opening: The first opening, culled from in-show scenes, has this effect. Of course, the theme tune itself also reveals Ninjazz, before he was built in the second episode.
 * Sssssnaketalk: Dr. Hisss.
 * Take Over the World
 * Team Pet: Swang and Birden.
 * Three Dimensional Episode: Each episode had a short action sequence (almost always a laser shoot-out with the RM Corp bots) with motion designed for Pulfrich Effect-style glasses (ie, one darkened lens), announced by ZZ shouting "it's laser time!" Thankfully they never lasted long and nothing really pivotal happened during them.
 * Unwilling Roboticisation: Threatened fate for a Distressed Damsel.
 * Villain with Good Publicity: Sir Paradim and RM Corp as a whole. As far as most of the world's concerned, they're the heroes whose robotic inventions revolutionized the world, and Ziv's a luddite terrorist.
 * Villainesses Want Heroes: Lady Frenzy, for ZZ.
 * Weaksauce Weakness: At one point the RM Corp robots switch to a highly advanced, laserproof alloy for their armor plating that the Boyyz have trouble cutting through. Until they discover that the alloy's chemical weakness is citric acid. As in, lemon juice.
 * Xtreme Kool Letterz

""Game Over, Boyzz!""