I was born in 1977 which means the heyday of my youth was spent watching cartoons like Transformers, G.I. Joe, and He-Man. But there was another cartoon, one oft overlooked by children of my era: Bravestarr.

Bravestarr was produced by Filmation; the same company responsible for He-Man, She-Ra, Shazam, and The Ghostbusters (the one with the gorilla). And the premise, I thought, was pretty awesome: The Planet of ‘New Texas’ has been colonized to mine a type of fuel called ‘red ore’ and very quickly lawlessness spreads to this new space frontier. Enter Marshal Bravestarr who can channel the powers of four animals, hawk, wolf, puma, and bear, to perform superhuman feats. 

So, cool location, space western, super-powered lawman, what’s not to love? I’ll tell you what’s not to love, the episode called ‘The Price’ where a drug called Spin is putting people in the hospital or, in one little boy’s case, the morgue. That’s right. A child gets addicted to this space drug. Steals some red ore, and sneaks off to his ‘club house‘ where his lifeless body is found the next morning.

I was 10 at the time and was not prepared for how I felt watching a cartoon mother sob uncontrollably or watching this dead boy’s brother faint upon finding the body. There was no happy ending for this episode. Sure, the Spin factory was destroyed, but not before the horrors of drugs took a little boys life. But beyond the actual death, watching a child in the grip of drug addiction was pretty disturbing as well: slurred speech, vacant stares, limbs akimbo, it painted a pretty grim picture.

Here’s the episode in all it’s glory if you want to CHECK IT OUT.
 
Thanks for keeping it real, real traumatic!

Dave D.