Posts tagged video

By Dan Kinem



The Pog phenomenon is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of our time. There’s no reason why tiny round cardboard discs should exist, let alone why they were one of the most popular children’s games of the 1990s. I mean, video games existed, yet somehow Pogs became popular — popular enough to have a 30-minute animated special based on them, too! Now don’t get it twisted, as much as I might make fun of the game, I adore Pogs. In fact, I still collect them and am continually on the hunt for those rare milkcaps that have managed to allude me all these years. But, regardless of all that, this special has about as much to do with Pogs as my refrigerator has to do with Pepsi. Zilch.



Right off the bat you get the feeling that this was originally intended to be the pilot for a show and due to the fact it was terrible, was passed off as a special. There’s even a theme song with the braindead lyrics, “Hawaiian slam-slam slammers!” and “Slammers of Darkness, Slammers of Light, when they come together they fight, fight, fight!”

The basic plot is very reminiscent of Pokemon, actually. There are five Slammers of Darkness and five Slammers of Light, and whoever finds them and spins them gets one of the immortal beings that are trapped in them as their servant. Whoever manages to capture them all becomes the ultimate ruler of Light and Dark.

For those who don’t know or were either too young or too old to know what a “slammer” is, it’s the Pog (sometimes made of metal, sometimes made of plastic) that you would throw at the other Pogs to make them bounce in the air and flip right side up. Only now, through explaining how to play Pogs, have I realized how fucking stupid it sounds.



You are immediately introduced to your villain, archaeologist Dr. Karl Von Fragman, when he is releasing his first Dark Slammer from its volcanic rock home. He wants to collect all of them in order to have world domination. I don’t know why the creator decided to give him a German accent and make him look like a leprechaun, but it adds to the bizarreness of the whole thing, that’s for sure. Our hero is a dorky white kid named Ronnie. He coincidentally discovers one of the Light Slammers after a healthy game of Pogs with his friends. When Fragman finds out, it becomes a battle between Light and Dark, good and bad. The battle to end all battles.



They decide to battle inside an active volcano, because that’s where the rest of the slammers are located. Ronnie almost pussies out, but decides, “If Indiana Jones can do it, I guess I can, too.” Mind you, I still haven’t seen every episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles yet, but I highly doubt there’s ever a time when Indy has to enter an active volcano to fight an evil leprechaun over some Pogs.

Ronnie wins. Good prevails. But just when you think it’s all wrapped up with a nice bow and all the Slammers are back where they belong, Ronnie finds his Light Slammer, proving that this was definitely left open-ended in case a show deal could be worked out. Lucky for us, all we get is this one 22-minute special that proves there can be a TV show about literally anything. I will tell you one thing, though, I’ll never look at Pogs the same way again.



Very little information is known about this special and I can’t even seem to find who directed or created it, not even in the credits. I do know Jeffrey Scott wrote it and he’s written 100s of different shows ranging from Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The tape was released by DIC Toon-Time Video. The fact this thing was even able to be released baffles me, but I guess kids would buy anything animated back then. I imagine this one isn’t a super common tape, but since no one on Earth wants it, you can get it very cheap. The VHS also featured a fun trailer for Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad.

Here’s the full 22 minutes for your asses!

(Source: vhshitfest.com)