Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go: A Consistently Shocking Show That Has Little Else Going For It

 

Back when I was a teenager, there was a little show I enjoyed watching that had a theme song by Polysics and featured a team of five multicolored creatures going on silly adventures with their human friend. I am of course referring to Keroro Gunso. But! But!!! There was a lot of overlap between my funny frog show fandom and this funny monkey show fandom, so diving in I was pretty excited.

9:42 AM · Feb 8, 2021 "i expected monkey team to be kinda like keroro but i honestly get more of a gargoyles vibe"

Yeah, past aesthetic and humor similarities, the shows couldn't be more different...

But oh well! I get to watch this show with my friend Amanda, who seems excited about it, so I'm sure it'll be an adventure.

7:35 PM · Feb 9, 2021 "today we watched three more episodes here is what happened
-a real monkey showed up
-we're taking the elevator stupid
-among us"
12:03 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "i hate that this show is unintentionally funny because they say funny words now like "among us" and "keep on cleaning" with such emphasis..... because a lot of the rest of the show is weird....."

Okay, memes aside, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go is... a really fucking weird show. Amanda watched it as a kid, but I didn't and she specifically said to me that all she remembered from this show were the fucked up bits. I don't know what it was. Maybe I didn't take that to heart, or maybe I assumed it was just 1-2 weird episodes, but by jove she was not wrong.

The first of these weird episodes was "Magnetic Menace," an episode that introduced recurring villain Scrapperton, a classy looking formerly human man who is now a robot made of spare parts.

10:06 PM · Feb 8, 2021 "He replaced everything with robot parts he’s so fucked up"

 Amanda is mean to me. :-( Still best villain of the show though.

Now, the episode is pretty eerie, but it's also pretty standard, except for one thing. Sparx loses his hands and they are replaced with organic ones, so for about two thirds of the episode, I have to sit here, looking at Sparx, while he looks like this.

Also, Scrapperton wasn't a one-off he came back! Yay!

12:32 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "thank GOD scrappington is back i could not have handled if i had to deal with someone else"

The next episode is "The Sun Riders," which is also pretty typical. Chiro's heroes are secretly working for the Skeleton King and are trying to sabotage him, except for the fact that The Skeleton King can make them age into dust. It came totally out of nowhere, and really just felt like an excuse to scare people. Which, is kind of what the show is.

10:33 PM · Feb 8, 2021 "A lot of this show is just shock factor past that there’s not much"

The next ep that stood out to me was probably the peak of the weirdness, and that was "A Man Called Krinkle," which focused on a man named Gyrus Krinkle (played by Jeffrey Combs of all people) who was obsessed with the monkey team. I had some... polarizing opinions on this new character.

12:07 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE GYRUS KRINKLE I HATE"
12:08 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "he's creepy and he SUCKS"

But what did he do exactly? He's essentially a janitor who is fascinated with the team, especially Chiro, and wants to join up with them. Unfortunately, it's too dangerous for a civillian, even if he is tasked with cleaning the messes they make. He then gets Chiro out of the picture and convinces the monkeys that he, in a Chiro suit, is the real Chiro. Cut to the second half where they redo the opening and...

12:12 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "NO THEY'RE DOING THE OPENING WITH THIS GUY"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12:12 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "THIS IS REALLY MY FAVORITE TROPE BUT I HATE THIS MAN SO MUCH"

Without getting into too much detail, the episode goes really hard into the creepy aspect, getting downright triggering for me at times (without getting into too much detail). 

12:04 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "last ep made me uncomfortable im only six minutes in and this one is making me EVEN MORE UNCOMFORTABLE"
12:16 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "cool great. terrible. i hate it."

Part of me can respect what they're going for. They are absolutely successful when it comes to making me feel horrible horrible emotions, but at the same time this is a children's show about cartoon monkeys going on funny little adventures and saving the world.

10:36 PM · Feb 8, 2021 "Lit Amanda and I are sitting here and I’m like wtf and she’s like yeah Also this show is kind of an eyesore idk why"
10:56 PM · Feb 8, 2021 "I think this show is like. Similar quality to rescue rangers. There’s a lot I really like and a lot I really dislike."
8:32 PM · Feb 13, 2021 "this show having fucking internal digestive shots is payback for all the times i've been mean to my friends.... -_- ngl im kinda grossed out i wanted to keep doing the disney marathon tonight.... :-("

Thinking about things I've recently watched, it kind of reminds me of The Cuphead Show. though I guess the horror aspect of that one is a little bit more justified, both shows seem to feel like the horror comes out of left field, and while it's not necessarily super scary, it's stressful and shocking, and when you're an adult, that is everything.

I was also thinking about what might have led up to this moment. Monkey Show is the first of the Jetix cartoons, and Disney Prime had been experimenting with more boy-focused shows like Dave the Barbarian. Those shows however, did have their girl parts. Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go, however, seems to lack that. There is the one Token Girl character, Nova, but she doesn't really get the same focus that characters like Candy or Brandy got. She was just the girl character. Man was it the 2000s.

9:43 AM · Feb 8, 2021 "i wish there were more girl monkeys.... i dont like that it's just nova. like they could have made sparx a girl."

As for the horror aspect... Sure there were darker and spookier shows like Gargoyles (as previously mentioned) and Nightmare Ned... But Disney cartoons didn't usually go scary. This was probably something of an afterthought. Get your animesque show greenlit in the age where every 10 year old in America was reading Shounen Jump, and then make it fucked up and scary later.

But yeah, a year and a half after watching this show, Honestly, nothing really stuck with me past the shock factor of the show, which probably counts as points against it.

One thing I've yet to discuss about this monkey show is the Monkey aspect of it. Monkeys were the funniest fucking thing to put in a cartoon. They might still be, but too many shows from my childhood had monkey characters. (My Gym Partner's a Monkey, Camp Lazlo, Wordgirl, Dexter's Lab, Kim Possible, I. M. Weasel, Dora the Explorer, etc) You can't go wrong with a monkey. Fuck it let's put in five or more monkeys. Maximize the use of Monkey Noises.

11:08 PM · Feb 8, 2021 "I’ve been calling srmthfg monkey show and it is they use the monkey SFX and everything"

I've talked about Nova and Sparx. They're kind of the straight couple of the show. Sparx being the immature slacker with a heart of gold, and Nova being the responsible girl character who acts ticked off but really cares deep down.

I really hate that Nova is the only girl character, but also every time Nova said "foot crusher cruiser 6" it sounded like "butt crusher cruiser 6" which was really funny.

Then there's Otto and Gibson, who are the two nerds of the team but in very different ways that causes them to butt heads

10:58 PM · Feb 8, 2021 "Otto and Gibson are the best monkeys." 

Otto is a brilliant engineer and makes all of the gadgets for the team, but often comes off as somewhat airheaded because he's still just a guy and he likes to have a good time above all else. Gibson is the medic of the team and serves as the cold logical foil to Otto's silliness. Honestly, I really like the fact that they're both the smart ones, but in different ways, and have different ways of expressing that intelligence. I've met a lot of people like the both of them! Otto's probably the better of the two, just because his issues feel a lot more down to earth. He's a goofy guy, but he also feels unappreciated at times.

12:58 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "they keep being mean to otto...."

Then there's Antauri, who serves as the leader of the monkeys when Chiro is not there. He's kind of the most plot relevant of the monkeys, and he usually serves to give the moral of an episode. He's one of those characters I like, but I don't have a lot to really say about.

Also there's like. Mandarin who I remember nothing about. Maybe when your show focuses on shock factor the plot bits become a lot less shocking.

The last thing I wanna talk about is probably the dumbest plot point of the show, and that is the fact that Chiro canonically gets bullied.

12:27 PM · Feb 14, 2021 "im just trying to get thru this one and chiro is experiencing microaggressions..."

In the first episode especially, people tend to mock and belittle Chiro for "hanging out with monkeys all the time" and I have got to wonder... Why? It's very clear to the people of Shuggazoom that Chiro and his monkeys are always saving the day and everyone in the city. I can certainly imagine parasocial relationships forming like in the case of Sulcus Flattin, but why bullying? This was the show that really made me realize how common it was for protagonists to get bullied and how unnecessary it was. A lot of shows moving forward, I kind of noticed this more and more, and I might bring it up moving forward.

Overall Rating for Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go: C Tier