(moving away from robots and shit to shows featuring favorite pop artists of the time.)

Ah, MC Hammer. What child didn't grow up listening to his music, learning that you "Can't Touch This", stopping every now and then because it's "Hammertime", and being "Too Legit to Quit"? I'll admit that as a child I ridiculously admired MC Hammer because, damn, was he hardcore. Well not really, he was just really cool. Those gold chains around his neck must have blinged me to a hypnotic trance, ordering me to buy his records and to dance his dances.

At any rate, MC Hammer really was (is?) a great musician and stuff, and it can be argued that he set a certain standard for dance and dance music. Mr. Hammer is so popular, in fact, that he even had his own children's cartoon called Hammerman. The show is about a social worker named Stanley Burell (Hammer's real name) who owned a special pair of dancing shoes. These shoes were magical, for they could talk. Furthermore, when the meek Burell puts them on, he turns into Hammerman, a superhero who fights crime using the awesome power of dance, wearing MC Hammer's signature suit and baggy pants. At the end of each episode, the real MC Hammer would appear on the screen, and provide the viewers with some good advice, a la G.I. Joe and Transformers. (And almost every other cartoon back then.)

The show had a nice premise--stopping evil on its tracks with music and dance (Elite Beat Agents, anyone?), was family-friendly, and featured music produced by MC Hammer himself, albeit somewhat watered down to make it more suitable for cartoons.

But the show had one vital flaw--it was painfully low-budget. Animated dancing characters have been perfected only recently (Haruhi and Lucky Star especially come to mind), and Hammerman, a show that aired in 1991, was probably created too early. Watching Hammerman dance was like watching someone having spasms. It had the framerate of an old video game, and the Hanna-Barbera-esque looping of backgrounds during moving scenes didn't help either. A huge disappointment, especially since DiC was responsible for this show.

Another thing: The show tried to "villain-ize" criminals a little too much, like in Captain Planet. Alas, at the time Hammerman aired this type of characterization was as old as NKotB is today, and only served to lower the ratings of the show even more.

Personally, I thought the show was cool. Holy shit, talking dancing shoes! I was all too easily excited as a child. Unfortunately, I share the same sentiments as everyone else when it came to the animation; there were far better-looking shows 2 years before Hammerman, and it felt like they weren't even trying. MC Hammer deserved a better animated representation of him, if not dancing characters in general.