Everyone knows Rambo. He's a freedom fighting machine. He doesn't take any crap from any commies and no one, and I mean no one, can take down a Russian helicopter like he can. He'll slit your throat and shoot you in the head. He's a violent man, a bit of a loose canon, and he's not adverse to taking on the cops if he has to. He does things his way, even if his way might be a little on the crazy side. With that in mind, who better to base a children's cartoon on than Rambo?

There's where Rambo And The Force Of Freedom come in. Kind of a scaled down version of G. I. Joe, Rambo and his pals (a black guy named Turbo and an Asian chick named Kat) battle hordes of evil Ninjas and the nefarious plans of General Warhawk around the globe. Sometimes Warhawk and his men will come in the guise of the common man, other times they attack full force without the need for a disguise but it's rarely a problem that an oily muscle man and a well placed secret rocket launcher can't fix easily enough.

This compilation from Lion's Gate, who know own the Rambo franchise, presents eleven episodes of the series that ran from 1986 until… 1986 (it only lasted one season but there were sixty-five episodes in total so we might see more of these compilations down the road) seemingly at random. They're not in chronological order or really linked thematically either. But they're here, and we might as well make the best of it. Here are a few of the highlights to watch out for on this set…

While the quality of the animation is abysmal and there are no small amount of technical gaffs noticeable if you pay close enough attention to the series, the very concept of a Rambo children's show in which he not only fights the enemies of freedom but takes the time out of his busy schedule to help kids ride bikes and teach children morals, values, and handy life tidbits does lend itself no shortage of great, unintentional humor. Will this series appeal to today's kids? Those raised on Dragonball Z and Spongebob Squarepants? No, probably not. But it will serve as a nice blast from the past for those of us who grew up while Rambomania was still very much alive and well. This series is very much a product of its time and, political correctness be damned, it's a whole lot of fun in spite of itself. The problem is that the fun comes for all the wrong reasons. You're not laughing with Rambo, you're laughing at Rambo and as such it's only going to be funny to a specific group of us, those who just cannot fathom taking this show seriously. It hasn't aged well at all, but it's these very flaws that make it so much fun.

Video:

The 1.33.1 fullframe image presents the series in its original aspect ratio but it doesn't look like Lion's Gate put any effort into cleaning anything up for DVD. While the animation never looked that great in the first place for this series, the DVD transfer is far from clean – you'll notice print damage and mild smudging on the image throughout playback. Thankfully there aren't any serious issues with edge enhancement and there's only some slight shimmering here and there. There aren't any problems in terms of compression artifacts either, which is nice. Too bad that the elements weren't in better shape for this series, because despite the fact that digital/transfer problems are kept to a minimum, the series still doesn't look so hot.