I was twelve years old, just starting eighth grade, when the Droids and Ewoks cartoons premiered. Despite being a big Star Wars fan, I skipped them. I wasn’t too old for cartoons quite yet – a quick glance at the Saturday morning cartoon lineup for Fall of 1985 reveals a couple of shows I was still watching, like Dungeons and Dragons, Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, and a particular favorite of mine, Kidd Video (not just because pubescent me found the actor who played the live action version of Kidd Video super cute, but mainly because pubescent me found the actor who played the live action version of Kidd Video super cute).
But I did think of myself as too old for cutesy kid cartoons like The Smurfs, Snorks, or, I thought, Droids. I don’t know why, but I assumed Droids was a silly comedy, so I gave it a miss. I was wrong! While there’s certainly plenty of comedy, this first episode was an adventure romp which looks to be setting up a serialized story. That would have been right up my alley in 1985!
The animation is just my thing, too. The show was made by Nelvana, a Canadian animation studio probably better known for Inspector Gadget, the Beetlejuice series, and the cartoon that introduced Boba Fett to the world in the (sigh) Star Wars Holiday Special. I’ve always appreciated Nelvana’s style, even if a lot of their shows didn’t quite attract my interest. Droids is really gorgeous, allowing for the budget and the time period. Much more fluid than, say, Filmation’s stable of shows (no shade to Filmation – I could do a whole series on He-Man). And their character design is top notch – there’s no missing a Nelvana character, with their somehow both realistic and exaggerated looks.
But is it queer? That’s what we want to know, is this Saturday morning cartoon from 1985 queer? No, of course not, don’t be silly. But… but! The two main male characters Thall and Jord, a racing team and best buddies, could certainly be a couple. There’s nothing to contradict it, especially not the complete lack of any hint of romantic overtones between either of them and the main female character, Kea. So until a future episode tells me otherwise, when Thall and Jord’s racing landspeeder The White Witch is a-rocking, don’t come a-knocking.
Oh, also C-3PO gets hit on the head, suffers some sort of robot concussion, and mutters in a daze, “R2-D2, you look lovely!” I can’t begin to understand the complexities of droid gender, but that was pretty gay.
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