Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad


Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad is an American television series. It was produced by Tsuburaya Productions, Ultracom Inc. and DIC Productions L.P., with distribution by All American Television, and ran for one season from September 12, 1994 to April 11, 1995 in syndication, as well as on ABC. It was an adaptation of the Japanese tokusatsu series Denkou Choujin Gridman, or Gridman the Hyper Agent, which was produced by Tsuburaya Productions. The series was originally going to be named PowerBoy, but it was renamed Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad during production to avoid confusion with Saban Entertainment's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad was made to capitalize on the upsurge in popularity of imported Japanese monster-robot shows which could be adapted with new, regionalized live-action footage. The series development mirrored the creative construct established earlier with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The master toy licensee, Playmates Toys, funded the series, interpolated American development via toy licensing rights, and did a commercial buy-in on the Fox network, where Haim Saban had established a kids block with programs such as Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and the 1992 X-Men cartoon. Playmates called upon the development team at DIC—which, coincidentally, was working with Pangea Corporation, which assisted in the development of DIC's New Kids on the Block and Playmates's earlier hit, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. DIC, Pangea, and Playmates's marketing group created an ensemble of character names, traits and profiles, which were spun into a series offering. Under a product placement deal, Compaq computers were prominently featured in the series and were used to generate the show's computer-generated graphics.
Elements of Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad are used in the anime series SSSS.Gridman, itself also an adaptation of Gridman, the Hyper Agent. The "SSSS" in the title references Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad.

Plot

High school student Sam Collins is the head of a band called Team Samurai. During a recording session, Sam is zapped by a power surge and disappears, only to reappear seconds later with a strange device attached to his wrist which, at the time, is unremovable. Later after his friends Amp, Sydney, and Tanker leave, one of his video game programs, dubbed Servo, is subject to a power surge and zaps Sam again just after he has remarked "Cool battle armor!" This time, the zap pulls him into the digital world and turns him into his creation. As Servo, he roams the digital world and fights monsters called Mega-Viruses.
Meanwhile, another student from Sam's school, named Malcolm Frink, is designing monsters on his home computer when Kilokahn, an escaped military artificial-intelligence program that was presumed destroyed in the power surge, visits Malcolm via his computer screen. Kilokahn strikes a Faustian deal with Malcolm and turns his digital monster into a Mega-Virus monster. These Mega-Viruses are capable of attacking any device on the electrical grid, Internet or telephone network, usually having real-life consequences far beyond what any standard computer virus would be capable of achieving.
Sam, now as Servo, must enter the digital world and stop Malcolm's and Kilokahn's Mega-Viruses. Sometimes, when Servo was unable to handle a virus by himself, he would call on the help of his friends using his Arsenal Programs. The Arsenal Programs could fight the viruses solo, transform, with the help of other Programs, and attach to Servo as armor. Since Team Samurai consisted of only 3 people at any one time, excluding Sam, only 3 vehicles were available at any one time. When Servo linked up with these Programs as armor, he changed his name to either Phormo when combined with Drago or Synchro when combined with Zenon, respectively.

Characters

Team Samurai

The Mega-Virus Monsters are Kaiju-style computer viruses that are created by Malcolm Frink and brought to life by Kilokhan. Malcolm creates the Mega-Virus Monsters since Kilokhan doesn't have that ability. Only a few Mega-Virus Monsters have the power of speech. The following are Mega-Virus Monsters:

Zenon program

In an odd occurrence, Zenon fought Servo in "Que Sera Servo" when a Mega-Virus monster put Servo under a spell and the latter obeyed only Kilokahn, until Amp was able to break the virus' hold by using Syd's belt to reboot him.
When Borr, Tracto, and Vitor combine with Servo, they form Servo's upgrade known as Synchro, which is armed with a pair of shoulder drill missiles.

Drago program

When Drago combines with Servo, they form Servo's upgrade known as Phormo, which is armed with a pair of laser gauntlets.

Battle calls

Main characters

Home media release

In 1995, Buena Vista Home Video released the series on three VHS cassettes each containing two episodes. On February 19, 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment released Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, Volume 1 on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. The 3-disc set features the first 28 episodes of the series. On October 1, 2013 Mill Creek Entertainment released Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, Volume 2 on DVD containing the remaining 25 episodes.

Online distribution

Recently, five episodes of Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad were available on Jaroo, which was an online video site then operated by Cookie Jar Entertainment, with which DIC later merged. In or after 2013, Cookie Jar was taken over by DHX Media. The Jaroo site closed down as a result, but DHX Media mentioned that it planned to re-locate the site, and its shows, for online distribution.
As of February 2016, the series could be streamed through the Pluto TV app on the "After School Cartoons" channel 370.