When I first heard about the Battletoads as a video game for the NES, I thought they were like a cheap imitation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then I realized that this team is way different.
It’s about three super toads named Rash, Zitz, and Pimple who protect the galaxy from the Dark Queen and her alien animals. Now I like the Dark Queen. She’s a way cool villainess.
As the story goes, the Dark Queen kidnaps Pimple and Princess Angelica and it’s up to Rash and Zitz to rescue them. It sounds simple enough. However, I don’t see how the princess fits into this story, other than the fact that this game needed a damsel in distress just to make it more interesting.
The Battletoads game has 12 levels and these toads can kick butt. Most of their attacks have to be built up first, but it’s worth seeing those fists get huge as well as their boot feet and billygoat head-butts. They’re also great jumpers, which I would expect from kick-butt toads.
The game starts out easy, but by level 3 it gets more difficult because you have to maneuver vehicles through obstacles. Slip up once and you not only lose a life, but you have to start the level all over. What’s worse is that in the two-player mode, if one of you slips up, both players have to start over. Now that’s just crazy. On the bright side, not all of the later levels are like that.
There’s not even a password feature for crying out loud, which would explain why I have never beaten this game.
There was also a cartoon series about the Battletoads, which didn’t make it after one episode, unfortunately. However, it did help clear things up about the story line behind these characters. The Battletoads (Zitz, Rash, and Pimple) are actually three junior high school teens named Morgan Ziegler, Dave Shar, and George Pie, who hail from Oxnard, California. After the three of them have a bad day at school, Professor T. Bird and Princess Angelica, who are aliens on the run from the Dark Queen, visit them and change their lives forever.
The battles are funny, but also exciting and creative because the Dark Queen’s forces can open portals on Earth and pop in anywhere at any time. All the Battletoads have to do is think with their hands and their limbs become weapons of any sort. The options are unlimited, which is more than the video game had.
I think this show would have made a great cartoon series, even with the fact that the toads never have to worry about identity secrecy. Underdog teens always seem to make the best superheroes, don’t they?
. Dorothy Gayle (Diana Ross) is a kindergarten teacher in New York City, who lives in an apartment with her Uncle Henry (Stanley Greene) and Aunt Em (Theresa Merritt, who I remember best as Juanita the maid from Billy Madison). Aunt Em wants Dorothy to teach at a high school further into town because it pays more and she can get her own place, but Dorothy is too scared to leave home.
As many Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans know, the series lasted for seven seasons and continues in the comic books. 
brings these comics to DVD. Originally, the series left off with all of the potential slayers having equal power to Buffy and Faith. Then after defeating the Hellmouth of Sunnydale, there was a choice for Buffy to either retire or continue fighting evil, which was left unanswered.
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