Rebooting ReBoot

The early nineties was a great time for watching cartoons. After the cartoon craze of the eighties, developers realized that cartoons weren't just for kids anymore. A new viewer demographic wanted smart, entertaining programming, and one of the shows that best fit the requirements was the animated series ReBoot.

ReBoot was not like other shows. For starters, it was the first completely computer animated television series. The show took place in a fantasy world inside a computer (called "Mainframe," of course). The script contained classic computer-term related puns such as "Low clock speed or what?", "Soothing 32-bit lotion, because you itch.", and more. ReBoot's main characters had tech-based names such as "Dot Matrix" and "Megabyte." The citizens were represented by walking, talking numbers, as well as circles and stacks of blocks (representing ones and zeroes). When it first aired on ABC, ReBoot played with light-hearted themes and jokes. After it left the network, it was able to explore its darker side, but it kept the same intelligence and humor that drew dedicated fans in from the start.

It was an engaging, clever premise for a television show, with a rich setting, drama, adventure, danger, and even romance. And then, unfortunately, it was canceled.

Not only that, but DVD versions of the television show went out of print in 2001. It seemed like ReBoot would be forever condemned to our collective memory, never again to be seen outside of fuzzy YouTube videos.

Fans weren't going to take this lying down, though, and revolted by setting up their own websites and charging ridiculous amounts of money for the few remaining copies of the show on Amazon. This fan frenzy didn't go unnoticed. Rainmaker Income Fund acquired ReBoot parent company Mainframe Entertainment in 2006, and now plans to make a series of movies around the ReBoot concept.

Here's to a future full of cheesy one-liners and complex storylines based in cyberspace!