Buzz Lightyear of Star Command is an American animated science fiction comedy television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. It is a spin-off of Pixar's Toy Story franchise, and aired on ABC and UPN from October 2, 2000, to January 13, 2001. While the series is 2D animated, Pixar animated the CGI opening title sequence.
Developed by Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, the series follows the adventures of Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear. The character first appeared as an action figure, voiced by Tim Allen, in the 1995 film Toy Story. Patrick Warburton voices the character in the television series. The series was preceded by the direct-to-video film Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins, which later aired as three separate episodes of the series. A video game based on the series was released in 2000.
Contents
Premise
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command is set in a Star Wars–style setting. Capital Planet is the forefront of the Galactic Alliance, a peaceful union of various planets, home to various alien species that coexist in harmony. Star Command is a peacekeeping organization consisting of Space Rangers, who investigate threats to galactic peace. The primary enemy of Star Command is Emperor Zurg, an intergalactic crime boss and warlord who rules Planet Z, with an empire of heavily armed robots and slave races forced to work in opposition to the Galactic Alliance.
The series follows Buzz Lightyear, an experienced and famous Space Ranger who takes a crew of rookies under his wing as he investigates criminal activity across the galaxy and attempts to thwart Zurg's evil plots to overthrow the universe.
Characters
Star Command
Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Patrick Warburton, voiced by Tim Allen in The Adventure Begins pilot) is a famed Space Ranger and the leader of Team Lightyear. Buzz often suggests that his archenemy Emperor Zurg is behind every evil plot and is often proven correct. Like his Toy Story incarnation, Buzz is idealistic and a stickler for procedure, but will tell a cover story if he needs to. However, he has few people skills, and at times displays a lack of common sense.
Mira Nova (voiced by Nicole Sullivan) is a rookie ranger and heir to the throne of the planet Tangea who possesses intangibility and telepathy. She acts as Buzz's co-pilot and second-in-command. Mira also has an estranged relationship with her father, King Nova, who disapproves of her choice of being a Space Ranger, though she still cares about him.
Booster Sinclair Munchapper (voiced by Stephen Furst) is a frog/dinosaur-like alien from the agricultural planet of Jo-ad. He has a big appetite and incredible strength, but is sweet and occasionally naive. He is in awe of Buzz Lightyear and has encyclopedic knowledge of his prior adventures.
XR: Xperimental Ranger (voiced alternatively by Larry Miller and Neil Flynn) is a small robot who was originally emotionless and programmed to learn from Buzz, but was destroyed by Agent Z during his first mission. The LGMs rebuilt him with a slicker, more emotional personality and a variety of unique and unusual attachments. XR is destroyed on nearly every mission he goes on (as it is revealed XR stands for Expendable Ranger), but is easily rebuilt. He considers Commander Nebula his father due to him unintentionally signing the paperwork authorizing his creation and is always seeking his approval, much to his annoyance.
Commander Nebula (voiced by Adam Carolla) is the Space Rangers' commander and Buzz's superior, whose left leg was replaced by a pegleg-like plasma cannon. He is rather short-tempered and constantly speaks with a loud voice.
LGMs, or Little Green Men (voiced by Patrick Warburton) are small, three-eyed aliens who maintain the technology and equipment of Star Command.
Ty Parsec (voiced by Steve Hytner) is an old comrade of Buzz Lightyear, who is fed up with Buzz always coming to his rescue. In the episodes "Wirewolf" and "Revenge of the Monsters", Parsec is temporarily transformed into the Wirewolf, a robotic werewolf, after being bitten by NOS-4-A2 and exposed to radioactive rock from the moon Canis Lunis.
Villains
Emperor Zurg (voiced by Wayne Knight): The main antagonist of the series and Buzz's archenemy. Rules an empire on Planet Z and wants to rule the entire universe while destroying Star Command. His feet double as rockets and he can transform his arms into a variety of weapons. Knight previously voiced Al McWhiggin in Toy Story 2 (1999)
The Grubs (all voiced by Frank Welker) are Zurg's equivalents to the LGMs of Star Command, though far less competent. They perform mechanical and technical duties. The Grubs work for Zurg against their will and desire freedom, but many of them are too afraid to try to defect.
The Brain Pods (variously voiced by Jeff Bennett, Dan Castellaneta, Sean Hayes, Tress MacNeille, Jeremy Piven, Paul Rugg, and Frank Welker) are brains in mobile jars, who serve Zurg as scientists and researchers. Although they take pride in their creations, they secretly harbor a desire to escape from Zurg's control as Buzz secretly helps them with that.
The Hornets are Zurg's robotic foot soldiers. They are incompetent and easily destroyed. Hornets come in different models, but the most frequently seen are yellow and of average height.
Warp Darkmatter (voiced by Diedrich Bader) is a former member of Star Command who worked as a double agent for Zurg and eventually began working for him full-time as Agent Z. Darkmatter previously lost his right arm in a cave-in and gained a robotic arm with various weapon attachments after becoming Agent Z.
Torque (voiced by Brad Garrett) is an alien with four arms and five eyes who has committed various crimes, including terrorism, smuggling, arson, and unpaid parking tickets. He possesses a mechanical cell-separation chest implant created by Zurg that enables him to clone himself.
Smeego (voiced by Phil LaMarr) is a small-time crook on Trade World and an acquaintance of Torque.
Gravitina (voiced by Kerri Kenney-Silver) is a large-headed female villain with mental control over gravity and an ally of Zurg. She is in love with Buzz and later his evil counterpart.
Galactic Alliance
Madam President (voiced by Roz Ryan) is the head of the Galactic Alliance. Her real name is unknown.
Senator Aarrfvox (voiced by Jim Cummings) is a Shragorakian senator.
Senator Banda (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) is a Bathyosian senator.
Senator Hammerhold (voiced by Corey Burton) is Petra Hammerhold's father.
Senator Phlegmex (voiced by Frank Welker) is a slime-emitting senator.
Other
Becky (voiced by Russi Taylor) is a little alien girl from the planet Roswell. She befriends Booster (whom she calls Pickles) when Team Lightyear's ship crashes on her planet.
Brent Starkisser (voiced by Corey Burton) is the Galaxy's reporter.
Cosmo (voiced by Paul Rugg) is an alien and the owner of a diner that Team Lightyear frequents. He has a mechanical arm as well as a foreign accent.
Dr. Animus (voiced by Tony Jay) is the Galaxy's therapist.
Ozma Furbanna (voiced by Linda Hamilton) is a naturalist on the planet Karn. She favors all animals (even lethal carnivores) and hates to have them hurt, no matter what.
Ed (voiced by Paul Rugg) is a courier who somehow always knows how to track down Buzz Lightyear.
Officer Panchex (voiced by Brian Doyle-Murray) is a fish policeman who helped Buzz Lightyear fight Minister Gularis.
Professor Triffid (voiced by Joel Murray) is a scientist from Rhizome. He cares a lot for the plants there.
Savy SL2 (voiced by Cree Summer) is a young girl whose adopted robot parents were attacked by NOS-4-A2 in "The Slayer", which lead her to hunting him down for revenge.
Sheriff of Roswell (voiced by Stephen Root) is Becky's father and an ally of Team Lightyear.
King Nova (voiced by John O'Hurley) is Mira's father and the ruler of Tangea. Being more tradition bound he clearly disapproves of his daughter being a Space Ranger and therefore has a complicated relationship with her as well as Buzz. But regardless of his pompous nature he still cares about his daughter and is willing to aid her.
Episodes
Production codes were taken from the Library of Congress.
Broadcast and syndication
The series was aired during UPN's Disney's One Too programming block from October 2000 to August 2003. One episode, "Super Nova", aired twice during its original run. It also aired on Disney Channel from June 5, 2006, to May 16, 2008, when it was taken off the air in the U.S. Two episodes, "Conspiracy" and "Inside Job", were rarely seen after the September 11 attacks. The show also aired on Toon Disney from August 31, 2003 to May 27, 2007 as well as on the network's Jetix block for a brief time in 2004.
Production
In May 2000, it was announced Walt Disney Television Animation would be producing an animated series based on the character of Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story with Patrick Warburton set to voice the titular character. 65 episodes were announced for broadcast in fall of that year, 52 of which would be broadcast on UPN's Disney's One Too while the other 13 would be broadcast on ABC's Disney's One Saturday Morning. While the majority of the animation was done by Disney Television Animation, Pixar provided animation for the show's opening sequence. Other animation houses involved in the production included Tama Productions, Sunwoo Entertainment, Sunmin Image Pictures, Sae Hahn Productions, Hana Animation, Jade Animation, Wang Film Productions and Toon City.
Some episodes of the series were animated on cels, while other episodes were animated with digital ink and paint. The series was one of the last new animated series to use cel animation.
Awards and nominations
Daytime Emmy Awards
2001 – Outstanding Sound Editing - Special Class – Jennifer Mertens, Paca Thomas, Otis Van Osten, Rick Hammel, Eric Hertsguaard, Robbi Smith, Brian F. Mars, Marc S. Perlman, and Dominick Certo (won)
Video game
A video game titled Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Activision, and released for PlayStation, Game Boy Color, Microsoft Windows, and Dreamcast in 2000. The gameplay revolves around Buzz chasing down the various villains from the show, and defeating them using different color coded weapons.