I have special memories of this show because my nephew who was 4 to 6 during its run had some V.R. Trooper action figures and left them at the Sheepshead Bay Movie theater and was quite upset when his father wouldn't let him go back for them. He was a devoted follower of the show and back in the day I checked it out.
It was a show for its time, the Nineties, when people were becoming aware of the virtual world via the home computer. Terms like cyber space and virtual reality were becoming known even to the youngest kids. It would follow that a show would be developed for them.
V.R. Troopers was obviously borrowing a lot from the Power Rangers and it too was of Japanese origin. Three clean cut American youths who were devoted karate students, Brad Hawkins, Michael Bacon, and Sarah Brown are chosen by Dr. Jeffrey Combs who lives inside virtual reality as Power Ranger like troopers fighting the wicked Grimlord who is the ruler of virtual reality and he'd like to conquer our reality.
What none of them know is that Grimlord is already here even if his army is not. He's a millionaire developer Carl Ziktor, a Donald Trump or Carl Paladino like figure who is one all around meanie in any reality and a villain you love to hate.
Brad Hawkins has an additional reason for getting in this fight. His father was a noted scientist who disappeared a decade before and now through Combs has contacted him. He went into virtual reality to fight Grimlord and now urges his son to the fight.
Sarah Brown works for an underground newspaper and she proves to be a valuable source of information for strange doings.
V.R. Troopers was a show aimed at viewers who hadn't passed into double digits in age. As such it had clear cut heroes and villains. A visit to the laboratory of Dr. Combs even turned Brad Hawkins dog Jeb into a talking pooch. Maybe he got himself a blog and passed on speech and the blog to Stan.
Two seasons only for V.R. Troopers, there should have been more.
