Punching Day: Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills

In 1994, The USA network aired 40 episodes of a cosmic horror television show for children. It was supposed to be a simple rip-off of the hot new show Power Rangers, but it was born of a blood feud between two studios, and its birth was deeply cursed. If I accidentally watched this show as a nervous, sickly child, I don't think I would have survived. It looks innocent enough, but it will give you a heart attack. This is the Panera Bread charged lemonade of children's programming. The show is called Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills.

I know it sounds so fun. What if we took two concepts you love, The X-Files and Beverly Hills 90210, and we made them kiss? Do not listen to the false promises of the title; everything about this show lulls you into a false sense of security so that it can then disgust you. Let me describe one of the main characters for you. It's an undulating, skin-colored blob covered in goo with a single clawed hand protruding from its center that it occasionally uses to touch teenagers. That's Nimbar, the main GOOD GUY.

The bad guy, Gorganus, is evil, but he also has a fun little parrot friend. I really miss the days when every evil person had an annoying animal sidekick they hated who contributed nothing to their organization. Gorganus could fire that bird. Is the bird’s uncle rich or something? No. It shows the humanity in Gorganus. Gorganus wants to take over the Earth, but he isn't such a bad guy.

We don't know what Gorganus will do once he conquers Earth. Maybe the world would be a utopia under Gorganus. Maybe everyone will get their own terrible vulture puppet. Maybe it will be a non-stop party. There is an episode where he goes on vacation and calls the bird holding a big fizzy mixed drink from alien Las Vegas. He's putting in the work, while Nimbar is, at best, a middle manager who hires teenagers he can easily kick around to literally fight his battles for him. Let's talk about those teenagers. One of them is played by an actor named Rugg. Beans Morocco and Zsa Zsa Gabor also made guest appearances on the show, so if nothing else, it's kicking ass in the funny names department.

The Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters are Laurie, the cheerleader; Gordon, the teenage Gordon Gecko; Drew, the arty one; and Swinton, the nerd. While they all live in Beverly Hills, I think it's important to note that Beverly Hills seldom comes into play due to budget reasons. They've got some stock footage of designer outlet malls and street signs, but other than that, the sets are all generic school hallways and a coffee shop that could be in any Midwestern state.

The writers also spent no time researching how teenagers talk, resulting in some of the worst fake teen slang ever heard on television. The funniest application of this is in Drew's repeated use of the word "crank" to mean good or exciting, resulting in her saying things like, "I am gonna crank!" and "This will be the crankest thing I've ever written" before darting from a room.

The Tattooed Teens were thrown together first by a teacher for a school project and then by Nimbar. A fun thing that differentiates The Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from other teen superheroes is they hate each other, and that never changes. Secretly fighting aliens together does not bond them in any way. They begin and end the series as enemies.

Nimbar transforms them into galactic sentinels by having them stand on a plate and say their special luchador names: Scorpio, Centaur, Taurus, and Apollo. It's important to remember that they're not climbing into robots to fight monsters. They're getting a full Big done on them every episode. They're still in their mortal bodies, but their bodies are older, buffer, and maybe taller. The show has some issues with perspective, so either they fight in front of tiny buildings or, at some point off-camera, they grow a hundred feet tall.

Some of the monsters these children fight were clearly created by people who would rather be working on Ginger Snaps. There's Neuragula, a giant brain on a humanoid monster body, Octodriod, an octopus monster who drains the moisture from human bodies, and Slaygar, a pile of toxic brown sludge that sprays electric green vomit on the teenagers.

Sure, there are some hokey monsters. Nobody is running from Predaraptor or Snake Trooper, and we all know The Sorcerer is an interpretive dancer who wandered onto the wrong set. Still, every couple of monsters we get one that could be genuinely scary under the right circumstances.

Although there are forty episodes in the one season that Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills aired, they only fought ten monsters for costume budget reasons. This means every time an alien monster loses to a bunch of children, the evil bird suggests they destroy it for its failure, and Gorganus has to be like, "Um, no, I… don't think we should kill it. H-he tried his best. Let's make him stronger and let him try again like two or three more times."

Now, you might be thinking that all of the pictures of alien fights look like they take place in the same orange desert/void. I want you to know that's absolutely not true. Sometimes, they fight in a city/void backdrop.

An eagle-eyed viewer might notice that the monsters blow up the same power station and down the same telephone lines every time they appear. The strange dream logic of conquering Earth by sending alien warriors to the middle of the desert is part of what makes it so scary. The distant, nameless city they battle in front of makes it feel like their reality hasn't fully rendered. It's where a man with no face would take you in a sex dream.

As creepy as the monsters are, again, what I end up fearing the most is supposed to be the hero of the story, Knightron. I find Knightron so upsetting. Since the Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills don't have robots to fight in, when they join together to form a more powerful opponent for the monster, they fuse their physical flesh into one being. That being is dressed like a nerd.

Why do they form a knight? It's never explained. There's a zodiac element to all of this they could have utilized. They could have made Knightron a big grotesque alien as they like to do. The medieval theme came out of nowhere for this one character, and it never returns to the show again. I strongly suspect someone had some armor already on hand that they were willing to let the production company borrow.

If I think about Knightron for one second too long, I get so upset. Are the teenagers' consciousnesses all fused inside of Knightron? Do they know all of each other's secrets when they unfuse? Who is the brain of Knightron, or are they all trapped in there together? These questions and more are never explored on the show, but I do have a theory as someone who has watched more of this show than almost anyone else alive, and it has to do with the memory leech.

When The Sorcerer put a memory leech on Drew, Nimbar told the tattooed teenagers that if Gorganus was able to get his hands on the leech, he would know not just Drew's secrets but all of their secrets. Why would Drew know all their secrets unless they were merging their consciousnesses into one when they become Knightron? Maybe they don't fully remember when they unmerge, or maybe they just don't talk about it because if anyone should keep their horrifying secrets buried deep, it's teenagers. Especially teenagers who regularly fight tentacle monsters and befriend disembodied hands covered in Astroglide.

While there's a lot wrong with Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills, I have to say it's my favorite TV show whose main villain's name sounds like a synonym for beautiful butthole and whose main hero is a beautiful butthole.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Devon the Rogue Supreme, who forms the gallbladder of Knightron! The invaluable gallbladder!  

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