By request from Daps1…

From 1990 – 91, MC Hammer was arguably the biggest hip-hop star in the world. You can’t deny the fact that his break out hit “U Can’t Touch This” was catchy, and with it’s heavy (understated) sampling of Rick James’ “Superfreak”, it made heavy, HEAVY sampling of funk hits popular in future hip-hop songs. Hammer helped bring hip-hop to the mainstream audience with an entertainment style that no hip-hop artist had back then. 

But how do you know you when someone hits it big? They get their own cartoon series…

Hit the Jump, to read more about hip-hop’s first animated series…

I remember this show when it debuted in 1991. This was a time when Saturday morning cartoons mattered so much that one primetime slot a year was dedicated to previewing new Saturday morning cartoons. I remembering seeing the preview for Hammerman, and being excited about watching a cartoon show that starred MC Hammer. It had a good premise, Stanley Burrell (Hammer’s real name) would put on “magical” shoes that made him into the superhero “Hammerman”, and he defeated bad guys with music, hip-hop, dancing and friendship… Have a look at the results:

Are you done laughing? You want to watch that again… I’ll wait…

Where do I begin?… The animation is horrible! Is that dancing? I don’t usually say that animation is horrible, but DiC Entertainment, who produced the show, also did quality shows like GI Joe, Chipmunks, and Care Bears. I guess they didn’t care much about Hammerman. 

And the shoes!?  Well those were just special… Looking back I did enjoy the show… for about 3 episodes, and then I went back to watching Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck, Captain N, Batman: The Animated Series and one year later in 1992, X-Men: Animated Series debuted so after one season, 13 episodes, Hammerman was given its walking shoes, and they probably looked a lot like the shoes on the right over there. 

But hey, not a lot of hip-hop stars can say they had their own cartoon series. Oh and if the Blue Scholars ever get their own animated series, you better hope I’m in charge or else you might get something like that video up above. 

PS: Raise your hand if, in 1990 – 91, you owned a shirt that looked like this…(slowly raises hand… shakes head in disappointment)