Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad
Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad (or, in short, SSSS) is an American television series. It was produced by Tsuburaya Productions, Ultracom Inc. and DIC Productions, L.P., with distribution by All American Television, and ran for a duration of 53 episodes from September 12, 1994 to April 11, 1995 in syndication, as well as on ABC. It was an adaptation of the Japanese tokusatsu series "Gridman the Hyper Agent". Plot. High school student Sam Collins, the head of a band known as Team Samurai, is zapped during a recording session by a power surge and disappears, only to  return seconds later with a strange device attached to his wrist which, at the time, is unremovable. Later after his friends, Amp, Sydney, and Tanker, leave, one of his video game programs, dubbed "Servo," is subject to a power surge and zaps Sam again just after he has remarked "Cool battle armor!" - this time he is pulled into the digital world and transformed into his creation. As Servo, he roams the digital world and fights monsters dubbed "Mega-Viruses" which are capable of attacking any device on the electrical grid (including the grid itself), Internet or telephone network, usually having  real-life consequences far beyond what any standard computer virus would be capable of achieving. Meanwhile, Malcolm Frink, another student from Sam's school, is designing monsters on his home computer when Kilokahn, an escaped military artificial-intelligence program that was presumed destroyed in the power surge, visits him via his computer screen and strikes a Faustian deal with him, transforming his digital monster into a Mega-Virus. Sam, now as Servo, must enter the digital world and stop Malcolm's and Kilokahn's Mega-Viruses. Sometimes, when Servo is unable to handle a virus by himself, he would enlist  the help of his friends using his Arsenal Programs which could fight the viruses solo, transform, with the help of other Programs, and attach to Servo as armor. Since Team Samurai consists of only three people at any one time following Sam's disappearance, only three vehicles are available for use at any one time. When Servo combines with these Programs as armor, he changes his name to either "Phormo" once combined with Drago or "Synchro" once combined with Zenon. Characters. Villains. Mega-Virus Monsters. The Mega-Virus Monsters are Kaiju-style computer viruses produced by Malcolm and given sentience  by Kilokhan. Malcolm creates the Mega-Viruses since Kilokhan lacks the ability. Only a few Mega-Viruses have the power of speech. Arsenal programs. Zenon program. In an odd occurrence, Zenon fights Servo in "Que Sera Servo" when a Mega-Virus places Servo under a spell which has him obey solely Kilokahn, until Amp is able to break the virus' hold by using Syd's belt to reboot him. When Borr, Tracto, and Vitor combine with Servo, they form Servo's upgrade known as Synchro, which is armed with a pair of shoulder drill missiles. Drago program. When Drago combines  with Servo, they form Servo's second upgrade known as Phormo, which is armed with a pair of laser gauntlets. Production. "Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad" was originally created by Tsuburaya Productions, Ultracom Inc. and DIC Productions, L.P. and was originally going to be named "PowerBoy," but was renamed during production to avoid confusion with Saban Entertainment's American tokusatsu series "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers." The series was made to capitalize on the upsurge in popularity of imported Japanese monster-robot shows which could be adapted with new, regionalized live-action footage. The series' development mirrored the creative construct established earlier  with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The master toy licensee, Playmates Toys, funded the series, interpolated American development via toy licensing rights, and did a commercial buy-in on the Fox network, where Haim Saban had established a kids block, with programs such as "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" and the 1992 "X-Men" cartoon. Playmates called upon the development team at DIC—which, coincidentally, was working with Pangea Corporation, which assisted in the development of DIC's "New Kids on the Block" and Playmates's earlier hit, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." DIC, Pangea, and Playmates's marketing group created an  ensemble of character names, traits and profiles, which were spun into a series offering. Under a product placement deal, Compaq computers were prominently featured in the series and were used to generate the show's computer-generated graphics. Elements of this series are used in the anime series adaptation of "Gridman the Hyper Agent", "SSSS.Gridman". The "SSSS" abbreviation in the title references "Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad". Home media release. In 1995, Buena Vista Home Video (under the DIC Toon Time Video label) released the series on three two-episode VHS cassettes. On February 19, 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment releases the  series' first DVD volume in Region 1 for the very first time. The three-disc set features the first 28 episodes of the series. On October 1 in that year, Mill Creek releases the second DVD volume which features the remaining 25 episodes. Online distribution. Recently, five episodes (new episodes were added and old episodes were removed on Wednesdays) were available on Jaroo, which was an online video site then operated by Cookie Jar Entertainment with which DIC later merges. In or after 2013, Cookie Jar was taken over by DHX Media. The Jaroo site closes as a result, but  DHX Media mentions that it planned to re-locate the site, and its shows, for online distribution. As of February 2016, the series could be streamed through the Pluto TV app on the "After School Cartoons" channel 370.