Honestly I remember most of the show's weird shit
And I don't. I mean, I remember the basic stuff, but I only caught a few episodes when it ran on Cartoon Network a decade or so back, so I've only seen a handful of episodes since about 1986.
and I still think the oddest thing is the whole "if we turn completely different bits of each of you into robots, you can breath in space" premise.
And then Melodia shows up and doesn't even give a fuck.
Yes, obviously the breathing/falling in space shit is ridiculous, but Thundercats had already blazed that trail. (I used to wonder if the two were set in the same universe, partly because of the "penal planet" idea existing in both shows -- but of course the Silverhawks are from an Earth that looks a whole lot different from Third Earth, so not so much.)
I think part of Silverhawks's general weirdness is that it mashes up so many genres. I mean, Thundercats is pretty straight up fantasy/SF, so when you see Merlin in one episode and a space game hunter in the next, okay, I mean, that's kinda odd but it's not Silverhawks odd.
Silverhawks is based on the high concept of "the Untouchables in space". But since they cribbed their villain directly from Thundercats, you wind up with a Mumm-Ra who, instead of being an ancient evil who has been woken from his slumber, is Al Capone.
Aside from that, you get two more immediate problems: Stargazer is the only interesting Silverhawk, because he is Eliot Ness, and you're looking at a children's cartoon about the Mafia that has to deal with mid-1980's network S&P. So Mon-Star's motivations are never quite as clear to the audience as Mumm-Ra's. I remember he owned a casino and the Silverhawks kept raiding it, but I don't remember them ever explaining the connection between organized crime and casino operation to 4-year-old me. And I certainly don't remember anything about bootlegging.
So Mon-Star and the Mob do general Evil Villain stuff. Like jumping a claim in Limbo Gold Rush. Whose original title was "Clementine", and which is based entirely around people singing new lyrics to same.
Obviously I'm not saying space westerns don't work. I'm not even saying that putting the Untouchables in the middle of a space western doesn't work. But putting the Untouchables in the middle of a space western where Space Al Capone Who Is Also Mumm-Ra sends one of the Misfits to jump a claim by a singing space cowboy who rides a rocket horse, well, there is a whole lot of shit going on at that point.
