Republican Space Rangers

"Republican Space Rangers! Shoot first; ask questions NEVER!"

- The RSR Motto

Republican Space Rangers is a cartoon that's viewable on Weazel on TV in Niko Bellic's safehouses in Grand Theft Auto IV, Luis' Apartment in The Ballad of Gay Tony, The Lost MC Clubhouse in The Lost and Damned, and Michael de Santa's, Trevor Phillips' and Franklin Clinton's safehouses in GTA V.

The plot consists of three Caucasian redneck American men who patrol the universe in a spacecraft, searching for and eliminating what they perceive to be threats to America. This is the first cartoon show in the GTA series. It has a mix of satirical humor, violence, foul language, racism and use of drugs. All the cartoons have a very stereotypical neoconservative view on life, except for homosexuality, where the members of the crew (all male) seem to have sexual desires for one another.

First episode (GTA IV)
The episode opens with the Rangers communicating with a group of big-headed agrarian aliens. The Rangers fail to understand anything the alien leader says, thinking he is speaking in "some kind of weird, jibber-jabber space dialect" though the alien is actually speaking in plain English. Nevertheless the Rangers, believing that the aliens threaten America, label them as terrorists and open fire. The aliens manage to retreat back to an orphanage while the Rangers head back to their ship, take off, and fire a nuke back at the alien planet. While flying through space a planet shows up on the spaceship's "Insurgent Scan" and the Rangers nuke it just to be safe.

After some congratulatory remarks by Commander another planet shows up on the scan, this time with traces of minerals and gold. The Rangers land on the planet to investigate and encounter a squid-like alien native of the planet flagging them down for help. The alien recalls the story about a group of evil aliens who had recently invaded the planet intent on enslaving the natives, stealing their natural resources and destroying their culture. Suddenly one of the evil aliens shows up and explains that his kind did this because they are evil and greedy.

Commander and Dick instantly sympathize with the evil alien and even invite him to go bass fishing. Frustrated, the squid alien makes one last-ditch plea for help but to no avail. The Rangers suddenly remember their original mission and blast both of the aliens regardless, for the sake of "Democracy and Liberty". The episode ends with Commander, once again, congratulating the other two rangers. The celebration is interrupted when Commander spots a glob of semen floating through the air, apparently from Dick who was busy masturbating while fantasizing about Commander.

Episode 456: Trouble Brewing Down South (EFLC)
The episode opens with the Rangers holding a barbeque atop an asteroid near the "border" of Earth while standing guard against any foreigners attempting to cross over. Butch, in a moment of breaking character, questions how he is able to hear the sound of Commander's gun when there is no sound in space and goes on to explain the science behind this phenomenon. Dick makes fun of Butch by calling him an educated elitist and Commander chastises him for using the internet to gain knowledge instead of using it for posting uninstantiated lies on message boards, calling people fags, and porn.

An injured and starving alien appears and slowly approaches the border but the Rangers swiftly fire their guns at it before it could cross. The Rangers then decide to go to sleep but not before calling out their three alien servants (racial stereotypes of a Mexican, Asian, and Russian) and ordering them to clean their ship. Later that evening, Dick creeps into Commander's sleep pod after being frightened by the sounds of crickets. Commander angrily explains that the crickets are just a sound effect generated to help him sleep better. Meanwhile, Butch secretly sneaks out of the ship in order to give a can of beans to a friendly alien near the border who has no arms or mouth. Butch then breaks down in tears explaining that, after the way Dick and Commander have been treating him, he feels lonely and wishes to befriend the alien.

Suddenly Dick and Commander catch Butch consorting with their so-called enemy. Commander accuses the two of being homosexual while the alien rebuts by stating that he had 14 kids until Commander killed most of them. Commander then hypocritically states it was all because of natural selection. Butch claims the alien is his friend which causes Commander to open fire upon the two. The alien leads Butch inside his ship and flies off while Commander and Dick pursue them.

Butch realizes that he has now become and outlaw begins to regret joining the space marines. Commander appears on the screen of their spaceship and continues to taunt them. Before they open fire the alien passes through an artificial ring-shaped planet (resembling a Halo from the titular series) while Commander and Dick's ship gets caught in the ring. Dick uses the hyper drive in an attempt to get out of the ring, humorously referring to this action as "Shitstorm in a Basket". The hyper drive launch fails and causes the ship to go flaccid; forcing all of its systems to go offline including the oxygen supply.

Commander and Dick believe this to be "cyber terrorism" and begin to suffocate while pleading for Butch to come back save them. Butch initially refuses to save them because they called him "gay" but the alien explains that they are just transferring their own emotional insecurities onto him (basic Jungian psychology, he says). Butch then agrees to save them. The alien maneuvers his ship in front of the Ranger's ship while Butch tells the other two to eject. Commander and Dick fearfully eject themselves out through the head of the ship and fly through space when the episode suddenly ends on a cliffhanger. Suffice to say, the two Rangers survived due to the fact they appear in the next episode.

Homecoming (EFLC)
The episode opens with the Rangers' ship (still flaccid) drifting through space. An even larger ship docks above it and sends out a hovering robot to investigate the Ranger's ship. The robot reaches the cryosleep room and awakens the Rangers, explaining to them that they have been in cryosleep for eight years. Commander realizes that Dick had accidentally set the cryo alarm clock for eight years instead of eight hours.

Seven hours later the Rangers try to restart their ship but Dick cannot remember the password to the computer. After several failed attempts the robot inputs the correct password, "TOLERANCE". The Rangers are stunned and don't even recognize the word, believing it to be the result of a random letter generator. The ship powers up and Butch discovers that all his friends de-friended him and that he missed out on the whole social-networking experience. Commander chastises him for social-networking, claiming that he got too carried away with it. Butch then discovers that they have orders to return to Earth so the Rangers promptly fly back home.

They crash land their ship directly in front of "Fort Flaccid" where a uniformed soldier nonchalantly hands them a fistful of medals and informs them of the changes made to Earth in the past several years. It turns out that not only have humans and aliens finally made peace with one another but also the USA has been turned into a pacifist, overly-sensitive, politically-correct nation - the Rangers' worst nightmare. Several other changes include giving up the right to a pension, the downgrading of military weapons to non-lethal conflict resolution devices (a puny pistol that spits out a flag), as well as the outlawing of jokes/humor (too many parent groups were offended) and torture.

The Rangers are infuriated with the new changes as Commander tries to demonstrate the usefulness of torture by pinching Butch in the groin. The Soldier is appalled and orders the Rangers to attend a "Sensitivity Retraining Seminar". Later, the Rangers are sitting in a repurposed kindergarten classroom while being taught about sensitivity and conflict resolution by an effeminate tentacled alien. The alien teacher proposes a scenario in which the Rangers must resolve non-violently but the three Ranger could only offer violent solutions to the problem. Faced with no other option to change the Rangers' way of thinking, the alien teacher is forced to revoke their medals and label them as traitors. Dick snaps, claiming he is a patriot (his favorite beer even says so), and calls the teacher a "goddamn-filthy-fucking-alien!".

The teacher is horrified and tactfully reminds Dick that the President of the USA is, in fact, an alien. The Rangers gasp as the alien teacher turns on a TV to a speech being given by President Zane; a green, scrotum-headed alien who spews urine whenever he speaks. President Zane appears friendly and confident, if a bit long-winded and also takes the time to reveal the new flag of the US. The stripe colors have been changed to pink and yellow while alien heads, rainbows, and unicorns have replaced the stars. Commander declares the president to be a "homo-communist" and has had enough of the seminar. The Rangers all attempt to shoot the teacher but find that their guns only shoot flags and promptly leave the building.

They meet up back at their crashed ship and decide that the best way to get rid of a politician they disagree with is to assassinate him and blame it on "brown people". Dick exclaims "Fuck democracy! Hell, we only ever like that shit when it works for us!" The next morning President Zane, and his vagina-mouthed alien wife, are parading through town in an open-topped limo when Commander stands in front of their limo and halts them while Dick crouches atop a grassy hill with a sniper rifle, in a reenactment of the John Kennedy assassination.

While the President is distracted with talking about autobiographies, Commander orders Dick to take the shot. Unfortunately Dick had drank a few beers prior and misses, hitting Commander in the penis instead. President Zane is convinced that Commander took the bullet for him and declares him a hero. Meanwhile Commander is bleeding out on the ground and calls out for someone to revive him, only to have Dick pelvically-thrust him in his rear. The episode ends with the Ranger trio standing in an unemployment line.

Unnamed episodes
Game Informer stated that new episodes of the series will be coming to GTA V.

The Cast

 * Commander: Commander is the leader of the squad. He is always seen with a cigar in his mouth, even while sleeping. He claims blogging is for communists and queers and calls Butch "Cyber-Shopper".


 * Dick: Dick seems to be second in command. He has a mustache and wears a red headband. He hero-worships the Commander, and often wishes for the next time he might be subject to the Commander's "warm, hairy embrace." Although generally sharing the same bloodlust as his two companions, Dick has a shining moment of clarity by whispering, "No, the enemy is inside" after the Commander screams that the enemy is "out there boys!" Shortly after, however, he partakes in the genocide of an alien race with glee. He also makes sexual comments that are homosexual in nature. In the episode "Trouble Brewing Down South" Dick proclaims that he was raised on a farm, when searching for Butch. In the episode "Homecoming", Dick got a picture of himself by his cryogenic tube and he cannot spell four. It's also revealed that he was molested by his uncle and says "That's me and Papa's secret".


 * Butch: Butch is the tall, obese pilot of the ship who carries two guns. He has a distinctive, hillbilly-esque voice and is the dumbest of the three. His helmet's visor has his own spit on it. Butch's stupidity is often exemplified by groupthink actions (such as agreeing with the other two on anything) and his primitive desire to kill on sight, even though he "don't really like that (killing)". He becomes a fan of blogging and the internet by Episode 456 and Homecoming.

Theme Song
Republican Space Rangers!

Intergalactic war on terror, but don't worry 'bout colleteral damage or error!

'cause we're nuking hate, we're spreading freedom and liberty!

Sometimes we kill with undue glee (Oh, was that your home? Sorry!)

Gotta complete the mission!

Impossibly to die extraordinaire edition!

Spreading american values, sometimes you gotta bomb an orphanage or two!

Republican Space Rangeeeeeeeers!

Trivia

 * Republican Space Rangers is a parody of modern American foreign policy, especially in Iraq. It also makes fun of American patriotism, the perceived superiority Americans have in the world, as well as exaggerated Conservative, and in the case of the "Homecoming" episode, Liberal stereotypes.
 * The Rangers' suits resemble MJOLNIR armor from the Halo series. As well, their ship gets caught by a Halo Ring-like object in the second episode. Also, the fact that Dick hero-worships Commander may be a reference to the popular Halo-based machinima series Red vs. Blue, in which the character Dick Simmons is seen as a "kiss-ass" toward Sarge, his Commander. One of their weapons also resembles the MA5B assault rifle used in Halo: Combat Evolved.
 * Their spaceship is phallic in shape, continuing the tradition of phallic images appearing in GTA games. Also, the missiles fired from the ship are shaped like sperm. This is further referenced in Episode 456, where Dick and Commander are fired out the front, Dick yelling: "I'm goin' out like I began!" 
 * President Zane's head is shaped like a scrotum, while his wife's face is shaped like a vagina.
 * Additionally, President Zane's wife is dressed similarly to Jackie Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's wife, during JFK's assassination.
 * Johnny Klebitz insults Malc on how his gang dresses, quipping that they dress like the Republican Space Rangers.
 * Pißwasser was mentioned in the first episode as "generous donations" while Patriot Beer is inferred by Dick in "Homecoming".
 * The hovering robot that boards the RSR's ship in the episode "Homecoming" has a striking resemblance to a Probe Droid from the Star Wars series, and also bears a resemblance to the Mister Handy model featured in the Fallout 3 and New Vegas video games.
 * The sound that the RSR's ship makes when starting up has the same sound effect as the Medigun from the game Team Fortress 2.
 * In "Homecoming", the trio arrives at Fort Flaccid, flaccid being a term for an unerect penis.
 * At the end of "Homecoming", Commander, a burly space marine, is bleeding out on the ground while shouting "revive me!" This may have been a nod to the protagonists of the the Gears of War series who act similarly when injured.
 * In episode 456, when Butch is talking to the alien outside of the ship, he refers to the other two rangers as "Butch and the Commander", when he should have said "Dick and the Commander". This might be a testament to his stupidity, or a simple mistake by the voice actor.
 * In Episode 456, the alien that Butch leaves Dick and The Commander for says "life is complicated", to which Butch replies "I know, I saw the commercial" may reference the teaser trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV as Niko's narration opens with this line.
 * In Homecoming, Dick states that his favorite beer is Patriot Beer, however, empty Pißwasser beer bottles are seen near him in the shooting scene.
 * In Homecoming, the Commander suggests a password to start up the ship, "Clown's Pocket", but it doesn't work. This is also the name of a casino in Las Venturas, as well as a crude term for a slack vagina.
 * The rangers never take off their armor, even when they sleep.
 * Interestingly, the amount of "Kill Count" stickers on Butch's and Commander's guns increased as of Episodes 456 and Homecoming.
 * In the GTA V gameplay trailer, a brief segment features a man dressed in a Ranger costume fighting another mascot (who turns out to be Impotent Rage, another in-game cartoon character) in front of the Cathay Theater.
 * The Commander can be seen in front of the Cathay Theather, on Vinewood Boulevard. (see gallery)
 * The opening to the Homecoming episode is very similar to the opening sequence to the movie Aliens.
 * Further references to the movie include Butch mentioning a "cat running around," which is referring to the cat that survived the first movie.