XL and XR

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XL and XR are characters on Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Disney's animated science fiction adventure show featuring Buzz Lightyear from the Disney movie Toy Story.


XR is a member of Team Lightyear. His name is an acronym that stands for Experimental Ranger. He is a short robot with many pop-out gadgets (like R2-D2), who can store objects in his chest cavity (like Bender). He's somewhat neurotic, and gets blown up on nearly every mission he goes on. However, he can be rebuilt provided all of his parts are salvaged.

XL is a prototype of XR who was deactivated when he was proven to be unstable. In the beginning, XL strongly resembled XR. The main difference between them was that XL's head was a dark red, almost crimson while XR's head is gold.

XL became larger and more powerful due to his rebuilding himself with stolen robot parts. He later redeems himself and reconciliates with XR (his "younger brother") and is converted into an office managing robot capable of photocoping, collating, and other office related functions. Both XR and XL refer to the commander as "Dad" and after XL's conversion, the two of them annoy him to no ends with their ideas for family activities.

In the series, Larry Miller and Neil Flynn provide the voice of XR (depending on the episode) while comedian Bobcat Goldthwait plays the voice of XL.


Contents

[edit] Other Members of Team Lightyear

  • Captain Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen in The Adventure Begins, Patrick Warburton in the actual series): Famed "Space Ranger" known for heroism and bravery. Like his Toy Story incarnation, Buzz's personality is somewhat tightly wound, and he's quite a stickler for procedure. He attended PS -19^3 as a primary school.
  • Princess Mira Nova (Nicole Sullivan): A rookie ranger and heir to the Tangean throne, with the ability to walk through walls and read minds. (it's the ability of her planet's people to do so). She seems to have the most common sense of the group, and can at times be something of a smart-mouth.
  • Booster Sinclair Munchapper (Stephen Furst): A dinosaur-like former janitor from the agricultural planet of Jo-ad (a play on the name of the Joad family, from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath), with a big appetite and lots of muscle power. Big-hearted, but somewhat simple-minded and not particularly brave.

[edit] Overview

XL is a prototype of XR, but XL was deactivated when he was proven to be unstable. After this failure, Commander Nebula was reluctant to restart the 'robot ranger' program because he feared another disaster. The LGMs snuck the construction authorization papers for XR in with their vacation requests to get Commander Nebula's signature. XR was first introduced to be a new partner for Buzz Lightyear, but he was blown-up on the first mission. He was then rebuilt by the LGMs. However, they were not connected through the Unimind while they were rebuilding him, and they made some mistakes that caused XR to have a personality like a human.

[edit] Villains

Here is a list of the villains that XL has worked with, or that are a particular problem for XR.

  • Evil Emperor Zurg (Wayne Knight): Main villain of the series. Rules his own evil empire, and wants to rule the entire galaxy. Most of his subjects are robots. His feet double as rockets and he can transform his arms into a variety of energy weapons. Despite being fairly campy (often breaking the seriousness of otherwise purely evil statements), he's widely considered the most evil person in the galaxy, especially by the other villains. He is the one who reactivated XL.
  • "NOS-4-A2" (Craig Ferguson): NOS-4-A2 is a robotic energy vampire created by Zurg, capable of draining the energy from any system or entity driven by electrical power, and controlling any machine he bites. His bite also seems to have some effect on organics, because he is the one who is responsible for biting Ty Parsec resulting in the Space Ranger turning into Wirewolf. His name is a pun on the term Nosferatu. He seems to have it in for XR, much to XR's dismay, and he is always chasing and trying to bite him. He worked with XL during the episode Revenge of the Monsters.
  • Torque (Brad Garrett): Minor alien villain who committed crimes of terrorism, smuggling, arson, and unpaid parking tickets. After being freed from a prison transport by Zurg and his Hornets, the Grubs implanted a cell-separation device upon his chest which allows Torque to have the ability to create duplicate versions of himself. He has had illigal business dealings with XL.
  • Wirewolf: Formerly Space Ranger Ty Parsec. After being bitten by NOS-4-A2, the radiation of Canis Lunus's Green Moon turns him into a robotic werewolf, who, like his creator, feeds on energy. He attacked XR in the episode Wirewolf and he unwittingly "worked with" XL and NOS-4-A2 in the episode Revenge of the Monsters.
  • Raenoks: The Raenoks are the fiercest aliens in the Galaxy. Varg (Kevin Michael Richardson) is the ambassador of the Raenoks and the supreme commander of the Raenok military. Kleev (Clancy Brown) is the leader of the Raenoks and Minister of schemes and treachery. In Revenge of the Raenoks Varg takes XR as a hostage so he can escape from prision.


[edit] Clones

  • Team Lightyear Clones: Created by Zurg to thwart the real Team Lightyear. However, due to Zurg's impatience, they were child versions of the originals. Their distilled evil was 12, one point short of Zurg's 13. Wanting to have a robot similar to XR, they first kidnap him and try to make him evil, but when that doesn't work they create X-Treme.

[edit] Appearance

XR is a short robot with a cylindrical torso and expandable arms and legs. His head is a floating cylinder with goggle-like "eyes" and a detached lower "jaw." He wears a glass helmet that, unlike the organic rangers', rarely is removed. His head can turn around freely because it is not attached.

In the beginning, XL strongly resembled XR. The main difference between them was that XL's head was a dark red, almost crimson, with small, beady eyes.

After he was reactivated, XL stole robot parts to replace his old ones and create a new, more powerful body for him. This body was radically different from the design that Star Command had used earlier. XL's villain body is much larger than his ranger body, and his arms and legs are mismatched and contain weaponry. He is sort of like a robotic Frankenstein's monster.

[edit] History

In the episode XL, XL steals some expensive robot parts to rebuild himself. After rebuilding himself, he brakes into Star Command and kidnaps Commander Nebula, who he blames for his deactivation. He intends to destroy him as well as Star Command, but he's plans are foiled and he is imprisoned by Team Lightyear after XR defeats him.

In The Return of XL, XL steals XR's AFD. XR, distraught and convinced he is usless without this mysterious part, runs away to find a new one. In doing so, he falls into the cluches of XL yet again, but the rest of Team Lightyear comes to save him, and to tell him that the AFD is just an Air Freshening Device.

In Head Case, XL kidnaps XR and steals his body in order to get onto Star Command to plant a bomb. XR must then use XL's body to get back to Star Command and stop him.

In Revenge of the Monsters, the sequel of the episode Wirewolf, XL teams up with NOS-4-A2 and assists him in taking over the world. When NOS-4-A2 betrays him by attempting to feed on him, XL flees and eventually joins forces with Buzz Lightyear and XR. He assists them in vanquishing NOS-4-A2 and is rewarded by being reinstated into Star Command and refitted as a photo-copier machine, much to Commander Nebula's chagrin.

[edit] Episodes

01 - 10/02/00 - "The Torque Armada"

02 - 10/03/00 - "Gravitina"

03 - 10/04/00 - "XL"

04 - 10/05/00 - "Little Secrets"

05 - 10/06/00 - "Inside Job"

06 - 10/08/00 - "NOS-4-A2"

07 - 10/09/00 - "The Planet Destroyer"

08 - 10/10/00 - "The Beasts of Karn"

09 - 10/11/00 - "Tag Team"

10 - 10/12/00 - "The Main Event"

11 - 10/13/00 - "The Return of XL"

12 - 10/15/00 - "Strange Invasion"

13 - 10/16/00 - "The Taking of PC-7"

14 - 10/17/00 - "Mindwarp"

15 - 10/18/00 - "Mira's Wedding"

16 - 10/19/00 - "Panic on Bathyos"

17 - 10/20/00 - "Shiv Katall"

18 - 10/22/00 - "Stress Test"

19 - 10/23/00 - "A Zoo Out There"

20 - 10/24/00 - "Root of Evil"

21 - 10/25/00 - "Super Nova" *

22 - 10/26/00 - "Downloaded"

23 - 10/27/00 - "The Plasma Monster"

24 - 10/29/00 - "The Crawling Flesh"

25 - 10/30/00 - "Dirty Work"

26 - 10/31/00 - "The Slayer"

27 - 11/01/00 - "The Lightyear Factor"

28 - 11/02/00 - "Clone Rangers"

29 - 11/03/00 - "Bunzel Fever"

30 - 11/05/00 - "Develoutionaries"

31 - 11/06/00 - "Head Case"

32 - 11/07/00 - "The Yukari Imprint"

33 - 11/08/00 - "The Shape Stealer"

34 - 11/09/00 - "Star Crossed"

35 - 11/10/00 - "Haunted Moon"

36 - 11/12/00 - "Stranger Invasion"

37 - 11/13/00 - "Eye of the Tempest"

38 - 11/14/00 - "Revenge of the Monsters"

39 - 11/15/00 - "Lone Wolf"

40 - 11/16/00 - "Planet of the Lost"

41 - 11/17/00 - "Revenge of the Raenoks"

42 - 11/19/00 - "The Starthought"

43 - 11/20/00 - "Millennial Bugs"

44 - 11/21/00 - "Conspiracy"

45 - 11/23/00 - "At Large on a Small Planet"

46 - 11/24/00 - "Sunquake"

47 - 11/26/00 - "First Missions"

48 - 11/27/00 - "Large Target"

49 - 11/29/00 - "War and Peace and War"

50 - 12/14/00 - "Lost in Time"

51 - 12/21/00 - "Rookie of the Year"

52 - 12/28/00 - "Wirewolf"

53 - 1/04/01 - "The Rescue Mission"

54 - 1/11/01 - "Star Smasher"

55 - 1/18/01 - "Enemy Without a Face"

56 - 1/25/01 - "Good Ol' Buzz"

57 - 2/02/01 - "Return to Karn"

58 - 2/09/01 - "Speed Trap"

59 - 2/16/01 - "Holiday Time"

60 - 2/23/01 - "Opposites Attract"

61 - 3/06/01 - "Ancient Evil"

62 - 3/13/01 - "42"

63 - ??/??/?? - "The Adventure Begins - Part 1"

64 - ??/??/?? - "The Adventure Begins - Part 2"

65 - ??/??/?? - "The Adventure Begins - Part 3"

[edit] Other personnel

  • LGMs, or Little Green Men (Warburton): The LGMs are small aliens who keep Star Command in shape (originally appeared as squeeze toy aliens in Toy Story). They built both XL and XR.
  • Commander Nebula (Adam Carolla): Their commander, missing a leg. Rather angry. Hates to do paperwork and signs them without reading them. Considered to be a father by XR (the LGM's slipped in XR's construction request with the vacation request forms, knowing Nebula would sign it without even looking).