Star Wars: Droids is Saturday morning cartoon fare, and it’s very much a relic of 1985, judging by the outfits, the hairstyles, and the New Wave music. Back in 1985, Star Wars didn’t have such a large and oversaturated canon like it does now. The prequel trilogy and the modern assumptions about what Star Wars is supposed to be didn’t exist yet, so the Star Wars galaxy was still a rather wild and woolly place where pretty much anything was fair game, but the children of the 1980s who loved Star Wars tuned in to watch their favorite characters on television week after week.

Before R2-D2 and C-3PO were in the employ of Princess Leia, they traveled around the galaxy working at odd jobs for whomever would take them and got themselves embroiled in all sorts of crazy adventures. Through 13 episodes and one double-sized TV special, there are three main storylines: one involving a trio of racers liberating their star system from gangsters, one involving Mon Julpa, the lost rightful ruler, and a third about trader Mungo Baobab. The plots are not particularly tight or memorable, and neither are the characters. The heroes are relatively ordinary and don’t stand out too much, but they’re sincere and likeable. The villains are goofy-looking, overconfident and incompetent, but sincere about their ambitions and the threats they pose. Through ingenuity and a lot of cartoonish slapstick, R2-D2 and C-3PO bumble, bungle and bluff their way through the Star Wars galaxy while manipulating plans so that the villains end up defeating themselves by using their own technology and hubris against them.

To watch this show and enjoy it, you might want to manage your expectations a little bit. It’s not brilliant but it has its moments. Watch it so you can see silly things like an extra-rubbery R2-D2 breakdance next to a jukebox, see his favorite TV program where R2 droids dressed in Western-style hats shoot at each other, and share his bath toys with C-3PO. Watch it to see brief cameos of fan favorite bounty hunters like Boba Fett and IG-88, and see Sy Snootles and the Max Rebo band performing at a diner. Watch it to see the speeder race on “Boonta”, and for “Kybo Ren”, the pirate of Tarnooga (who is ugly, obese, and hilarious, but still a better villain than Kylo Ren ever was). Watch it to see C-3PO make funny contradictory remarks about the action with his formal chattiness, get banged around like a rag doll and draw flowers on the hull of a starship (decades before WALL-E’s friend BURN-E did it). In short, it’s worth it purely for the comedy and its signature wackiness, and best enjoyed with a heaping bowl of sugar cereal and milk.

The Clone Wars cartoon made a couple of episodes about R2-D2 and C-3PO going on wacky adventures as a tribute to this show [“Mercy Mission” and “Nomad Droids”]. The Droids cartoon is mostly a nostalgia piece today, but it seems the children who grew up watching it were quite fond of it because it has its place in Star Wars history.