Mercenaries in Popular Culture - TV

TV

• Soldier of Fortune (1955) had John Russell and Chick Chandler as two do anything go anywhere adventurers, however none of the episodes involved them being hired to wage war.
• Have Gun Will Travel (1957–1963) featured Richard Boone as "the man named Paladin" whose services were hired in each episode, answering the requesting telegram with the title of the show. Paladin's symbol was the head of a horse, the knight piece in chess that narration would explain the unexpected moves of the piece. On a later television show The Richard Boone Show Boone played a modern version of Paladin on one episode.
• The A-Team was a popular TV series about a team of benevolent mercenaries. The violence was usually "toned down" to an almost cartoonish level to make the series acceptable for prime-time viewing (everybody shoots, no one gets hit).
• The anime television series of Area 88, portrays fictional mercenaries in a country called Asran where foreign freelance pilots of all nationalities are assembled in Area 88, an isolated air force base that houses the military's only mercenary unit to fight in Asran's civil war.
• Molotov Cocktease from the Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros. is a former KGB agent who went freelance, presumably after the dissolution of the USSR.
• The Band of Seven (Shichinintai in the Japanese version) from InuYasha, also from Adult Swim, were a band of seven mercenaries that loved to kill and were so strong that warlords feared their strength even as allies. They were hunted by the warlords (with some difficulty) and beheaded. They were revived 10 years later as spectres guarding Naraku, the show's main antagonist, in exchange for eternal life from Shikon Jewel shards.
• One of the major antagonists in the TV series Jericho is a mercenary group called Ravenwood, which is alleged to be inspired by Blackwater Worldwide. They are a subsidiary of a large government contractor and are often operating on private agendas.
• The character Jayne Cobb in the Firefly series is a career mercenary who joined the crew of the Serenity after his previous employeer hired him to track their ship only to switch sides when offered a larger percentage and better perks. When later offered a bribe to again switch sides, Jayne refuses. When confronted, he explains that he would have but, "The money wasn't good enough." Despite questionable loyalty, Jayne remained more or less loyal to the Serenity crew until the end of the series.
• The comedy Machinima series Red vs Blue uses the mercenary premise regularly, usually around Tex and Wyoming, who themselves, were freelance mercenaries.
• The soap opera Days of our Lives features a villain named Stefano DiMera, a wealthy Italian businessman with a history of dabbling in organized crime and terrorism, and who has utilized a cadre of private mercenaries to execute some of his more outlandish operations, including John Black, and his own nephew Andre DiMera. Flashbacks on this show have included Black leading a team of soldiers in battle in some type of (unidentified) Third-World conflict. DiMera has also kidnapped and brainwashed some of his own antagonists, including Roman Brady, Hope Williams, and Steve Johnson, into serving as his agents.
• In LOST a group of mercenaries come to take over The Island, kidnap Ben Linus, and kill everyone on the Island in order to completely secure it for their employer, Charles Widmore, so he can exploit the Island's mythical properties for his own gain.
• Shadow Company is a documentary directed by Nick Bicanic and Jason Bourque and narrated by Gerard Butler. It is an introduction to the mercenary and private military company industry, concentrating on the role the industry has been playing in recent conflicts. It was released on DVD on August 2006.
• In SuperNews!, one episode serve as a parody on the Blackwater company, who has hired John Rambo, Boba Fett and the Predator, and Yosemite Sam as their drill sergeant, to search and find Osama Bin Laden.
• In Dragon Ball Z the Ginyu Force are elite mercenaries hired by Frieza.