Re: Entertainment Joys

[Datelessman]

I never got around to watching Lost Universe, since I wasn't hearing a whole lot of hype for it and sci-fi tends to be more hit-or-miss for me than fantasy. So if you do decide to check it out, I'd be curious to know your thoughts.

1998 was quite a year for TV Tokyo in Japan. It was the year somewhere there thought that the future of anime was "a series about a cool space hero having quirky adventures with a team of characters which get serious midway thru." Believe it or not, COWBOY BEBOP, OUTLAW STAR, and LOST UNIVERSE all debuted from April-October 1998 on TV Tokyo. Can you imagine all three of those being produced in the same year? The first one was a masterpiece and has acclaim even for people who are not hardcore otaku (and arguably helped voice actor Steve J. Blum rise above merely dubbing anime into being a more mainstream and better paid voice actor). It and OUTLAW STAR wound up on Cartoon Network during the prime of their Adult Swim/Toonami influence and became instantly popular. Both were dubbed by Bandai, which could afford high quality dubs.

LOST UNIVERSE wasn't so fortunate. It never got on Cartoon Network, for one. And considering the year it came, it was clearly third banana next to BEBOP and STAR, and received nowhere near as much buzz. It was licensed and dubbed by A.D. Vision (or ADV) from 2000-2001 and initially released on 7 VHS tapes. At the time, the Texan based ADV utilized two recording studios. Industrial Smoke & Mirrors was their A-Team, founded in 1995 and based in Houston. Monster Island, from Austin, was their secondary or B-Team. As an anime fan growing up I sampled all of the anime distributors at the time and could usually get a feel for the quality of their recordings, but ADV was always hit or miss. It wasn't until later that I learned why. For the record, the two studios were merged in 2005 and became ADV Studios; by 2006 it was renamed Amusement Park Media and ADV started hiring them out to dub for other licensers. In 2009, ADV went bankrupt (and the studio renamed itself Seraphim Media), and LOST UNIVERSE was rescued by Right Stuf Inc., an anime-retailer-turned-anime-distributor, who re-released it on DVD under their Nozomi Entertainment line.

As I mentioned before, LOST UNIVERSE had bad luck in Japan, too. Original footage for the first few episodes was lost due to a fire, which included some animation for the intro. Its budget was limited by a South Asian recession which hit the entire region from 1997-1998. The original air version of episode 4 was supposedly so bad that not only was it reanimated for home video, but Japanese fans used it as the inspiration for slang revolving around poorly animated episodes of anything ("yashigani"). That's harsh. Even Hajime Kanzaka, LOST UNIVERSE's creator (who began it as light novels much like Slayers), sort of lost interest to focus on SLAYERS once the TV series started.

Having watched all three, I will say that LOST UNIVERSE is closer to OUTLAW STAR in terms of style. So I will do a bit of a review while avoiding spoilers, but the TL:DR version is that if you liked OUTLAW STAR you will probably be game for LOST UNIVERSE. The style of comedy is pretty close, as well as the more serious adventure once that gets rolling. And if you're looking at it as a quirky SLAYERS sort of spinoff, it has a lot of references to its founding franchise.

Spoiler:

As a final aside, the similarities between LOST UNIVERSE and its two more famous peers don't end there. The leads in all three go through a similar kind of journey, only they don't all wind up in the same place. Spike Spiegel was a loner who wound up meeting a motley crew of people, but who ultimately chose to leave them in service to his own baggage and desire for vengeance. In contrast, Gene Starwind ultimately learns to embrace the new friends he made in his journey, which literally saves him. In essence, Spike chose death, while Gene chose life. What path does Kain take? Well...like Xellos would say, "That is a SECRET."

It isn't better than SLAYERS, but I enjoyed LOST UNIVERSE. It can be had online for pretty cheap and may be available for streaming somewhere. I heard Nozomi once had it uploaded on YouTube for free. I do think one demerit was that it came out alongside those two other series, while SLAYERS got to stand as THE big fantasy-style anime for quite a while (and it is still one of the most successful). A lot of the knocks against the animation quality to me are overreactions. No, it isn't the best looking thing from 1998, but I'm someone who has seen way way WAY worse. I was a kid when FILMATION ruled the roost. I can't even count all the animation errors that Ninja Turtles and X-Men had. LOST UNIVERSE looks fine, and I had a bit of fun with it.

[KMR]

I somehow completely missed your previous post from last week, or I would have responded sooner. Sorry about that!

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed Slayers! I know I'm in the minority in considering it an all-time favorite series, it just hits all the right buttons for me, so I don't expect other people to react to it as strongly as I do. But I do recommend it a lot and really do think just about everyone should watch it (unless the humor just really doesn't land for you), because in my experience, everyone who watches it has a generally good time with it.

It's been fun following along and discussing the show with you, so thanks for posting these updates as you watched. In the past, it's sort of been my ritual to introduce some of my friends/boyfriends to the series by watching it alongside them, experiencing the show again and seeing their reactions to it. It's been a while since I've had occasion to do that, and these discussions reminded me of how much fun that always was. If I didn't have such a big backlog of anime and other shows to watch right now, I'd probably do a rewatch of Slayers again myself.

That coin you got is pretty cool, and my favorite part is that it says, "May he protect us all from her."

And thanks for the Lost Universe review. I'd heard so little about it, so didn't really know much besides the loose connection to Slayers.

[Datelessman]

I somehow completely missed your previous post from last week, or I would have responded sooner. Sorry about that!

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed Slayers! I know I'm in the minority in considering it an all-time favorite series, it just hits all the right buttons for me, so I don't expect other people to react to it as strongly as I do. But I do recommend it a lot and really do think just about everyone should watch it (unless the humor just really doesn't land for you), because in my experience, everyone who watches it has a generally good time with it.

It's been fun following along and discussing the show with you, so thanks for posting these updates as you watched. In the past, it's sort of been my ritual to introduce some of my friends/boyfriends to the series by watching it alongside them, experiencing the show again and seeing their reactions to it. It's been a while since I've had occasion to do that, and these discussions reminded me of how much fun that always was. If I didn't have such a big backlog of anime and other shows to watch right now, I'd probably do a rewatch of Slayers again myself.

That coin you got is pretty cool, and my favorite part is that it says, "May he protect us all from her."

And thanks for the Lost Universe review. I'd heard so little about it, so didn't really know much besides the loose connection to Slayers.

For what it is worth I don't find it terribly surprising or unusual for you, or anyone really, to consider THE SLAYERS as your favorite anime. Again, I always considered it a pretty popular series from the 90's and it wasn't rare for me to encounter someone who mentioned it until I was finished with college. I was pleased to finally get a chance to see it and I'd have no problem listing it in my top ten anime list personally. I can say it is easily my favorite "fantasy based" series.

Back in the 90's and early 2000's I used to be one of the primary "anime sources" for my clique of friends. Before the "illegal download era," the only way to really see anime beyond the few shows which were on TV or to rent or buy them was to know someone who had tapes, and I was that someone for quite a few people. I still take some pride in having introduced my pals to YU YU HAKUSHO and LUPIN III before Cartoon Network did. I must confess most of them were dudes and sometimes their taste differs. I've never introduced a lover to any anime and a part of me was always curious about which would be a good "introductory" anime to my tastes, but it always depends on their interests and that's mutable. I do have one friend who is a woman who always preferred "demonic stuff" so she enjoyed DEVILMAN and DEMON CITY SHINJUKU, for instance. I remember one of my pals' girlfriends was hanging out with us when I brought over BASTARD!!! and she made sure to comment that Dark Scheider was "hot." It is always fun to rewatch a series with a pal or someone else and sort of rediscover it through their eyes.

Thanks for all the Slayers chat. LOST UNIVERSE has more references to it than I list, but for your sake I wanted to avoid too many major spoilers. It is a fun series to watch beyond those connections, but catching those references were also cool. There was zero buzz or hype for it when it was coming out from what I remember. It probably didn't help that SLAYERS TRY was being released on video around then, too. But one thing I have learned is that it is never too late to discover something good, least in terms of anime.

[Datelessman]

I finally managed to watch that brief boxing anime I mentioned a few times, which I put off even further to watch LOST UNIVERSE. I suspected LOST UNIVERSE would be better anyway, and I was right. But, this little 6 episode OAV has some fascinating stuff behind it. Almost as interesting as the anime itself. And believe it or not, I can link it to SLAYERS!

We talk about a lot of anime here, but one genre which sometimes gets overlooked is sports anime. Part of that may be because martial arts tournaments are such a standard trope of "boy's manga" that they turn up everywhere, from DRAGONBALL to YU YU HAKUSHO to ONE PUNCH MAN and countless others. The other part may be that it usually isn't as popular in America as in Japan, and many series have not been successfully released here. Boxing anime is a partial exception, if only due to the popularity of the genre in American films (which existed before ROCKY, just ROCKY is a more modern example). One of the longest anime series I own is HAJIME NO IPPO, released in 2003 by Geneon/Pioneer as FIGHTING SPIRIT, which is 75 episodes, a TV special, and an OAV. It actually became one of my best friends' favorite animes when I showed it to him; he made sure to burn it from me personally, then transfer those files across a few hard drives over the years when he upgraded his PC's. Come to think of it, that was one of the last animes we watched together before life started getting in the way.

When I was a kid just getting into anime, one boxing release which interested me was ONE-POUND GOSPEL, by Rumiko Takahashi. It was one of Viz's few sub-only VHS releases in 1995 as a 55 minute OAV. They never dubbed it and no one else ever picked it up, despite  Rumiko Takahashi's work being fairly popular in America too and much of the anime inspired by it having been dubbed over the years (specifically, INU YASHA and RANMA 1/2). Then again, once the VHS era of anime ended in 2002, the industry began to rely more on extended series than on films, OAV's, or short series.

I digress; it was my minor in college. This boxing series is called JOE VS. JOE, or "FUTARI NO JOE" in Japanese. It was a 6 episode OAV released in Japan in 2005, which was intended as a "spiritual successor" of, or at least inspired by, the longtime boxing manga/anime, TOMORROW'S JOE. The gimmick of the series is, naturally, that two boxers named Joe eventually fight each other. As silly a concept as that is, the OAV does a little better with it than you'd expect.

Spoiler:

The company that licensed, dubbed, and released this in the U.S. in 2008 is arguably more interesting. They're called "AnimeWho" and this was their first, last, and only anime product. It turns out they were a subsidiary of "JapanAnime," an anime distributor that focused exclusively on hentai. The dirty secret behind anime distribution during the "home video era" of the late 80's into the early 2000's is just how much certain companies relied on hentai to keep profits high (especially at a time before porn was as easily available online). Central Park Media and A.D. Vision/ADV especially thrived on their hentai imprints; CPM even released the first two major hentai in the U.S., LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND and LA BLUE GIRL. The hilarious part is that mainstream retailers sometimes couldn't tell hentai from "normal R-rated anime" so you sometimes had some of that stuff being sold at SUNCOAST VIDEO or NOBODY BEATS THE WIZ a few yards away from the latest LAND BEFORE TIME video. Mom and pop video rental stores in particular seemed to LOVE hentai, to the point that if you wanted to rent other anime you usually had to wade past all the tentacle stuff to find GARZEY'S WING, or so on (like I had to once). Anyway, around 2008 supposedly getting hentai licenses got harder, so JapanAnime decided to open a new company and sell more mainstream anime. Unfortunately, 2008-2009 was the year when the industry contracted and big companies like CPM, ADV and Geneon crumbled, so AnimeWho was AnimeDone almost overnight.

Their DVD cases (yes, cases) were especially overthought and ambitious. Rather than have a lock at the center (or hole) of the disc to hold it in place like 99.9% of all DVD/blu-ray cases do, AnimeWho had flaps on the top and bottom to hold the disc in. It is weird but removing it was usually simpler than putting it back in, and there is less risk of the disc popping out in transit before you even open it. JOE VS. JOE was released on two discs with 3 episodes each, which was VHS-era level distributing. I found both online for less than $11, which included shipping. In fact, most of that was shipping.

Now for the SLAYERS connections! Shigeharu Takahashi directed and co-wrote JOE VS. JOE, and he had also directed an episode of SLAYERS NEXT a decade earlier. And because AnimeWho dubbed the OAV in New York, JOE VS. JOE shares some English voice actors with SLAYERS. Michael "Santa Claus" Sinterniklaas (thank you Enail again for pointing that out), the second voice of Xellos, plays Joe Yuuki. For the record, JOE VS. JOE actually DOES have an episode based around Christmas, so Michael Sinterniklaas gets to live up to his name. Veronica Taylor, who voiced Amelia, plays Setsuko here. Wayne Grayson, who voiced Phibrizzo in SLAYERS NEXT, has an "additional voices" credit here. In fact, some of the shouts from the boxing crowd are hilarious. My favorite is, "You fight worse than my grandmother, AND SHE'S DEAD!" (along with an outtake where a voice actress says, "Yeah! You fight worse than me and I'm dead!"). AnimeWho also included English dub outtakes, which is a hilarious rarity in the physical media department. They really did try to give this short little anime a decent release. I mean, not even FUNimation offers outtakes for DBZ or so on, and they've used DBZ to print cash since about 1997.

So, JOE VS. JOE; better than I thought, especially for the price, but it did stumble at the end. But the short life of AnimeWho proved that the era where almost anyone could start a company, badger an anime studio into licensing it to them and then spitting it out for fast cash (which many companies did in the 90's) was over.

[Datelessman]

I've given anime a break and have rewatched some animation starring what may be the most American of superheroes -- Iron Man. An arrogant rich guy from old money who treats everyone around him like trash and spends most of his time cleaning up his own messes? And he's involved in the military? All he needs is a beer keg. I don't know why, just certain cheaply priced DVD's found their way home.

The first is the "IRON MAN" syndicated cartoon from 1994-1996, which was originally part of a "Marvel Action Hour" block that was paired with the inferior "FANTASTIC FOUR." After the success of X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN on FoxKids, it made sense to branch out with more superhero franchises. Unfortunately, by 1995 no major network bit (especially since by then, CBS was on the verge of phasing our their Saturday morning cartoon era), so it hit local syndication. Both shows had the same pattern; the first season was outdated, cornball rubbish animated by Rainbow Animation Group, while the second season was better written and animated by Koko Enterprises. Out of the two IRON MAN was the most successful to me, and I wouldn't be shocked if at least some of the reason why the character took off in film about 12 years later was because it was well remembered.

Robert Hayes, best known for starring in the two "AIRPLANE!" films, voices Tony Stark/Iron Man and is pretty much the only main voice actor who stuck with the entire series from beginning to end (aside for Jim Cummings as MODOK, Jim McCann as Blizzard, Philip Abbott as Nick Fury, and John Reilly as Hawkeye). He's very good in the role, and would reprise the role for 5 episodes of Spider-Man's show in seasons 3 and 5, and one episode of UPN's INCREDIBLE HULK cartoon around 1997-1998 (as well as the 2D sprite Capcom fighting game MARVEL SUPER-HEROES and related sequels). The series continued a tradition of voice directors believing that the late James Avery and Dorian Harewood were interchangeable that began with 1987's NINJA TURTLES, where Harewood filled in for Avery a few times as the Shredder. Avery voices James Rhodes/War Machine for the first 6 episodes, and then Harewood takes over the role from episode 7 onwards. But for the third season of FoxKids' SPIDER-MAN, Harewood was already voicing Tombstone, so they got Avery back to reprise the role for a two episode guest stint.

The first season is bright, colorful, and very outdated. It is also a snapshot of '95 Marvel, so Iron Man's team of fellow superheroes are Force Works, a flash-in-the-pan relaunch of West Coast Avengers. This is fine for characters like War Machine, Hawkeye, and Scarlet Witch who would go on to become household names and film stars. But then you have Julia Carpenter/Spider-Woman, technically the second Spider-Woman at Marvel, who I always liked due to this show but is obscure anywhere else. And lastly, you have Century, an alien with a magic axe and shoulder-pads who is one of the quintessential mid-90's "characters" (right down to being vaguely offensive as an old white man with Native American style face-paint). He's barely appeared in any comics after the 90's but the fact that he not only was in a syndicated TV show but got an action figure hanging on the shelves next to Wolverine and Leonardo is mind boggling. Hilariously, Century in the comics has no alter ego, so the TV show basically names him "Woody" and makes him look like a park ranger in civilian guise. The only thing we ever learn about Century, beyond that his axe is the source of his powers, is that in his home galaxy, songs are ALWAYS truthful. How totally random! Julia stuck with me, probably because she was a single mother, which I could relate to, and still is a very, very, very rare thing in superhero media. To maintain the culturally insensitive theme, she also had a Latina maid named Consuela, which was ripped from the comics.

They spend all their time fighting the Mandarin and his own gaggle of minions. In the late 1980's when DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH was produced, someone in animation decided that giving the "yellow peril" villain Ming green skin and pointed ears was somehow less offensive. It was more offensive (as Asians often were colored with green skin in WWII era comics), but the idea stuck around with Dr. No in JAMES BOND JR. and Mandarin here, and it sucks. They even had Ed Gilbert voice the villain for the first season before at least allowing an Asian voice actor, Robert Ito, to play him in the second. Most of Iron Man's enemies are culturally insensitive foreigners (another reason why Iron Man is SO American), and this show featured almost all of them. So at least this show proves that it was never easy trying to handle the Mandarin, and it is no surprise the MCU needed over a decade to figure out how (and did so my mostly making a new character in SHANG-CHI). Anyway, Mandarin's head toady is MODOK, who is played for laughs as usual but in a different way as MODOK is basically a hapless woobie. Next up is Justin Hammer, Stark's longtime business rival who nonetheless hangs out with costumed supervillains, even filming messages about KIDNAPPING A CHILD with them, yet is never arrested. The others are Blizzard, Whirlwind, Blacklash, Hyponotia (an original villain), with Dreadknight, Grey Gargoyle, and Living Laser occasionally thrown in.

The first season is basically like SUPERFRIENDS or MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE where the whole team of heroes fights the whole team of villains in adventures of diminishing sense and logic every episode. It would have been fine for 1985 (maybe even 1990), but sadly this came a decade too late and after BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES and X-MEN reshaped the industry. The animation stinks and most of the laughs are cringe worthy. About the only thing I did like is that Tony Stark, who is supposed to be handicapped without his armor (the cartoon has it as a spinal injury, while in the comics it is his heart, which was a compromise of the then-current comic setup where Tony had been shot by an ex), is shown doing exercises with a physical therapist at least 2-3 times. You rarely see such a realistic depiction of living with a handicap from Tony. Unfortunately, they're done in a pool so she is almost always in a swimsuit, and that is atop of both Julia and Wanda fawning over Tony at every turn. Even Hypotia has a crush on him (while fending off the thirsty efforts of Dreadknight, Blacklash, and even occasionally Hammer and Mandarin). Iron Man is his usual reckless self in the first season, but since this is SUPERFRIENDS, it always works out and no one is angry. Hawkeye's mostly pink costume is an...interesting choice (especially after Bow from SHE-RA). The show clearly wanted Clint as the "Wolverine character" (to the point that in one episode he'd rather let everyone think he is a traitor than admit he takes care of his grandpa sometimes), but wearing a mostly pink outfit won't cut it. The only season 1 episode that almost bucks this in the finale (which is partly a "clip episode"), where Tony decides to protect his alter ego from Mandarin by faking a wedding to Julia with a robot without telling Wanda about it, because he wanted her reaction to be genuine to lure Mandarin out. Sure, her bawling at the ceremony is played for laughs, but geez. Ron Friedman wrote or co-wrote most of the episodes, and I swear he did it about an hour before lunch.

But season 2, crap gets real. The theme song changes to that rocking "I...M...I-RON MAN!" rocking theme that I am sure most men over 35 have heard. Being able to binge this and see the transition was surreal, because it was beyond obvious that the producers "gave a damn" this time. This season realizes that there were just too many characters last season, so they write out most of them aside for the premiere and the finale. They also realize that Iron Man is at his best when he is screwing up and needs to grow as a person, and there is a lot of that here. Most surprising of all, the producers take advantage of the looser censorship rules to cartoons in syndication to allow for more violence and even (off screen) deaths. PIRATES OF DARK WATER took advantage of the same thing. Jennifer Hale also takes over voicing Julia, in what was probably one of her first 5-6 voice roles, and injects a lot of life into the character. Season 2 also introduces the AI character HOMER, who was essentially the comic book first draft of MCU's Jarvis, featuring Tom Kane in one of his first robot voices. He and Stark have some great conversations.

Mandarin is seemingly killed off in the premiere, but he survives and spends the rest of the season gathering his rings and plotting revenge. His minions scatter, but because Iron Man faked his own death to outwit the villain, Force Works becomes appalled and leaves. Only Rhodey and Julia remain; Clint (ever the feminist) accuses Julia of being a gold-digger as a parting shot. Tony does promote Julia from middle management to being chief operating officer, but c'mon, she's trying to raise a kid in L.A. on one salary. Things get worse when Rhodey nearly drowns as War Machine and develops a phobia of the armor, and only wears it when absolutely necessary. At times he even has panic attacks within it. I'd argue it was one of the better attempts to cover PTSD in an American cartoon at the time, especially since Rhodey is a military vet. Julia basically acts as Pepper Potts with super-powers this season, managing Tony's company and trying to get him to realize he loves her or that he's a jerk who needs to change. Considering this show does share a universe with SPIDER-MAN, they never explained where Julia's powers came from. Tony's health takes a turn for the worse and as he faces an increasing amount of hardships, he becomes more self destructive. This culminates in a 2 episode adaptation of the ARMOR WARS story, which is pretty good for the time. But, yeah, this season has nuclear explosions, villains committing genocide on other planets, and Mandarin literally reclaiming one of his rings from a freshly slain corpse. Iron Man also gains the ability to "swap armor" at a whim like Mega Man, which was totally done for toys, but isn't far from the EXTREMIS stuff that came a decade later. Most of the time he switches to "Drill Armor" which is just a repaint with a giant drill on one arm; hilarious. A guest appearance by the Hulk (voiced by Ron Perlman) also sees Matt Frewer cast as the Leader for the first time; he'd reprise it for 2 seasons in Hulk's UPN show.

I'd argue the second season only dips in quality a little for the 2 part finale, when Mandarin and all of the old villains come back. The producers insist on inserting light hearted music in scenes which they are not appropriate. Hawkeye had been making sporadic appearances across this season, basically being a bigger jerk than Tony was, which was hard to do. But now the rest of Force Works return, and poor Century is more useless than ever. He lost his axe and pretty much just gets smacked around for two episodes, and thus marks the end of his prime as a viable character anywhere. Mandarin has some giant alien crystal which makes a fog which shuts down ALL technology, but Iron Man eventually invents some anti-anti-technology armor; comic book logic at its finest. As a kid I used to joke it was made of wood. But, the show has a more definitive ending. Mandarin is defeated for good (bandits hack off his arm off-screen with a machete), Iron Man learns not to be a jerk and admits he loves Julia. All it took was a few punches by the Hulk. This was also the first time Iron Man and Hulk met in animation, or in any alternative media ever outside of video games.

One thing which always did get annoying is Iron Man's armor screaming at him about being low on power or about to shut down pretty much any time he is hit with anything tougher than a whiffle ball. This is consistent with his entire franchise but it does get absurd in this show. Sure, a knight in the middle ages couldn't fly, but some ghostly British voice didn't yell about him being about to die every time a rock hit him.

The DVD for this came out in 2010, when IRON MAN 2 was in theaters, so the box makes sure to mention Whiplash. Only in the cartoon they call him Blacklash and he's a very minor character. It's like if a live action HE-MAN film used Mer-Man as the main villain and a reissue of his cartoon plastered his name all over.

I also bought IRON MAN: RISE OF THE TECHNOVORE at Rite Aid for $7, and for what it was it was okay.

[Hielario]

Hmmmm do you know a good place to consult who created a C-list character like Century? Because the name and description remind me vaguely of something and I think I knew the dude who created him.

[bomaye]

Just 100%ed Kirby and the Forgotten Land for the Switch. 10. 10/10 Kirby game, definitive 3D Kirby game, low-key Mario Odyssey expansion pack with Sonic Adventure's storyline, fucking loved this game.

[Datelessman]

Hmmmm do you know a good place to consult who created a C-list character like Century? Because the name and description remind me vaguely of something and I think I knew the dude who created him.

Google, Wikipedia, Marvel Wiki, and the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe are all good online sources. Hell, it is usually easier to look up factual information about comic book characters or anime than it is to find real facts about real life events.

Century was created by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Tom Tenney and Ray Garcia in 1994's FORCE WORKS #1. He appeared in nearly every issue as well as some other crossover appearances until 1996. Since then he's only appeared 3 times from 2011-2019. Abnett and Lanning are long time comic book/sci fi writers. They had a very long run of NOVA some years ago and helped spearhead the space comics that the MCU has adored so much, including revamping the Guardians of the Galaxy to include Star-Lord, Drax, Groot, Gamora, and Rocket Raccoon (and be set in modern times instead of the 30th century). I got them to sign some Nova comics at a convention once years ago; they're nice dudes.

Believe it or not, when X-MEN debuted on FoxKids in 1992, Gambit was the newest member of the team; even Jubilee dated back to the 1980's. Unlike Century, who also saw a quick path from comic page to small screen, audiences responded to Gambit and that arguably built up his popularity.

[Datelessman]

Since I am approximately midway thru the series, I may as well mention a show which I am sure everyone here saw many times and has fond memories with, which I rewatch every few years. That is the 1992 X-MEN animated series which originally aired on FoxKids which, alongside BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (which also debuted on the same network that year), forever changed the landscape of what was expected of TV cartoons for "kids." At least until 2007-2010 when ADVENTURE TIME arrived. I've owned the series via a high quality bootleg since about 2007-2010 ish but recently decided it was time to finally buy the officially released discs from 2009 from Disney (via Buena Vista). Up until that point, X-MEN's home video releases were a mess. The first season and change were mostly released one episode per VHS tape, demanding fans pay $20 per episode -- not even He-Man or Transformers did that in the 80's. From there releases got more sporadic with random episode collections into the late 90's or very early 2000's, until the 5 volume DVD box set hit, with new cover art (which hilariously included characters who barely appear in the show, like Nightcrawler and Captain America).

It never really hit me how much I loved the series until I examined my own response to it, both as a kid and an adult. Most fans would/will claim that B:TAS was the superior show; it usually had better writing, storyboarding, acting (arguably), and a larger budget. And I will not deny any of that. But I only decided to get B:TAS on DVD in 2017-2018, and I rewatched it once the whole way thru since. And if adults vote with their feet or wallets, then kids vote with their action figures (at least in the 80's and 90's) and I had way, way, WAY more X-Men toys as a kid than Batman. I went thru at least 4-6 Wolverines because I'd played with them so much an arm broke off (or I didn't like the sculpt). More than Batman, X-Men was the show which began to ween me off of Ninja Turtles after being firmly attached to the franchise for, at the time, half my life. Toy Biz made a mint and virtually ever X-Men, X-Force, or X-Factor character, even obscure ones who never appeared in the show, got a toy during that era. When the show ended in 1997, I was in high school and was usually "too cool" for any cartoon that wasn't an overly violent anime, but all of my peers still talked up X-Men (and other shows).

Since I am sure everyone knows the details, I'll just focus on lessor known stuff (or my own takes). Chief among them that X-MEN '92, along with other geek franchises like SCARLET PIMPERNEL, FRANKENSTEIN, and STAR TREK, might never have happened if not for the earnest efforts of a woman. Margaret Loesch had been president of Marvel Productions in the 80's which was producing shows mostly for NBC (or local syndication), like SPIDER-MAN & HIS AMAZING FRIENDS and ROBOCOP. She saw the potential in X-Men by around 1986 and started working on producing a pilot. Since AMAZING FRIENDS featured former X-Men Iceman and Firestar as co-leads, the X-Men appeared thrice there (including an episode in the last season, "The X-Men Adventure," which was a backdoor pilot). Teaming with Larry Houston (a former He-Man comic artist turned cartoon director and storyboarder), Eric Lewald and others, they produced a pilot, titled PRYDE OF THE X-MEN, with top tier animation by Toei Animation in 1989. It featured a then-current team roster which Konami would later use for their arcade game in 1992. Although NBC occasionally aired the pilot as filler, they never bit on a series, nor did CBS or ABC.

Fast forward to 1991, when then-new broadcast station Fox was starting to get into the Saturday morning cartoon business with Fox Children's Network (FoxKids). Loesch became head of FoxKids and after convincing the network to run B:TAS (an easier sell since it was coming off a fresh film franchise with a well known character), she returned to the X-Men with a new pitch fresh with yet another then-current team roster (with a similar premise of the pilot revolving meeting the X-Men through the POV of a teenage girl they rescue & recruit). Loesch's bosses at Fox didn't believe kids wanted a show which touched on topics like prejudice or love triangles, and literally demanded she put her job on the line if they ran it. Loesch called their bluff, and of course, was totally right. X-MEN ran 5 seasons and 76 episodes, and was so vital to FoxKids that they helped finance the last 11 episodes when Marvel itself was bankrupt. The show was produced by Saban, which hired Graz Entertainment to handle it. Ironically, the involvement of Saban led to the development of yet another show Fox's bigwigs swore would never sell -- MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS. Yes, old rich white men being wrong about their own business is not new.

Spoiler:

I'll be watching the rest of the series for the next week or so, trying to do so in actual production order versus aired order for the first time (which has been frustrating, but fun). And of course, the theme by Ron Wasserman is always classic, running with an intro boarded by Larry Houston. And I know about the upcoming X-MEN '97 revival with most of the surviving original cast.

For more trivia, the intro ends with a CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER-FRIENDS style charge between the X-Men and a bunch of villains led by Magneto. Most are obvious but two randos are Warpath (from X-Force) and a pink skinned, baldie with a green suit. Houston explained once that by the time they were boarding the intro, they'd done the scripts and character models up to episode 7 ("Slave Island") and needed more villains to line up against the X-Men. Crunched for time, they picked Warpath at random (despite him being a background character who has no dialogue, ever). As for the pink guy with the green suit? Houston forgot who he was supposed to be, but the background character was actually miscolored by AKOM, and the studio refused to fix it (as AKOM battled them repeatedly when it came to mending their many animation or coloring errors, to the point that the pilot barely aired at all in 1992). So that character is literally nobody. Fans have guessed he is supposed to be Gargoyle or Gremlin from the HULK franchise. My guess was Peeper, one of Magneto's Brotherhood from old Captain America comics. Hilariously, Jubilee is paired against Juggernaut in that intro; talk about a mismatch!

And yes, about 90% of the episodes begin with a "PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN" recap. 38 episodes in and I think only 3-4 episodes have lacked it, including the pilot.

[Hielario]

Century was created by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Tom Tenney and Ray Garcia in 1994's FORCE WORKS #1. He appeared in nearly every issue as well as some other crossover appearances until 1996. Since then he's only appeared 3 times from 2011-2019. Abnett and Lanning are long time comic book/sci fi writers. They had a very long run of NOVA some years ago and helped spearhead the space comics that the MCU has adored so much, including revamping the Guardians of the Galaxy to include Star-Lord, Drax, Groot, Gamora, and Rocket Raccoon (and be set in modern times instead of the 30th century). I got them to sign some Nova comics at a convention once years ago; they're nice dudes.

Oop! Wrong character and author then. I must have confused their name with other one with a similar situation (created in the 90s, almost completely unused since then).

Believe it or not, when X-MEN debuted on FoxKids in 1992, Gambit was the newest member of the team; even Jubilee dated back to the 1980's. Unlike Century, who also saw a quick path from comic page to small screen, audiences responded to Gambit and that arguably built up his popularity.

Tell me about it, I wanted to be either him or Jubilee. Still want a collapsible staff...

[Datelessman]

Oop! Wrong character and author then. I must have confused their name with other one with a similar situation (created in the 90s, almost completely unused since then).

I am not sure who you mean, then. A character "created in the 90's almost completely unused since then" is a VAST list.

There is Sentry/Robert Reynolds, conceived by Paul Jenkins and Rick Veitch in the late 90's who debuted in a 2000 era mini series for the Marvel Knights imprint (which was run by Joe Quesada before he became editor in chief, then chief creative officer, of Marvel Comics). Thanks in large part to Brian M. Bendis championing him for his New Avengers run, Sentry popped up all over the place until about 2009-2010 and then hasn't been used much since. He was retconned in as a "lost Silver Age" character with a promotional scam which included Wizard magazine (then a top magazine "authority" on comic values as well as offering key promotions, interviews, and occasionally critical reviews) outright lying to readers about Sentry's origins (including a fake "lost sketch" by John Romita Sr.). Jenkins and Veitch almost named him "Centurion," but that was too similar to other characters, possibly including Century. I never liked Sentry and have always found Kevin Grevioux's Blue Marvel/Adam Brashear to be WAY cooler, in terms of a similar concept.

Tell me about it, I wanted to be either him or Jubilee. Still want a collapsible staff...

Gambit's collapsible bo-staff is pretty cool. The comic books have since concluded it is made of an as-of-yet unidentified metal alloy, since Gambit can kinetically charge the staff to do a "power-hit" without it exploding. He never does that in the 1992 cartoon but he does do it in his guest appearances in WOLVERINE & THE X-MEN. Remy's never been on the regular cast of an X-Men show since the '92 one, but he has appeared in every one aside for the X-MEN ANIME as a reoccurring guest character. As I am sure you remember, Gambit's staff was actually crucial in defeating the Spirit Drinker (called the Soul Drinker in the comics) alien in the 2-part season 3 premiere, "Out of the Past." Gambit gets bonus points for killing the main threat in a 2-parter where Wolverine was the lead! Then again, that premiere in 1994 originally aired in prime time, so that is likely one reason why it focused on Wolverine, Gambit, and Jubilee mostly (and featured some of AKOM's best animation for the series).

I was never wild for Gambit but at the time I knew I was in a minority. It got awkward when my mother occasionally caught episodes of X-MEN and found him (and Chris Potter's performance) "attractive." As a kid I found Jubilee occasionally annoying but as I got older I appreciated her more. It was nothing personal; I tended to hate a LOT of the "kid characters" cartoons often included at the time. I wasn't wild for Robin and utterly  despised Zach the Fifth Turtle from the original "Ninja Turtles" (who showed up there more often than Casey Jones or Usagi Yojimbo). These days I like Jubilee more than Logan and at times, Robin more than Batman, in part to being so oversaturated with Logan and Wayne that I lost a lot of interest.

In terms of the X-MEN '92 rewatch, I am almost finished with season 3, which includes both the 5 part Phoenix Saga and the 4 part Dark Phoenix Saga. As much as I found the alien stuff to be distracting, I do admire the show for having the bravery to adopt many of the classic X-Men comics stories the moment they had the chance, regardless of the risks. Subsequent shows (2000's X-MEN EVOLUTION and 2009's WOLVERINE & THE X-MEN) either barely alluded to the Phoenix stuff (EVOLUTION) or did a half hearted version which avoided the aliens (W&TXM, and of course, the third X-Men film and whichever First Class went there). Introducing concepts like aliens and intergalactic space travel was no less awkward after 2 seasons, but the producers here just went, "to heck with it, it's Saturday morning animation" and did it. And although the resolutions to both sagas were way more sensible and compact, there was a lot of care to replicate moments from the comics, even in storyboards which at times were inspired by the panels. In the comics, they went thru a whole lot of nonsense revealing Phoenix was never Jean and just replicated her form, while the real one was in a cocoon in a river for a decade. Well, here she was Jean and they revive her with a cool sharing of lifeforce scene. Hindsight is 20/20, but only if you have a clear vision.

And much like B:TAS started what was then a semi-cohesive DC Animated Universe, X-MEN '92 started a somewhat less cohesive Marvel Animated Universe that ran up until UPN's INCREDIBLE HULK & SHE-HULK ended around 1997. Season 3 alone has cameos from the High Evolutionary, Uatu, Eternity, Doctor Strange, Thor, War Machine, the Kree's Supreme Intelligence, the Skrull Empress R'Kill, and yes, Spider-Man (who in '94 was just getting his own cartoon). Naturally the X-Men would guest star in SPIDER-MAN's second season in 1995, and at the time it was a huge, huge deal. About as big as Batman and Superman meeting on Kid's WB a few years later.

I could be wrong but Season 3 would be the last major stretch where Cyclops gets much focus. He gets a weird solo episode in season 4 (at a time when that sort of thing was rare for any team member who wasn't Wolverine) but beyond that, he just sticks to his team leader role. He goes through the ringer with Jean (both fighting for her, losing her, and regaining her) and then really meeting his missing father Corsair in "Orphan's End." Although Corsair had fair reasons for being a deadbeat father (he thought his sons perished and he had no reason to return to Earth), Scott's feelings about it still matched some of my own baggage regarding that as I got older, which may have been one of the reasons why I started connecting to Cyke as I got older. Comic book superheroes with dead fathers/parents are common; deadbeat dads are still rare, despite how (sadly) common it is in America. I always gain something from rewatching the series, either from spotting cameos or adaptations I missed when younger or appreciating the other characters more since I am no longer a slavishly devoted Wolverine fanboy. Rogue and Cyclops have a pretty tender scene in "Dark Phoenix Part 5" in particular that I am shocked I didn't remember better as a kid. Maybe it was a hint of the Rogue/Scott shipping that happened later in X-MEN EVOLUTION.

It has been a chore swapping discs to watch the episodes in the intended order, but so far the only three that really needed to be positioned between the Phoenix sagas were "No Mutant Is An Island" and the 2-part "Savage Land, Strange Heart" (the latter due to Wolverine having a line about not liking the monitoring of the returned Jean/Phoenix on Muir Island). "Longshot," "Cold Comfort" (the Iceman guest episode, which was always popular with pals), and "Obsession" could really be positioned anytime after season 2. Again, by season 3, the show's producers realized episodes were airing out of order or not being ready to air on time so they deliberately loosened the continuity beyond certain multi-part stories to not confuse everyone. It was a shame, but understandable.

[Datelessman]

As an update I am approximately 2 episodes away from finishing my rewatch of X-MEN '92, a.k.a. X-MEN which I do every few years. That means it's taken about 2-3 weeks for me to binge a 76 episode series, which is pretty impressive for my schedule. This will include "Graduation Day," the series finale which probably should be on a top 10 list of best comic based cartoon series finales (especially since so few actually have defined finales; many in the 80's and 90's just ran out of episodes (SPIDER-MAN & HIS AMAZING FRIENDS, INCREDIBLE HULK & SHE-HULK) or basically ended on a cliffhanger (SILVER SURFER, SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED, MTV SPIDER-MAN, AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND to a degree, etc.). This time around I did make an effort to watch the episodes at or close to production order, rather than air order, since some episodes from season 3 didn't air until seasons 4-5 and some from season 4 got moved up. But aside for some aforementioned examples above, the order doesn't matter much for the last 2 seasons (so long as you watch, say, "One Man's Worth" before "Beyond Good & Evil").

And as a companion to the binge, I am merrily reading the excellent artbook, "The Art and Making of 'X-Men: The Animated Series'" written by Eric Lewald (who developed the show) and his wife Julia and featuring tons of storyboard art, animation cells, and character model art -- much of it by series director Larry Houston. The Lewalds wrote a book about making the show in 2017, titled (what else) "PREVIOUSLY ON X-MEN," but that was an unofficial account without any art and, supposedly, repetitive information. This 2020 artbook is officially licensed from Marvel and is a gloriously put together hardcover.

Spoiler:

So, X-MEN is a great series despite the flaws and I would recommend that artbook to any fans. I don't know what I am watching next; maybe the REDLINE anime film.

[Datelessman]

I don't know what I am watching next; maybe the REDLINE anime film.

It was, in fact, the REDLINE anime film. Which gives me an opportunity to talk about Manga Entertainment, if only because KMR at least liked some of my observations about the early anime distribution industry before it got as mainstream.

Manga Entertainment (formerly Manga Video) was founded in 1991 in the UK (as a spinoff of Island Records, a music label) and then opened a U.S. branch in 1993. At the time it represented one of the first major mergers of anime distributors in North America since Manga Video purchased L.A. Hero, one of the founders within the market from the late 80's. That gave them access to their library: primarily, the 12 episode GUYVER OAV and the 2 episode DEVILMAN OAV. During the "home video era" which in my mind lasted from the late 80's until 2000-ish, an anime distributor could survive, even thrive, by selling mostly anime films and/or short OAV series. Part of this was the limitations of VHS; it was expensive to both sell and buy series that were longer than about 13-26 episodes. Unless you were making DBZ/SAILOR MOON/SLAYERS money, it was a gamble. And Manga Video had two of the founding anime films in the U.S. -- GHOST IN THE SHELL and NINJA SCROLL (AKIRA was originally with Streamline Pictures/Orion and then moved to Pioneer/Geneon and so forth). But their library also included stuff like the first two PATLABOR films and the 1988 APPLESEED OAV, among many others. The first anime I ever got was an edited version of STREET FIGHTER II: THE ANIMATED MOTION PICTURE, which was distributed by Manga, in a Toys R' Us when I was in 6th grade. Manga Video was the home of Street Fighter anime for a while; the STREET FIGHTER II V series as well as STREET FIGHTER ALPHA and STREET FIGHTER ALPHA: GENERATIONS were all Manga releases. About half of the first 10 anime VHS tapes I ever owned were Manga titles, so the company has a soft spot in my heart. Their redub and rerelease of CASTLE OF COGLIOSTRO in 1999-2000 (starring David Hayter; yes, that David Hayter) got me hooked on LUPIN III.

Manga UK and Manga U.S. were technically the same company, but operated independently and often had access to different titles. However, with the dawn of the 21st century came challenges that, frankly, Manga Video could not compete with. The rise of the "Toonami/Adult Swim era" as well as the "illegal download era" made extended TV series more of a draw for anime fans than films or OAV's (especially since OAV's in general weren't produced so often in Japan after the 90's). Their only TV series which had any traction was GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX. STREET FIGHTER II V was never aired on TV and while they tried to dub the original FIST OF THE NORTH STAR series, they gave up about 30 episodes in due to low sales (for what would have been a whopping 140-something episode series). The official end of the VHS era for anime distribution in 2003 (at least 3-4 years ahead of the rest of Hollywood) also encouraged the sale of TV series over shorter stuff. I mean, if you had $20, would you rather get 6-26 episodes of a series or one 90 minute flick? So maybe it was no surprise that Manga Entertainment was bought out by IDT Entertainment in 2004, and various mergers caused them to ultimately be owned by Starz Media/Lionsgate by 2011-2013.

Why go into all this? Because REDLINE, released in Japan in 2009 and in the U.S. in 2011, was literally Manga Entertainment's last hurrah. It was their last dub and their last item of new material with their logo on it, proudly (or desperately) bragging about their 20th anniversary. Various re-releases of older stock like GHOST IN THE SHELL has been under Lionsgate. They still have a ghost (pun intended) of online presence but nothing has been done with the brand since REDLINE, and likely never will. The story of anime distribution is basically a tale where a dozen or so scrappy companies that competed with each other ultimately ground down into a monopoly of about 4 or so giant companies, like every other industry.

REDLINE is a racing anime. It's a genre somewhat less popular than others, but has seen some mainstream success. SPEED RACER is the prototypical example, with INITIAL D a more modern one. It was the feature film directorial debut of Takeshi Koike, who worked on tons of anime in lessor positions but would later direct 2012's LUPIN III: WOMAN NAMED FUJIKO MINE and its film spinoffs, such as JIGEN'S GRAVEYARD and GOEMON'S BLOOD SPRAY. It was mostly written by Katsuhito Ishii, who may be best known for the animated sequence in 2003's "KILL BILL: VOL. 1". It's a sci fi racing epic set in the future which could best be summarized as "Speed Racer meets Ralph Bakshi" (in particular, 1982's "HEY, GOOD LOOKIN' ''). The most notable thing about it was the dedication paid to the craft of animation. Despite it beginning production in 2002, when digital animation (whether partial or fully) was where the industry was heading, REDLINE was animated using entirely hand drawn animation from Mad House Studios (which long had their work distributed by Manga Entertainment). That resulted in it taking 7 years and 100,000 cels/drawings to make. Considering how detailed the various racers/ships/cyborgs are, it is incredibly impressive. Unfortunately, it took so long to come out that its timing was poor. It bombed in 2009 in Japanese theaters and by the time it hit U.S. in 2011, the era of most non-Studio Ghibli anime films making much of a sales dent was almost a decade past. I mean, VIZ once released "SWORD OF THE STRANGER" in 2007, and it's a lovely swordsman film by BONES, but hardly anyone bought or heard of it because by 2007 most anime fans were not spending $20 a pop on non-Ghibli or non franchise anime movies. But the loving dedication to the craft is shown in every screenshot, with sound effects and a musical score perfectly synched to the racing. REDLINE has since become a cult flick, at least in some circles.

Spoiler:

I bought this pretty cheap on Amazon and it's definitely worth a watch if you don't mind a tripped out, adrenaline rush for about 102 minutes. It really is a shame that REDLINE did not do well, but the only anime distributor which thrives on anime films these days is GKIDS, and they rely mostly on the Studio Ghibli library or arthouse films from other countries (and even they are delving into rereleasing TV anime like NEON GENESIS EVANGELION, formerly ADV's darling). If Manga Entertainment had to go out on a bang, they certainly chose a flick that had plenty of it.

[bomaye]

Shredder's Revenge is such a great throwback beat'em up. Hits all the right notes

[Datelessman]

Shredder's Revenge is such a great throwback beat'em up. Hits all the right notes

It looks like a ton of fun. Being able to select April, Splinter and Casey Jones in a side scrolling beat 'em up TMNT game is also long overdue.

I still wonder if TMNT: SHREDDER'S REVENGE was like an official franchise reaction to the very popular fan game, TMNT: RESCUE-PALOOZA, made by MerzoX around 2019. That game was a 16 bit remaster of several NES TMNT games and boasted of 60 playable characters. It felt like the 2D sprite gauntlet was thrown, and SHREDDER'S REVENGE is the result.

Plus, the game notes the fourth franchise appearance of Tempestra (as a boss). She's a fairly obscure villain from the 1987 cartoon series, who only appeared in two episodes (in seasons 4 and 7), and one iPhone game. But, Tempestra originated from a video game in-universe, and is one of the series' few female villains (since Karai didn't appear in the original cartoon, and her predecessor, Lotus Blossom, becomes an ally almost immediately). That's a deep cut.

[Hielario]

So it turns out a spanish webcomic author who I used to enjoy a lot is back with a new webcomic project. Yay! AND since he works as a translator, there's an english version! Check it out at: Tourists

According to him, it's supposed to be some kind of "horror? mystery? costumbrist story set in an inland spanish village"  It's very early but i'm very excited. 

(The spanish one is here if you want to compare: Turistas)

[Datelessman]

Normally, I don't post press releases or con announcements here, but SDCC '22 had some releases which definitely gave me some joy. https://www.cbr.com/xmen-97-first-look-sdcc-magneto/

Primarily, it's a first look at X-MEN '97, the continuation of the FoxKids show which, as I mentioned above ran from 1992-1997 and helped build their Saturday Morning line-up (alongside MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS, BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, and BOBBY'S WORLD). They're tweaked from the character models from '92 but still fit the universe. There were some more screen shots but this one caught my eye:

Original voice actors Cal Dodd (Wolverine), Lenore Zann (Rogue), George Buza (Beast), Adrian Hough (Nightcrawler), Christopher Britton (Mister Sinister), Catherine Disher (Jean Grey), Chris Potter (Gambit) and Alison Sealy-Smith (Storm) will reprise their roles. Alyson Court, who originally played Jubilee, will also return, but as another character, allowing an Asian voice actor to be cast in the role. Norm Spencer and David Hemblen, the original voice actors for Cyclops and Magneto (respectively), both died in 2020. This will also be the first time Potter has voiced Gambit since 1996; he skipped the last season and Tony Daniels voiced Gambit for season 5 (and subsequent Capcom sprite fighting games, like Street Fighter vs. X-Men).

According to IMDB, the rest of the cast will include Jennifer Hale, Ray Chase, J.P. Karliak, A.J. LoCascio, Holly Chou, Matthew Waterson, and Anniwaa Buachie. While it hasn't been announced, I am curious if Holly Chou will be the new voice of Jubilee. Various screen shots confirm that reoccurring guest characters Cable, Forge, Morph (with a new bald look) and Bishop will be returning, and Magneto will be in his John Romita Jr. redesign costume from the early 90's. In addition to Mister Sinister, Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost will be returning; they each were in season 3 of the original show, but Frost's importance to the franchise has increased drastically since it ended (due to her being co-mentor of Generation X and then joining Grant Morrison's New X-Men), so he's been redesigned.

And another entertainment joy: GARGOYLES will be returning as a comic book with writing by series creator/story editor Greg Weisman for Dynamite Entertainment. They'll reprint old material, including 11 issues from Marvel Comics from the 90's and 2004-2008 era stuff from Slave Labor Graphics, which was canon. I actually own the latter, which were originally reprinted in small manga-style graphic novels. They were not easy to find and I was lucky to have gotten them as cheap as I did; they can sometimes go for $80+ a pop.

[Hielario]

Maybe I should try and see if I can make some sense of Gargoyles now that seeing the episodes in order is actually possible; Overseas channels were even worse than american ones at scheduling or episode order for that generation of cartoons.

Say, did your mom think David Xanatos was hot, too?

[Datelessman]

Maybe I should try and see if I can make some sense of Gargoyles now that seeing the episodes in order is actually possible; Overseas channels were even worse than american ones at scheduling or episode order for that generation of cartoons.

Say, did your mom think David Xanatos was hot, too?

GARGOYLES is available on Disney+ and DVD. And remember, "The Goliath Chronicles" are not canon. Greg Weisman had no involvement after the first episode. The Slave Labor Graphics comics are canon, and quite good. They've just been hard to find. They include a 10-12 issue run on GARGOYLES which acts like a third season (only 8 issues saw print; the last few were included in the trade collection), and then a spinoff, BAD GUYS, featuring, well...some of the bad guys. My copy of the latter was literally a used edition from a library someone resold, likely for a nice profit, on Amazon.

And considering my mother is a hardcore lifelong Trekkie and always had a crush on Jonathan Frakes, yes, she thought David Xanatos was "hot."

[Datelessman]

I mentioned it in another topic, but lately I've been rewatching the original 1987 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES animated series. It was hardly the first animated series in the U.S. centered around comic book characters, but it may have been one of the first which not only sparked a worldwide international phenomenon, but which drastically enriched the creators of the source material (aside for Stan Lee and Bob Kane). Naturally in 1984, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had become friends by chance and then created a gritty, black and white spoof/homage to Frank Miller and Jack Kirby comics almost on a lark. But when it sold out in two prints and they each made about $2000 profit, they realized they could make comics full time if they sold as well or better. TMNT was an indie darling (spawning a boon of black and white anthropomorphic indie comics, of which Stan Sakai's USAGI YOJIMBO was the sole survivor) and by 1986-1987, Mirage Studios (which began in Laird's living room) was a full on office with a staff of creators who were all earning middle class lifestyles due to comic sales and limited merchandising opportunities (posters, t-shirts, and a tabletop role playing game from Palladium Books, the company best known for RIFTS). Mark Freedman, an ex Hanna-Barbara license agent, saw the potential in the franchise and successfully pitched it on Mirage's behalf to Playmates Toys. Toys R' Us, out of all retailers, was one of the first to invest heavily in the line. That led to a 5 episode mini series which aired in local syndicated markets during the last week of 1987. Hilariously, Freedman's estimate for the franchise was conservative, predicting it might last 3 seasons and peak in year two; the series went on to air 193 episodes across broadcast and cable TV for a whopping ten seasons. To date it is the most successful incarnation of the franchise and since the folks who watched it (like me) are in their 30's and 40's now, the peak of nostalgia. The show even spawned a licensed comic book from Archie Comics, TMNT Adventures, which split off from the continuity early on and went on to publish 72 issues, which is to date the second longest volume of any TMNT comic ever (IDW Publishing's current volume is the longest, with Mirage's second volume of TALES OF THE TMNT a close third). There was even a newspaper strip and a quarterly magazine!

The show hit when I was in kindergarten and it was impossible to escape its influence at the time. I loved it from the start and it's essentially what got me off HE-MAN and the REAL GHOSTBUSTERS. Even with all the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I wonder if such a phenomenon will ever be repeated. I watched the show faithfully either in broadcast syndication for its first 3-4 seasons and on Saturday mornings on CBS until about 1994, when I outgrow it. The whole franchise by then was showing its age and unable to compete well with things like MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS, X-MEN, BATMAN: TAS, PIRATES OF DARK WATER, or GARGOYLES (among other shows). The show was drastically different than the original comics, even if it featured many of the same characters. At heart it was a comedy-action show (in that order) for 7 seasons. By season 8, the tone shifted to a more serious tone in a belated attempt to shift with the winds around them. Fans call these the "Red Sky seasons" and they were all pretty brief. But by 1996 when the last season aired the franchise was so irrelevant that many CBS affiliates would pre-empt it for anything. I rewatched the show previously around 2017, and was just in the mood to do so again. There are so many episodes that any rewatch can feel fresh since its impossible to vividly remember them all.

Spoiler:

I've gone on enough. I'm barely midway through the series, so I will be watching it for a while, and it's been a fun revisit.

[Hielario]

Ooooh Baalbuddy is hitting hard today: https://mobile.twitter.com/baalbuddy/status/1554750715297501184

[Datelessman]

Just as an update I am about a quarter of the way through the sixth season of the 1987 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cartoon rewatch. With a whopping 193 episodes, it is staggering that I still have another 52 or so episodes to go. The longest seasons were seasons 3-5, and those account for a large chunk of the show. Season 3 was 47 episodes, season 4 was 41 (not counting the "Vacation in Europe" side season which aired 2 years later on USA Network), and season 5 was 20 episodes. They aired from years 1989-1991 and that essentially constituted the peak of the franchise (even to this day). '89 was the year it gained enough episodes to guarantee broadcast syndication, as well as entice CBS to become its exclusive network for Saturday mornings moving forward. 1990-1991, of course, saw the first two live action films with the Jim Henson Workshop and distributed by New Line Cinema (which was then in its infancy). In terms of merchandise, 1991 was a peak year; a Playmates staffer on a documentary once claimed that at their peak they moved at least 22 million units a year.

While many episodes can be kind of mind numbing, even in context, I'd argue the show started dipping too far into the "comedy-action" side once CBS took over with the fourth season. Many of the episodes seemed to get dumber during this time. CBS bestowed an hour long block for the Turtles, and it typically operated like this: the first episode of the hour was a standard Shredder/Krang plot, and the second was a plot centering around one of the Turtles, and featuring a wholly invented villain. Its these secondary episodes which often test the limits of how dumb the show can go, and sometimes verge on Looney Tunes style antics (i.e. a body builder whose grand scheme devolves into trying to destroy City Hall with a giant boxing glove machine, or Michelangelo being shrunken and having to flee from an overweight cat). They also introduce most of the minor villains in the series, who are mobsters with names like Pinky McFingers or Mad Dog McMutt, or a parade of forgettable mad scientists. By and large, they all suck. Tempestra is the standout, and she faces almost no competition. It doesn't help that Michelangelo and Donatello seem to get the majority of the solo episodes, and Mikey in particular is the dumbest and most pizza obsessed one of the bunch, so his episodes have to lower themselves to that level. Despite being "focus episodes," most of the time the titular Turtle gets in over their head, and has to be rescued by the others (or on rare occasions, April O'Neil). The show's writers also seemed to struggle with Leonardo the most. During "regular" episodes, he's fine as the "straight-man," but when issued a focus episode, they seemed to find him too boring. To the point, in both of Leo's focus episodes in season 5 ("Leonardo Cuts Loose" and "Leonardo the Renaissance Turtle"), they have to bring in one of the Turtles' reoccurring allies to bolster the episode, and they always upstage Leo almost effortlessly. In these episodes they are Casey Jones and Rex-1, respectively. Casey Jones in particular is too hilarious to avoid taking over an episode, since in this show he's a vigilante whose voice is Pat Fraley's impression of Clint Eastwood who is so overzealous about crime that he literally chases after jaywalkers, litterers, and vagrants sleeping in the park. And Rex-1 was such a parody of Robocop, that in the Japanese dub of the show, they flat out rename him "Robocop."

If I have noticed one major trend with the writing, it is a tendency for the writers to cram in more elements and characters than are really necessary. Many episodes not only have an A-plot, but a B-plot and sometimes a C-plot. This wouldn't be a problem if it were, say, a Greg Weisman production which is deeply layered and capable of juggling that, but this is the 1987 Turtles who believe the world begins and ends with pizza (topped with disgusting stuff like "hot fudge with extra anchovies"). David Wise was a primary culprit of this, since he wrote the majority of the episodes, but other writers do it too. This is a simplistic goofy show which is surprisingly overwritten at times, which makes for unique viewing. I wonder if part of this was because cartoons were 22 minutes back then, as opposed to barely 20 minutes now, and they were always trying to fill airtime.

A case example is an episode I watched last night, "The Sword of Yurikawa." The plot revolves around the Turtles trying to protect a magic sword from being stolen by the Shredder, which is fair enough. But that has to contend with Splinter trying to test the Turtles by wearing a disguise, Krang wanting to blow up a bridge to dump a truck carrying toxic waste into the river so he can create an army of mud mutants that he can control with a mind-control machine that only works on small minds (seriously), and ON TOP OF ALL THAT is some arms dealer named LeDrone with a thick French accent getting involved with the sword theft and briefly teaming up with the Shredder. This is too much for such a simplistic show, and the result is often chaos -- albeit entertaining chaos.

And of course, the animation errors continue to abound, and this show represents an era of shameless whitewashing. Besides Baxtor Stockman (who was black in the comics but here is a bumbling white dude who got mutated into a deranged fly four seasons ago), Shredder is almost always colored like a Caucasian aside for rare episodes where he reveals his face (and we are reminded he is a Japanese man). And in the fifth season finale, "Michelangelo, the Sacred Turtle," we are treated to a bunch of white dudes dressed like Middle Easterners, with fake accents to boot. Probably the most annoying plot tropes, besides the overwhelming pizza obsession, is how everyone on the cast treats a potential alien invasion as some rare, impossible thing. Krang menaces them every week and he's not from Iowa. There are always some fun references to other franchises, though; in this season's "Krangenstein Lives," there are pretty heavy references to DOCTOR WHO, at a time when it was still an obscure cult franchise in the U.S.

One thing which does become a downer is the lack of any major season finales after the third. Seasons 4-5 have no grand finales; they just run out of episodes for the order. Typically the finale would involve some grand showdown against Shredder & Krang and a new status quo for the Technodrome, their high maintenance engine of destruction. In fact, knowing where the Technodrome is is a better way to keep track of season and/or episode chronology than anything else (since the episode air orders are all out of whack with production between seasons 3-6). With seasons 5-6, the producers tried something different and did the "where does the Technodrome end up?" episodes as the premieres. The thing goes from being underground on Earth (season 1), floating in Dimension X (season 2), stuck at the center of the Earth (season 3), stuck on a Dimension X planetoid's volcano's hardened lava pool (seasons 4), stuck in a glacier at the North Pole (season 5), and "stuck" at the bottom of the ocean (season 6). The thing seems to run out of power almost instantly and can rarely go more than a half mile without a full tank. Later on the villains would be separated from it at the end of season 7, with the Technodrome finally being destroyed at the end of season 8 (the start of the so-called "Red Sky" seasons that ended the show's run). So far Season 6 is a return to form. While the focus is still on comedy and dumb one-liners, the action starts to come back, and they even attempt to write out some of those spare gangster characters. The plots so far are slightly less banal than in seasons 3-5, even if the scheme of the week from Shredder and/or Krang (they take turns as masterminds) is always bat-crap insane. And the fourth wall continues to not even exist; everyone from the Turtles to the villains to one shot characters make jokes referencing it, or speak directly to the audience.

That said, 1992 was a unique year for the franchise, one which I consider "the beginning of the end", at least of their prime era. There was no film that year to energize the fanbase, for one. But more to the point, it was the year both BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (which had "BATMAN RETURNS" helping to hype it) and later X-MEN debuted on FoxKids, and essentially reformed the expectations and ambitions of what could be achieved with children's animation in terms of plotting and/or animation for roughly the next 10-15 years. B:TAS at the time aired on weekdays so it didn't directly compete with Ninja Turtles, but it was changing the landscape into one in which the show could no longer thrive as it was. More to the point, by '92 the franchise had been in the media consciousness for roughly 5 years, which is an eternity in children's TV. Most franchises in that genre peak after 2-3 years and TMNT had already defied that. But, kids grow up and usually grow out of stuff they once enjoyed, and TMNT was now on the cusp of that. Still, 1992 was kind of a "stand pat" year. Ratings were still good, toys were still selling and there was barely a whiff that there was trouble in Turtleland. Once '93 rolled around, though, it was all downhill. Power Rangers debuted in '93, and X-Men started airing regularly on Saturdays that season (only the 2-part pilot, "Night of the Sentinels," aired at the end of '92), in addition to the utterly underwhelming "TMNT 3" film. It not only sucked wind at the box office and for fans, it provided Playmates with nothing to work with in terms of new toys. Even if you study the Playmates toy line, you can see it start to become more desperate and repetitive (even more than usual) after 1993.

Despite it standing pat, Season 6 so far isn't bad. At 16 episodes, it is the shortest season since the second (and the seasons will continue to shrink until seasons 8-10, which only have 8 episodes apiece), and perhaps more focused. It will also be the last full season where (the late) James Avery voices the Shredder, so it is good that by this stage his bickering with Krang has seemed to reach an apex. The subtext that they're an imitation of a married couple is so heavy it is almost just text. I mean, we already met Shredder's mother, and later on this season we'll meet Krang's ex (partner), Shreeka, who is mad that Krang kept her ring (which he gives to Shredder, naturally). The episode where Irma gets temporary super powers, "Super Irma," is pretty hilarious. You know Irma has it rough when even a brain alien like Krang considers her "frumpy." On the other hand, season 6 is the first season without an appearance by either Baxtor Stockman or the Rat King, two of the show's best secondary villains. Which is a shame since both get written out by seasons 7-8, respectively. I am fine with Shredder and Krang getting a break and not appearing in many episodes, but having the villains who fill in their shoes usually being mobsters or mad scientists only makes you yearn for them, even if their routine (or that of the bumbling Bebop and Rocksteady) by now is very predictable.

But, yeah, two seasons to go before it all changes. The shift was awkward the last time I rewatched, and I am curious if that reaction holds this time.

[Datelessman]

Continuing along my 1987 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES animated series rewatch, I've officially begun rewatching the 7th season, which debuted on CBS in 1993. Further complicating this season of 14 episodes are that the 13 episodes produced originally for European audiences, dubbed "The Vacation in Europe Side-Season" by fans, began airing this year on USA Network. Those episodes were produced for Season 4 in 1990, and while they aired in Japan, Ireland, and most of Europe around that time, airing them 3 seasons later in the U.S. means that some viewers may be confused since the Technodrome is in different locations. The broadcast and production history and chronology for this series is such a mess that many fans have spent notable time just trying to list episodes in order. Wikipedia, for instance, lumps those European Vacation episodes in with the rest of season 7, so if you're looking them up there, good luck. Thankfully, since all of those European Vacation episodes are collected together on 2 discs for the last two of LionsGate's series collections for TMNT, it is easy for a home viewer to just swap them around in the right order. The oddness of watching the European Vacation episodes and the regular season 7 episodes together means that there will be two episodes centering on the lost city of Atlantis, and neither one of them synch up or are aware of the other. TMNT has two Atlantises. Call it East Coast Atlantis and West Coast Atlantis.

(For the record, I don't believe the original series is on Paramount+. They have the 2003 series, the 2012 series and some of "Rise of the TMNT." I imagine LionsGate's involvement in the original show's distribution has something to do with it. That or CBS only having exclusive rights to the show as of season 4.)

Anyway, 1993 is the year which everything started to go wrong for the Ninja Turtles as a franchise. They'd been top of the heap in children's entertainment for over 5 years, but that was about to come to an end due to, IMO, several circumstances happening at once. The first, and simplest, was that by this time the show had been on TV for approximately 6 years, and their target audience was growing up. I was 5 when the show debuted, but in '93 I was 11 and my tastes were evolving. The second was that 1992's "BATMAN RETURNS" created a lot of buzz around Batman, and it ushered in "BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES" which by 1993 had already aired its first season of approximately 52 episodes, won 1-2 Emmys, and would go on to change the expectations and potential of TV animation for the next 10-15 years. Alongside X-MEN (which was also airing most of its first and second seasons in '93), it showed that animated shows for kids could be dark, serious, and smartly written while still doing great ratings and selling toys like hotcakes. And the third was that the final live action Ninja Turtles film of the decade, "TMNT III," which looked cheaper despite its higher budget due to no longer employing the Jim Henson Creature Workshop, hit theaters and sucked the wind out of everything. It absolutely underwhelmed at the box office, disappointed critics and fans, and did Playmates Toys no favors by giving them precious little to work with in terms of new stuff that wave. Playmates tried, spitting out a ton of toys to coincide with the film, but when your "big villain" is a prissy British pirate with a parrot in a cage, there is only so much a toy company can do. And lastly, 1993 was also the year Saban's MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS debuted on FoxKids and soaked up the younger kids who wanted silly, fun, low stakes martial arts action with bright colors and explosions, specifically because it was live action (a realm which "TMNT III" proved the Ninja Turtles could no longer succeed with).

Ironically, the only areas of the franchise doing well, at least from a narrative standpoint, in 1993 were their comic book exploits. Over at Mirage Studios, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had returned to running monthly comic operations on the main title, and were working with Jim Lawson and others to craft the 13 chapter "City at War" arc. It would end the first volume of TMNT at its peak, and in many ways the main Mirage comic would never be as satisfying or complete as it would be at the end of 1993. And over at Archie Comics, the licensed TMNT ADVENTURES was cementing its own shift towards darker and more serious stories (albeit from a place which was rarely as goofy as the cartoon had been) by 1993, especially with the so-called "Future Shark Trilogy" across issues #42-44. Whatever whimsy the series had unofficially ended after that storyline, and the series on a whole went to some dark places. Archie would later fire the creative team and then cancel the whole series once it reached an intolerable plateau (for them) two years later. Ironically, that arc also wrote the Shredder out of that comic book series.

There seemed to be more of a concerted effort in 1993's 7th season to start tucking back on the goofy plots and slapstick humor of seasons 4-6. The shift in tone isn't as dramatic as it will be later on, but already episodes like "Sleuth on the Loose" (the season 6 finale where April's Aunt Agatha Marbles helps the Turtles solve a caper and even has a light saber duel with a henchman) start to seem out of place, or a relic from an era which is now over. The season premiere, "Night of the Dark Turtle," takes center aim at Batman with a satire in which Donatello assumes a darker, grimmer caped persona after getting electrocuted. He adopts a Batman cosplay suit and even goes around "interrogating" criminals like Batman usually does. CBS adds a few more musical cues and scores (as they did in seasons 4 and 6), and these tunes reflect a darker, more serious tone (even if the plots are not always quite there yet). It was the first direct response TMNT had towards its main competitor at this stage; one of the Turtles even jokes that "Donatello's gone bats," and another hushes him, for fear of "trademark infringement." There are still plenty of 4th wall jokes, Bebop and Rocksteady are still comically inept bunglers, and Shredder and Krang still obviously bicker like an old married couple. But all of that had been true in seasons 2-3 and yet the show wasn't an absolute farce yet. Honestly I think some of the vast dip in quality for many of those seasons were due in large part to the sheer glut of episodes. It is very tough to spit out 47-54 episodes a season and not lose quality control somewhere. Even B:TAS had some stinkers for its massive first season (i.e. "I've Got Batman In My Basement").

Season 7 is also the season the late, great James Avery officially retires as the voice of the Shredder. Although he's best known for playing Uncle Phil on "THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR" (Will Smith's star vehicle), by the time that sitcom was produced, he'd already been voicing the Shredder for about 3 seasons (and had been playing War Machine on "IRON MAN" for the first 6 episodes). Occasionally Avery needed some fill-in's after 1990, such as Dorian Harewood and Jim Cummings, who each voiced the Shredder for 4+ episodes. But about a third of the way into Season 7 (after "White Belt, Black Heart"), Avery officially left the show after voicing the Shredder for over 100 episodes. He never elaborated as to a reason, but I suspect by 1993 he was just getting too busy with better paying, live action work (i.e. not just Fresh Prince, but a TV movie that year). Sadly, the Shredder would never really sound the same again. Neither Harewood or Cummings would return as alternates to the role; by '93, Cummings was already in the prime of his career as a go-to voice actor for a ton of Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and Warner Brothers productions. For the rest of Season 7, Townsend Coleman (Michelangelo and the Rat King, among many others) would fill in as the Shredder, and while he does his best, his "villain voice" was basically the Rat King, so now the pair sound similar. They wouldn't officially hire a new actor to take over the role until the next season. At least Avery's last three episodes in the role are all pretty good, and better than some of the plots he was working with seasons earlier.

In terms of fun guest voices, "White Belt, Black Heart" also sees Brian Tochi guest star. He was the voice of Leonardo in all three live action TMNT films of the 90's, so it's fun that he got to do a role in the TV cartoon, too. E.G. Daily, one of the biggest voice actresses around this time period, also does a guest stint in "The Starchild" (a script the late David Wise recycled a few times on every show he wrote for, starting with 1983's "HE-MAN & THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE"). Tokka and Rahzar, the mutant villains from the second film, also see their animation debut in this season, where they are wildly different. They don't work for the Shredder, and they're both more intelligent. We also get to see what Krang's original body looked like in "Invasion of the Krangazoids," and it looks nothing like the body he insisted Shredder build for him in season 1. "The Legend of Koji," James Avery's second-to-last episode voicing the Shredder, is actually very good (and showcases the birth of the Foot Clan in the 1500's) for the show's standards and even has some of the best storyboarded action since seasons 1-2. And they actually get Japanese names right this time (since in Japan, the family name is first, and the personal name is second), which is an improvement from season 5's "My Brother the Bad Guy" or season 4's "Shredder's Mom." Sadly, the VHS cover for this episode (as part of FHE's "Bodaciously Big Adventures" line of tapes) features Raphael in a borderline racist mock Oriental mustache which never happens in the episode itself. We actually meet quite a few of Shredder's relatives as the show went on; his mother (a retired criminal), younger brother (a Tokyo detective), and distant ancestor (a cowardly Feudal lord). Aside for the latter, he was usually less competent than all of them. "The Legend of Koji" also features a similar plot to the "TMNT III" film (the Ninja Turtles and Splinter travel back in time to Feudal Japan), yet does it so much better that it really is staggering the powers-that-be genuinely thought that third movie was up to par.

Fewer episodes per season means the animation quality is improving for the most part, although there are still fairly routine errors like the Ninja Turtles' bandanas changing or one of them speaking with the wrong voice and dialogue. The fact that those kind of errors were still hitting the air even after 7 seasons is pretty wild.

The franchise was showing some desperation with this and the next season by forcing nearly every aspect of it to push certain characters or toy lines. This had happened before with some characters, but by now, that strategy really wasn't working anymore. In 1993, the franchise's forced character was Merdude, for some reason. He got a Playmates toy, was the guest star of a season 7 episode ("Atlantis Awakes," where Bebop finds himself acting as the king of the underwater city), and was even appearing in some of Archie's licensed comics (specifically, MIGHTY MUTANIMALS #7, TMNT ADVENTURES #43-44, and then later TMNT ADVENTURES PRESENTS: MERDUDE, a 3 issue mini series). Clearly, he did not take off. I bet hardly anyone even knows who Merdude was.

So, yeah, season 7. It is pretty good so far for the show's terms, but represents the end of the franchise's prime, and from here on, some of the desperation to respond to Batman's influence would get even more extreme.

[Datelessman]

My binge of the original 1987 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cartoon is progressing at a brisk pace now that I am nearing the end. Since the last three seasons are so short, even for industry standards at the time, that is unavoidable.

One thing I realized on this rewatch versus the one from 2017 is that I think Season 7 may be one of my favorite seasons.

Spoiler:

Anyway, onto Season 8. If 1993 was the year everything started to go wrong for the Ninja Turtles franchise, then 1994 was when the decline became official and unavoidable. BATMAN: TAS, X-MEN, and MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS were in their primes and bona fide hits, either by changing the landscape for children's TV or absorbing most of the audience. Many Turtle viewers had grown up and sought more intelligent, or at least more action packed, fare which TMNT wasn't offering. 1994 was also the year GARGOYLES debuted, showing that even Disney was offering something which fit the times. More to the point, FoxKids decided to take on the Ninja Turtles directly by scheduling their newest blockbuster, SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES against it in head-to-head competition. The Ninja Turtles had steamrolled over other franchises like THUNDERCATS, G.I. JOE, and THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS (and even curb stomped THE NEW ADVENTURES OF HE-MAN), but all of those were either past their primes or relaunches at that time. FoxKids was king of the Saturday morning heap and likely sensed that CBS' crowning jewel no longer glistened. The quarterly Ninja Turtles magazine had been canceled, the Playmates toy line was showing signs of desperation by knocking off just about every other franchise they were competing with (from Power Rangers to Mighty Max), and even the licensed Archie comic series was losing sales and starting to wind down (even as its content started to disturb Archie's editors). Some of the creators of that comic wanted to get a spinoff cartoon produced, MIGHTY MUTANIMALS, and aside for a nibble of curiosity from Ruby-Spears, everyone passed and even Playmates balked at the proposed toy line. Even worse, CBS had ordered only 8 episodes for this and the following two seasons, which were historically low orders. The last time TMNT offered this few new episodes, it was during their initial launch in 1987 when no one knew how well it would do. As a 12 year old kid at the time, I specifically remembered having to choose between Spider-Man and Ninja Turtles (TIVO didn't exist and while mom and I had two TV's, we only had one VCR), and I clearly chose the web-slinger. The Turtles had become formulaic and I figured it was best to prioritize something new, especially on the same channel where I was already watching X-MEN.

Little did I know that Fred Wolf and the producers of the Ninja Turtles cartoon had decided to shift with the times. Season 8 begins the so-called "Red Sky Seasons," which bare that nickname because from here on, the sky is ALWAYS colored red. The Turtles themselves are redesigned to better imitate their live action film counterparts, and to be less "cuddly." The eternally red skies mean that all action takes place at night or around dawn; no more daylight adventures. The focus is to be more on action and "seriousness," with comedy being mostly reduced to one-liners or quips during combat. The theme song is remixed and rerecorded, with a new intro consisting only of episode clips from that season, with no original animation. New musical scores and cues have been added, and they are all more dramatic. Even the logo is more metallic and "harder." There even will be continuity between all episodes, so they can't be watched in any old order anymore! Yet all of this IS THE SAME SHOW; it has just taken a major u-turn. It is much like the last season of SUPER FRIENDS, the 1985-1986 SUPER POWERS TEAM: GALACTIC GUARDIANS where a formerly goofy and silly show suddenly tried to get "serious." And maybe that is an apt comparison; SUPERFRIENDS struggled to adapt from being an early 1970's show into a mid 1980's show, much as TMNT decided to change from being a silly late 80's show into a "more gritty" mid 90's show.

You can tell by the advertisements. Check out how a new set of VHS home video tapes were promoted in 1993:


And this is how CBS' Season 8 was advertised.


Yeah. I doubt I was the only one who stopped watching Turtles avidly after season 7, and many casual fans don't know these episodes exist, or vaguely recall some and think it was a new show. But it wasn't. And despite the franchise being on wobbly knees by 1994, CBS still tried to leverage it in a counter-attack on FoxKids' branding. They formed a block of shows with Ninja Turtles, WILDC.A.T.S. (another cartoon based on an independently owned comic book), and SKELETON WARRIORS and dubbed it "The CBS Action-Zone." They even published a promotional comic book about it. The problem was none of it worked; WILDC.A.T.S. and SKELETON WARRIORS were canned after one season, and while Ninja Turtles outlasted them, the end was nigh and I think everyone in production had to know it.

Spoiler:

Season 8 in 1994 was also the last time Playmates ordered a directive that all Turtle-media had to push one particular toy. This time it was the Cyber-Turtles, which were a pretty blatant ripoff of Power Rangers/Sentai stuff. There was an episode devoted to it as well as a five issue arc of TMNT ADVENTURES (issues #62-66, the "Dreamland" arc). The comic arc featured some dark mania such as enemies with cyanide pills, zombies, floating brains and ADOLF HITLER, and was the story which eventually got the writer and artist of the comic fired (and the comic itself canceled the following year). Even that CBS Action Zone promo comic had the Cyber-Turtles. Much like with Merdude, no one bought it.

By Season 9 in 1995, the Ninja Turtles as a franchise was in its death throws and circling the drain. Their licensed Archie comic, that at one point was selling 120,000 copies a month, is canceled. The toyline is desperate, and mostly relying on their knockoff Mighty Max line (dubbed "Mini-Mutants"). Image Comics would get the license, which would result in one very delayed black and white run which got canceled on a cliffhanger by '99, and some team ups with Image mainstays like Savage Dragon and Creed. Konami stopped releasing video games featuring the characters, after ending their line with a half-hearted Street Fighter clone, TMNT: TOURNAMENT FIGHTERS, from 1993-1994. Even the second volume of the foundational TMNT comic from Mirage Studios was suddenly canceled at the end of the year (after shipping their last 4 heavily delayed issues within 3 months). Some might say it would have been prudent to have ended the cartoon after 8 seasons, which would have been a more than respectable run. But CBS didn't, so we have another round to go.

Spoiler:

I should finish the rest of season 9, and then the 10th and final season, this week. The "Red Sky" era is usually dismissed by people who are nostalgic for the original show, and mostly I would say it is for good reason. I commend the effort to flex with the times instead of digging in their heels, but I feel they went too far and tossed away much of what gave the show its charm yet still were not willing to commit fully to "being serious." Sometimes a show is just past its era and needs to gracefully bow out. Instead, like almost every TV show which lasted beyond 6-7 seasons, it got desperate for former glory and it shows. But at least it will get a proper series finale, a rare luxury for TV cartoons from the 1980's.

[Datelessman]

I am finally finished with my rewatch of the original 1987 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES animated series: the one which turned a plucky indie comic into an international sensation. It took me a little less than 2 months to watch 10 seasons and 193 episodes at a rate of approximately 3-6 episodes a day (due to my work and life schedule). It felt like it took a bit longer when I did my first rewatch in 2017, back when I first got the DVD box set on sale from a local Best Buy (the version that came packaged in a little Turtle-Van). Now they sell it in a thin pack for about $30.

We left off in the middle of Season 9 from 1995, where Lord Dregg (Tony Jay) had officially taken over as the main villain and Carter (Bumper Robinson) took over as the Turtles' new teammate (rather than a rapid succession of guest starring allies). These are the "Red Sky" seasons where the character models changed, the sky was always red and the tone was trying (key word being, "trying") to be more serious to better ape their rivals SPIDER-MAN: TAS, BATMAN: TAS, X-MEN, PIRATES OF DARK WATER, and GARGOYLES. The fanbase didn't take to Carter, which is little surprise considering he's a character of color in what was then a VERY white franchise, although the show does oversell him a bit. Not only is Carter a teenage ninja who can mutate into a Hulk-like form, but he's also a genius nearly on par with Donatello. He saves the Turtles from Dregg almost routinely this season. I don't like terms like "Gary Stu" (the gender flipped version of a "Mary Sue"), since hardly anyone complains when characters like Batman or Iron Man are depicted as flawless and invincible, but I can sometimes see where detractors get their ammunition. I think Carter's okay (although timing him to appear a whopping 4 years after Keno in the second Ninja Turtle film also did him no favors), and I wouldn't mind seeing him adapted into another incarnation. There's no reason why the shellbacks can't have 3 human pals after April O'Neil and Casey Jones, after all.

Spoiler:

But it didn't. The tenth and final season aired in 1996, and the TMNT franchise was either dead or laying on a slab, awaiting a Defibrillator. Even the DVD versions of these episodes have the "CBS ACTION ZONE" images opening up the intro, even though that block by CBS had failed two seasons prior. There are no Mirage Comics or video games coming out. Archie Comics released a 3 issue mini series, TMNT ADVENTURES: YEAR OF THE TURTLE (written by Dan Slott) which was intended to both end the old continuity of the canceled series and lead to a relaunch, that never happened. Image Comics was putting out a licensed comic that few were reading, and was habitually late (even for a bimonthly series). Even Playmates toys' line is in shambles, relying on desperate variants of the Turtles or "Mini Mutants," their cheaper-to-produce MIGHTY MAX clone. Mirage's own website, which officially shut down last year but remains online as a historical resource, claims that, "It was only a programming decision by CBS in 1996 to go with an all FCC friendly educational line-up on Saturday mornings that led to the cancellation of the original series." Sure, dudes, if you say so. While it is true that by 1997, CBS would abandon action cartoons in favor of adhering to stricter E/I programming demands, if TMNT was doing prime-time level ratings or close to it as it was doing in 1990-1991, they wouldn't have so eagerly abandoned it. Not while FoxKids was cleaning their clocks on Saturday mornings.

David Wise, the primary writer for the series and the near exclusive writer for the last 2 seasons, officially leaves and is replaced by Jeffrey Scott. I say "officially" because there are rumors that Wise was brought in as a ghostwriter/script-doctor at some point since Scott was getting lost trying to write the series. Some of this disorder shows. The Turtles' character models change again in Season 9, looking closer to how they looked in season 8; perhaps this season had a more reliable studio than season 9 did. April's hairdo is still closer to a bob style now than it was in seasons 1-8. The biggest change is the departure of Rob Paulsen as the voice of Raphael after nine seasons. Paulsen occasionally needed "understudies" (such as Thom Pinto and Hal Rayle) for a handful of episodes during seasons 3-4 due in part to the absurd episode totals (47-51 per season). But this would be the first season without all four of the original Turtles' voice actors on a permanent basis. Reportedly, Paulsen wanted a raise after starring in what was once the top kids' cartoon for 9 seasons. That is a perfectly fair request, especially since at this time Paulsen's career had skyrocketed thanks to starring in "THE ANIMANIACS" and "PINKY & THE BRAIN" (which were airing on rival networks FoxKids and Kid's WB). On the other side of it, I believe the producers of the show knew, or at least highly suspected, that season 10 would be the last, and there wasn't any room in the budget for a raise. Michael Gough, best known as Gopher from various WINNIE THE POOH Disney shows or Mike Myers' understudy as SHREK for TV/video game projects Myers can't be bothered with, officially takes over as Raphael. He does his best, but it isn't the same.

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I still don't entirely know what to make of these "Red Sky" seasons. I understand and appreciate the show wanting to flex with the times rather than dig in their heels. But the various writers, producers, and directors were only willing to do this via surface details and not with actual scripting. Once the comedy ended (or was drastically reduced), all of the plot holes and repetition were laid bare. And I don't think removing the main villains for most of the final two seasons did the series any favors. Lord Dregg is less of a unique character and more of a "villain voiced by the awesome Tony Jay" if that makes any sense. His goals of conquest and even his descent into madness over many defeats is exactly the same as we got with Shredder and Krang, just played straight. I think in an attempt to flex with the times, the show tossed out too much of what made it unique in order to offer what it thought its audience wanted. But not every show can or should do that. Imagine if the last 2-3 seasons of "MARRIED WITH CHILDREN" decided to become "dramadies" because a lot of their competitors did that. Or "STAR TREK: VOYAGER" deciding that one guest episode with the Rock wasn't enough so for an entire season, Janeway and the rest become wrestlers. I understand the corporate reasoning behind trying to "rebrand" it as "a grown up show," but unless they were willing to do it better, they should have just stuck to where things were in season 7; less naked slapstick, but still with a consistent tone and the regular cast. Cutting back on Shredder and Krang would have been fine, but ditching them for a composite new villain who just remixed their greatest hits doesn't work.

At least it had an ending, and that is more than many shows get. The last quiver of the franchise after getting zapped with the Defibrillator would be trying to ape the Power Rangers (and even cross over with them) in 1997's "NINJA TURTLES: THE NEXT MUTATION." And I am not touching that crap with a ten foot pizza slicer. So, 1987 TMNT: classic show that built a franchise, but like many, ended past its prime flailing for old glory. Still, any American cartoon show which lasts 10 seasons on broadcast (non cable) TV puts it in elite company.

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