X-Men: The Animated Series – Unlikely Story of the '90s Cartoon Hit
hollywoodreporter.com
hollywoodreporter.com
The theme of the MCU is, roughly speaking, war, with a simple thread between the movies building towards a big one.
Which is what made this show so special. Wolverine probably spent more time dealing with the death of Morph in this Saturday morning cartoon than characters in the MCU spend dealing with the death of their twin in PG-13 movies.
The victory lap movies tend to fall into your categorization at least (Avengers, Civil War, maybe Thor 3).
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zPEtyAsM94 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaNWFHLy2NI
Iron Man was definitely fresh and new when it came out. But a lot of MCU movies have been more of the same. A lot of villains are simply evil counter-parts to the hero (the exceptions are basically Thor / Loki... Guardians of the Galaxy, and Spiderman).
I still enjoy MCU movies, and have watched most of them. But the formula is becoming stale and old for sure.
I could go on, but hopefully I’ve made my point!
Killing a major character in basically the first episode was, highly unusual.
And forcing the other X-Men to deal with that loss in subsequent episodes, isn't something you see in children's TV EVER.
Even when they finally brought back Morph (This is a comic book show, no one can die forever), he wasn't really the same. Everything didn't go back to being ok, he was permanently damaged and had PTSD from the experience and was unable to join the X-Men.
As a 6 year old who had family members with PTSD, this cartoon connected with me like nothing else would until I was a teenager and able to read real literature.
I can still hum the theme song.
I was only half-aware of it at the time, but I absolutely loved the fact that it wasn't overly silly, wacky or talking down to me. It offered serious, mature storytelling with relatable characters, and a longer serialized plot. I couldn't quite articulate those qualities at my young age, but at some level, I felt their lack in other cartoons. Even if I couldn't explain why, I knew what I was watching was good.
In that way, it reminds me of another cartoon from the early 90s, DiC's Saturday morning version of Sonic the Hedgehog (dubbed "SatAM" by fans the to distinguish it from the other Sonic cartoon which ran concurrently on weekdays). SatAM also tried it's hand at a darker setting, more mature story telling, and in its second season, a longer serialized plot. And again, I recognized quality and lapped it up. Not to say it was without flaws; quality zig-zagged through the show's run. But like X-men, it was neither infantilizing or preachy, and I loved it for that.
Now, cartoons are no longer _only_ for young children; take for example Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block, or South Park. But I think there still should be some kids cartoons that attempt serious storytelling alongside the comedic ones. Not having kids, I've not been closely following kids cartoons. Are there any of that latter type presently?
Good all-ages shows are definitely there in the mix, although the pressure to cut everything down to formulaic audience pandering has remained a constant.
Even though it's a miniseries, I do feel like I should perhaps mention Over The Garden Wall for a few reasons: 1. More than once I've been told that if I liked Over the Garden Wall, I'd like Gravity Falls, 2. Over the Garden Wall was produced by Patrick McHale, creative director and frequent writer for Adventure Time, and 3. It's that damn good -- the basic story is presented simply enough that a kid mature enough to not get freaked out by spooky things would enjoy it, and there addition themes woven in that story that adults would enjoy it too (I know I did).
It even has one of the most tragic characters I can think of.
The show has a very long storyline and evolves little by little:
Most of the comic book and related shows today, including Marvel's, seem comparatively unwatchable and immature. They are definitely not designed to be for anyone but the youngest children. Young Justice is a notable exception.
And some episodes also involve interaction between characters from the 90s show and the current show.
Never mind that quite often the turtles are seen watching fictional cartoon shows patterned after 80s/90s shows...
Don't forget the other Marvel cartoons as well: Hulk, Iron Man, and Fantastic Four.
The DCAU holds up much better. Even Tiny Toons, Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs etc. holds up better.
I can't be the only one to have pieced together the story of "days of future past" in a non-linear fashion because you keep missing episodes due to Saturday school?
It was horrible and the only thing i learned was how to cheat on tests. The very of idea of having a 6-12 year old on Saturday morning sit and memorize (not learn) characters brings chills down my spine.
Also there were some translation mistakes (specially in the first episodes). However, the brazilian voice actors were amazing and extremely memorable -- Brazil had an incredible pool of voice actors in the 80's and 90's. It was so memorable that the same voice actors who did the animated series were used to produce the dubbed versions of the movies a decade+ later, a rare gift given to fans in these lands.
As for the comics, they were also a few years behind US. Uncanny X-Men #262 was published when the show first aired. So as kids coming from the show to the comics, we were also pretty confused about uniforms and team members.
Brutal.
If you don't want to do something, there's someone else that will sacrifice to do it.
Works for companies too. VFX companies will take on a project they'll lose money on just to have a foot in the door with a studio and work on a big movie. This usually means a combination of offshoring and running people ragged.
Now more than ever, I wish more shows were like this.
It's amazing how that sort of thing gets hard to remember. Reading that paragraph, I remember now that when I was 12 or so, we'd go out to restaurants which had smoking or non- sections - and the only real "separation" between the two was the main aisle from the entrance to the back.
Boggles the mind to imagine something like that now. A guy walked into a pizza place with a pinched off cigarette over lunch, and I did a double-take.
In one of those columns, Gru wrote about how he detests smoking and he doesn't allow people to smoke in his office. I remember stumbling on that column a few years ago, when I was going through some old comics, and it's just bizarre to me that you could smoke in any other part of Marvel's offices as recently as 1993-4 (I don't remember exactly when that column was from, but it was one of those two years) and that whether or not you could smoke in somebody's office was up to whoever the office belonged to. And I grew up in that era!
Marvel on the other hand too often descend into fart jokes and similar cringe moments.
I liked Ultimate Spider Man; that was not as good as the one in the 90's but better than a lot of other cartoons from recent years.
In general though I agree, I especially think DC does a good job with their animated movies.
But most of the Marvel ones are a massive dose of cringe/slapstick/fart with the odd moment of serious in what is supposedly a "serious" series.
There is no indication that there is supposed to be a "joke" show, they just dump so many (bad) jokes in there that it become a joke show by "accident".
And if we want to talk good Spider-Man shows we should not ignore the Sony made Spectacular Spider-Man, that IMO ranks well above both Ultimate and perhaps even the more recent one.
This in large part because while there were jokes etc, it enhanced the action rather than watered it down. One example would the first fight between Spider-Man and Green Goblin, where both had quips to deliver while both of them proved to be competent fighters.
In contrast Ultimate was a pile of monkey screams and timeouts as Spidey strained out some attempt at a joke.
My favourite show wasn't a cartoon though, it was Knightmare. Which is probably easiest explained as a very British take on Dungeons and Dragons.
I couldn't stand the 1989 [X-Men:_Pryde_of_the_X-Men] theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1qrbAGsEOw&feature=youtu.be...
facepalm
For reference: theme songs from Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron Man, Spiderman and Xmen.
"Spider blood, spider blood, radioactive spider blood..."
Have add in Exo Squad! While it's not a comic book adaptation, it's a kids-targeted cartoon from that 90s era with very mature themes. Great first-gen action figures and genesis game as well.
I've rewatched the series recently (can purchase on iTunes and find on youtube) and it still holds up. Would love to see it as a live-action series and/or in cinematic form.
In a similar vein of great cartoon + action figure combos of the era, Ronin Warriors.
Which Exo figures did/do you have? (I had Lt. Marsh, Wolf, Marsala, and Phaeton or Typhonus (can't recall which).
The action figures were the best. I had Torres.
It was dubbed to Arabic by either a Syrian or Lebanese studio and was broadcast on MBC3, a Saudi cartoon/kids channel, in the mid-2000s. I may be mistaken on the channel, but the time frame should be accurate.
As a side note, probably 80% of all cartoons from the 90s onwards are dubbed by a few Lebanese, Syrian, and Egyptian studios.
The previous generation of cartoons, around the 70s and 80s, were mainly dubbed in Kuwait. Future Boy Conan[1] and Grendizer were from this era; if you ask an Arab about either of these two cartoons and they don't know them, they are not Arab!
[1]: The show's name in Arabic is A'adnan wa Leena, which are the Arabic names of the two main characters, separated by the conjunction wa ("and").
The Japanese intro for those of you who haven't seen it.
It has some great interviews with the writers and producers.
To be fair, it's rare that low-budget live-action action shows work well. It's even rarer if the action requires supernatural or science fiction elements.
They had one scene in the time traveling season, where Cable said something along the lines of: "It's just like the nuclear disarmament of the 21st century, every country kept one."
Game theory in a kids show? Awesome.
And that's assuming you're not including Japanese animation as "cartoons".
...Pu-pu-pu-puppies...