Mina: Ok,it's time to cover the 3rd and Final Mario Cartoon. And After this,we'll be covering Sonic.
Super Mario World was a short-lived series loosely based on the Super NES game of the same name. It only aired thirteen episodes due to Captain N: The Game Master's cancellation on NBC.
The series centered on Mario,Luigi,and Princess Toadstool,now living in Dinosaur Land (sometimes also called Dinosaur World) with Yoshi, who was depicted on the show as a curious childlike dinosaur with a large appetite and several phobias. King Koopa (otherwise known as Bowser) and the Koopalings were also around, having followed the Mario Bros. and the Princess to Dinosaur Land.
Unlike in the game, Dinosaur Land was depicted as being populated with cavepeople, including a pre-adolescent caveboy named Oogtar. Some episodes revolved around Mario trying to introduce a modern invention to the cavepeople in an attempt to make their lives easier,only for the Koopas to twist it into an evil scheme.
Mina: It's unclear whether the characters had traveled back in time or if Dinosaur Land was simply a "lost valley"-esque island that the characters had come to.
Mina: The show was originally aired on Saturday mornings on NBC in the 1991-92 season,the last year the network had cartoons on their Saturday Morning block. It was featured in a half-hour time slot with a shortened version of Captain N: The Game Master.
Mina: This new show was called Captain N & The New Super Mario World. Episodes of Super Mario World were later shown as part of the syndication package Captain N and the Video Game Masters.
Afterwards,the series was split from Captain N and shown in time-compressed reruns on Mario All-Stars. The show is now used in a variety of Youtube videos along with the hotel mario CDI game.
Unlike the previous two Mario cartoons, the show was not widely distributed on home video,in fact its only release was the inclusion of the show's Christmas episode on the 1996 VHS release Super Mario Bros. Super Christmas Adventures. This series is the most short-lived of the three American Mario animated series.
The show takes place in Dinosaur World where Yoshi lives with a preadolescent caveman named Oogtar. In addition, Yoshi's Island is populated with cavemen instead of Yoshis. In Fact,Yoshi is the Only Yoshi in the show.
Mina: You heard right folks,American Yoshi is one of a kind..in more ways than one.
Several names were changed from the game. Forest of Illusion was called Enchanted Forest Vanilla Dome was referred to as the Lava Pits,and The Valley of Bowser is both smaller and unnamed. The enemies featured in the game were rarely called by their in-game names on the show,and Bowser was still called King Koopa.
Mina: The King Koopa/Bowser thing was okay,because it was consistant with the other Mario cartoons.
And speaking of Mario Cartoon consistancy.Koopa had his all-green appearance,The Mario bros. had red and green overalls,and the Princess had red hair. However,it is unknown what happened to Toad. Did he stay behind to look after the Mushroom Kingdom? We don't know,since it was Never mentioned. In fact,Toad himself wasn't mentioned at all in this show.
Anyway,Another notable fact was that Luigi found Yoshi. When he hatched,Yoshi was small and was not born with his saddle, as revealed when Luigi told him the story of how Yoshi was born.
Mina: Also,Unlike the previous 2 Mario Cartoons,this show lacked Cover songs. This was a very smart move on DiC's part. Well,that's all she wrote for the Mario cartoons. It's now time to cover Sonic.
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (aka AoStH) first aired in September of 1993, and only for one season. It follows the escapades of Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower as they attempt to stop the evil Doctor Ivo Robotnik and his array of vicious robots from taking over the planet Mobius.
Mina: When Sonic isn't battling Robotnik,he's either helping those in need,racing around the world,or indulging in as many Chili Dogs as he can get his hands on.
Mina: This series is very much a slapstick type comedy,especially with the incredibly melodramatic explosions and quirky story lines. Sonic is always portrayed as being skilled and clever,whereas Scratch and Grounder are clumsy and often serve as Robotnik's foil.
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was created by DIC Entertainment,which produced a total of 65 episodes,and was syndicated by Bohbot Entertainment (now BKN International). Before it's creation,DiC showed a Promo of AoSTH to ABC. However,ABC told DiC that the show was too cartoony to be apart of their Saturday Morning block.
However,ABC liked the idea of a Sonic cartoon,so they had DiC create a more serious series to compete with other Saturday Morning shows. However,DiC was fond of their original concept,so they decided to make 2 Sonic cartoons. One was this one and the other was Sonic SatAM,the one that aired on ABC.
The plots often loosely followed the storyline of the Sonic video games series, although when the cartoon began, the Sonic games were still quite new, and lacking much plot or character development, which was filled in by the show's writers.
Later DiC ceased production on this comical version to spend more time on a more dark Sonic Cartoon,Sonic the Hedgehog aka Sonic SatAM,a series launched on ABC's Saturday morning line-up.
After the original airing, DiC created one more episode in the winter of 1996 called "Sonic Christmas Blast". This special features a non-speaking cameo by Princess Sally Acorn. It also has Sonic and Tails visiting Robotropolis, which has a human population and a lighter atmosphere.
Mina: Pierre De Celles, an animator who worked on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, described the show as "fun and humorous." The central protagonists are Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower, while the main antagonists include Robotnik and his two 'hench-bots' Scratch and Grounder,with a third robot,Coconuts,appearing on occasion.
There are many occasional minor characters,most of which are not from the games. These characters include: Robotnik's dominating mother and Wes Weasley, a salesman and con-man. The planet,Mobius,is more of a zany,colorful cartoon world in this show,than it was in SatAM. And Speaking of SatAM... Take it Mina.
Mina: Right. Sonic the Hedgehog: The Animated Series aka Sonic SatAM was produced by DIC Entertainment with the partnership of Sega of America and was loosely based on the Sonic video game series. The series aired two seasons on ABC from September 18, 1993 until December 3, 1994.
Mina: The series sharply contrasts with Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, a syndicated series that premiered in the same month. While Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was lighthearted and comical,Sonic the Hedgehog featured a more complex plot and a darker atmosphere that constitutes a departure from the tone of the most Sonic games.
Mina: The Archie Comic continues to use elements and characters from this series, and there are similarities between this show the Archie comic series, however, there are many notable differences in tone and character portrayal.
The show takes place on a planet called Mobius sometime in the 33rd century. An infamous mad scientist named Prof. Julian Robotnik invaded and conquered a huge city named Mobotropolis with the help of his assistant Snively and his army of SWATbots.
Robotnik was to be appointed Minister of Science by the King of Mobius, Maximillian Acorn. However,Robotnik betrayed the King and made the palace his own personal headquarters. From there, he captured the rest of the citizens,including Sonic's uncle,Sir Charles and his crowning invention,the Roboticizer.
Turning the device against Charles,Robotnik changed him into a robot slave. After doing the same to the other captives, Robotnik turned his army loose on the world, Robotizing any who crossed his path.
Those who managed to escape fled to Knothole village and formed a group called the Freedom Fighters.
The Freedom Fighters include Sonic the Hedgehog,Rotor,Antoine Depardieu,Bunnie Robbit,Tails,and Sally Acorn. Sally carries a sentient mini-computer named NICOLE.
Mina: The Knothole Freedom Fighters constantly foil Robotnik's schemes, although fail to make much difference, since Robotnik literally rules the planet with an iron fist.
And now to talk about the Unproduced Season 3.
In an interview,screen-writer Ben Hurst reveals the third season had already been plotted out before the show's cancellation. Upon the request of an eager fanbase, Hurst revealed the unknown villain would be the wizard Ixis Naugus. He also revaled that Robotnik wasn't killed at the end of Doomsday,instead he became trapped in the void as Naugus' prisoner.
Snively would briefly rise to power and assume his uncle's title as oppressive overlord, but quickly fails thanks to Sonic and the Freedom Fighters. Out of desperation,Snively frees Naugus from the void,and in the process also frees Robotnik and King Acorn.
Naugus immediately becomes main villain and uses King Acorn as bait to try and capture Sally. Snively,reduced to nothing,defects to the side of the Freedom Fighters.
Mina: More developments would happen between the relationship of Sonic and his friend Tails, who discovers an "incredible power" and saves the Freedom Fighters from a great disaster.
It's also been mentioned that Sally would have a romance with someone other than Sonic. The origins of Robotnik and Snively would've also been revealed. Ben Hurst has said no scripts were written for Season 3. He also said that after he failed to convince the ABC network to renew the series,he gave up on Season 3 entirely.
Other revelations from Hurst were that the eyes at the end of the series belonged to Ixis Naugus.He also stated that Amy Rose and Knuckles would've been introduced towards the end of Season 3,and become main characters in Season 4,if the show had made it that far.
There were also rumors about making a follow up straight to DVD feature, but it later turned out to be false.
Mina: Interesting stuff,huh? Now lets check out what this show could've looked like.
In 1993,an article in Sonic the Comic announced both Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic SatAM. Within the four pages of plot synopsis and concept art,were a group of strange screen shots.
These screen shots have circulated through the Internet contributing to the theory of an aborted Sonic series before production. These pics have been dubbed "Pre-SatAM" by Sonic fans.
The supporting characters in the "Pre-SatAM" are based on the small animals in the games. And even though they're different in design,they all bear the same names as their Game counterparts.
Mina: Most notable in the image is the lack of Tails.it's possible that the concept was drawn up before Tails' arrival in the series.
Next up,we'll be talking about 2 very obsure cartoons: Battletoads and Mutant League.
Monday, September 6, 2010
The Cartoon Historian Lesson 21-D: From Games to Toons Pt.4
Next on the agenda,Video Power's The Power Team. Now,most of you probably don't remember this show or even heard of it for that matter. Well,I'm about to educate you.
The Power Team aired along with the video game reviewing show Video Power. Steven Martiniere was the director and Jack Olesker was the developer and story editor. The cartoon series was produced by Bohbot Productions. The show reran on USA Network as Acclaim Masters.
Mina: The cartoon show featured characters from Acclaim video games. They included Max Force from NARC, Kuros from The Wizards and Warriors series, Kwirk from the game of the same name, Tyrone from Arch Rivals and BigFoot from the game of the same name.
Mina: The cartoon show also featured a cartoon version of the host of Video Power, Johnny Arcade, as they fought against villains from the Acclaim lineup, mainly Mr. Big from NARC. Malkil from Wizards and Warriors and Kwirk's enemies from his own game would occasionally appear as well.
Mina: For the most part,the show seems to be a clone of Captain N: The Game Master. However,the writers and director took the opposite tactic by having the game characters come to the real world. A common device on the show was the characters trying to recover the “game paks” from Mr. Big which would send them home.
Mr. Big would actually use the Game Paks to try to blast the characters back home during their battles. While this is what the heroes wanted, had Mr. Big sent them home,He'd be free to cause havok in the real World without any opposition.
Mina: Mr.Big has Joe Rockhead and Spike working for him,2 other NARC boss characters. He also has as a counter to Big Foot,a living red monster truck named Burnt Rubber. What Kind of name is that? Couldn't they find a cooler name for this guy? I mean who the hell names their Moster Truck 'Burnt Rubber'. Seriously!
Anyway,During battles, Johnny would use a special communication device that looked like an NES Advantage controller to direct the Power Team members from his room.
Mina: Wha..!? An Arcade-style Controller as a communication device? Couldn't they give him something that actually Qualifies as a communicator,like a Walkie-Talkie or something?
No argument their Mina. Anyway,To make the show more "Kid Friendly" A few of the characters underwent heavy redesigns from their game incarnations.
Mina: Max Force looked like a SWAT officer and had a utility belt instead of machine guns. Kuros bore more of a resemblance to a barbarian than a knight in armor.
Though,The barbarian design was likely based on the Wizards and Warriors cover art. Which featured Kuros as a Fabio look-a-like dressed as Konan the barbarian. In the games themseles,Kuros was a knight.
Mina: Tyrone was given a small afro,probably so he wouldn't resemble Micheal Jordan too much. His Arch Rivals counterpart looked abit like an 8-bit version of the famous B-Ball player.
Mina: Tyrone's catchphrase would be 'awwww man!!!'. Disney would later adopt this catchphrase for Jake Long. Y'know since 'aww man!!' is also Jake Long's catchphrase.
Mina: Anyway,Kwirk's catch phrase would be 'Alright! Alright! Alright!' and probably acted the most like his videogame counterpart. Big Foot would talk with a Southern trucker accent and use trucker terms like '10-4 good buddy!' And now for the villains. Take it,Cartoon Historian.
Thank you,my assistant. As stated before,Mr. Big had 2 Henchmen. Joe Rockhead isvery powerful,but very dumb. He also Loved Chili Burgers. Henchmen #2,Spike would be the more capable thug. And since the show is aimed at 8-12 year-olds,he doesn't deal drugs like in the game. Mr. Big was also more human and used all kinds cigar related items. Yes,you heard correctly...Smoking in a Kids Show.
Mina: They would Never Ever be able to get away with that these days. *laughs*
Anyway,Mr.Big didn't turn into a giant skeleton monster like in NARC. While Mr. Big was the primary villain,on occasion other villains,who were the adversaries of the other characters would appear. Kwirk's enemy Rowdy Roddy Radish. Mr. Big is missing his mustache from the arcade version of his origin; however, he neither had it in Acclaim Entertainment's NES port of it.
Before the beginning of each episode Johnny Arcade is briefly shown playing each character's game on his NES before they come flying out of the screen. Even Kwirk, which was a Game Boy game. While Johnny was always leading the team, he was never actually seen hanging out with the characters.
Mina: Why? Who knows? Maybe they didn't want to make this show seem like a carbon copy of Captain N?
Johnny would always be in his room calling the shots. Even though Max Force does take a bit of a leader role. In one episode,Mr. Big tampered with Johnny's controls making him unable to give orders.
Mina: Outside of Mr. Big,the primary villain was Malkil,the warlock who was the main enemy of Kuros. He appeared to be far more sinister than Mr. Big and often worked alone. Although in one episode,he did team up with Mr. Big to battle the Power Team.
Mina: Malkil had also figured that the team would be lost without Johnny Arcade, so at one time he transported them to the gothic land of Sindarin, Kuros' native land. The team learned to work without Johnny's leadership and survive in the medieval realm.
Mina: While Kuros was glad to be home, he explained that he must return to the real world as the goal of the Power Team was to keep villains like Malkil and Mr. Big from ever invading and to allow each team member to return to their worlds in peace, thus explaining the rationale of the series.
Well now you know about one of the most obsure cartoon shows ever. Though,this show isn't nearly as obsure as Mutant League,a Show I'll be talking about soon. Next up,the Sequel to the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
Mina: The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 was based on the video game Super Mario Bros. 3. It aired on NBC as a part of Captain N: The Game Master,from September 8 1990 through December 1 1990.
The cartoon continues the adventures of Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool,and Toad as they battle King Koopa. This time however,King Koopa has his Koopalings,whose names differed from their original names in the video game. On the show, the Koopalings were called:
Cheatsy Koopa (Larry)- a diminutive Koopa, yet a pure schemer to his core.
Big Mouth Koopa (Morton)- had a tendency to constantly yammer on and on about any and all situations.
Kootie Pie Koopa (Wendy)- the only female, and a spoiled brat.
Hop Koopa (Iggy)- the youngest of the twins, loved getting into trouble.
Bully Koopa (Roy)- sported a constant pair of sunglasses, and was basically the bully of the group hence his name.
Hip Koopa (Lemmy)- the second twin, basically prone to mischief like Hop.
Kooky Von Koopa (Ludwig von Koopa)- Apparently the eldest of the kids, and had somewhat of a mad scientist persona, and reveled in creating inventions to bring disdain to the Mushroom Kingdom.
No official explanation was ever given to the name change. While its reason is disputed among fans,most agree that the likely explanation is that DiC did not have access to their real names during production of the show,as they were using the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 3 as reference.
In the Japanese version of Mario 3,the Koopa Kids weren't named (usually being called simply as "Koopa Kid" or "Little Koopa"). It wasn't until the game was brought over to the US for translation,that the kids got names. This was shortly before The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 went on air.
Mina: Oddly enough,though,names from the American version of the game were inserted (such as referring to King Koopa as "Bowser"),which may have been a last minute attempt to make the cartoon feel more like the US version of the game. DiC likely retained the show names to avoid confusion among viewers and to avoid the large amount of expenses of to re-animate the whole show to accommodate this.
Like the previous Mario cartoon series,the animation was done by Sei Young Animation Co. Ltd, however this show was co-produced by Reteitalia S.P.A., hence the slight differences in character design.
Mina: When the series first aired,it was part of the one-hour series "Captain N and the Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3" on NBC's Saturday morning cartoon block. It aired as Mario 3 episode/Captain N episode/Mario 3 episode. Later, the two shows were split into 2 individual shows after NBC ended it's Saturday morning block.
Mina: Since the show was based on Super Mario Bros. 3, the enemies and power-ups were also seen in the show. In addition to being more faithful to the Mario gameplay,the series was given an established sense of continuity,something that the previous series lacked.
The show was also known for having many of its episodes set in "the real world". These episodes took place in locations such as London,Paris,Venice,New York City,Cape Canaveral,Los Angeles and even Washington, D.C.
Mina: One memorable episode entitled "7 Continents for 7 Koopas" was about the seven Koopa Kids invading each of the seven continents.
It should also be noted that Mario and Luigi had New York accents instead of Italian ones. This was prior to Charles Martinet auditioning to be the voice of Mario and creating an italian accent for the character
When NBC canceled their Saturday Morning lineup in 1992,the show was split from Captain N and aired on Family Channel as part of Captain N & the Video Game Masters (aka VGM). Super Mario World,Captain N,and time-cut versions of The Legend of Zelda were also part of this mini-block. When it aired on VGM,the episodes ran slower than the NBC versions to fill up more time.
Mina: Like the previous Mario cartoon,This show featured Cover songs. In the Non-NBC re-airings of the show,these songs were replaced with Mega Move,a song heard a lot on Captain N: The Game Master. The DVD box set also contain's Mega Move in place of the Cover songs.
Mina: Well,that was long.
Up Next,this show's sequel,Super Mario World.
The Power Team aired along with the video game reviewing show Video Power. Steven Martiniere was the director and Jack Olesker was the developer and story editor. The cartoon series was produced by Bohbot Productions. The show reran on USA Network as Acclaim Masters.
Mina: The cartoon show featured characters from Acclaim video games. They included Max Force from NARC, Kuros from The Wizards and Warriors series, Kwirk from the game of the same name, Tyrone from Arch Rivals and BigFoot from the game of the same name.
Mina: The cartoon show also featured a cartoon version of the host of Video Power, Johnny Arcade, as they fought against villains from the Acclaim lineup, mainly Mr. Big from NARC. Malkil from Wizards and Warriors and Kwirk's enemies from his own game would occasionally appear as well.
Mina: For the most part,the show seems to be a clone of Captain N: The Game Master. However,the writers and director took the opposite tactic by having the game characters come to the real world. A common device on the show was the characters trying to recover the “game paks” from Mr. Big which would send them home.
Mr. Big would actually use the Game Paks to try to blast the characters back home during their battles. While this is what the heroes wanted, had Mr. Big sent them home,He'd be free to cause havok in the real World without any opposition.
Mina: Mr.Big has Joe Rockhead and Spike working for him,2 other NARC boss characters. He also has as a counter to Big Foot,a living red monster truck named Burnt Rubber. What Kind of name is that? Couldn't they find a cooler name for this guy? I mean who the hell names their Moster Truck 'Burnt Rubber'. Seriously!
Anyway,During battles, Johnny would use a special communication device that looked like an NES Advantage controller to direct the Power Team members from his room.
Mina: Wha..!? An Arcade-style Controller as a communication device? Couldn't they give him something that actually Qualifies as a communicator,like a Walkie-Talkie or something?
No argument their Mina. Anyway,To make the show more "Kid Friendly" A few of the characters underwent heavy redesigns from their game incarnations.
Mina: Max Force looked like a SWAT officer and had a utility belt instead of machine guns. Kuros bore more of a resemblance to a barbarian than a knight in armor.
Though,The barbarian design was likely based on the Wizards and Warriors cover art. Which featured Kuros as a Fabio look-a-like dressed as Konan the barbarian. In the games themseles,Kuros was a knight.
Mina: Tyrone was given a small afro,probably so he wouldn't resemble Micheal Jordan too much. His Arch Rivals counterpart looked abit like an 8-bit version of the famous B-Ball player.
Mina: Tyrone's catchphrase would be 'awwww man!!!'. Disney would later adopt this catchphrase for Jake Long. Y'know since 'aww man!!' is also Jake Long's catchphrase.
Mina: Anyway,Kwirk's catch phrase would be 'Alright! Alright! Alright!' and probably acted the most like his videogame counterpart. Big Foot would talk with a Southern trucker accent and use trucker terms like '10-4 good buddy!' And now for the villains. Take it,Cartoon Historian.
Thank you,my assistant. As stated before,Mr. Big had 2 Henchmen. Joe Rockhead isvery powerful,but very dumb. He also Loved Chili Burgers. Henchmen #2,Spike would be the more capable thug. And since the show is aimed at 8-12 year-olds,he doesn't deal drugs like in the game. Mr. Big was also more human and used all kinds cigar related items. Yes,you heard correctly...Smoking in a Kids Show.
Mina: They would Never Ever be able to get away with that these days. *laughs*
Anyway,Mr.Big didn't turn into a giant skeleton monster like in NARC. While Mr. Big was the primary villain,on occasion other villains,who were the adversaries of the other characters would appear. Kwirk's enemy Rowdy Roddy Radish. Mr. Big is missing his mustache from the arcade version of his origin; however, he neither had it in Acclaim Entertainment's NES port of it.
Before the beginning of each episode Johnny Arcade is briefly shown playing each character's game on his NES before they come flying out of the screen. Even Kwirk, which was a Game Boy game. While Johnny was always leading the team, he was never actually seen hanging out with the characters.
Mina: Why? Who knows? Maybe they didn't want to make this show seem like a carbon copy of Captain N?
Johnny would always be in his room calling the shots. Even though Max Force does take a bit of a leader role. In one episode,Mr. Big tampered with Johnny's controls making him unable to give orders.
Mina: Outside of Mr. Big,the primary villain was Malkil,the warlock who was the main enemy of Kuros. He appeared to be far more sinister than Mr. Big and often worked alone. Although in one episode,he did team up with Mr. Big to battle the Power Team.
Mina: Malkil had also figured that the team would be lost without Johnny Arcade, so at one time he transported them to the gothic land of Sindarin, Kuros' native land. The team learned to work without Johnny's leadership and survive in the medieval realm.
Mina: While Kuros was glad to be home, he explained that he must return to the real world as the goal of the Power Team was to keep villains like Malkil and Mr. Big from ever invading and to allow each team member to return to their worlds in peace, thus explaining the rationale of the series.
Well now you know about one of the most obsure cartoon shows ever. Though,this show isn't nearly as obsure as Mutant League,a Show I'll be talking about soon. Next up,the Sequel to the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
Mina: The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 was based on the video game Super Mario Bros. 3. It aired on NBC as a part of Captain N: The Game Master,from September 8 1990 through December 1 1990.
The cartoon continues the adventures of Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool,and Toad as they battle King Koopa. This time however,King Koopa has his Koopalings,whose names differed from their original names in the video game. On the show, the Koopalings were called:
Cheatsy Koopa (Larry)- a diminutive Koopa, yet a pure schemer to his core.
Big Mouth Koopa (Morton)- had a tendency to constantly yammer on and on about any and all situations.
Kootie Pie Koopa (Wendy)- the only female, and a spoiled brat.
Hop Koopa (Iggy)- the youngest of the twins, loved getting into trouble.
Bully Koopa (Roy)- sported a constant pair of sunglasses, and was basically the bully of the group hence his name.
Hip Koopa (Lemmy)- the second twin, basically prone to mischief like Hop.
Kooky Von Koopa (Ludwig von Koopa)- Apparently the eldest of the kids, and had somewhat of a mad scientist persona, and reveled in creating inventions to bring disdain to the Mushroom Kingdom.
No official explanation was ever given to the name change. While its reason is disputed among fans,most agree that the likely explanation is that DiC did not have access to their real names during production of the show,as they were using the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 3 as reference.
In the Japanese version of Mario 3,the Koopa Kids weren't named (usually being called simply as "Koopa Kid" or "Little Koopa"). It wasn't until the game was brought over to the US for translation,that the kids got names. This was shortly before The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 went on air.
Mina: Oddly enough,though,names from the American version of the game were inserted (such as referring to King Koopa as "Bowser"),which may have been a last minute attempt to make the cartoon feel more like the US version of the game. DiC likely retained the show names to avoid confusion among viewers and to avoid the large amount of expenses of to re-animate the whole show to accommodate this.
Like the previous Mario cartoon series,the animation was done by Sei Young Animation Co. Ltd, however this show was co-produced by Reteitalia S.P.A., hence the slight differences in character design.
Mina: When the series first aired,it was part of the one-hour series "Captain N and the Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3" on NBC's Saturday morning cartoon block. It aired as Mario 3 episode/Captain N episode/Mario 3 episode. Later, the two shows were split into 2 individual shows after NBC ended it's Saturday morning block.
Mina: Since the show was based on Super Mario Bros. 3, the enemies and power-ups were also seen in the show. In addition to being more faithful to the Mario gameplay,the series was given an established sense of continuity,something that the previous series lacked.
The show was also known for having many of its episodes set in "the real world". These episodes took place in locations such as London,Paris,Venice,New York City,Cape Canaveral,Los Angeles and even Washington, D.C.
Mina: One memorable episode entitled "7 Continents for 7 Koopas" was about the seven Koopa Kids invading each of the seven continents.
It should also be noted that Mario and Luigi had New York accents instead of Italian ones. This was prior to Charles Martinet auditioning to be the voice of Mario and creating an italian accent for the character
When NBC canceled their Saturday Morning lineup in 1992,the show was split from Captain N and aired on Family Channel as part of Captain N & the Video Game Masters (aka VGM). Super Mario World,Captain N,and time-cut versions of The Legend of Zelda were also part of this mini-block. When it aired on VGM,the episodes ran slower than the NBC versions to fill up more time.
Mina: Like the previous Mario cartoon,This show featured Cover songs. In the Non-NBC re-airings of the show,these songs were replaced with Mega Move,a song heard a lot on Captain N: The Game Master. The DVD box set also contain's Mega Move in place of the Cover songs.
Mina: Well,that was long.
Up Next,this show's sequel,Super Mario World.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The Cartoon Historian Lesson 21-C: From Games to Toons Pt.3
Hey Piasanos,its The Cartoon Historian Super Show! LOL,well enough silliness for now.On with the Lesson. We are now gonna cover the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is based on the first 2 Super Mario Bros. games by Nintendo. It was originally broadcast via first-run syndication to mostly Fox television networks from September 4,1989 to December 1,1989.
Club Mario[made because of the fcc's educational value in cartoons ruling] aired re-edited verions the episodes until September 6,1991.
The Family Channel (know known as ABC Family) also aired the series. They did it from September 23,1991 to August 26,1994 as reruns. The show was produced by DiC Animation and was distributed by Viacom Enterprises.
Mina: This is when Viacom was good.
The first and last parts of each episode were sitcom segments that showed Mario (played by the late "Captain" Lou Albano) and Luigi (played by Danny Wells) living in Brooklyn, where they would often be visited by celebrity guest stars. It's interesting to note that the live-action segments were performed and filmed before a live studio audience.
Some of the celebrity guest stars were popular television stars, such as Nedra Volz, Norman Fell, Donna Douglas, Eve Plumb, Vanna White, Jim Lange, Danica McKellar, Nicole Eggert, Clare Carey and Brian Bonsall or professional athletes such as Lyle Alzado, Magic Johnson, Roddy Piper, Sgt. Slaughter, and even Ernie Hudson appeared as a Slimebuster, a parody of his Ghostbusters persona, using his own name rather than Winston Zeddemore.
On one occasion, they even received a visit from Inspector Gadget. In an interview for the first DVD release of the show, Lou Albano talked about filming these live action skits, which mainly involved he and Wells getting a central plot and mainly improvising the dialogue as they went along. Lou really liked playing as Mario and has expressed it many times.
Occasionally, Lou Albano and Danny Wells would portray themselves, forcing their regular characters to leave the scene in order for themselves to appear. One notable example is when pop star Cyndi Lauper states she's looking for Lou Albano because he's missing, due to the note she got from him (although there is an important part missing from the note).
Mario exclaims how much he wants to meet Lou, and later Lou appears as himself supposedly while Mario's out shopping for pizza. As a result, Luigi gets to meet Lou, but Mario does not.
Lou Albano and Danny Wells also regularly played female versions of themselves, Marianne and Luigeena (the Mario Brothers' cousins),and also two hillbilly cousins, named Mario Joe and Luigi Bob.
After a brief introduction of the sitcom segment of the show and a commercial break,the 13 minute cartoon would air. These cartoons were based on the NES games Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. The cartoons even had several sound effects and musical cues from the two games.
The characters featured would be Mario,Luigi,Toad and Princess Toadstool defending the Mushroom Kingdom from the reptilian villain King Koopa,often in a movie or pop-culture parody.
Getting into the spirit of these parodies, Bowser Koopa often used alter egos fitting the current theme. Wart, the main antagonist of the second game, was never in any of the episodes, yet most of his minions appeared in the show, most notably Mouser and Tri-Clyde.
The cartoon series occurs after the events of the first game when Princess Toadstool was rescued. The theme song for the cartoon segments revealed that the Mario Brothers were accidentally warped into the Mushroom Kingdom while working on a bathtub drain in Brooklyn.
After traveling via the warp drain, the Mario Brothers defeated Bowser Koopa's Koopa Troopas, saved Princess Toadstool and stopped Bowser Koopa's plan to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom. At the beginning of every cartoon segment Mario recites an entry into his "Plumber's Log," a parody of the "Captain's Log" from Star Trek.
A very loose spin-off of the show was broadcast in the Southern California TV market in late 1989/early 1990 called King Koopa's Kool Kartoons.
Mina: Lame x Infinity.
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! cartoon segment aired from Monday through Thursday. On Fridays,however,we'd get The Legend of Zelda. The series was loosely based on The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. We'll get into this series later.
Scenes from each Zelda episode were shown during the shows sitcom segments. The Zelda cartoons consisted of thirteen episodes, which ended when the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! ended its initial broadcast run.
Mina: The characters of Link and Zelda, along with their respective voice actors (Jonathan Potts and Cynthia Preston), were later featured as crossovers on episodes of Captain N: The Game Master, another animated series based on NES video games, and also produced by DiC Animation around the same period, airing on NBC as part of its Saturday morning cartoon schedule.
Mina: During reruns that played during the summer of 1990, Club Mario replaced the Mario Brothers' sitcom segments. Why? Simple,at the time,The FCC added a new ruling stating thet most cartoons must have some form of educational value. So instead of facing the FCC's wrath,DiC replaced the uneducational Super Mario sitcom segments with the semi-educational Club Mario.
Mina: Each Club Mario segment gave us some educational value,mostly about environmental awareness. Anyway,these segments also featured "extreme" Mario-obsessed teenagers (Chris Coombs, Michael Rawlins, and Victoria Delany) goofing around, and in at least one episode, running around the DiC studios and harassing Andy Heyward. Mr. Coombs and Miss Delany played siblings Tommy and Tammy Treehugger, respectively.
Mina: Michael Rawlins plays Cool MC and his evil twin brother Eric, who time and again attempts to take over the show, usually uttering the phrase "dis'a MAH show!". An additional added segment was a one-to-two-minute viewing of Space Scout Theater/Spaced Out Theater, hosted by Princess Centauri, a green alien woman. Space Scout/Space Out Theater was made up of source footage from a science fiction childrens show called,Photon.
Mina: All and all these segments were a bad idea.
In 1994, The Family Channel aired the show in a package named Super Mario All-Stars, consisting of time compressed versions of the SMBSS cartoon segments & the Super Mario World cartoons.
It ran for 39 episodes in double episode format. Strangely enough, although clips from Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 were used in promos for the show, it was never aired. All-Stars was later played on USA Network from January-June 1997, where it was replaced by Sonic the Hedgehog reruns.
The cartoon segments contained a song of the day. These songs were edited versions of famous 80's songs. When the program was either re-aired or re-released on VHS or DVD,the songs weren't included.
Mina: Well that was informative. Next up,The Legend of Zelda Cartoon.
The Legend of Zelda was based loosely on the first and second The Legend of Zelda games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It aired from September 8 to December 1,1989. The show was produced by DIC Entertainment and distributed by Viacom Enterprises.
Each episode of Zelda followed the adventures of the hero Link and Princess Zelda as they defended the kingdom of Hyrule from an evil wizard named Ganon. Most episodes consisted of Ganon (or his minions) either attempting to capture the Triforce of Wisdom,kidnap Zelda,or use another method to conquer Hyrule. Sometimes,Link and Zelda are assisted and accompanied by a fairy-princess called Spryte.
Mina: A common running joke of the series was Link's repeated failure to convince Zelda that he deserved a kiss for his heroic deeds. Whenever it seemed they were going to kiss,something bad would happen.
Zelda also had more of a protagonist role in the show than in the games. In most of the games,Zelda was a Damsel in Destress. While Link saves Zelda in a few episodes, she mostly battles along side Link,often using a bow and arrow.
Mina: Link usually met Zelda's obstinate rejection with his sarcastic catchphrase, "Well! Excuuuuuse me, Princess!". The series was to be continued for a 2nd season,but was canceled due to low ratings.
While direct referencing of the game is loose, the series featured some recognizable monsters,items and locations from the game. The seemingly impossible numbers of items that Link and Zelda are able to carry is not directly explained in the series but instead in the episodes the items they carry are magically shrunk when the items are placed in pouches or pockets.
The TV series is based heavily on The Legend of Zelda, but a few references are made to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (for example, Ganon is often seen riding a Lowder, an insect-like beetle seen in Zelda II, but not The Legend of Zelda).
The series used sound effects and renditions of background tunes from the games, as well as some enemy monsters including Moblins, Octoroks, Gohma, Aquamentus, Gleeok, Keese and Ropes. Rupees appear, but are called Rubies.
Rather than arrows,the bows in the cartoon shoot beam-like projectiles, as does Link's sword (this happens in a few Zelda games when Link's hearts are full). Link's beams can destroy most monsters, but not people, as shown in the episode Sing for the Unicorn.
Mina: Now its time to tell you the reason why link acts like he does. Apparently,in the games Link lacks his own personality and that his personality was supposed to be that of the players. Well in the US,a majority of NES players were teenage boys. So Link was given the personality of an American Teenage Boy.
Alright. The next Cartoon to cover Would be Captain N. However,I've already covered that show. So I'm just gonna post a link to it: Part 1 and Part 2
Mina: Captain N will be re-aired on Nicktoons later next year. So If you missed it the first time around,you'll get another chance next year.
That's awesome news. Anyway,we ain't done yet. In fact,the fun has just begun.
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is based on the first 2 Super Mario Bros. games by Nintendo. It was originally broadcast via first-run syndication to mostly Fox television networks from September 4,1989 to December 1,1989.
Club Mario[made because of the fcc's educational value in cartoons ruling] aired re-edited verions the episodes until September 6,1991.
The Family Channel (know known as ABC Family) also aired the series. They did it from September 23,1991 to August 26,1994 as reruns. The show was produced by DiC Animation and was distributed by Viacom Enterprises.
Mina: This is when Viacom was good.
The first and last parts of each episode were sitcom segments that showed Mario (played by the late "Captain" Lou Albano) and Luigi (played by Danny Wells) living in Brooklyn, where they would often be visited by celebrity guest stars. It's interesting to note that the live-action segments were performed and filmed before a live studio audience.
Some of the celebrity guest stars were popular television stars, such as Nedra Volz, Norman Fell, Donna Douglas, Eve Plumb, Vanna White, Jim Lange, Danica McKellar, Nicole Eggert, Clare Carey and Brian Bonsall or professional athletes such as Lyle Alzado, Magic Johnson, Roddy Piper, Sgt. Slaughter, and even Ernie Hudson appeared as a Slimebuster, a parody of his Ghostbusters persona, using his own name rather than Winston Zeddemore.
On one occasion, they even received a visit from Inspector Gadget. In an interview for the first DVD release of the show, Lou Albano talked about filming these live action skits, which mainly involved he and Wells getting a central plot and mainly improvising the dialogue as they went along. Lou really liked playing as Mario and has expressed it many times.
Occasionally, Lou Albano and Danny Wells would portray themselves, forcing their regular characters to leave the scene in order for themselves to appear. One notable example is when pop star Cyndi Lauper states she's looking for Lou Albano because he's missing, due to the note she got from him (although there is an important part missing from the note).
Mario exclaims how much he wants to meet Lou, and later Lou appears as himself supposedly while Mario's out shopping for pizza. As a result, Luigi gets to meet Lou, but Mario does not.
Lou Albano and Danny Wells also regularly played female versions of themselves, Marianne and Luigeena (the Mario Brothers' cousins),and also two hillbilly cousins, named Mario Joe and Luigi Bob.
After a brief introduction of the sitcom segment of the show and a commercial break,the 13 minute cartoon would air. These cartoons were based on the NES games Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. The cartoons even had several sound effects and musical cues from the two games.
The characters featured would be Mario,Luigi,Toad and Princess Toadstool defending the Mushroom Kingdom from the reptilian villain King Koopa,often in a movie or pop-culture parody.
Getting into the spirit of these parodies, Bowser Koopa often used alter egos fitting the current theme. Wart, the main antagonist of the second game, was never in any of the episodes, yet most of his minions appeared in the show, most notably Mouser and Tri-Clyde.
The cartoon series occurs after the events of the first game when Princess Toadstool was rescued. The theme song for the cartoon segments revealed that the Mario Brothers were accidentally warped into the Mushroom Kingdom while working on a bathtub drain in Brooklyn.
After traveling via the warp drain, the Mario Brothers defeated Bowser Koopa's Koopa Troopas, saved Princess Toadstool and stopped Bowser Koopa's plan to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom. At the beginning of every cartoon segment Mario recites an entry into his "Plumber's Log," a parody of the "Captain's Log" from Star Trek.
A very loose spin-off of the show was broadcast in the Southern California TV market in late 1989/early 1990 called King Koopa's Kool Kartoons.
Mina: Lame x Infinity.
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! cartoon segment aired from Monday through Thursday. On Fridays,however,we'd get The Legend of Zelda. The series was loosely based on The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. We'll get into this series later.
Scenes from each Zelda episode were shown during the shows sitcom segments. The Zelda cartoons consisted of thirteen episodes, which ended when the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! ended its initial broadcast run.
Mina: The characters of Link and Zelda, along with their respective voice actors (Jonathan Potts and Cynthia Preston), were later featured as crossovers on episodes of Captain N: The Game Master, another animated series based on NES video games, and also produced by DiC Animation around the same period, airing on NBC as part of its Saturday morning cartoon schedule.
Mina: During reruns that played during the summer of 1990, Club Mario replaced the Mario Brothers' sitcom segments. Why? Simple,at the time,The FCC added a new ruling stating thet most cartoons must have some form of educational value. So instead of facing the FCC's wrath,DiC replaced the uneducational Super Mario sitcom segments with the semi-educational Club Mario.
Mina: Each Club Mario segment gave us some educational value,mostly about environmental awareness. Anyway,these segments also featured "extreme" Mario-obsessed teenagers (Chris Coombs, Michael Rawlins, and Victoria Delany) goofing around, and in at least one episode, running around the DiC studios and harassing Andy Heyward. Mr. Coombs and Miss Delany played siblings Tommy and Tammy Treehugger, respectively.
Mina: Michael Rawlins plays Cool MC and his evil twin brother Eric, who time and again attempts to take over the show, usually uttering the phrase "dis'a MAH show!". An additional added segment was a one-to-two-minute viewing of Space Scout Theater/Spaced Out Theater, hosted by Princess Centauri, a green alien woman. Space Scout/Space Out Theater was made up of source footage from a science fiction childrens show called,Photon.
Mina: All and all these segments were a bad idea.
In 1994, The Family Channel aired the show in a package named Super Mario All-Stars, consisting of time compressed versions of the SMBSS cartoon segments & the Super Mario World cartoons.
It ran for 39 episodes in double episode format. Strangely enough, although clips from Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 were used in promos for the show, it was never aired. All-Stars was later played on USA Network from January-June 1997, where it was replaced by Sonic the Hedgehog reruns.
The cartoon segments contained a song of the day. These songs were edited versions of famous 80's songs. When the program was either re-aired or re-released on VHS or DVD,the songs weren't included.
Mina: Well that was informative. Next up,The Legend of Zelda Cartoon.
The Legend of Zelda was based loosely on the first and second The Legend of Zelda games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It aired from September 8 to December 1,1989. The show was produced by DIC Entertainment and distributed by Viacom Enterprises.
Each episode of Zelda followed the adventures of the hero Link and Princess Zelda as they defended the kingdom of Hyrule from an evil wizard named Ganon. Most episodes consisted of Ganon (or his minions) either attempting to capture the Triforce of Wisdom,kidnap Zelda,or use another method to conquer Hyrule. Sometimes,Link and Zelda are assisted and accompanied by a fairy-princess called Spryte.
Mina: A common running joke of the series was Link's repeated failure to convince Zelda that he deserved a kiss for his heroic deeds. Whenever it seemed they were going to kiss,something bad would happen.
Zelda also had more of a protagonist role in the show than in the games. In most of the games,Zelda was a Damsel in Destress. While Link saves Zelda in a few episodes, she mostly battles along side Link,often using a bow and arrow.
Mina: Link usually met Zelda's obstinate rejection with his sarcastic catchphrase, "Well! Excuuuuuse me, Princess!". The series was to be continued for a 2nd season,but was canceled due to low ratings.
While direct referencing of the game is loose, the series featured some recognizable monsters,items and locations from the game. The seemingly impossible numbers of items that Link and Zelda are able to carry is not directly explained in the series but instead in the episodes the items they carry are magically shrunk when the items are placed in pouches or pockets.
The TV series is based heavily on The Legend of Zelda, but a few references are made to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (for example, Ganon is often seen riding a Lowder, an insect-like beetle seen in Zelda II, but not The Legend of Zelda).
The series used sound effects and renditions of background tunes from the games, as well as some enemy monsters including Moblins, Octoroks, Gohma, Aquamentus, Gleeok, Keese and Ropes. Rupees appear, but are called Rubies.
Rather than arrows,the bows in the cartoon shoot beam-like projectiles, as does Link's sword (this happens in a few Zelda games when Link's hearts are full). Link's beams can destroy most monsters, but not people, as shown in the episode Sing for the Unicorn.
Mina: Now its time to tell you the reason why link acts like he does. Apparently,in the games Link lacks his own personality and that his personality was supposed to be that of the players. Well in the US,a majority of NES players were teenage boys. So Link was given the personality of an American Teenage Boy.
Alright. The next Cartoon to cover Would be Captain N. However,I've already covered that show. So I'm just gonna post a link to it: Part 1 and Part 2
Mina: Captain N will be re-aired on Nicktoons later next year. So If you missed it the first time around,you'll get another chance next year.
That's awesome news. Anyway,we ain't done yet. In fact,the fun has just begun.
The Cartoon Historian Lesson 21-B: From Games to Toons Pt.2
Mina: We are now gonna cover the Cartoon that capitalized on Pac-Man Fever. It's Pac-Man:the Animated Series.
Pac-Man,aka Pac-Man: The Animated Series,was produced by Hanna-Barbera based on the video game,Pac-Man by Namco,which premiered on ABC and ran from 1982 to 1984. During the first airing of the show, the large number of advertisers sponsoring it caused commercial breaks to double their normal length.
Later episodes featured normal commercial break times. The arcade game Pac-Land was based entirely on the cartoon, and Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures drew significant influence from it as well.
Also, the Tengen release of the original Pac-Man arcade game for the Nintendo Entertainment System features box art based on the cartoon. This series along with The Smurfs and other Hanna-Barbera adaptations of properties were completely different from the studio's trademark signature cartoons.
The show's initial success inspired ABC's rival CBS to create Saturday Supercade, which featured other video game characters from the Golden age of video arcade games. This marked a first in H-B's twenty-five year history that the studio produced an animated series based on a video game.
The show follows the adventures of the title character, Pac-Man, his wife Pepper (who is supposed to be Ms. Pac-Man), their child Pac-Baby, their dog Chomp-Chomp and their cat Sour Puss. The family lives in Pac-Land, a place in which the geography and architecture seem to revolve around spheres and sphere-like shapes.
Most episodes of the show center around the ongoing battle between the Pac family and their only known enemies,the Ghost Monsters: Blinky,Pinky,Inky,Clyde,and Sue (a fifth, female ghost).
They work for Mezmaron,(a mysterious figure who resembles Darth Vader and acts similarly to Gargamel),whose sole mission is to locate and control the "Power Pellets", which serve as the primary food and power source for the city.It's also the deus ex machina in virtually every episode.
For whatever reason, nearly everything in Pac-Land takes the shape of a sphere (or is round, at the very least). Everything from natural backgrounds to houses to cars to animals and even the people assume the form of a ball.
Another recurring theme is the common use of "Pac-" as a prefix for verbs and famous or common existing nouns. For example: Pac-Hollywood,a town famous for its film studios.
This is reminiscent of The Smurfs,an animated show which replaced or altered several existing words with "Smurf". In fact,the series was referred to as "Pac-Smurfs" around the Hanna-Barbera studio. Pac-man himself is often referred to the nickname "Packy" by Pepper.
In a typical episode, the ghost-monsters are eaten in the beginning, and their eyes fly back to Mezmaron's lava-lair closet to get new ghost suits and plot something evil. Power Pellets seem to be the focal point of nearly every episode, as Mezmaron and the Ghost-Monsters are intent upon finding them.
In actuality Power Pellets are plentiful and easy to find around Pac-Land. Mezmaron and the Ghost-Monsters' ultimate goal is to control all the power pellets by taking over the Power Pellet Forest where power pellets are grown on trees.
Although their primary purpose appears to be enabling the Pac-people to "chomp" Ghost-Monsters,Power Pellets also seem to be part of their diet (in addition to the city's source of power). Pac-Baby is fed power pellet milk for example.
It's interesting to note that when Pac-Man eats a power pellet,instead of turning blue (like in the games),the "Ghost-Monsters" (known simply as "Monsters" in the game) turn "purple with panic" after which they make an obvious note of their situation.
Mina: My Turn. Other changes from the video games include: Super Pac-Man being a separate character who lives in a parallel dimension,Clyde being the 'head' ghost-monster,instead of Blinky,The names of the orange and red ghosts (Blinky and Clyde) are swapped,and Ms. Pac-Man being called "Pepper".
Mina: Also When the ghosts catch up to Pac-Man in the early episodes, they trap him and "chomp his bones", leaving him a disheveled version of himself. It was a very shocking visual for the predominantly young audience, and in future episodes, Pac-Man just appeared beat up or in a weakened state rather than internally gobbled.
Mina: Sue (the only female ghost-monster) is now just a separate character and the fifth ghost monster. In Ms. Pac-Man, Sue replaced Clyde in an attempt to give Ms. Pac-Man a rival of her own. When she was around, Pepper was usually the one who chomped the Sue. Even though in the cartoon Sue is purple, in the arcade game she is orange, the same color Clyde is in the Pac-Man game. However in Pac-Mania, Sue appeared in her original purple color as a fifth ghost, joining the original four, and three additional ghosts.
Mina: The ghosts all wear hats or,in Sue's case,earrings. This was done so that the animators/painters could tell the ghosts apart. Pinky and Inky had abilities the other ghost monsters did not. Pinky was able to alter his shape. For instance he changed into an inflatable rubber raft to travel on a body of water. Inky was able to produce many supplies and items from his clothing. Inky is even able to retrieve items larger than himself.
Mina: An example of this is when he took a very long ladder out of his clothing to climb a wall to escape from Pac-Man. This ability is similar to Hammerspace. Each of the ghosts have a distinct personality. Aside from Clyde and Sue's mentioned personalities, Inky is the stupid one, Blinky is the cowardly one and Pinky is the tough one.
Mina: The ghost monsters have a child cousin named "Dinky". Dinky and Pac-Baby would get along, not like the adults. Dinky appeared in two episodes.
In the second season, besides Super-Pac, Pac-Man's teenage cousin, P.J.,appears semi-regularly on the show. The two characters never appeared together in any of the episodes.
Mina: This show had both a X-Mas Special and a Halloween One.
Cartoony and Corny as this show was,It contributed to Pac-Man Fever. Anyway,our next show is Another Namco Video Game,Pole Position.
Mina: Pole Position was produced by DIC Entertainment. The show sought to capitalize on the popularity of the video game. However, there is very little in common between the game and the show. Pole Position ran for 13 episodes on CBS in 1984 as part of their Saturday morning line-up.
The show featured three young sibling crime fighters, two of whom were stunt drivers and part of a secret government operation under the guise of the "Pole Position Stunt Show" that was run by their uncle.
The youths inherited the role after their parents died in an unfortunate car accident. The team is equipped with two high-tech talking vehicles(similar to Night Rider's KIT) named "Roadie" and "Wheels."
Mina: 2 Stereotypical Car names.
The vehicles featured numerous hidden gadgets like water skis and hover jets. The vehicles' computers themselves are portable and can be removed from the dashboards and carried around using handles (thus they are often referred to as "the modules"). They have often appeared as computer-drawn faces displayed on video screens.
Mina: Y'know,in a way,This Cartoon is kind of a rip-off of both Speed Racer and Night Rider.
Dragon's Lair was a short-lived series by Ruby-Spears Productions based on the 1983 video game of the same name. Thirteen half-hour episodes were produced from 1984-1985,airing on ABC's Saturday Morning Block.
The Saturday Morning block ceased the shows run when it was cancelled in 1985. Between the late '80s and the early '90s, the show's first and only rerun was on the USA Cartoon Express.
The series chronicles the adventures of Dirk the Daring, who is best knight in King Ethelred's kingdom. Dirk performs all sorts of great deeds while protecting the kingdom and his love, Princess Daphne.
The show was great and boasted an unusual feature: to keep the show in the spirit of the game, before each commercial break the storyteller would ask what the viewer would do to solve the problem facing Dirk the Daring.
After the commercial break, the outcomes of the various choices were shown before Dirk acts on the correct idea (with the occasional exception) to save the day.
Mina: Not much info from Pole Position or Dragon's Lair,huh? Let's just hope and pray that the next batch of shows are a bit more informative.
For the most part they will be. Next up. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
Pac-Man,aka Pac-Man: The Animated Series,was produced by Hanna-Barbera based on the video game,Pac-Man by Namco,which premiered on ABC and ran from 1982 to 1984. During the first airing of the show, the large number of advertisers sponsoring it caused commercial breaks to double their normal length.
Later episodes featured normal commercial break times. The arcade game Pac-Land was based entirely on the cartoon, and Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures drew significant influence from it as well.
Also, the Tengen release of the original Pac-Man arcade game for the Nintendo Entertainment System features box art based on the cartoon. This series along with The Smurfs and other Hanna-Barbera adaptations of properties were completely different from the studio's trademark signature cartoons.
The show's initial success inspired ABC's rival CBS to create Saturday Supercade, which featured other video game characters from the Golden age of video arcade games. This marked a first in H-B's twenty-five year history that the studio produced an animated series based on a video game.
The show follows the adventures of the title character, Pac-Man, his wife Pepper (who is supposed to be Ms. Pac-Man), their child Pac-Baby, their dog Chomp-Chomp and their cat Sour Puss. The family lives in Pac-Land, a place in which the geography and architecture seem to revolve around spheres and sphere-like shapes.
Most episodes of the show center around the ongoing battle between the Pac family and their only known enemies,the Ghost Monsters: Blinky,Pinky,Inky,Clyde,and Sue (a fifth, female ghost).
They work for Mezmaron,(a mysterious figure who resembles Darth Vader and acts similarly to Gargamel),whose sole mission is to locate and control the "Power Pellets", which serve as the primary food and power source for the city.It's also the deus ex machina in virtually every episode.
For whatever reason, nearly everything in Pac-Land takes the shape of a sphere (or is round, at the very least). Everything from natural backgrounds to houses to cars to animals and even the people assume the form of a ball.
Another recurring theme is the common use of "Pac-" as a prefix for verbs and famous or common existing nouns. For example: Pac-Hollywood,a town famous for its film studios.
This is reminiscent of The Smurfs,an animated show which replaced or altered several existing words with "Smurf". In fact,the series was referred to as "Pac-Smurfs" around the Hanna-Barbera studio. Pac-man himself is often referred to the nickname "Packy" by Pepper.
In a typical episode, the ghost-monsters are eaten in the beginning, and their eyes fly back to Mezmaron's lava-lair closet to get new ghost suits and plot something evil. Power Pellets seem to be the focal point of nearly every episode, as Mezmaron and the Ghost-Monsters are intent upon finding them.
In actuality Power Pellets are plentiful and easy to find around Pac-Land. Mezmaron and the Ghost-Monsters' ultimate goal is to control all the power pellets by taking over the Power Pellet Forest where power pellets are grown on trees.
Although their primary purpose appears to be enabling the Pac-people to "chomp" Ghost-Monsters,Power Pellets also seem to be part of their diet (in addition to the city's source of power). Pac-Baby is fed power pellet milk for example.
It's interesting to note that when Pac-Man eats a power pellet,instead of turning blue (like in the games),the "Ghost-Monsters" (known simply as "Monsters" in the game) turn "purple with panic" after which they make an obvious note of their situation.
Mina: My Turn. Other changes from the video games include: Super Pac-Man being a separate character who lives in a parallel dimension,Clyde being the 'head' ghost-monster,instead of Blinky,The names of the orange and red ghosts (Blinky and Clyde) are swapped,and Ms. Pac-Man being called "Pepper".
Mina: Also When the ghosts catch up to Pac-Man in the early episodes, they trap him and "chomp his bones", leaving him a disheveled version of himself. It was a very shocking visual for the predominantly young audience, and in future episodes, Pac-Man just appeared beat up or in a weakened state rather than internally gobbled.
Mina: Sue (the only female ghost-monster) is now just a separate character and the fifth ghost monster. In Ms. Pac-Man, Sue replaced Clyde in an attempt to give Ms. Pac-Man a rival of her own. When she was around, Pepper was usually the one who chomped the Sue. Even though in the cartoon Sue is purple, in the arcade game she is orange, the same color Clyde is in the Pac-Man game. However in Pac-Mania, Sue appeared in her original purple color as a fifth ghost, joining the original four, and three additional ghosts.
Mina: The ghosts all wear hats or,in Sue's case,earrings. This was done so that the animators/painters could tell the ghosts apart. Pinky and Inky had abilities the other ghost monsters did not. Pinky was able to alter his shape. For instance he changed into an inflatable rubber raft to travel on a body of water. Inky was able to produce many supplies and items from his clothing. Inky is even able to retrieve items larger than himself.
Mina: An example of this is when he took a very long ladder out of his clothing to climb a wall to escape from Pac-Man. This ability is similar to Hammerspace. Each of the ghosts have a distinct personality. Aside from Clyde and Sue's mentioned personalities, Inky is the stupid one, Blinky is the cowardly one and Pinky is the tough one.
Mina: The ghost monsters have a child cousin named "Dinky". Dinky and Pac-Baby would get along, not like the adults. Dinky appeared in two episodes.
In the second season, besides Super-Pac, Pac-Man's teenage cousin, P.J.,appears semi-regularly on the show. The two characters never appeared together in any of the episodes.
Mina: This show had both a X-Mas Special and a Halloween One.
Cartoony and Corny as this show was,It contributed to Pac-Man Fever. Anyway,our next show is Another Namco Video Game,Pole Position.
Mina: Pole Position was produced by DIC Entertainment. The show sought to capitalize on the popularity of the video game. However, there is very little in common between the game and the show. Pole Position ran for 13 episodes on CBS in 1984 as part of their Saturday morning line-up.
The show featured three young sibling crime fighters, two of whom were stunt drivers and part of a secret government operation under the guise of the "Pole Position Stunt Show" that was run by their uncle.
The youths inherited the role after their parents died in an unfortunate car accident. The team is equipped with two high-tech talking vehicles(similar to Night Rider's KIT) named "Roadie" and "Wheels."
Mina: 2 Stereotypical Car names.
The vehicles featured numerous hidden gadgets like water skis and hover jets. The vehicles' computers themselves are portable and can be removed from the dashboards and carried around using handles (thus they are often referred to as "the modules"). They have often appeared as computer-drawn faces displayed on video screens.
Mina: Y'know,in a way,This Cartoon is kind of a rip-off of both Speed Racer and Night Rider.
Dragon's Lair was a short-lived series by Ruby-Spears Productions based on the 1983 video game of the same name. Thirteen half-hour episodes were produced from 1984-1985,airing on ABC's Saturday Morning Block.
The Saturday Morning block ceased the shows run when it was cancelled in 1985. Between the late '80s and the early '90s, the show's first and only rerun was on the USA Cartoon Express.
The series chronicles the adventures of Dirk the Daring, who is best knight in King Ethelred's kingdom. Dirk performs all sorts of great deeds while protecting the kingdom and his love, Princess Daphne.
The show was great and boasted an unusual feature: to keep the show in the spirit of the game, before each commercial break the storyteller would ask what the viewer would do to solve the problem facing Dirk the Daring.
After the commercial break, the outcomes of the various choices were shown before Dirk acts on the correct idea (with the occasional exception) to save the day.
Mina: Not much info from Pole Position or Dragon's Lair,huh? Let's just hope and pray that the next batch of shows are a bit more informative.
For the most part they will be. Next up. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
The Cartoon Historian Lesson 21-A: From Games to Toons Pt.1
Welcome to another Cartoon Historian. I'm your instructor,Stefan and this is my assistant,Mina. Because you voted for it,This episode is gonna be all about Video Game-based Cartoons
Mina: In this special multi-part episode we're gonna be talking about the many different cartoons that were based on Video Games. It's From Games to Toons on The Cartoon Historian.
[Cartoon Historian Theme Plays]
Thanks again for joining us,everyone. Today we'll be covering the various Video Games that got their own Cartoon adaptions.
Mina: And since we're gonna be covering these in Chronological order,we're gonna start with Saturday Supercade.
Saturday Supercade was a series produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions.
Mina: Yup,you read right. It seems that Mega Man wasn't the Only Game-based Cartoon that Ruby-Spears created.
Can I continue?
Mina: Hey,I was just pionting out a fact.
Anyway,The series ran for two seasons on CBS beginning in 1983. Each episode was composed of several shorter segments featuring video game characters from the Golden age of video arcade games.
Saturday Supercade is presumably under the ownership of Warner Bros. Entertainment (through Turner Entertainment Co., who acquired the Ruby-Spears library in 1991).
However, in the 1980s, MCA TV,a company owned by Universal,held the international distribution rights to the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior segments. This was part of the settlement with Nintendo over the King Kong plagiarism issue. It's unknown if those rights have reverted to WB/Turner or are now owned by MCA's successor, NBC Universal.
A Minisode version of the Q*bert episode "Thanksgiving for the Memories" has appeared on the Minisode Network, suggesting that the Q*bert segments might be owned by Sony Pictures Television.
Presumably due to this divided ownership and/or licensing issues with the various companies that licensed their games for the show, Saturday Supercade has never been officially released on VHS, DVD,or Blu-Ray.
Mina: The shows featured characters include: Frogger (from Frogger),Donkey Kong (from Donkey Kong),Donkey Kong Jr. (from Donkey Kong Jr. aka Donkey Kong 2),Q*bert(from Q*Bert),and Pitfall Harry (from Pitfall).
Mina: Each character got their own segments. While the other three segments always aired weekly,Pitfall and Q-Bert rotated.
Mina: During the second season, Q-Bert (now weekly) and Donkey Kong remained while the Frogger, Donkey Kong Jr. and Pitfall Harry segments were replaced by Space Ace and Kangaroo,a non-video game show.
On an interesting note,Pac-Man was not a part of Saturday Supercade. Hanna-Barbera already had a separate cartoon devoted to Pac-Man entitled Pac-Man: The Animated Series on CBS's rival network,ABC.
Now,lets look at the various segments that were part of this show. Let's start with Frogger.
Frogger is an ace reporter of the swamp who works at the Swamp Gazette. He and his friends Shellshock Turtle and Fanny Frog go out in search of crazy stories (sometimes about human behavior) to publish in the swamp's newspapers. Frogger also has to deal with his gruff J.Jonah Jameson-esque boss Tex Toadwalker. As in the game, he often gets flattened or has an encounter with an alligator.
Mina: Lame!
Well what do you expect,you can't make a cool Cartoon out of Frogger's Story. especially since the game Had no story to begin with.
Mina: Good point.
Moving on to Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong has escaped from the circus and is on the run. Mario and Pauline chase the ape,in hopes of bringing him back to the Circus. As with the original game,Donkey Kong will often grab Pauline and Mario has to save her.
It must be noted that Pauline's portrayal as Mario's niece is an original Ruby-Spears concept (don't ask me why they did this).In the games,however,Pauline is Mario's girlfriend.
Mina: The Story is also different from the games. In the games Donkey Kong was Mario's Pet Gorrilla that felt neglected by his owner. So DK busts out of his cage and captures Pauline. It's also worth noting that Mario was voiced my the Legendary,Peter Cullen. Yup,Optimus Prime Voiced Mario..Cool huh? Anyway,Q*Bert is next.
In a 1950s inspired world set in the town of Q*Berg,a teenage fur-covered creature named Q*Bert,his girlfriend Q*Tee,and his friends Q*Ball,Q*Val,and Q*Mongus must deal with the resident bullies Coily, Ugg, Wrong Way (all three voiced by Frank Welker,btw),and Viper.
This segment features both "block-hopping" scenes, "swearing" bubbles and occasional flying disc,all from the original game. New to the cartoon was Q*Bert's use of "slippy-doos", a black ball projectile which he loaded and fired through his nose, producing an oil slick wherever the balls splattered. Slick and Sam are also featured.
Mina: Again,the story is lame because the Q*Bert game Had no story to begin with. Same goes for the rest of the segments. Next up,Donkey Kong Jr.
Donkey Kong Jr. (voiced by Frank Welker,another legendary VA) is sad to find that his father is running from the circus and Mario,and that he may never see him again.
Jr. befriends a greaser nicknamed "Bones" who has a motorcycle and offers to help Junior by finding his dad together. Donkey Kong Jr's usual saying is "Monkey muscle!",which he tells to himself and Bones to inspire self-confidence. Bones often serves as the voice of reason when Donkey Kong Jr. bites off more than he can chew.
Mina: In Pitfall! Pitfall Harry,his niece Rhonda,and their cowardly pet Quick Claw the Mountain Lion explore jungles for hidden treasures,having many different adventures along the way.
Mina: And Finally we have Space Ace. Space Ace/Dexter and his sister Kimberly work for Space Marshall Vaugh to keep the peace in the universe. They fight the evil alien commander Borf and keep him from invading Earth.
Mina: Again, as with Donkey Kong, Ruby Spears took artistic license with the relationship with Kimberly and Dexter. In the Don Bluth film and in the game,Kimberly is Ace's girlfriend.
Mina: Also, in the video game, Dexter had certain chances to revert to Ace, his full-grown self, whereas in the cartoon the Ace/Dexter phases seemed to happen on their own and at often inconvenient times for the hero.
Ruby-Spears planned a 3rd season for the Saturday Supercade. However,the CBS executives decided to can the series,so that they could make room for their newer Saturday Morning shows. Because of this,the 3rd season of Saturday Supercade never made it past the planning stages.
Had the Saturday Supercade continued,we would've seen 3 new cartoon segments: Space Invaders,Mario Bros.and Centipede [i think it was supposed to be centepede..it could've been Joust,though? or maybe it was adventure?].
Anyway,that's it for Saturday Supercade. Next up,the Cartoon that capitalized on Pac-Man fever. It's Pac-Man:the Animated Series.
Mina: In this special multi-part episode we're gonna be talking about the many different cartoons that were based on Video Games. It's From Games to Toons on The Cartoon Historian.
[Cartoon Historian Theme Plays]
Thanks again for joining us,everyone. Today we'll be covering the various Video Games that got their own Cartoon adaptions.
Mina: And since we're gonna be covering these in Chronological order,we're gonna start with Saturday Supercade.
Saturday Supercade was a series produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions.
Mina: Yup,you read right. It seems that Mega Man wasn't the Only Game-based Cartoon that Ruby-Spears created.
Can I continue?
Mina: Hey,I was just pionting out a fact.
Anyway,The series ran for two seasons on CBS beginning in 1983. Each episode was composed of several shorter segments featuring video game characters from the Golden age of video arcade games.
Saturday Supercade is presumably under the ownership of Warner Bros. Entertainment (through Turner Entertainment Co., who acquired the Ruby-Spears library in 1991).
However, in the 1980s, MCA TV,a company owned by Universal,held the international distribution rights to the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior segments. This was part of the settlement with Nintendo over the King Kong plagiarism issue. It's unknown if those rights have reverted to WB/Turner or are now owned by MCA's successor, NBC Universal.
A Minisode version of the Q*bert episode "Thanksgiving for the Memories" has appeared on the Minisode Network, suggesting that the Q*bert segments might be owned by Sony Pictures Television.
Presumably due to this divided ownership and/or licensing issues with the various companies that licensed their games for the show, Saturday Supercade has never been officially released on VHS, DVD,or Blu-Ray.
Mina: The shows featured characters include: Frogger (from Frogger),Donkey Kong (from Donkey Kong),Donkey Kong Jr. (from Donkey Kong Jr. aka Donkey Kong 2),Q*bert(from Q*Bert),and Pitfall Harry (from Pitfall).
Mina: Each character got their own segments. While the other three segments always aired weekly,Pitfall and Q-Bert rotated.
Mina: During the second season, Q-Bert (now weekly) and Donkey Kong remained while the Frogger, Donkey Kong Jr. and Pitfall Harry segments were replaced by Space Ace and Kangaroo,a non-video game show.
On an interesting note,Pac-Man was not a part of Saturday Supercade. Hanna-Barbera already had a separate cartoon devoted to Pac-Man entitled Pac-Man: The Animated Series on CBS's rival network,ABC.
Now,lets look at the various segments that were part of this show. Let's start with Frogger.
Frogger is an ace reporter of the swamp who works at the Swamp Gazette. He and his friends Shellshock Turtle and Fanny Frog go out in search of crazy stories (sometimes about human behavior) to publish in the swamp's newspapers. Frogger also has to deal with his gruff J.Jonah Jameson-esque boss Tex Toadwalker. As in the game, he often gets flattened or has an encounter with an alligator.
Mina: Lame!
Well what do you expect,you can't make a cool Cartoon out of Frogger's Story. especially since the game Had no story to begin with.
Mina: Good point.
Moving on to Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong has escaped from the circus and is on the run. Mario and Pauline chase the ape,in hopes of bringing him back to the Circus. As with the original game,Donkey Kong will often grab Pauline and Mario has to save her.
It must be noted that Pauline's portrayal as Mario's niece is an original Ruby-Spears concept (don't ask me why they did this).In the games,however,Pauline is Mario's girlfriend.
Mina: The Story is also different from the games. In the games Donkey Kong was Mario's Pet Gorrilla that felt neglected by his owner. So DK busts out of his cage and captures Pauline. It's also worth noting that Mario was voiced my the Legendary,Peter Cullen. Yup,Optimus Prime Voiced Mario..Cool huh? Anyway,Q*Bert is next.
In a 1950s inspired world set in the town of Q*Berg,a teenage fur-covered creature named Q*Bert,his girlfriend Q*Tee,and his friends Q*Ball,Q*Val,and Q*Mongus must deal with the resident bullies Coily, Ugg, Wrong Way (all three voiced by Frank Welker,btw),and Viper.
This segment features both "block-hopping" scenes, "swearing" bubbles and occasional flying disc,all from the original game. New to the cartoon was Q*Bert's use of "slippy-doos", a black ball projectile which he loaded and fired through his nose, producing an oil slick wherever the balls splattered. Slick and Sam are also featured.
Mina: Again,the story is lame because the Q*Bert game Had no story to begin with. Same goes for the rest of the segments. Next up,Donkey Kong Jr.
Donkey Kong Jr. (voiced by Frank Welker,another legendary VA) is sad to find that his father is running from the circus and Mario,and that he may never see him again.
Jr. befriends a greaser nicknamed "Bones" who has a motorcycle and offers to help Junior by finding his dad together. Donkey Kong Jr's usual saying is "Monkey muscle!",which he tells to himself and Bones to inspire self-confidence. Bones often serves as the voice of reason when Donkey Kong Jr. bites off more than he can chew.
Mina: In Pitfall! Pitfall Harry,his niece Rhonda,and their cowardly pet Quick Claw the Mountain Lion explore jungles for hidden treasures,having many different adventures along the way.
Mina: And Finally we have Space Ace. Space Ace/Dexter and his sister Kimberly work for Space Marshall Vaugh to keep the peace in the universe. They fight the evil alien commander Borf and keep him from invading Earth.
Mina: Again, as with Donkey Kong, Ruby Spears took artistic license with the relationship with Kimberly and Dexter. In the Don Bluth film and in the game,Kimberly is Ace's girlfriend.
Mina: Also, in the video game, Dexter had certain chances to revert to Ace, his full-grown self, whereas in the cartoon the Ace/Dexter phases seemed to happen on their own and at often inconvenient times for the hero.
Ruby-Spears planned a 3rd season for the Saturday Supercade. However,the CBS executives decided to can the series,so that they could make room for their newer Saturday Morning shows. Because of this,the 3rd season of Saturday Supercade never made it past the planning stages.
Had the Saturday Supercade continued,we would've seen 3 new cartoon segments: Space Invaders,Mario Bros.and Centipede [i think it was supposed to be centepede..it could've been Joust,though? or maybe it was adventure?].
Anyway,that's it for Saturday Supercade. Next up,the Cartoon that capitalized on Pac-Man fever. It's Pac-Man:the Animated Series.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Cartoon Historian Presents: In Defense of the Mega Man Cartoon.
This Is A Cartoon Historian Special Presentation!
Mina: Hey everyone,Mina here. To get us ready for the Big 'Games to Toons' Cartoon Historian episode,Stefan is gonna be giving his defense of the Mega Man Cartoon. In the same manner that he did with the Street Fighter Cartoon. Think of this as a Pre-Game show. Anyway,here's Stefan.
Thank you Mina. What you are about to read is a Defense of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man Cartoon.
In the 90's a Mega Man Cartoon series was created to complement the popularity of the hit Video Game series. However,a lot of fans,including Keiji Inafune himself,were disappointed about what they got.
The Show,despite what others say,isn't that bad. The Show has it's flaws yes,but what Game,Comic,or TV show doesn't?
First I'm gonna talk about the Series Flaws,just to get them out of the way. As well as the other reasons why Mega Man Fans tend to dislike this show. On with the flaws.
The first major flaw is,of course,that Mega Man and Protoman have muscles. The next major flaw is the one that annoyed Everyone,including Keiji Inafune. Protoman was a Bad Guy. I'll talk more about that later.
Another major flaw was the format of the show. Instead of being a cool action show,RS-Mega Man was a typical Saturday Morning one. Complete with corny dialogue,Stupid Animal Antics,inconsistancies,and over the top[and sometimes lame]plot devices.
The Next major flaw would be the artwork quality of Season 2. 5 of the episodes had fairly simplistic artwork. Especially the Curse of the Lionmen episode.
Anyway,the Final major flaw was the fact that Mega Man was called "Mega" all of the time. His name is Rock,not Mega. I was also annoyed by this.
Another reason why the MM fans hate this series is because when they watch it they compare it to the games. This is a problem that provents them from enjoying the series.
Now that all of the Major negatives have been covered...It's time for the Defense.
The first thing to defend is the Artwork.Season 1 had some good awrwork. I like it. However,in some episodes of Season 2,the artwork was simplistic. Plus,muscles and pretty Roll aside,all the characters looked similar to their Game Counterparts. So you can easily tell who they are,Unlike teir Captain N counterparts.
Next Up,I'm gonna defend is the Music. It's well writen and It went with the scenes well. Speaking of the Scenes,while the Storylines were medeocre at best,the Action was pretty damn good. You gotta admit,they were fun to watch.
Another thing I'm gonna defend is the Characters personalities. Considering that their Game Counterparts had little to no personalities to begin with,I'd say the personalities of the characters turned out decent. Except for Protoman's of course.
Also remember this Cartoon was being created in 1992. During this time period,The American versions of the games potrayed Mega Man and Co as Personalitiless. While,in The Japanese games the characters had very little personalities. These said personalities wouldn't begin to develop until Rockman 7.
Also Protoman,for the most part,in the NES games didn't do much. He was either Mega Man's opponent or a Rescuer,nothing else. There's also a chance that the Director and Writers never made it to the final stage of Protoman's fortress in Mega Man 5. This might also explain why RS-Darkman is designed after the 2nd Dark Sentinel and not the The 4th Dark Sentinel aka the Real Darkman.
I don't think they've played completely through Mega Man 3 or 4 either. That has to be the case,because if they Did,Protoman would be a Good Guy instead of a Bad Guy. Protoman is a villain because the writers saw him as one in the games.
They couldn't use Bass,because he wasn't created yet and during the creation of Season 2,which was in 1994,he was in the Planning stages.
The next thing I'm gonna stick up for is the Art Style. Like I stated in my 'Street Fighter Cartoon' defense,Anime wasn't that popular in the U.S. at the time. However,Anime would eventually gain a fan base in 1997,years After the series cancelation.
Not only that,but 8-12 year-olds,the main target demographic,were used to an American look and feel to their cartoons. BTW,did you know that most of the Art and Animation were done overseas in Japan. So believe it or not,the show is part Anime.
And So what if the Cartoon's not Canon. Hell,neither are the Anime OVA or The Mangas. Now if fans would just look past the mentioned flaws,they might come to respect,perhaps even like,this Cartoon series.
You also have to remember that compared to the Cartoons of today,the Mega Man cartoon is kinda cool. And thus concludes the Defense of the Mega Man Cartoon. I hope you all enjoyed this.
Unfortunately,like the Street Fighter fans,some Mega Man fans are just a bunch of purist pricks,closed minded people who hate the show mostly because it's not Japanese and Unlike the games. It's also a shame that Keiji Inafune didn't like this show either. In fact,Keiji Inafune was mostly responsible for the shows cancelation. I'll talk more about that when I'm covering the Mega Man cartoon show.
Luckily,I'm not the Only one who sticks up for this show. Here's my friend and fellow RS-Mega Man defender,General-Radix.
*scene swiches to General-Radix*
General-Radix: Thanks,Cartoon Historian. The following only concerns those "it's not canon!" fantards. The really obvious question is, "Why can't you guys just accept that, as a third-party production, it's not going to perfectly sync up to the canon set in place by CAPCOM?"
General-Radix: The way I see it, they can't accept this because they HAVE to find a way to wedge it into canon; seeing that they can't they declare it crap and bash it relentlessly. Why does it have to fit into canon? Does the fate of Mars hang in the balance? Is this bashing borne from some pathological need to organize?
General-Radix: The most common complaint is, of course, "They changed too many things". This does hold ground--but not much. The basic premise of the Megaman series, at least up to 1994, is "A jailbait blue robot blows up eight robots built by Dr. Wily". Nothing about the general location of these battles (A forest? Hell, that could be Wisconsin). Besides, you can't blame the artists for taking liberties with the designs--you bring me a person with official Rockman (not Mega) artwork back in the early 90s, and I'll show you a perfectly honest and selfless politcian.
General-Radix: The simple fact is, the NES Megaman games prior to 5 didn't have a great deal of story. What was in the manual didn't tell you jack about what actually happens in-game (even MM4 failed to mention Cossack in its intro, if I remember correctly). Shigeto Ikehara's mangizations of the series stray from that premise simply by adding dialogue, to say nothing of Karate-003.
General-Radix: So if Ikehara's manga is generally well-liked despite deviances from the games, why all the cries of "IT AIN'T CANON" directed towards the cartoon? To be honest...I don't know. Hitoshi Ariga's Megamix series is VERY well-received by the entire community, and its stories can only barely fit into game canon. (Granted, his artwork and storytelling are both excellent) Why don't I ever see any "IT'S NOT CANON" complaints flung HIS way? Is it because RS-MM is easier to pick on?
General-Radix: It could be because the adaptation decay is SO strong in RS-MM (though when you think about it, given the US boxarts and minimal plots, there's not THAT much decay--it even addressed the issue of how Megaman could get weapons from a robot he JUST BLEW UP) that purists look at it and say, "That sucketh." But really--isn't comparing differences between products part of the fun of being a fan of something with as much "extras" as Megaman?
General-Radix: RS-MM, at least to me, has some many differences while still retaining the "feel" of Megaman, that it becomes its own canon. That, and it's a fun cartoon, MM or no. So what if Megaman has a ridiculously well-sculpted torso (or at least armour giving him that appearance), Protoman is evil, sarcastic, and vaguely flamboyant, and Roll can *gasp* FIGHT? It's enjoyable, and really shouldn't be treated as "game canon".
General-Radix: Something occurred to me last night. SegaSonic's spinoffs AoStH, SatAM, Archie, and SU all get to be their own canons. Why doesn't RS-MM get that same status, despite being different enough from the source material to be so?
General-Radix: I have found another irrefutable argument to support Ruby-Spears Megaman. It involves another series, Double Dragon. Both Megaman and Double Dragon got cartoons, both frought with adaptation decay. So far, so good.
General-Radix: Let's look at the games being made for each series when the cartoons were still up and running. Megaman saw MM5, MM6, and MMX; Double Dragon saw Battletoads and Double Dragon and Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls. Notice something funny about Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls?
General-Radix: It's based on the cartoon. It's part of the main series, and it's based on the cartoon that is far from perfectly in line with the games. How many entries in the main series did RS-MM get? ZERO.
General-Radix: Take that, haters; RS-Megaman may not have fit the game canon like a glove, but at least it didn't muck up said game canon. (That said, I'm sure the DD cartoon is still enjoyable, ironically or no, and DDV wasn't made by the original company--but it's part of the main DD series, despite clearly being in a canon of its own)
General-Radix: RS-MM also has a page on TV Tropes, which I have contributed to. They mention a ways down that RS-MM was to look like the games, and get a good laugh out of their not sticking with it because of the later anime boom. I'd just like to point something out:
General-Radix: If they ignored the test audiences and went with the game style, the show would probably have been ignored and swiftly canned. I think all the fanbrats who whine about RS-MM not being anime should take that into consideration. I get the impression that they don't realize that anime used to be a niche market in the US.
General-Radix: On another note, I have yet to see a Sue written for RS-Mega. Guess the fangirls prefer jailbait. The worst one has to be shoehorning Bass into the storyline (with optional Treble). I normally wouldn't care--after all, continuity immigrations can be fun--but every goddamned time, not only is he exactly like his game counterpart, but he's little more than a plot device used to facilitate Protoman leaving Wily.
General-Radix: This is especially sad for several reasons: rarely is anything interesting done with Mr. Not A Fish (or maybe that's just because the fics I've seen doing this didn't have any further chapters/entries); he's usually just a worse version of Protoman, meaning of "worse" varying; and it's the "fans"/authors trying to force RS-MM to be a different-looking Capcom MM. The nice thing about MM is that it doesn't suffer from what I call "DBZ Adaptation Syndrome", wherein every third-party production of a given series simply reiterates said series' story. Even I could tolerate only so many dry retellings of the various Sagas.
General-Radix: I do have an RS-Bass; however, he's a non-combatant hacker whose voice rarely rises above "monotone". And it was almost solely to combat the above cliche. Also,Protoman defecting from Wily when done in a way that just stinks of "Stupid Ruby-Spears is stupid and didn't beat MM5 even though Darkman is present and named in the show! LOL". I think the italics says it all, really. (Again, I've used this, but at least built up to it. Plus, Proto had other problems besides Wily)
General-Radix: A sub-cliche would be Wily abusing Proto--which actually makes sense, since the only other way to keep the guy in check (all I've ever seen are tasers and one electro-baton) would be to wear a Ride Armour at all times and ready the pimp arm any time Proto started to speak. Proto would tire of this and "accidentally" screw up a vital component during its maintenance. (Again, one I used--which isn't speaking well of me--but I'd like to think that's it's MASSIVELY toned down from what other authors do)
General-Radix: Protoman swooping in to save Mega's arse. Again, it's the "fans" forcing the show to be like the games. (Granted, the two fics I read that did this were able to justify it, but I'm sure there are many others that don't bother) They tend to forget that Proto would rather fight alongside his bro rather than constantly bail him out game-style. (Jumping in to even the odds, I can let slide)
General-Radix: Realistically, Proto and Roll would run Mega ragged, what with their constantly rushing into danger and all. XD Bashing Roll because of her weapons. Yeah, using kitchen and cleaning stuff is kinda "eh", but seriously--you gotta admire a person, male or female, who can run into a battle with an egg beater or vacuum and come out alive.
General-Radix: Claiming that the production team never finished MM5. (Thanks a lot, Mandi) People who claim that either go entirely off of Mandi's opinion of the series (which I can't help but see as pettily negative), or are still butthurt over Proto being a "bad guy" (wake up call! He was a bad guy until the last few minutes of MM3!) Both parties tend to conveniently forget one detail. One detail whose name we wouldn't know for a while because his name was never given in-game. You know, DARKMAN. It's the gray one, but still--if Ruby-Spears knew about Darkman, they would know that Protoman was framed in MM5. Besides, the route they took gave Proto much more screen time than he has in practically every other media.
General-Radix: Calling Mega and other characters on the show something along the lines of "mutant bodybuilders". I know that he looks a lot bigger in comparison to Capcom-Rock, but Megaman really isn't that ripped (unless you're going by the promotional art/toys). These complainers need to look at actual bodybuilders/Rob Liefeld artwork--Mega is downright soft compared to them.
General-Radix: Complaining about the tiniest little things, like one solar panel on Mega's helmet being a diamond instead of a square (I HAVE SERIOUSLY HEARD THIS ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION). We have a trope for this, and it's called "They Changed It Now It Sucks". Don't expect this vile breed of complainers to have any legitimate complaints, either--just lots of superficial whining.
General-Radix: Incidentally, there was one fellow I talked to that disliked the show for legitimate reasons (not that I agreed with him, but they were valid points nonetheless). But then, he also shifted the blame of its cancellation from Bandai and CoA to the show itself, despite its high ratings.
General-Radix: In conclusion,Bashing RS-MM with the fury of a thousand suns for "not being like the games", but giving the "Upon a Star" OVA a free pass, despite it being different. This is a big fat double standard--the OVA, along with Megamix and the other mangas, are all different from the games, but no one care because they're Japanese. (Not going into quality matters here, people. This is strictly regional) They don't even freaking NOTE the differences in those cases!
General-Radix: This,however,is a whole 'nother rant, so I'll just paraphrase another RPM forumite and myself, respectively: "Hitoshi Ariga has truly captured the spirit of Rockman." "Because Megamix is Japanese." If you know of any others, I'd like to hear of them, so we can all laugh at its potential stupidity.
General-Radix: Back to you Cartoon Historian.
*scene swiches back to Stefan and Mina*
Thank you,Genaral.
Mina: Damn that was long.
But,it was to the point. That's gonna do it for now. See ya next time on The Cartoon Historian.
Mina: Later,guys.
Mina: Hey everyone,Mina here. To get us ready for the Big 'Games to Toons' Cartoon Historian episode,Stefan is gonna be giving his defense of the Mega Man Cartoon. In the same manner that he did with the Street Fighter Cartoon. Think of this as a Pre-Game show. Anyway,here's Stefan.
Thank you Mina. What you are about to read is a Defense of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man Cartoon.
In the 90's a Mega Man Cartoon series was created to complement the popularity of the hit Video Game series. However,a lot of fans,including Keiji Inafune himself,were disappointed about what they got.
The Show,despite what others say,isn't that bad. The Show has it's flaws yes,but what Game,Comic,or TV show doesn't?
First I'm gonna talk about the Series Flaws,just to get them out of the way. As well as the other reasons why Mega Man Fans tend to dislike this show. On with the flaws.
The first major flaw is,of course,that Mega Man and Protoman have muscles. The next major flaw is the one that annoyed Everyone,including Keiji Inafune. Protoman was a Bad Guy. I'll talk more about that later.
Another major flaw was the format of the show. Instead of being a cool action show,RS-Mega Man was a typical Saturday Morning one. Complete with corny dialogue,Stupid Animal Antics,inconsistancies,and over the top[and sometimes lame]plot devices.
The Next major flaw would be the artwork quality of Season 2. 5 of the episodes had fairly simplistic artwork. Especially the Curse of the Lionmen episode.
Anyway,the Final major flaw was the fact that Mega Man was called "Mega" all of the time. His name is Rock,not Mega. I was also annoyed by this.
Another reason why the MM fans hate this series is because when they watch it they compare it to the games. This is a problem that provents them from enjoying the series.
Now that all of the Major negatives have been covered...It's time for the Defense.
The first thing to defend is the Artwork.Season 1 had some good awrwork. I like it. However,in some episodes of Season 2,the artwork was simplistic. Plus,muscles and pretty Roll aside,all the characters looked similar to their Game Counterparts. So you can easily tell who they are,Unlike teir Captain N counterparts.
Next Up,I'm gonna defend is the Music. It's well writen and It went with the scenes well. Speaking of the Scenes,while the Storylines were medeocre at best,the Action was pretty damn good. You gotta admit,they were fun to watch.
Another thing I'm gonna defend is the Characters personalities. Considering that their Game Counterparts had little to no personalities to begin with,I'd say the personalities of the characters turned out decent. Except for Protoman's of course.
Also remember this Cartoon was being created in 1992. During this time period,The American versions of the games potrayed Mega Man and Co as Personalitiless. While,in The Japanese games the characters had very little personalities. These said personalities wouldn't begin to develop until Rockman 7.
Also Protoman,for the most part,in the NES games didn't do much. He was either Mega Man's opponent or a Rescuer,nothing else. There's also a chance that the Director and Writers never made it to the final stage of Protoman's fortress in Mega Man 5. This might also explain why RS-Darkman is designed after the 2nd Dark Sentinel and not the The 4th Dark Sentinel aka the Real Darkman.
I don't think they've played completely through Mega Man 3 or 4 either. That has to be the case,because if they Did,Protoman would be a Good Guy instead of a Bad Guy. Protoman is a villain because the writers saw him as one in the games.
They couldn't use Bass,because he wasn't created yet and during the creation of Season 2,which was in 1994,he was in the Planning stages.
The next thing I'm gonna stick up for is the Art Style. Like I stated in my 'Street Fighter Cartoon' defense,Anime wasn't that popular in the U.S. at the time. However,Anime would eventually gain a fan base in 1997,years After the series cancelation.
Not only that,but 8-12 year-olds,the main target demographic,were used to an American look and feel to their cartoons. BTW,did you know that most of the Art and Animation were done overseas in Japan. So believe it or not,the show is part Anime.
And So what if the Cartoon's not Canon. Hell,neither are the Anime OVA or The Mangas. Now if fans would just look past the mentioned flaws,they might come to respect,perhaps even like,this Cartoon series.
You also have to remember that compared to the Cartoons of today,the Mega Man cartoon is kinda cool. And thus concludes the Defense of the Mega Man Cartoon. I hope you all enjoyed this.
Unfortunately,like the Street Fighter fans,some Mega Man fans are just a bunch of purist pricks,closed minded people who hate the show mostly because it's not Japanese and Unlike the games. It's also a shame that Keiji Inafune didn't like this show either. In fact,Keiji Inafune was mostly responsible for the shows cancelation. I'll talk more about that when I'm covering the Mega Man cartoon show.
Luckily,I'm not the Only one who sticks up for this show. Here's my friend and fellow RS-Mega Man defender,General-Radix.
*scene swiches to General-Radix*
General-Radix: Thanks,Cartoon Historian. The following only concerns those "it's not canon!" fantards. The really obvious question is, "Why can't you guys just accept that, as a third-party production, it's not going to perfectly sync up to the canon set in place by CAPCOM?"
General-Radix: The way I see it, they can't accept this because they HAVE to find a way to wedge it into canon; seeing that they can't they declare it crap and bash it relentlessly. Why does it have to fit into canon? Does the fate of Mars hang in the balance? Is this bashing borne from some pathological need to organize?
General-Radix: The most common complaint is, of course, "They changed too many things". This does hold ground--but not much. The basic premise of the Megaman series, at least up to 1994, is "A jailbait blue robot blows up eight robots built by Dr. Wily". Nothing about the general location of these battles (A forest? Hell, that could be Wisconsin). Besides, you can't blame the artists for taking liberties with the designs--you bring me a person with official Rockman (not Mega) artwork back in the early 90s, and I'll show you a perfectly honest and selfless politcian.
General-Radix: The simple fact is, the NES Megaman games prior to 5 didn't have a great deal of story. What was in the manual didn't tell you jack about what actually happens in-game (even MM4 failed to mention Cossack in its intro, if I remember correctly). Shigeto Ikehara's mangizations of the series stray from that premise simply by adding dialogue, to say nothing of Karate-003.
General-Radix: So if Ikehara's manga is generally well-liked despite deviances from the games, why all the cries of "IT AIN'T CANON" directed towards the cartoon? To be honest...I don't know. Hitoshi Ariga's Megamix series is VERY well-received by the entire community, and its stories can only barely fit into game canon. (Granted, his artwork and storytelling are both excellent) Why don't I ever see any "IT'S NOT CANON" complaints flung HIS way? Is it because RS-MM is easier to pick on?
General-Radix: It could be because the adaptation decay is SO strong in RS-MM (though when you think about it, given the US boxarts and minimal plots, there's not THAT much decay--it even addressed the issue of how Megaman could get weapons from a robot he JUST BLEW UP) that purists look at it and say, "That sucketh." But really--isn't comparing differences between products part of the fun of being a fan of something with as much "extras" as Megaman?
General-Radix: RS-MM, at least to me, has some many differences while still retaining the "feel" of Megaman, that it becomes its own canon. That, and it's a fun cartoon, MM or no. So what if Megaman has a ridiculously well-sculpted torso (or at least armour giving him that appearance), Protoman is evil, sarcastic, and vaguely flamboyant, and Roll can *gasp* FIGHT? It's enjoyable, and really shouldn't be treated as "game canon".
General-Radix: Something occurred to me last night. SegaSonic's spinoffs AoStH, SatAM, Archie, and SU all get to be their own canons. Why doesn't RS-MM get that same status, despite being different enough from the source material to be so?
General-Radix: I have found another irrefutable argument to support Ruby-Spears Megaman. It involves another series, Double Dragon. Both Megaman and Double Dragon got cartoons, both frought with adaptation decay. So far, so good.
General-Radix: Let's look at the games being made for each series when the cartoons were still up and running. Megaman saw MM5, MM6, and MMX; Double Dragon saw Battletoads and Double Dragon and Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls. Notice something funny about Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls?
General-Radix: It's based on the cartoon. It's part of the main series, and it's based on the cartoon that is far from perfectly in line with the games. How many entries in the main series did RS-MM get? ZERO.
General-Radix: Take that, haters; RS-Megaman may not have fit the game canon like a glove, but at least it didn't muck up said game canon. (That said, I'm sure the DD cartoon is still enjoyable, ironically or no, and DDV wasn't made by the original company--but it's part of the main DD series, despite clearly being in a canon of its own)
General-Radix: RS-MM also has a page on TV Tropes, which I have contributed to. They mention a ways down that RS-MM was to look like the games, and get a good laugh out of their not sticking with it because of the later anime boom. I'd just like to point something out:
General-Radix: If they ignored the test audiences and went with the game style, the show would probably have been ignored and swiftly canned. I think all the fanbrats who whine about RS-MM not being anime should take that into consideration. I get the impression that they don't realize that anime used to be a niche market in the US.
General-Radix: On another note, I have yet to see a Sue written for RS-Mega. Guess the fangirls prefer jailbait. The worst one has to be shoehorning Bass into the storyline (with optional Treble). I normally wouldn't care--after all, continuity immigrations can be fun--but every goddamned time, not only is he exactly like his game counterpart, but he's little more than a plot device used to facilitate Protoman leaving Wily.
General-Radix: This is especially sad for several reasons: rarely is anything interesting done with Mr. Not A Fish (or maybe that's just because the fics I've seen doing this didn't have any further chapters/entries); he's usually just a worse version of Protoman, meaning of "worse" varying; and it's the "fans"/authors trying to force RS-MM to be a different-looking Capcom MM. The nice thing about MM is that it doesn't suffer from what I call "DBZ Adaptation Syndrome", wherein every third-party production of a given series simply reiterates said series' story. Even I could tolerate only so many dry retellings of the various Sagas.
General-Radix: I do have an RS-Bass; however, he's a non-combatant hacker whose voice rarely rises above "monotone". And it was almost solely to combat the above cliche. Also,Protoman defecting from Wily when done in a way that just stinks of "Stupid Ruby-Spears is stupid and didn't beat MM5 even though Darkman is present and named in the show! LOL". I think the italics says it all, really. (Again, I've used this, but at least built up to it. Plus, Proto had other problems besides Wily)
General-Radix: A sub-cliche would be Wily abusing Proto--which actually makes sense, since the only other way to keep the guy in check (all I've ever seen are tasers and one electro-baton) would be to wear a Ride Armour at all times and ready the pimp arm any time Proto started to speak. Proto would tire of this and "accidentally" screw up a vital component during its maintenance. (Again, one I used--which isn't speaking well of me--but I'd like to think that's it's MASSIVELY toned down from what other authors do)
General-Radix: Protoman swooping in to save Mega's arse. Again, it's the "fans" forcing the show to be like the games. (Granted, the two fics I read that did this were able to justify it, but I'm sure there are many others that don't bother) They tend to forget that Proto would rather fight alongside his bro rather than constantly bail him out game-style. (Jumping in to even the odds, I can let slide)
General-Radix: Realistically, Proto and Roll would run Mega ragged, what with their constantly rushing into danger and all. XD Bashing Roll because of her weapons. Yeah, using kitchen and cleaning stuff is kinda "eh", but seriously--you gotta admire a person, male or female, who can run into a battle with an egg beater or vacuum and come out alive.
General-Radix: Claiming that the production team never finished MM5. (Thanks a lot, Mandi) People who claim that either go entirely off of Mandi's opinion of the series (which I can't help but see as pettily negative), or are still butthurt over Proto being a "bad guy" (wake up call! He was a bad guy until the last few minutes of MM3!) Both parties tend to conveniently forget one detail. One detail whose name we wouldn't know for a while because his name was never given in-game. You know, DARKMAN. It's the gray one, but still--if Ruby-Spears knew about Darkman, they would know that Protoman was framed in MM5. Besides, the route they took gave Proto much more screen time than he has in practically every other media.
General-Radix: Calling Mega and other characters on the show something along the lines of "mutant bodybuilders". I know that he looks a lot bigger in comparison to Capcom-Rock, but Megaman really isn't that ripped (unless you're going by the promotional art/toys). These complainers need to look at actual bodybuilders/Rob Liefeld artwork--Mega is downright soft compared to them.
General-Radix: Complaining about the tiniest little things, like one solar panel on Mega's helmet being a diamond instead of a square (I HAVE SERIOUSLY HEARD THIS ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION). We have a trope for this, and it's called "They Changed It Now It Sucks". Don't expect this vile breed of complainers to have any legitimate complaints, either--just lots of superficial whining.
General-Radix: Incidentally, there was one fellow I talked to that disliked the show for legitimate reasons (not that I agreed with him, but they were valid points nonetheless). But then, he also shifted the blame of its cancellation from Bandai and CoA to the show itself, despite its high ratings.
General-Radix: In conclusion,Bashing RS-MM with the fury of a thousand suns for "not being like the games", but giving the "Upon a Star" OVA a free pass, despite it being different. This is a big fat double standard--the OVA, along with Megamix and the other mangas, are all different from the games, but no one care because they're Japanese. (Not going into quality matters here, people. This is strictly regional) They don't even freaking NOTE the differences in those cases!
General-Radix: This,however,is a whole 'nother rant, so I'll just paraphrase another RPM forumite and myself, respectively: "Hitoshi Ariga has truly captured the spirit of Rockman." "Because Megamix is Japanese." If you know of any others, I'd like to hear of them, so we can all laugh at its potential stupidity.
General-Radix: Back to you Cartoon Historian.
*scene swiches back to Stefan and Mina*
Thank you,Genaral.
Mina: Damn that was long.
But,it was to the point. That's gonna do it for now. See ya next time on The Cartoon Historian.
Mina: Later,guys.
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Cartoon Historian Lesson 20-B: The Rise and Fall of Cartoon Network Pt. 2
Mina: Welcome to part 2 of The Rise and Fall of Cartoon Network. In this 2nd and Final part of this episode,we will be talking about the Fall of Cartoon Network. Well,here we go!
On April 10, 2006,Cartoon Network changed it's slogan once again,this time it was the simplistic “Cartoon Network — Yes!,” and was spoken by Fred Fredburger, a character on The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.
The network also used bumpers featuring the cast of Camp Lazlo (2005) as stick puppets and characters in front of a red background. How Stupid!
The 2006-2007 campaign featured three different styles of bumpers. The first style is "Lunchbox of Doom", featuring an assortment of show clips inside a CGI Gothic lunchbox,witch was a reference to an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.
The second is "VS.", comparing two cartoon characters. Their final style was a remake of the 2004 CGI City look.
Jim Samples,2nd president of the Cartoon Network,resigned on February 9, 2007 due to the Boston Mooninite Scare. Samples had been network president for three years after Shawn Grove.
Stuart Snyder,aka The Man Who Made Everything Worse,was named as Samples' successor and he took control on May of 2007.
Mina: Under Snyder's control, Cartoon Network underwent a number of terrible changes. Through 2007,Cartoon Network retained the image campaign that began in 2006.
Mina: On September 1, 2007, the networks look was revamped. Bumpers and Station Identification were themed to The Hives song "Fall is Just Something That Grown-Ups Invented". These aired for several months. It was a disaster to say the least.
Mina: A month later, on October 15, the channel began broadcasting in high definition. It was Suckage in HD.
True That! Anyway,every October since 2007, Cartoon Network airs Goosebumps,a show that once aired on Fox Kids program. In April 2008, Cartoon Network began airing a one minute sign-off bumper, depicting a child's daily activities from sunrise to nighttime. In the end, it reads "Good Night. See you tomorrow!" before the Adult Swim program block began.
It was their first sign-off bumper after 7 years of showing such a nightly block. This sign-off was later revised to match the network's new look. It now simply shows a square saying "10:00", followed by "Check Ya Later" and the new CN logo.
In 2008,Cartoon Network announced that it was working on a new project called "Cartoonstitute", which was headed by animators Craig McCracken (as executive producer) and Rob Renzetti (as supervising producer). Both report to Rob Scorcher, who created the idea.
Mina: The program would've worked in a way similar to What A Cartoon! However,Cartoonstitute was eventually cancelled, and only one of the shorts,Regular Show,was selected.
Cartoon Network had also begun to air some imported Canadian programs from Teletoon such as George of the Jungle, 6teen,The Total Drama Series,and Chaotic. This was one of the Stupidest errors that Cartoon Network has ever made. Snyder,you Suck!
Mina: Amen!Stefan Amen! On May of 2008, Cartoon Network began airing animated shorts, called Wedgies. These shorts were used to fill in spots between shows.
On July of 2008, the network changed looks yet again. This new look was created by Tristan Eaton and Kidrobot. The bumpers of that era had white, faceless characters called Noods. The Noods look similar to the do-it-yourself toy known as Munny, also created by Kidrobot. This look was retarded.
A Nood would often come in contact with a color blob or a color bar and absorb the color to become either a Cartoon Network character or change into another color. Other bumpers featured characters interacting with one another. Various commercial parodies starring the characters of Carton Network also aired.
Mina: From July 2008 to October 2008, Greg Cipes, Kevin's voice actor in Ben 10: Alien Force,became the network's announcer.
He has since been replaced with Will Arnett. The programming blocks were also changed to fit in with this look, with different Noods being used.
In June 2009, a block of live-action reality shows began airing in a programming block promoted as CN Real.[which has now ended]
Mina: The network has also aired some limited sports programming, including Slamball,during the commercial breaks. On February of this year, Cartoon Network started using bumpers that feature Noods being formed by real-life objects such as paint, grass, and confetti. Sometime later,the Noods were replaced.
Earlier this year,Cartoon Network debuted a third logo. This logo was featured on the network's "Move It Movement" tour. It made its television debut in May along with a new theme and new bumpers. Also,the Noods were phased out.
Also Earlier this year,The CN Real block ended. Thank God! And Stuart Snyder was replaced as Cartoon Network President. I forgot the new presidents name,but I doubt he'll be able to fix CN. The damage is already done.
Mina: I have to admit that this part of the lesson was very painful to talk about. Thank God this is over.
Tell me about it. Cartoon Network is dead now. But we'll never ever forget the many cool things it gave us.
Mina: Amen to that! Retro CN Rules!
It most certainly does. Thats gonna do it for this lesson. See ya next time on The Cartoon Historian.
Mina: See Ya!
[fade to black. credits roll as the cartoon historian closing theme plays]
On April 10, 2006,Cartoon Network changed it's slogan once again,this time it was the simplistic “Cartoon Network — Yes!,” and was spoken by Fred Fredburger, a character on The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.
The network also used bumpers featuring the cast of Camp Lazlo (2005) as stick puppets and characters in front of a red background. How Stupid!
The 2006-2007 campaign featured three different styles of bumpers. The first style is "Lunchbox of Doom", featuring an assortment of show clips inside a CGI Gothic lunchbox,witch was a reference to an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.
The second is "VS.", comparing two cartoon characters. Their final style was a remake of the 2004 CGI City look.
Jim Samples,2nd president of the Cartoon Network,resigned on February 9, 2007 due to the Boston Mooninite Scare. Samples had been network president for three years after Shawn Grove.
Stuart Snyder,aka The Man Who Made Everything Worse,was named as Samples' successor and he took control on May of 2007.
Mina: Under Snyder's control, Cartoon Network underwent a number of terrible changes. Through 2007,Cartoon Network retained the image campaign that began in 2006.
Mina: On September 1, 2007, the networks look was revamped. Bumpers and Station Identification were themed to The Hives song "Fall is Just Something That Grown-Ups Invented". These aired for several months. It was a disaster to say the least.
Mina: A month later, on October 15, the channel began broadcasting in high definition. It was Suckage in HD.
True That! Anyway,every October since 2007, Cartoon Network airs Goosebumps,a show that once aired on Fox Kids program. In April 2008, Cartoon Network began airing a one minute sign-off bumper, depicting a child's daily activities from sunrise to nighttime. In the end, it reads "Good Night. See you tomorrow!" before the Adult Swim program block began.
It was their first sign-off bumper after 7 years of showing such a nightly block. This sign-off was later revised to match the network's new look. It now simply shows a square saying "10:00", followed by "Check Ya Later" and the new CN logo.
In 2008,Cartoon Network announced that it was working on a new project called "Cartoonstitute", which was headed by animators Craig McCracken (as executive producer) and Rob Renzetti (as supervising producer). Both report to Rob Scorcher, who created the idea.
Mina: The program would've worked in a way similar to What A Cartoon! However,Cartoonstitute was eventually cancelled, and only one of the shorts,Regular Show,was selected.
Cartoon Network had also begun to air some imported Canadian programs from Teletoon such as George of the Jungle, 6teen,The Total Drama Series,and Chaotic. This was one of the Stupidest errors that Cartoon Network has ever made. Snyder,you Suck!
Mina: Amen!Stefan Amen! On May of 2008, Cartoon Network began airing animated shorts, called Wedgies. These shorts were used to fill in spots between shows.
On July of 2008, the network changed looks yet again. This new look was created by Tristan Eaton and Kidrobot. The bumpers of that era had white, faceless characters called Noods. The Noods look similar to the do-it-yourself toy known as Munny, also created by Kidrobot. This look was retarded.
A Nood would often come in contact with a color blob or a color bar and absorb the color to become either a Cartoon Network character or change into another color. Other bumpers featured characters interacting with one another. Various commercial parodies starring the characters of Carton Network also aired.
Mina: From July 2008 to October 2008, Greg Cipes, Kevin's voice actor in Ben 10: Alien Force,became the network's announcer.
He has since been replaced with Will Arnett. The programming blocks were also changed to fit in with this look, with different Noods being used.
In June 2009, a block of live-action reality shows began airing in a programming block promoted as CN Real.[which has now ended]
Mina: The network has also aired some limited sports programming, including Slamball,during the commercial breaks. On February of this year, Cartoon Network started using bumpers that feature Noods being formed by real-life objects such as paint, grass, and confetti. Sometime later,the Noods were replaced.
Earlier this year,Cartoon Network debuted a third logo. This logo was featured on the network's "Move It Movement" tour. It made its television debut in May along with a new theme and new bumpers. Also,the Noods were phased out.
Also Earlier this year,The CN Real block ended. Thank God! And Stuart Snyder was replaced as Cartoon Network President. I forgot the new presidents name,but I doubt he'll be able to fix CN. The damage is already done.
Mina: I have to admit that this part of the lesson was very painful to talk about. Thank God this is over.
Tell me about it. Cartoon Network is dead now. But we'll never ever forget the many cool things it gave us.
Mina: Amen to that! Retro CN Rules!
It most certainly does. Thats gonna do it for this lesson. See ya next time on The Cartoon Historian.
Mina: See Ya!
[fade to black. credits roll as the cartoon historian closing theme plays]
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