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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

X-Men: Evolution - why did they lie to me? This is great! Any other top cartoons from the Americas we should be checking out?

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:42 / 18.05.03

The first "proper" X-Men cartoon, featuring the older X-Men and cleaving largely to a form of Lobdell-era continuity (Apocalypse, Sinister, Bishop, Cable, Phoenix in the ludicrous beige outfit, that sort of thing) was, on reflection, an enormous pile of shit. Ludicrous scripts, shitty shitty voice acting and an inordinately complex continuity squeezed into too little time.

Conversely, I've recently discovered X-Men Evolution, which is definitely helping me to assuage the pangs of Buffy falling off so badly. It's based around a "best of" character set (Cyclops, Phoenix, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Storm, Shadowcat, Rogue, Storm, Wolverine and Prof.X, with unnecessary new character Spyke, who is Marrow with a skateboard), and the action centres on high school - so, the characters are about 16-18, with Storm, Wolverine and latterly Beast as teachers.

It's been on Brit TV, apparently, but at the usual silly times - I caught it in Boston. Is it still on? Is it still any cop? And are there any other top cartoons we should be keeping an eye out for?

18:21 / 18.05.03

Samurai Jack is probably the best animated series on television these days.

20:33 / 18.05.03

I second Samurai Jack.

21:09 / 18.05.03

I third it, and I'm the guy who firsted it.

23:10 / 18.05.03

I adore X-Men: Evolution. I can't wait for the next season. I'd contribute more meaningfully, but I have no idea which of our cartoons have made it to England.

02:26 / 19.05.03

Im still not sure what I think abot X:R...its the cartoon equivalent of the sk8r version of punk. Its got no soul.

I 5th Samurai Jack...Its what I'd like the D!MiT. cartoon to emulate if I ever get the opotunity to do one.

Foust is SO authentic

02:35 / 19.05.03

Haus, I take issue with your bashing of the older X-Men cartoon. I've always thought it was the best thing ever to hit Saturday morning. The voice acting was excellent (I hate X:E's Beast) and the stories always dramatic. It had it's own twist on Days of Future Past, and also the sexiest incarnation of Rogue until Anna Paquin.

07:29 / 19.05.03

Other top things I discovered on Channel 4 in the mornings of the school holidays that were wasted on kids, not sure if they'll be on again:

Catdog. One end of it's a cat. The other's a dog. It lives in a house split down the middle and gets longer and shorter at will. They bitch. It's good.

Sam and Max. Based on the newspaper strips and the Lucasarts game, it was just far too good for kids having frequent references to the fact that Sam enjoyed beating Max up and far more things that were so quick the kids wouldn't have noticed, but it was a shame. Absolutely brilliant - entirely mismarketed. And very, very funny.

Both old now, though.

12:15 / 19.05.03

I like the old Iron Man cartoon if only for the title sequence when the words I AM IRON MAN!!! is repeatedly screamed over a hevy metal guitar track and a sweaty topless Tony Stark is seen pounding an anvil in time with each power cord.

Also SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!! makes me want to run around screaming into peoples faces which is always a good thing.

13:09 / 19.05.03

I watched X-Men Evolution once and thought it was sad. Wolverine keeps pushing his enemies. Fucking deadly villains... throw the heroes against walls. If they're really pissed they might throw a punch. They also push the heroes with shoulder dashes. It's like they're playing volleyball. Not that I would be expecting brutally extreme violence, or deaths, after all it's a mainstream carton, but all the pushing and throwing people around really got on my nerves... boooring.

13:19 / 19.05.03

As much as I dislike most things Disney, there's a real gem on their ABC saturday morning lineup. FILLMORE is a 70s buddy cop show recast as the adventures of a middle school safety patrol. I'll leave it at that, as I cannot effectively convey humor. Terrible character flaw, i know.

I heartily second SAM AND MAX, and have been searching for vhs tapes for a couple of years now. So much was going on that was just wildly inappropriate for a "kid's cartoon." The same goes for EEK THE CAT.

13:36 / 19.05.03

Panic is dead right about Fillmore. It's brilliant.

Cornelius Fillmore (who looks a bit like a young black Ghandi) was a delinquent and a good ones, until a member of the safefty patrol realized his potential for good, and helped him turn his life around. Now, Fillmore solves all the crimes at X Middle School (yeah, that's X as in Malcolm X). His partner is a brainy goth girl named Ingrid Third. And while the writers have a great sense of humor, the mysteries are all quite brilliant and well done (often putting Law & Order to shame).

Foust is SO authentic

14:10 / 19.05.03

I long for the glory days of Animaniacs. The Wheel of Morality skits were always awesome.

Foust is SO authentic

14:10 / 19.05.03

I long for the glory days of Animaniacs. The Wheel of Morality skits were always awesome.

15:51 / 19.05.03

United States, Canada, MExico, Panama... Ah I still owe most of my geography knowledge to the Warner Brothers and the Warner Sister Dot.

ALso good: Dexter's Laboratory...especially the Dial M for Monkey portions and the others with the Super Heroes...they rock.

But I still miss Gummy Bears

16:18 / 19.05.03

I like the new X-men. It actually has a fair bit of decent writing to it, and its certainly better than the last attempt.

But what's really got me excited is the new Justice League, which Cartoon Network plays right before X-men nightly. I *really* like it. Its smart. It portrays the heroes as deitific archetypical figures they are. It does cool stories like the origin of the Martian Manhunter. It has the Martian Manhunter. The Martian Manhunter is cool. Batman is even cooler. Its good comic-to-tv adaption, which is a rarity.

And Samauri Jack is even cooler than all that.

16:42 / 19.05.03

I remember Animaniacs being the *only* cartoon that ever made me laugh out loud in fits. And it dit it twice. It was the sketch where the younger one belches to an opera tune.

His face, the *sounds*, sheer the crassness... I was in tears, it was so good. And in the end they throw roses at him and he bows, and instead of saying "thank you" he says "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." G-e-n-i-u-s.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

16:58 / 19.05.03

I think the various Batman series were very good, and the Superman was very well done as well. Both took the characters and actually made them better than they are being done in the comics.

I'd also be on the lookout for the new Ren and Stimpy this summer, since they are being done by John K...

Hm...I also like The Brak Show Starring Brak...that's the cartoon that makes me run around and say odd things.

05:45 / 20.05.03

I'm reveling in seasons one and two of the Family Guy. It's the only show that is/was consitently funnier than the Simpsons. Damn you, Fox.

FYI: Seth McFarlane, the creator of Family Guy also worked on Dexter's Lab, Johnny Bravo, and Cow and Chicken. (Listed in order of my preferences.)

11:13 / 20.05.03

I'd second the old X-Men series over the current one. To this day, the first season finale where they rescue Magneto and go to destroy the Master Mold is great. The long story arcs it did in its first couple of years weren't being done in other cartoons at the time, and even in most regular shows. It did a nice job of remixing all the old X-Men stories, and I thought that the vast continuity made it even better because it conveyed the full scope of the X-universe.

The new show seems much more made for kids, and comes off as a failed attempt to be cool, but it could be the fact that I'm watching that show now, and I watched the original when I was much younger and more the target age.

And, I don't think it can be disputed that Anamaniacs was classic. I was always a fan of the Chicken Boo shorts, which were so boldly dumb, they were great.

13:17 / 20.05.03

i also love Animaniacs and Justice League, but i think X-Men: Evolution is unbearably wretched. sorry.

most of my regular cartoon watching these days revolves around Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. the aforementioned Brak Show is growing on me, and i love The Oblongs, Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, but i think my two favorite cartoons on TV right now have to be Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab 2021.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a show about the adventures of a trio of sentient fast food products (Frylock, Master Shake, and Meatwad) who rent a crappy house together in New Jersey, which periodically gets invaded by aliens, mummies, extradimensional spammers and other such threats. my favorite episode involves the Mooninites, who are these 2-D Space Invaders rejects who use peer pressure to convince Meatwad to steal things and set things on fire, until they are driven away by the clever use of a magical belt that plays Foreigner songs. it's really, really funny.

Sealab 2021 uses a mix of new animation and animated footage recycled and redubbed from an old 70s adventure cartoon called Sealab 2020, which was about a bunch of intrepid scientists living in an undersea colony and doing heroic-scientific-adventure-type-stuff. the premise of Sealab 2021 is that we, the viewing audience, are revisiting Sealab a year after the events of the original series, and in the intervening time isolation and cabin fever have caused the crew to go a little bonkers. inappropriate humor abounds.

13:52 / 20.05.03

I gave X-Men: Evolution a try a few times and was not impressed at all.

I love JUSTICE LEAGUE. I loved BATMAN BEYOND when it was on. (Timm and Dini took a shitty corporate-mandated idea and made it WORK!!!) And I love SAMURAI JACK. I wonder if the new TEEN TITANS cartoon will be good. I haven't yet had a change to sample SPONGEBOB.

13:59 / 20.05.03

I spent a brief two-week period obsessed with the Aqua-Teens, unable to get the song out of my head, desperate one day to be Frylock. Very strange.
At first I couldn't stomach Samurai Jack but after a succession of excellent episodes (Jack has his clothes stolen, Jack almost has a relationship with Aku in disguise, Jack teaches monkeys how to fight) it won me over, although I still find it a little too sparse and action orientated.
Futurama, King of the Hill, Family Guy, Home Movies, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, Ed, Edd N' Eddy. All highly enjoyable in their own way.

13:23 / 22.05.03

if we're talking cool, older cartoons then mine have to be Freakazoid and Thunderbirds 2086.

Starting where the Animaniacs drew the line Freakazoid was just a mind trip of a show. Actually only saw the one episode (which I can remember anyway) featuring Foamy the Wonder Dog, this rabid dog that, when he wasn't licking his own balls would grab freakazoid around the head and throw him about the set. Memory does pull up some other off-centre superhero's in the show, each one kyptronite piece less than the full load.

(and while I remember does anyone else have flashbacks to Roger Ramjet when they see the superhero in Dexter's Lab?)

Thunderbirds 2086 was the full on, manga representation of what Anderson could of done if he had drawn the episodes rather than messed about with wood and string. From the diamond shaped base of International Rescue to the flying beds/sunloungers the crews used to get to their vehicles to the vehicles themselfs. Intrigate machines ranging from a space shuttle copy to out of this world designs not seen since the hey-day of Battle of the Planets (and don't get me started on my desire for the original versions of those).

Foust is SO authentic

13:48 / 22.05.03

Yes yes, Freakazoid was awesome.

19:21 / 22.05.03

All are nothing when compared to the glory that was Rocket Robin Hood!

22:06 / 22.05.03

You got my vote for Samurai Jack. And has anyone seen Code Name: Kids Next Door? It's like a kid version of the Invisibles. It's weird. Kinda like what the x-babies are to the x-men.

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/knd/index.html

uncle retrospective

22:32 / 22.05.03

Another oldie but Invader Zim.

Obey the FIST!

01:55 / 26.05.03

See, it's the little things that do it for me about X-Men: Evo. Like the fact that a chandelier never supports anyone's weight, ever.

Codename Kids Next Door is pretty ginchy. I though the same thing as Impulsive when I saw it- dude. It's the Invisibabies. The creator of it did a short called "Timmy and the Chimp", or maybe it was Jimmy, I'm not sure. But it featured a villain who later turned up in Kids Next Door named Doctor XXXL, who was just unbearably nifty. I highly recommend tracking it down if you have the means.

07:27 / 26.05.03

I do have odd but detailed memories of Thunderbirds 2086. Only loosely related to Anderon's series, but some of the late-series Thunderbirds they came up with (more every episode, it seemed), were funky.

09:19 / 27.05.03

Kim Possible. Oh yes. And I don't care if Walt Disney was a cross-dressing Nazi who advocated all-white gated communities and froze his head. This is top-drawer.

01:59 / 09.06.03

Love the new Xmen... a very smart adaptation for kids. They got the characters pretty dead on, there's the Claremonty angst without the unneccesary exposition, and it's pretty. Wolverine is a little disappointing (check out the one with Captain America for Logan's deep friendship for a block of ice), but it is a kids cartoon. Okay, he's a lot dissapointing (thinking fights with Sabretooth, which are just... sad, really), but sometimes, they animate him fast, mean and ugly. Just once or twice, mind.

And Samurai Jack still knocks me out. I've never seen a cartoon THAT good before. Invader Zim was close(which I still miss), but damn if SJ doesn't use some of the slickest animation tricks ever. Perfectly, to boot.

Zim still has the occasional "new" episode released, though. I think there's about 3 or 4 more to go.

New Justice League? can't rave enough. The one with the Demon - download it now. And with the "Justice Guild".

Kim Possible? Kids Next Door? okay, I'll bite. Kazaa, work your thieving magic.