When you Wish Upon a Frog (Book II of the Jim Henson at Disney saga)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
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Speaking of Cartoon Network, anybody else remember all the crossover commercials?
Since House of Mouse and Wreck-It Ralph probably won't be a thing, it couldn't hurt to see something like that on the Disney Channel.
Oh, I can just imagine the bumpers this variant would cause...
Your Yearly Toon-Up
Talking 1990s Disney TV Animation with two of its Creators
Interview with Greg Weisman and Michael Reeves from AniMagic with Debbie Deschanel on the Disney Channel, April 4th, 2013
Int – Studio (Chromakey)
DEBBIE the host sits in a director’s chair across from two director’s chairs with MICHAEL REEVES and GREG WEISMAN. The chromakey background changes to show the title page and characters for the show and occasionally plays stills and clips from the series to coincide with the discussion. The AniMagic theme plays.
TITLE CARD: “AniMagic, with Debbie Deschanel”
(Image sources “rockpapershotgun” and Wikipedia)
Not quite these (Image sources Wikipedia, Ranker, Jurassic Outpost)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19967162/Gargoyles_main.jpg)
More or less this (Image source Polygon.com)
(Image sources chandler shackelford on Pinterest, Amazon, “marvel.fandom.com”, and The Lima News)
(Image source Pinterest)
(Image source Games Radar)
Theme song plays, lights dim. TITLE CARD displays.
[1] TV Tropes would call it a “Xanatos Gambit” in our timeline.
[2] In our timeline since Amblin co-owned Roger Rabbit, Disney was “inspired” to create Bonkers and Raw Toonage with Bonkers T. Bobcat, original IP that they didn’t have to share profits on. Here they control the IP and have stuck with the familiar.
[3] Papernik mask-tip to @Neoteros.
[4] More on this later!
[5] The origins of our timeline’s Gargoyles are rather foggy as it were, but it does seem certain that Wasserman’s original idea was more comedic in tone. In our timeline The Hunchback of Notre Dame was under early development around that time, so it seems possible or even likely that it may have begun life as a Hunchback spinoff, though I have no solid evidence to support this hypothesis.
[6] The 3-part episode “Turtles All the Way Down” sees our heroes tempted to sell bombards (i.e. cannons) and powder to the medieval society of the turtle world, with various monarchs offering lots of gold. But they are hounded by apocalyptic warnings about the “great red star” which is in fact a portal in the crystal sphere of that system, with the world turtle about to enter into the highly-explosive phlogiston that exists between the spheres en route to another sphere. The heroes eventually realize that the firearms that they plan to sell to the locals would be the actual cause of the prophesized apocalypse (all fires become supercharged in the phlogiston) and ultimately set aside their greed, instead educating the populous on the steps that they will need to take to prepare for the coming several-week journey through the phlogiston, actually kidnapping disbelieving monarchs and transporting them in their spelljammer into the phlogiston to experience it themselves. It served as a parable on climate change and won an Emmy.
Interview with Greg Weisman and Michael Reeves from AniMagic with Debbie Deschanel on the Disney Channel, April 4th, 2013
Int – Studio (Chromakey)
DEBBIE the host sits in a director’s chair across from two director’s chairs with MICHAEL REEVES and GREG WEISMAN. The chromakey background changes to show the title page and characters for the show and occasionally plays stills and clips from the series to coincide with the discussion. The AniMagic theme plays.
TITLE CARD: “AniMagic, with Debbie Deschanel”
Debbie
Hello again, Disney Fans, and welcome to AniMagic, where we explore the behind-the-scenes magic that brings animation to life. And with me today are Greg Weisman and Michael Reeves, the creative minds behind many of Disney’s legendary 1990s animated shows.
Michael
Thank you, Debbie.
Greg
Yes, absolutely, thank you for having us.
Debbie
Michael, let’s start with you. You have an extensive C.V. when it comes to television, in particular TV animation. You’ve written for so many popular animated shows from The Smurfs, to Droids and Ewaaks, to My Little Pony, Gem, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Transformers. You’ve also worked with Bird Brain on The Spirit and Batman and Superman and The Justice League. It would almost be quicker to discuss the classic ‘80s and ‘90s animated classics that you weren’t a part of!
Michael
(laughs) Yea, pretty much! The truth is that I just love to write, and for anything. Girly, violent, childish, dramatic…anything at all, really! I’ve done a lot with both Marvel and DC, so I’ve been able to have a wide range of experiences. I left Marvel not long after the Disney acquisition, not anything about Disney, mind you, Ron and Jim were very supportive, but after working with Brad Bird and Bruce Timm on The Spirit, I just followed them to Warner Bros. for Batman, and then later Superman and The Justice League. But I still slipped in some freelance work on Roger Rabbit and the like.
Debbie
And while working on Superman in particular, you introduced the world to an all-new Lex Luthor to those who grew up with either the Silver Age scenery chewing villain or the campy Gene Hackman film version. Your new Lex became the epitome of a Machiavellian schemer and manipulative psychopath, even spawning the recognition of his own trope, the “Lex Plan”, for when a character has arranged a plan so carefully that he gains advantage no matter whether it succeeds or not[1]. It was a characteristic that Ron Howard adapted in his cinematic reboot in 1992.
Michael
Oh, yes, rehabilitating Lex was a major goal of mine. He’d become a bit of a joke and a far cry from the original Siegel and Schuster character, who was always supposed to be a real match for Sups, a brain to match Sups’ brawn. I’m glad that it resonated so well with fans.
Debbie
And while your cartoons with Warner were doing exceedingly well, you returned to Disney after only three seasons with The Justice League.
Michael
Yes, Brad Bird followed Mira Velimirovic to Fox and started working with Filmation, and to be clear I still did writing for The Justice League, but then Greg made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Greg
Yes, I essentially gave him carte blanche to write whatever he wanted.
Michael
The truth is that I’d always wanted to do animation for Disney. Not only was it, well, the powerhouse of animation in terms of quality and brand recognition, but for the last decade the buzz in the industry was that you got paid more and treated better there by management.
Debbie
Greg, your C.V. is similarly impressive. You were first hired into Disney in 1983 as an animation production manager, and were pretty much caught up in the middle of all of the culture change of the early 1980s.
Greg
You hardly know the half of it, Debbie! (laughs) Yea, Disney Animation was in a tizzy when I arrived with The Black Cauldron in full production and the old school middle managers feeling increasingly run out by the ascending “Rat’s Nest” of names like Burton and Lasseter. And then Holmes à Court struck in ’84 and…well, you know the story there. From the start I was tasked with TV animation. We were expanding into both Saturday Morning and After School markets and launching The Disney Channel, originally as a subscription service. I was part of the team behind Duck Duck Goof and Mickey in the City. I also worked with Filmation on Ghostbusters, which is where I first worked with Mike, also getting him to write for TMNT. But my first big production was 1993’s Roger Rabbit’s Tales from Toon Town[2] along with Robert Taylor, Duane Capizzi, and Robert Hathcock. That ran from 1993-1996 and occupied much of my time.
Debbie
Tales from Toon Town was immensely popular, of course, but you had lots of company, with Disney also producing the almost legendary X-Men and Spider-Man animated series to be followed by Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Avengers spin-offs. That was also the era of The Duck Avenger, an affectionate parody of the popular superhero cartoons of the era starring Donald Duck[3], just back from his stint in the Navy during Duck Duck Goof.
Greg
Yes, The Duck Avenger was mostly poking at Bird Brain’s Batman, of course, in an affectionate way as we were all floored by it when it debuted. But we did make sure to self-skewer the X-Men and Spider-Man as well. The latter was as easy as recruiting the old Spider-Ham-slash-Peter Porker character from Star, but the former led to the creation of the Y-Nauts, who got their own brief spinoff series.
Hello again, Disney Fans, and welcome to AniMagic, where we explore the behind-the-scenes magic that brings animation to life. And with me today are Greg Weisman and Michael Reeves, the creative minds behind many of Disney’s legendary 1990s animated shows.
Michael
Thank you, Debbie.
Greg
Yes, absolutely, thank you for having us.
Debbie
Michael, let’s start with you. You have an extensive C.V. when it comes to television, in particular TV animation. You’ve written for so many popular animated shows from The Smurfs, to Droids and Ewaaks, to My Little Pony, Gem, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Transformers. You’ve also worked with Bird Brain on The Spirit and Batman and Superman and The Justice League. It would almost be quicker to discuss the classic ‘80s and ‘90s animated classics that you weren’t a part of!
Michael
(laughs) Yea, pretty much! The truth is that I just love to write, and for anything. Girly, violent, childish, dramatic…anything at all, really! I’ve done a lot with both Marvel and DC, so I’ve been able to have a wide range of experiences. I left Marvel not long after the Disney acquisition, not anything about Disney, mind you, Ron and Jim were very supportive, but after working with Brad Bird and Bruce Timm on The Spirit, I just followed them to Warner Bros. for Batman, and then later Superman and The Justice League. But I still slipped in some freelance work on Roger Rabbit and the like.
Debbie
And while working on Superman in particular, you introduced the world to an all-new Lex Luthor to those who grew up with either the Silver Age scenery chewing villain or the campy Gene Hackman film version. Your new Lex became the epitome of a Machiavellian schemer and manipulative psychopath, even spawning the recognition of his own trope, the “Lex Plan”, for when a character has arranged a plan so carefully that he gains advantage no matter whether it succeeds or not[1]. It was a characteristic that Ron Howard adapted in his cinematic reboot in 1992.
Michael
Oh, yes, rehabilitating Lex was a major goal of mine. He’d become a bit of a joke and a far cry from the original Siegel and Schuster character, who was always supposed to be a real match for Sups, a brain to match Sups’ brawn. I’m glad that it resonated so well with fans.
Debbie
And while your cartoons with Warner were doing exceedingly well, you returned to Disney after only three seasons with The Justice League.
Michael
Yes, Brad Bird followed Mira Velimirovic to Fox and started working with Filmation, and to be clear I still did writing for The Justice League, but then Greg made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Greg
Yes, I essentially gave him carte blanche to write whatever he wanted.
Michael
The truth is that I’d always wanted to do animation for Disney. Not only was it, well, the powerhouse of animation in terms of quality and brand recognition, but for the last decade the buzz in the industry was that you got paid more and treated better there by management.
Debbie
Greg, your C.V. is similarly impressive. You were first hired into Disney in 1983 as an animation production manager, and were pretty much caught up in the middle of all of the culture change of the early 1980s.
Greg
You hardly know the half of it, Debbie! (laughs) Yea, Disney Animation was in a tizzy when I arrived with The Black Cauldron in full production and the old school middle managers feeling increasingly run out by the ascending “Rat’s Nest” of names like Burton and Lasseter. And then Holmes à Court struck in ’84 and…well, you know the story there. From the start I was tasked with TV animation. We were expanding into both Saturday Morning and After School markets and launching The Disney Channel, originally as a subscription service. I was part of the team behind Duck Duck Goof and Mickey in the City. I also worked with Filmation on Ghostbusters, which is where I first worked with Mike, also getting him to write for TMNT. But my first big production was 1993’s Roger Rabbit’s Tales from Toon Town[2] along with Robert Taylor, Duane Capizzi, and Robert Hathcock. That ran from 1993-1996 and occupied much of my time.
Debbie
Tales from Toon Town was immensely popular, of course, but you had lots of company, with Disney also producing the almost legendary X-Men and Spider-Man animated series to be followed by Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Avengers spin-offs. That was also the era of The Duck Avenger, an affectionate parody of the popular superhero cartoons of the era starring Donald Duck[3], just back from his stint in the Navy during Duck Duck Goof.
Greg
Yes, The Duck Avenger was mostly poking at Bird Brain’s Batman, of course, in an affectionate way as we were all floored by it when it debuted. But we did make sure to self-skewer the X-Men and Spider-Man as well. The latter was as easy as recruiting the old Spider-Ham-slash-Peter Porker character from Star, but the former led to the creation of the Y-Nauts, who got their own brief spinoff series.
(Image sources “rockpapershotgun” and Wikipedia)
Michael
And just so you know, Brad and Bruce loved The Duck Avenger. They were familiar with the original Italian Papernik comics that he was based on. Heck, didn’t Marvel just reprint Papernik in English as The Duck Avenger comics run on Star?
Greg
Yes, they did. Of course, the nanosecond that we had Spider-Ham appear in the Duckverse we had to deal with the inevitable fan questions of whether the Duckverse was in Marvel Earth-8311 where Spider-Ham lives, so that meant that we had to have Stan Lee and Shooter approve the creation of Earth-3825, which is D-U-C-K on touch-tone, by the way, to house the Duckverse. And that, in turn, led to the inevitable questions concerning Howard the Duck and Duckworld, which we studiously pretended not to hear.
Debbie
The Early 1990s were a transitional time in TV animation in general. You had the 1989 Children’s Television Act, which added educational and “socially redeeming value” requirements as well as adopting the MPAA Rating system. But you also had Saturday Morning Cartoons fading away and various competing “Kids’ Blocks” on after-school along with the rise of Cable Animation channels like Cartoon City, Neptune, and of course Disney Toon Town.
And just so you know, Brad and Bruce loved The Duck Avenger. They were familiar with the original Italian Papernik comics that he was based on. Heck, didn’t Marvel just reprint Papernik in English as The Duck Avenger comics run on Star?
Greg
Yes, they did. Of course, the nanosecond that we had Spider-Ham appear in the Duckverse we had to deal with the inevitable fan questions of whether the Duckverse was in Marvel Earth-8311 where Spider-Ham lives, so that meant that we had to have Stan Lee and Shooter approve the creation of Earth-3825, which is D-U-C-K on touch-tone, by the way, to house the Duckverse. And that, in turn, led to the inevitable questions concerning Howard the Duck and Duckworld, which we studiously pretended not to hear.
Debbie
The Early 1990s were a transitional time in TV animation in general. You had the 1989 Children’s Television Act, which added educational and “socially redeeming value” requirements as well as adopting the MPAA Rating system. But you also had Saturday Morning Cartoons fading away and various competing “Kids’ Blocks” on after-school along with the rise of Cable Animation channels like Cartoon City, Neptune, and of course Disney Toon Town.
Not quite these (Image sources Wikipedia, Ranker, Jurassic Outpost)
Greg
Yea, it was an odd time. The old Sunbow stuff was out. We were seeing a transition at Disney away from the Duckverse and towards more action-oriented fare. Jymm Magon and Mark Zaslove’s TaleSpin marked an interesting transition piece there. Duane tried unsuccessfully to relaunch Transformers, which lasted half a season, and relaunched The Inhumanoids in response to Universal’s highly popular Monster Mayhem, but they just couldn’t stand up to Kong and Godzilla and all the rest of the Toho Kaiju. It was a shame since both series were so well done. He had better luck more recently, of course. We had all of the Marvel Productions and all of the comics-based stuff, which due to syndication options meant that you’d often see X-Men back-to-back on your local PFN affiliate with The Justice League. But we were also pushing into new areas using the Fantasia TV label, so you got those weird musical-action-comedy things in the early 1990s like Little Shop of Horrors and Beetlejuice made along with Kathy Zielinski and the Skeleton Crew. We partnered with Spielberg’s new Amblimation label for TV series based on Shrek and Jurassic Park as well as Out of the Vault, of course. But strangest of all was, of course, Tim Burton and the Skeleton Crew and the whole “Reaper Madness” saga.
Debbie
You’re referring to the Fall 1992 launch of Terry Pratchett’s Reaper Man series and the series that followed.
Greg
Obviously! There was a lot of behind-the-scenes fun there, let me tell you![4]
Debbie
I bet! And naturally, that lead to Gargoyles, and where Michael reentered the picture.
Michael
Yes! By the mid-’90s I’d had my fill of WB and DC and their management at the time and went to Disney. Greg had this idea for an action-comedy about anthropomorphic gargoyles, I believe as an offshoot of Hunchback back when Dave was pushing it as a summer family film.
Debbie
You’re referring of course to 1995’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, released under the Walter Elias Disney Signature Series for “enhancing the art and redeeming value of animation.”
Greg
Yes, that’s the history. David Stainton was a production VP at the time and had the idea for making Quasi a Disney Hero. The early treatments [of the film] had the gargoyles of Notre Dame coming to life as friends of Quasi’s, but the decision was made early on to stick closer to the serious tone of the Hugo novel and move it from Disney Animation to WED-Sig. But prior to that, David and I had discussed making a spin-off animated series focusing on the gargoyle characters as a comedy-adventure series in the Duck Duck Goof mode[5]. But with Mike coming over and with the original Hunchback characters dropped, we decided to remake it as a gothic adventure series in the Bird Brain Batman mold.
Debbie
And thus, Gargoyles was born.
Michael
And there was much rejoicing.
Debbie
Yaayyy!
Yea, it was an odd time. The old Sunbow stuff was out. We were seeing a transition at Disney away from the Duckverse and towards more action-oriented fare. Jymm Magon and Mark Zaslove’s TaleSpin marked an interesting transition piece there. Duane tried unsuccessfully to relaunch Transformers, which lasted half a season, and relaunched The Inhumanoids in response to Universal’s highly popular Monster Mayhem, but they just couldn’t stand up to Kong and Godzilla and all the rest of the Toho Kaiju. It was a shame since both series were so well done. He had better luck more recently, of course. We had all of the Marvel Productions and all of the comics-based stuff, which due to syndication options meant that you’d often see X-Men back-to-back on your local PFN affiliate with The Justice League. But we were also pushing into new areas using the Fantasia TV label, so you got those weird musical-action-comedy things in the early 1990s like Little Shop of Horrors and Beetlejuice made along with Kathy Zielinski and the Skeleton Crew. We partnered with Spielberg’s new Amblimation label for TV series based on Shrek and Jurassic Park as well as Out of the Vault, of course. But strangest of all was, of course, Tim Burton and the Skeleton Crew and the whole “Reaper Madness” saga.
Debbie
You’re referring to the Fall 1992 launch of Terry Pratchett’s Reaper Man series and the series that followed.
Greg
Obviously! There was a lot of behind-the-scenes fun there, let me tell you![4]
Debbie
I bet! And naturally, that lead to Gargoyles, and where Michael reentered the picture.
Michael
Yes! By the mid-’90s I’d had my fill of WB and DC and their management at the time and went to Disney. Greg had this idea for an action-comedy about anthropomorphic gargoyles, I believe as an offshoot of Hunchback back when Dave was pushing it as a summer family film.
Debbie
You’re referring of course to 1995’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, released under the Walter Elias Disney Signature Series for “enhancing the art and redeeming value of animation.”
Greg
Yes, that’s the history. David Stainton was a production VP at the time and had the idea for making Quasi a Disney Hero. The early treatments [of the film] had the gargoyles of Notre Dame coming to life as friends of Quasi’s, but the decision was made early on to stick closer to the serious tone of the Hugo novel and move it from Disney Animation to WED-Sig. But prior to that, David and I had discussed making a spin-off animated series focusing on the gargoyle characters as a comedy-adventure series in the Duck Duck Goof mode[5]. But with Mike coming over and with the original Hunchback characters dropped, we decided to remake it as a gothic adventure series in the Bird Brain Batman mold.
Debbie
And thus, Gargoyles was born.
Michael
And there was much rejoicing.
Debbie
Yaayyy!
More or less this (Image source Polygon.com)
Michael
So, I’m basically given free rein to write whatever I want. We immediately decided to make the eponymous Gargoyles tragic figures, misunderstood heroes and the like, but with a lot of morally grey areas. Jim Henson loved the idea and we got lots of support.
Greg
Needless to say, we took a lot of stylistic and thematic cues from Batman and The Justice League, including having Xanatos as a hyper-capable recurring antagonist, even though by that point he was inevitably compared to Lex, though a lot of TaleSpin fans accused us of ripping off Khan Mughali, of course.
Michael
Seriously, a rich and powerful man who schemes as a central antagonist. Such a unique idea! So glad I’m the first person to come up with it.
Greg
We, of course, recruited a lot of the Star Trek alums as our voice actors, Jon Frakes as Xanatos, of course, just because we loved Star Trek. But we also had some of the usual Disney Animation names, like Frank Welker as Bronx and Jude Barsi as the seemingly innocent, but actually sadistic Pip. Fun fact, Pip was originally a wholly innocent character, but Jude asked us to, in her words, “make her more bad-ass.” And so we did! She became a breakout favorite.
Debbie
We could talk at length about Gargoyles, but our time is limited, and there’s so much to talk about. Gargoyles marked a mature and more adult, PG turn for Disney animation, ultimately spawning its own Marvel Earth-78663, or “S-T-O-N-E” to allow for limited comics crossovers while keeping the “Goyleverse” self-contained. Gargoyles managed to pull in viewership from a wide swath of ages, becoming in particular a parent-child show. And this more relatively mature turn, coming as it did with the rise of Adult Animation on MTV, HBO, and Cartoon City’s Adult Swim, led naturally to Toon Town’s competing late night Pleasure Island block. And that led to other things.
Greg
Yea, first off it led to Hellspawn! We got a lot of crap from moral guardians on that, even though we gave it a hard T rating and explicitly put it in the adults-only Pleasure Island late night block. Duane followed up with The Savage Dragon and Youngblood. They managed to pull in a reasonable following in the mid ‘90s along with some of the more adult Anime series like Elvira: Mistress of the Dark that helped get the ball rolling on Pleasure Island.
So, I’m basically given free rein to write whatever I want. We immediately decided to make the eponymous Gargoyles tragic figures, misunderstood heroes and the like, but with a lot of morally grey areas. Jim Henson loved the idea and we got lots of support.
Greg
Needless to say, we took a lot of stylistic and thematic cues from Batman and The Justice League, including having Xanatos as a hyper-capable recurring antagonist, even though by that point he was inevitably compared to Lex, though a lot of TaleSpin fans accused us of ripping off Khan Mughali, of course.
Michael
Seriously, a rich and powerful man who schemes as a central antagonist. Such a unique idea! So glad I’m the first person to come up with it.
Greg
We, of course, recruited a lot of the Star Trek alums as our voice actors, Jon Frakes as Xanatos, of course, just because we loved Star Trek. But we also had some of the usual Disney Animation names, like Frank Welker as Bronx and Jude Barsi as the seemingly innocent, but actually sadistic Pip. Fun fact, Pip was originally a wholly innocent character, but Jude asked us to, in her words, “make her more bad-ass.” And so we did! She became a breakout favorite.
Debbie
We could talk at length about Gargoyles, but our time is limited, and there’s so much to talk about. Gargoyles marked a mature and more adult, PG turn for Disney animation, ultimately spawning its own Marvel Earth-78663, or “S-T-O-N-E” to allow for limited comics crossovers while keeping the “Goyleverse” self-contained. Gargoyles managed to pull in viewership from a wide swath of ages, becoming in particular a parent-child show. And this more relatively mature turn, coming as it did with the rise of Adult Animation on MTV, HBO, and Cartoon City’s Adult Swim, led naturally to Toon Town’s competing late night Pleasure Island block. And that led to other things.
Greg
Yea, first off it led to Hellspawn! We got a lot of crap from moral guardians on that, even though we gave it a hard T rating and explicitly put it in the adults-only Pleasure Island late night block. Duane followed up with The Savage Dragon and Youngblood. They managed to pull in a reasonable following in the mid ‘90s along with some of the more adult Anime series like Elvira: Mistress of the Dark that helped get the ball rolling on Pleasure Island.
(Image sources chandler shackelford on Pinterest, Amazon, “marvel.fandom.com”, and The Lima News)
Michael
Oh yes, Pleasure Island was a godsend, as it were. We could explore topics like sex and violence and even drugs. Some cultural gatekeepers complained, as always, but we had real redeeming value there since we weren’t glorifying any of it. The Howard the Duck series became a big hit along with Brian Henson’s Happytown PD adult puppet series, even though the Howard series reignited the whole “is Howard from Earth-3825?” debate, so we finally just had it objectively stated that Earth-47920, where Duckworld is, was a parallel universe to Earth-3825 where the Duckverse is, by having a brief Duck Avenger crossover.
Debbie
And naturally that ended the debate (laughs).
Michael
Is the Pope Jewish?
Debbie
(laughs awkwardly, quickly changes subject) And then you had Pirates of the Void, which was essentially Treasure Planet: The Series. That one also had a lot of crossover interest, particularly in Japan, lasting from 1995 to 2000.
Oh yes, Pleasure Island was a godsend, as it were. We could explore topics like sex and violence and even drugs. Some cultural gatekeepers complained, as always, but we had real redeeming value there since we weren’t glorifying any of it. The Howard the Duck series became a big hit along with Brian Henson’s Happytown PD adult puppet series, even though the Howard series reignited the whole “is Howard from Earth-3825?” debate, so we finally just had it objectively stated that Earth-47920, where Duckworld is, was a parallel universe to Earth-3825 where the Duckverse is, by having a brief Duck Avenger crossover.
Debbie
And naturally that ended the debate (laughs).
Michael
Is the Pope Jewish?
Debbie
(laughs awkwardly, quickly changes subject) And then you had Pirates of the Void, which was essentially Treasure Planet: The Series. That one also had a lot of crossover interest, particularly in Japan, lasting from 1995 to 2000.
(Image source Pinterest)
Greg
Absolutely! Ron Clements and John Musker had released the 1994 feature in partnership with Studio Ghibli, which underperformed pretty badly, except in Japan, of course
Michael
Go figure, if anyone would not just like but adore that type of Steam Romance Space Adventure stuff it would be the Japanese! They loved the film, which spun off all kinds of merch and manga, and the Oriental Land Company was immediately calling up Imagineering and asking for ideas for a Treasure Planet attraction for Tokyo Disneyland or DisneySea. Ron, who still had a lot of stories to tell regarding Jim and Long John Silver, came to us and asked us to work with Studio Ai, which was this Ghibli spinoff, on a new Anime series. He also had Gary Gygax with him. Gary was really hoping to renew interest in the Spelljammer D&D setting, which had inspired a lot of the design and space physics for Treasure Planet. He was also working on a MickeyQuest module for Treasure Planet, which, naturally, could cross over into the other “spheres” of Spelljammer. That gave us and Makiko lots of material to work with.
Debbie
Makiko Futaki, head of Studio Ai.
Greg
Yes. She’d recently spun out from Ghibli and was running her own little studio. They were a struggling startup and willing to work hard and cheap to establish their cred. Gary made Pirates of the Void an official Marvel Productions series in collaboration with Ai and we developed all sorts of continuing adventures not just for Jim and Silver and B.E.N., but introduced new characters and side plots spanning all of the Spheres of the greater Spelljammer setting.
Michael
And thus, we came up with all sorts of new and exciting crossover events and visited every D&D world in one form or another. We even had that season 3 visit to a Totally Not Discworld at All, Really planet on the back of a giant sea turtle[6], which we had Jim run by Terry to at least make sure it was cool with him. Pirates even became a sort of soft relaunch of the cult 1993 animated series just titled Spelljammer as well, since the crew from that series got a few more adventures out of the deal.
Absolutely! Ron Clements and John Musker had released the 1994 feature in partnership with Studio Ghibli, which underperformed pretty badly, except in Japan, of course
Michael
Go figure, if anyone would not just like but adore that type of Steam Romance Space Adventure stuff it would be the Japanese! They loved the film, which spun off all kinds of merch and manga, and the Oriental Land Company was immediately calling up Imagineering and asking for ideas for a Treasure Planet attraction for Tokyo Disneyland or DisneySea. Ron, who still had a lot of stories to tell regarding Jim and Long John Silver, came to us and asked us to work with Studio Ai, which was this Ghibli spinoff, on a new Anime series. He also had Gary Gygax with him. Gary was really hoping to renew interest in the Spelljammer D&D setting, which had inspired a lot of the design and space physics for Treasure Planet. He was also working on a MickeyQuest module for Treasure Planet, which, naturally, could cross over into the other “spheres” of Spelljammer. That gave us and Makiko lots of material to work with.
Debbie
Makiko Futaki, head of Studio Ai.
Greg
Yes. She’d recently spun out from Ghibli and was running her own little studio. They were a struggling startup and willing to work hard and cheap to establish their cred. Gary made Pirates of the Void an official Marvel Productions series in collaboration with Ai and we developed all sorts of continuing adventures not just for Jim and Silver and B.E.N., but introduced new characters and side plots spanning all of the Spheres of the greater Spelljammer setting.
Michael
And thus, we came up with all sorts of new and exciting crossover events and visited every D&D world in one form or another. We even had that season 3 visit to a Totally Not Discworld at All, Really planet on the back of a giant sea turtle[6], which we had Jim run by Terry to at least make sure it was cool with him. Pirates even became a sort of soft relaunch of the cult 1993 animated series just titled Spelljammer as well, since the crew from that series got a few more adventures out of the deal.
(Image source Games Radar)
Debbie
Well, suffice it to say that the 1990s marked a definitive turn in Disney animation, be that Disney Main, Fantasia, Marvel, or the adult Hyperion TV brand. Certainly, Disney’s TV dominance came to an end in the era, despite producing many of the most popular animated series of the age.
Greg
Well, yes. The rise of digital animation and the Microstudio boom was a game changer there. Disney, H-B, and Warner had practically cornered the TV animation market by 1993, with DiC, Filmation, and Nelvana struggling to stay relevant and all three soon purchased by larger studios. But that changed quickly as you had all of these Featherweight and Bantamweight studios like Wayward and Whoopass popping up. Suddenly a Mike Judge or Genndy Tartakovsky could put together a hit animated show with a relatively small team. You no longer needed big, established teams, expensive materials, or contracts with Japanese studios if you had a few DIS stations and a MINIBOG. I’m exaggerating, of course. Animation was still a challenging and increasingly competitive field. Not just anyone could crank out a series, though many tried.
Michael
Yea (laughs), and some of that competition came from other Hensons! You had Lisa at Fox spinning up Filmation for a return to the big time, with Brad and Bruce as willing co-conspirators in that regard, and then you had Heather over at Whoopass. I’d complain, but frankly, I loved it. The Iron Giant? Whoopass Stew? (blows a kiss) It forced us to stop phoning things in and resting on our laurels. If three guys in Van Nuys could compete with Disney and Warner on equal terms, then we had to innovate or get left behind!
Debbie
So, to some degree the added competition was a blessing in disguise.
Michael
Yes, absolutely! The 1990s may have spelled the end of Disney Animation Dominance, but it didn’t mean the end of Disney Animation. And the new millennium offered us just the opportunity that we needed to remind the world why we were the name to beat!
Debbie
And with that, we’re out of time. Thank you once again to Michael Reeves and Greg Wasserman on taking us back to the 1990s and the golden age of TV Animation.
Greg
Thank you, Debbie!
Michael
Definitely!
Debbie
Next week, we continue our talks about Disney TV Animation when we talk with Kevin Lima and Brenda Chapman about the Princess Squad and Hero Squad series and the toy universe that they synergized with. I’m Debbie Deschanel and this is AniMagic! Good night.
Well, suffice it to say that the 1990s marked a definitive turn in Disney animation, be that Disney Main, Fantasia, Marvel, or the adult Hyperion TV brand. Certainly, Disney’s TV dominance came to an end in the era, despite producing many of the most popular animated series of the age.
Greg
Well, yes. The rise of digital animation and the Microstudio boom was a game changer there. Disney, H-B, and Warner had practically cornered the TV animation market by 1993, with DiC, Filmation, and Nelvana struggling to stay relevant and all three soon purchased by larger studios. But that changed quickly as you had all of these Featherweight and Bantamweight studios like Wayward and Whoopass popping up. Suddenly a Mike Judge or Genndy Tartakovsky could put together a hit animated show with a relatively small team. You no longer needed big, established teams, expensive materials, or contracts with Japanese studios if you had a few DIS stations and a MINIBOG. I’m exaggerating, of course. Animation was still a challenging and increasingly competitive field. Not just anyone could crank out a series, though many tried.
Michael
Yea (laughs), and some of that competition came from other Hensons! You had Lisa at Fox spinning up Filmation for a return to the big time, with Brad and Bruce as willing co-conspirators in that regard, and then you had Heather over at Whoopass. I’d complain, but frankly, I loved it. The Iron Giant? Whoopass Stew? (blows a kiss) It forced us to stop phoning things in and resting on our laurels. If three guys in Van Nuys could compete with Disney and Warner on equal terms, then we had to innovate or get left behind!
Debbie
So, to some degree the added competition was a blessing in disguise.
Michael
Yes, absolutely! The 1990s may have spelled the end of Disney Animation Dominance, but it didn’t mean the end of Disney Animation. And the new millennium offered us just the opportunity that we needed to remind the world why we were the name to beat!
Debbie
And with that, we’re out of time. Thank you once again to Michael Reeves and Greg Wasserman on taking us back to the 1990s and the golden age of TV Animation.
Greg
Thank you, Debbie!
Michael
Definitely!
Debbie
Next week, we continue our talks about Disney TV Animation when we talk with Kevin Lima and Brenda Chapman about the Princess Squad and Hero Squad series and the toy universe that they synergized with. I’m Debbie Deschanel and this is AniMagic! Good night.
Theme song plays, lights dim. TITLE CARD displays.
[1] TV Tropes would call it a “Xanatos Gambit” in our timeline.
[2] In our timeline since Amblin co-owned Roger Rabbit, Disney was “inspired” to create Bonkers and Raw Toonage with Bonkers T. Bobcat, original IP that they didn’t have to share profits on. Here they control the IP and have stuck with the familiar.
[3] Papernik mask-tip to @Neoteros.
[4] More on this later!
[5] The origins of our timeline’s Gargoyles are rather foggy as it were, but it does seem certain that Wasserman’s original idea was more comedic in tone. In our timeline The Hunchback of Notre Dame was under early development around that time, so it seems possible or even likely that it may have begun life as a Hunchback spinoff, though I have no solid evidence to support this hypothesis.
[6] The 3-part episode “Turtles All the Way Down” sees our heroes tempted to sell bombards (i.e. cannons) and powder to the medieval society of the turtle world, with various monarchs offering lots of gold. But they are hounded by apocalyptic warnings about the “great red star” which is in fact a portal in the crystal sphere of that system, with the world turtle about to enter into the highly-explosive phlogiston that exists between the spheres en route to another sphere. The heroes eventually realize that the firearms that they plan to sell to the locals would be the actual cause of the prophesized apocalypse (all fires become supercharged in the phlogiston) and ultimately set aside their greed, instead educating the populous on the steps that they will need to take to prepare for the coming several-week journey through the phlogiston, actually kidnapping disbelieving monarchs and transporting them in their spelljammer into the phlogiston to experience it themselves. It served as a parable on climate change and won an Emmy.
Yeeeaaah!Greg
Yes, that’s the history. David Stainton was a production VP at the time and had the idea for making Quasi a Disney Hero. The early treatments [of the film] had the gargoyles of Notre Dame coming to life as friends of Quasi’s, but the decision was made early on to stick closer to the serious tone of the Hugo novel and move it from Disney Animation to WED-Sig. But prior to that, David and I had discussed making a spin-off animated series focusing on the gargoyle characters as a comedy-adventure series in the Duck Duck Goof mode[5]. But with Mike coming over and with the original Hunchback characters dropped, we decided to remake it as a gothic adventure series in the Bird Brain Batman mold.
Debbie
And thus, Gargoyles was born.
Michael
And there was much rejoicing.
Debbie
Yaayyy!
More or less this (Image source Polygon.com)
Nice.
(Image sources chandler shackelford on Pinterest, Amazon, “marvel.fandom.com”, and The Lima News)
Having union contracts pays too.
Duck Avengers and Spider-Ham together?
Awesome
Of course, nothing can stop the Nerds.
I wonder how much it adapts from the Novel of the same name.
Interesting Backstory for Gargoyles.
Also I'm glad it's still exists. Wonder if they decided to name a character Victor or Hugo as a reference to their origin.
Jude knows what she wants and I respect that.
Nineties galore with these entries!
However I hope that the Youngblood animated series has better writing than the Source material had at that point.
Is it a product of its time or is it actually worth checking out today?
Is this series better than OTLs Happytown Murders?
Delightful series, glad that TP gets its chance overseas and exploring the Spelljammer universe is also a great plus.
Great chapter @Geekhis Khan
With regards to sports, I have another set of ideas for baseball: in TTL, the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) manage to go 56-106 in the 1985 season, and draft Greg Swindell (in OTL, but with the #2 pick). Then, the Atlanta Braves do worse in 1986 than OTL, going 64-98 (it was 72-89 in OTL), while the Pittsburgh Pirates go to 66-96 (they had the worst NL record in OTL, at 64-98). This means that they have the #1 pick, and they pick Ken Griffey, Jr.
In TTL, by the mid-1990s, the Braves have won several World Series titles, and are well on their way to a dynasty...
In TTL, by the mid-1990s, the Braves have won several World Series titles, and are well on their way to a dynasty...
I can easily imagine Oda Eichiro being as inspired by Pirates of the Void as he was by The Pirates of Dark Water in the creation of One Piece.
So, instead of Darkwing Duck, we get The Duck Avenger, who is also an amalgamation of Batman and The Spirit. Will he be repurposed as Papernik in Europe, as a reverse homage?
Also, in this Howard the Duck cartoon, will it include any of the the stuff from the '00s Max run, like Howard getting sued by Disney, being forced to wear pants, Beverly leaving him, and/or Reprise buying out his record company in a hostile takeover?
Considering that Jim Henson seems less tolerant of screwing over proven creative talent for the sake of personal corporate advancement, and presumably Gargoyles still makes bank, does this mean that Greg Wiseman is put in charge of W.I.T.C.H. starting from the beginning, and the series lasting (at least) the originally projected six season run, or has the show and the Franco-Italian comic it was based on been butterflied away, or at least into unrecognizability?
Considering that we are getting Image Comic cartoon properties with greater initial exposure and better production values, does this mean that we might be getting Stormwatch, WildCATS, and/or The Authority plus spinoffs for Friday and Saturday nights as well?
Also, this is around the same time that a certain seventeen year old in Texas is experimenting with replacing captions in video-game cutscenes to make them funnier...
So, instead of Darkwing Duck, we get The Duck Avenger, who is also an amalgamation of Batman and The Spirit. Will he be repurposed as Papernik in Europe, as a reverse homage?
Also, in this Howard the Duck cartoon, will it include any of the the stuff from the '00s Max run, like Howard getting sued by Disney, being forced to wear pants, Beverly leaving him, and/or Reprise buying out his record company in a hostile takeover?
Considering that Jim Henson seems less tolerant of screwing over proven creative talent for the sake of personal corporate advancement, and presumably Gargoyles still makes bank, does this mean that Greg Wiseman is put in charge of W.I.T.C.H. starting from the beginning, and the series lasting (at least) the originally projected six season run, or has the show and the Franco-Italian comic it was based on been butterflied away, or at least into unrecognizability?
Considering that we are getting Image Comic cartoon properties with greater initial exposure and better production values, does this mean that we might be getting Stormwatch, WildCATS, and/or The Authority plus spinoffs for Friday and Saturday nights as well?
Also, this is around the same time that a certain seventeen year old in Texas is experimenting with replacing captions in video-game cutscenes to make them funnier...
So that's three 90's girlbosses - Blossom, Maggie and Pip - for Judith Barsi.
(Seriously, there's probably crossover fanart of those three ITTL).
Wonder if Kate Blake made it into Void?
I believe she also voiced a Twi'lek Jedi in '91. Plenty of fanart to go around.
Whew, there's a lot of awesome stuff here, to the point where I almost missed the Discworld series!
It would be very characteristic if Gerber was still complaining about that 1979 letter from Disney, even once Disney owns the character. It probably wouldn't be characteristic of him to even agree to write a cartoon for them, though.
Maybe the follow-up Discworld series could be a much more faithful adaptation of the Watch books. I think kids could do well to be exposed to the social commentary of the Watch books. And it could be the chance to introduce a certain Moist von Lipwig early.
That depends on Jim Lee's career trajectory. I can see him staying on X-Men for a little longer (until, maybe, 1993) before he moves on. It depends on whether he wants to do creator-owned work with WildCATS/Stormwatch, or another Marvel title.
Here is a freebie for @Geekhis Khan should he find the idea enticing. Alpha Flight (vol. 1) will be ending in 1994 with issue #130 and perhaps Lee could be repurpose the title into an international version of the Avengers/S.H.I.E.L.D. called Stormwatch under UN auspices that would use some Alpha Flight characters with Marvel's international heroes and some of Lee's originals like Battalion. As for The Authority, that was Warren Ellis' brainchild, but he was starting up at Marvel at the time so he could still take over (around 1997-8) and introduce Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor, the Midnighter, and the like.
Does anyone on this thread remember the movie The Hitcher (1986)? In that one, during the first half of the movie, the protagonist, Jim Halsey (played by C. Thomas Howell) was the only one who sees the killer, John Ryder (played chillingly by Rutger Hauer, IMO), and the acts Ryder commits are in front of Jim, so, until it turns out that Ryder is real (other people can see him), one would think that Ryder is Halsey's split personality (especially if they've seen other movies where that's the case, like Secret Window and Hide and Seek)...
I wonder if, in TTL, that turns out to be the twist, after Friday the 13th Part V's twist (where Tommy turned out to be the new Jason)--or if it remains the same as OTL, but there's a lot more suspicion towards Halsey/Ryder being the same person in the first half...
I wonder if, in TTL, that turns out to be the twist, after Friday the 13th Part V's twist (where Tommy turned out to be the new Jason)--or if it remains the same as OTL, but there's a lot more suspicion towards Halsey/Ryder being the same person in the first half...
Thanks again, all. 1994 is past, and 1995 is here. Big changes ahead.
The Latin American princess, and the Chinese Princess, and really all Disney Canon through 2002, are already written at this point.
Jobs won't take over until 1996. It's still 1995.
WW: You're developing into great superheroes!
Bubbles: And maybe one day we can be as developed as you!
WW and HG look at each other, and start to laugh.
Bubbles: What?
BGE shows are coming up, but butterflies abound. And yes, MGM will have a special (and obvious) working relationship.
Yes to Medusa.
The Latin American princess, and the Chinese Princess, and really all Disney Canon through 2002, are already written at this point.
Peter Dailey is Roy Disney's brother in law, his "second seat" on the board, and an Outside Investor not working for Disney.
Jobs won't take over until 1996. It's still 1995.
This. I try to give a flavor of things, but I can't really show the entire work. What goes on in my head doesn't always translate.
My favorite was the one when Wonder Woman and Hawk Girl met with the PPGs.
WW: You're developing into great superheroes!
Bubbles: And maybe one day we can be as developed as you!
WW and HG look at each other, and start to laugh.
Bubbles: What?
You'll notice how the original version of Pip was basically a "precocious little girl". She not only took ownership of the character, she took ownership of the typecast.
Hadn't put much thought into it. I figure it'll be popular with a lot of the folks who loved the Dark Age iOTL.
Makes sense.
Yes, in Europe the name will be various translations of Papernik: The Duck Avenger (e.g. Papernik: il Anatre di Vendicatore or something like that).
Yes I fully expect them to go there. Likely a Duckverse crossover.
Other than butterflies, all seems possible.
I'm not sure who that is, TBH.
If someone wants to take this direction in a Guest Post go for it, but more in the weeds than I plan on for comics.
Sounds like a Guest Post opportunity to me.
EDIT: Nowhere to go but up, right?
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Umm, Midnighter would seem like a gay, black version of Moon Knight, as both took the same idea of what if Batman actually was stark raving loony tunes, but just really good at hiding it from everyone else.
This isn't a problem in and of itself, but by this time comics readers of Marvel books were starting to have their overfill of characters almost just like the originals, but not actually legacy successors being passed the torch. (Like War Machine for Iron Man, Thunderstrike and Beta Ray Bill for Thor, the Johnny Walker U.S. Agent and the unfrozen 'Fifties Captain America, all the-then various MCU Captain Marvels, all four Spider-Women when you count Mattie Franklin, at least three different versions of Nathan Gray-Summers, the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider, and most especially the Ben Reilly Scarlet Spider). I'm even sure that for a while, there was a copycat Punisher who wasn't Frank Castle who got his own book.
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