Remember that one day when you could wake up without an alarm? When you would get your favorite bowl of cereal and sit between the hours of 8 and 12? This is a blog dedicated to the greatest time of our childhood: Saturday mornings. The television programs you watched, the memories attached to them, and maybe introducing you to something you didn't realize existed. Updated every weekend.
He was the announcer of Birthday Land and additional voices in The
Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat; Dr. Doom in Spider-Man: The Animated
Series; a soldier and tech in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command; The
President of Outer Space, a rebel, Walter Carbonite, Cooter, Nostrillian
Captain and a crewmember in Duck Dodgers; Roswell in Power Rangers
S.P.D.; Ultimos, Donovan GrandSmith and Arcticguana in Ben 10 (2006);
Magneto, Professor Thornton and a scientist in Wolverine and the X-Men;
Announcer #2 and a dad in Back at the Barnyard; and Yoda, Admiral
Yularen, Captain Jayfon, Tactical Droid, Police Droid, Twi’lek Punk, Secret
Service Officer, Police Captain, Orderly, Major Rigosso, Oked, Balnab Bounty
Hunter, Mr. Borkus, Kraken, Medical Droid, Cultist Aide, Cultist Gunner, a creature,
a guard and the narrator in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
He voiced Angus in The Secret Files of the SpyDogs; Albert Einstein in an episode of The Mummy: The
Animated Series; XLR8, Diamondhead, Wildvine, and several
minor roles in Ben 10 (2005); Stoker, Eyemore, Dr. Catorkian, Crusher and several minor
roles in Biker Mice From Mars (2006); Mordru in an episode of Legion of Super Heroes; Mr. Sully in The Replacements; Professor X, the Sentinels, Dr. Abraham Cornelius, and Warren
Worthington II in Wolverine and the
X-Men; a judge in an episode of Back at the Barnyard; Ho-Boe in Winx Club; and The Brain in an episode of Justice League Action. He also provided voices for Mighty Mouse: The New
Adventures, Men in Black: The Series, and Xyber 9: New Dawn.
He began his career at DC Comics at just 14-years-old and went on to revitalize
rival Marvel Comics as editor-in-chief. His adherence to absolute editorial
control made him a polarizing figure to other creatives and he was eventually
fired. He then found Valiant Comics and later Defiant Comics. Characters and
concepts he created went on to be featured in various media, including Secret
Wars and the Beyonder in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, with the
latter also a central character in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur; Esper Lass,
Ferro Lad, Karate Kid, Nemesis Kid, Controller, Grimbor the Chainsman, Mordru,
Chemical King, The Dark Circle, The Fatal Five, and The Dominion alien race in Legion
of Super Heroes; Parasite (Raymond Jensen) in Young Justice; Tabitha
Smith in X-Men: The Animated Series, X-Men: Evolution and Wolverine
and the X-Men; and Henry Peter Gyrich in X-Men: The Animated Series.
WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN (Nicktoons, January
23-November 29, 2009) Noxxon Entertainment
Inc., Toonz Entertainment, First Serve International, Liberation Entertainment,
EVA Finance GmbH, Marvel Entertainment
Wolverine
and the X-Men was the third animated series based on the X-Men
family of comics by Marvel Comics. It was
the first and only production by Toonz
First Serve, a partnership between Toonz
Animation and First Serve International to secure enough funding to
approach Marvel about doing the series. Developed by Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson, the series
focused on the X-Men disbanding after an explosion at the X-Mansion
seemingly killed Professor Xavier (Jim Ward) and Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale).
However, within a year, Wolverine (Steve Blum) decides the team needs to reform
in order to deal with government-sponsored mutant cops called the Mutant
Response Division, the mutant-hunting robot Sentinels (Ward), Senator Rober
Kelly’s (Richard Doyle) Mutant
Registration Act, Magneto (Tom Kane) trying to incite a race war from his
new island kingdom of Genosha,
the Brotherhood
of Mutants causing chaos, and prevent a dystopian future (based on Days of
Future Past) that Xavier found himself in from occurring. With Xavier
found to be in a coma, Cyclops (Nolan North) despondent over Jean’s death, and
Storm (Susan Dalian) in Africa, Wolverine takes the uncomfortably unfamiliar
role of leader as he recruits his X-Men.
Wolverine leads Nightcrawler, Iceman, Storm, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Beast, Angel and Shadowcat.
The show
began life as a Wolverine
solo series until it evolved into its final form. The stories and character
designs took greater inspiration from the comics of the past decade, as well as
cues from the 20th
Century Fox live-action film series
about to release its 4th entry, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
While Wolverine and his team—comprised of Cyclops, Storm, Beast (Fred
Tatasciore), Iceman (Yuri Lowenthal), Shadowcat (Danielle Judovits), Forge
(Roger Craig Smith), Emma Frost (Kari Wahlgren) Angel (Liam O’Brien) and
eventually Nightcrawler (also O’Brien) and Rogue (Kieren van den Blink)—dealt
with troubles in the present, Xavier was trying to survive the future with his
allies—Bishop
(Kevin Michael Richardson),
Berzerker (Blum), Domino (Gwendoline Yeo), Hellion, Kamal
(both Smith), Marrow (Tara Strong), Polaris (Liza del Mundo), Vanisher
(Blum), and a reprogrammed Sentinel named Rover (Ward)—while searching for clues
to send back to his past to try and prevent it from occurring.
Magneto always ready to make trouble with the likes of Domino, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Blob, Mystique, Toad and Avalanche.
Wolverine
and the X-Men debuted on Nicktoons
on January 23, 2009, airing its first two episodes back-to-back before
rerunning on Nickelodeon two days later.
Before it even aired, development
had begun on the second season, with associate producer and writer Joshua Fine stepping into the
supervising producer role exited by Kyle when went to go work on the first Thor
film. Plans were in place to continue on from the new terrible future the series
ended on based on the Age
of Apocalypse storyline, as well as lead into potential crossovers with
The Avengers: Earth’s
Mightiest Heroes (which Fine was also heading up) and The
Spectacular Spider-Man. New character
designs were shown off at Comic Con
2009 and things reportedly got as deep as a full season bible and the first
eight episodes being written. Unfortunately, work came to a grinding halt when
Toonz First was unable to secure the full funding they would need. The idea of
Marvel funding it themselves was floated, but as new
owner Disney sought to starve Fox of any new adaptable content over their
refusal to give up the licenses they acquired during Marvel’s more precarious
financial situation, it was promptly nixed and the show was allowed to just
end. A decade later, that situation would resolve itself as Disney
acquired Fox, allowing Wolverine and the X-Men to be featured on the
streaming service Disney+. Could it
lead to a revival like X-Men:
The Animated Series’ with X-Men
’97? Time will tell.
He had co-created numerous characters that would find themselves adapted
to television and film, including Mary Jane Watson, the Shocker, Wilson Fisk, the
Punisher and Wolverine, as well as original character Firestar who began on
screen and ended up in the comics. He served as an art consultant on Spider-Man
(1967), and was art director for Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
To commemorate the release of Avengers: Endgame, we present our latest infographic highlighting all those who voiced the Avengers on Saturday Mornings. We counted official cinematic Avengers only, but don't worry: we'll get to the other characters in due time.
Writer, editor, publisher, and
the self-proclaimed “King of Cameos”. Stan was one of the architects for what
would become known as the Marvel Universe, involved in the creation of
Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk, the Avengers, Iron Man, the
Fantastic Four, the Mighty Thor, Daredevil and others, as well as the
foundations for their individual worlds and supporting characters. His
bombastic personality and engaging prose led to his becoming the face of Marvel
comics, and one of its most well-known creators.
As Marvel expanded its characters
into other media, Stan had various levels of involvement with their productions;
particularly during the brief existence of Marvel Productions. Traditionally,
Stan has received an “executive producer” credit on any Marvel-based project,
including the Marvel-produced Biker Mice
From Mars (1993). However, he was actively involved as the story and art
consultant for Spider-Man (1967) and Fantastic Four (1967), wrote several
scripts for The New Fantastic Four, was
the executive story editor for RoboCop:
The Animated Series and the supervising producer for Pryde of the X-Men. He also developed Spider-Woman and oversaw the development of X-Men: The Animated Series’ first season and Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
Some of his legendary cameos came
in the form of the narrator for Spider-Man
and his Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk (1982), and Pryde of the X-Men. He appeared on
screen as himself in a fantasy sequence of Muppet
Babies, meeting Spider-Man in Spider-Man:
The Animated Series, and pulled double-duty as a cameraman in Marvel’s Spider-Man. He also reprised
his role as Fred’s Dad from the Big Hero
6 film in a recurring role in Big
Hero 6: The Series.
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of X-Men: The Animated Series, as well as the 55th anniversary of the X-Men, we present this infographic highlighting every actor to take on the Saturday morning versions of Marvel's Merry Mutants.
