Please enjoy the final entry in our five-part series from guest author Henrik M. – Ed
It feels almost quaint to look back at the past 20 years and see just how drastically and quickly the entertainment landscape changed. In 2000, everything had its own little niche. Sure, video games and the Internet were already there, and showing signs of their future dominance of our lives, but there was no Netflix, no YouTube, and television was still the great, unquestionable overlord of media. Unfortunately, it was during these early days of the 21st century that the inherent flaws of network TV cost us five classic animated shows. In this five-part series, I’ll be taking a look at several short-lived gems of animation lost to us for a variety of factors, the biggest of which being that ratings-based television was a dying dinosaur 20 years ago, and hasn’t gotten any livelier in the interim.
As our talk about underrated cartoons and network villainy comes to a close, we’ll be moving on from the world of adult cartoons, and take a look at a more all-ages production. As bad as MTV and their treacherous ilk tend to be towards animation, they at the very least have the excuse that cartoons aren’t their main demographic. One network that can’t say the same is Cartoon Network.
It gets increasingly hard to remember in these days of seemingly endless Teen Titans Go marathons, disastrous reboots of their beloved classics (looking at you, 2016 Powerpuff Girls!) and for some goddamn reason, running a cruise ship (that is not a joke, that is something the network is actually doing. You can’t make shit like this up), but once in the distant past Cartoon Network was THE biggest name among TV animation fans, with Nickelodeon limping along as a very slow second. Most fans considers the network’s Golden Age to have been the late ’90s and early 2000s, with hits like Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Samurai Jack and Johnny Bravo. However, there is one show that deserves special mention, not only because of how good it was, but also because of how badly CN screwed up with it and exactly why we’ll likely never see it again. This is the story of giant robots, video games, pro wrestling and philly cheesesteaks; this is the story of Megas XLR.
Our story begins in 2000, shortly after the cancellation of Downtown. George Krstic, one of the creators of Downtown, had a sudden brainstorm while hanging out and playing video games with his friend Jody Schaeffer: a cartoon about a guy driving a giant robot with a video game controller. This comically impractical mode of transportation took root and eventually sprouted into an epic saga involving alien invasions and time travel. Krstic, bringing along his old Downtown colleague Chris Prynoski, created a pilot short called “LowBrow” for Cartoon Network’s 2002 Weekend Summerfest, where it became the most popular short and thus selected to become a new series. And so, in 2004 (after a sixth month delay from its original premiere date, and there’s an omen if I’ve ever seen one), Cartoon Network fans were first introduced to the crazy epicness of Megas XLR.
The show centered around the eponymous giant robot Megas, a combat mecha from the distant future of 3037 when Earth has been invaded and almost conquered by the monstrous Glorft. Megas, originally belonging to the Glorft, was stolen by resistance member Kiva Andru and heavily modified to become an unstoppable war machine, along with a prototype time machine. Originally the plan was to send the machine back two years to assist humanity in their failed last stand, but an attack by the Glorft causes a malfunction and sends Megas back over a thousand years to a junkyard in 1942 New Jersey. Megas ends up sitting under a pile of whatever people threw away in the 1940s (I’m assuming comically boxy cars and war bonds) until 2004, when the junkyard is visited by Harold “Coop” Cooplowski in one of his bi-weekly rummagings for junk bargains. That day, he gets one hell of a deal when he stumbles over Megas lying at the bottom of the $2-A-Piece pile. Sure, it’s missing its head and its time drive is damaged, but you take what you can get for two bucks. Taking the robot home, Coop replaces the destroyed head with a vintage Plymouth Barracuda muscle car (along with a sweet blue/fire paint job) and, somehow, manages to wire all the robot’s futuristic systems and weaponry into the car’s controls alongside a multitude of video game accessories. Now that’s backwards compatibility for you!
And you thought the N64 controller was a pain in the ass to use.
Despite technically being for kids, Megas XLR has an added layer of being a love letter to all things manly, such as pro wrestling, junk food, cars, heavy metal and other testosterone-laden obsessions. Despite this, it never actually becomes unsuitable for younger audiences, though admittedly some of the jokes about mechanics might go over their heads. The violence is of the cartoonish kind, the kind you saw in dubbed anime in the ’90s when somehow everyone turned into robots or teleported away when “defeated,” whether or not they died brutal, gruesome deaths in the Japanese version. A good example of this as a running gag is that Coop regularly destroys New Jersey in almost every episode while fighting the villain of the week, and yet somehow ends up with zero fatalities every time. Hell, even the villain usually survives! And I’m not talking about knocking over a few buildings, Jersey has been reduced to a blasted wasteland at least once. Then again, it’s NEW JERSEY, maybe they can’t tell the difference?
Yeah, seems legit.
The show also wholeheartedly embraced the classic giant mecha genre, for obvious reasons, and included tons of references to iconic mecha series such as Mazinger Z, Battle Of the Planets AKA Scientific Ninja Team Gatchaman and of course Voltron: Defender of The Universe, with minor recurring characters S-Force being direct parodies of the latter two. It also parodied non-giant robot themed anime such as Space Pirate Captain Harlock (in the less than flattering womanizing douchebag Captain Warlock), and Sailor Moon, though admittedly both those parodies still had giant robots added to them, because it’d be a very short episode if the other characters didn’t have something to fight Megas with. A common source of humor was the overuse of transformation sequences and vertigo-inducing editing used by dubbed anime to hide the fact that, with all the changes done to the dialogue, the episodes should be about 10 minutes shorter. The main characters are often left standing and staring in bafflement while their opponents go through their ridiculous motions to summon Gigazord, or whatever nonsense they’re bringing to the fight. How would you react if you got into a fist fight and your opponent made you stand around for 20 minutes while they changed their clothes?
The show centered around three main characters: the aforementioned Coop and Kiva, as well as Coop’s best friend Jamie, forming a classic trio. Coop, a 20-something dropout, lives a life most of us would kill for, even before he randomly stumbled over a giant robot from the future. All he does all day is hang out with his best friend, play video games, work on his car and eat junk food. It’s the kind of lifestyle you work your entire life to be able to afford in retirement! Joining him in his odyssey of slackerdom is Jamie, who can best be described as Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother if he was completely unsuccessful with women. Unlike the mechanically talented Coop, Jamie has few skills of his own, and mainly seems content to spend his life hanging out with Coop and miserably failing at hitting on girls. This careful balance of personalities is upset when Kiva arrives from the future, and is understandably frustrated when she finds out Coop has turned her advanced tactical weapon into a man cave on legs. With the time drive damaged, Kiva is stuck in the past and left with helping Coop manage Megas’ systems, the ones he hasn’t modified beyond usability or turned into video games, anyway.
However, there is a fourth character that, while not part of the main trio, still appears often enough to justify being called a main character. And it turns out that character is former heavy metal creep Goat from Downtown! Yep, Prynoski decided to resurrect his self-portrait, although significantly toned down from his MTV days, as Goat’s chain smoking, drinking and rubbing up against anything female was a bit too much for the CN crowd. Oh, he’s still a womanizing sleazebag, but the g-rated version. Considering how much he struck out in Downtown, it really didn’t change much for the character. Having settled down from his days in the New York club scene, Goat now owns the Jersey junkyard where Coop finds Megas, and often finds himself pulled into whatever space monster quagmire Coop has drawn to Jersey’s doorstep. Pretty big step up for someone whose main source of danger in Downtown was going blind from his own crappy homebrewed beer.
Don’t worry, media crybabies, that’s a lollipop in his mouth, not a cigarette.
Speaking of Goat, he’s not the only Downtown character to make the transition from New York to Jersey. While not actually part of the cast–hell they don’t even get speaking lines–Alex, one of the main characters from Downtown, makes a cameo appearance in “Battle Royale” as one of the contestants in one of those “homemade robot fight” shows that seemed to be everywhere in the early 2000s. Sadly, I couldn’t find a picture to show this, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
Unlike Downtown, Megas XLR has a smaller supporting cast, as many episodes take place on other planets and, since the characters don’t have jobs or school (it’s weird, no one ever points that out), there are no co-workers, students or teachers to add to the cast. However, there are still a few characters outside the main four worth mentioning. First is the aforementioned S-Force, who originally appeared in the episode “Bad Guy”. The S-Force is an intergalactic peacekeeping force in the style of Voltron who make the completely understandable assumption that Coop is a supervillain who is terrorizing Earth when they’re shown footage of him trashing Jersey in his floundering attempts at heroism, or just when one of his modifications backfire. Another recurring character is Tiny, a fellow car enthusiast and mechanic who is Coop’s main rival in the modification scene. Surprisingly, despite his lack of giant robot, Tiny and Coop are actually fairly tied in skill as shown in “The Fat and the Furious”, as Tiny’s modifications tend to have more finesse than Coop’s. Megas has a lot of advantages but it’s not really designed for delicate tasks.
Something that sets Megas XLR apart from our previous entries is the presence of actual villains, as the show is an action series rather than just straight up comedy. Due to the show’s short run, it didn’t have time to rack up much of a rogue’s gallery, but there are two significant ones that deserve mentioning. First of all is the squid-faced Glorft, the most recurring villain of the series and the catalyst of the entire premise. Due to following Kiva through the time portal, the Glorft forces are trapped in the past alongside her, and resort to increasingly desperate schemes to get their hands on the time drive and return to the future (the low point probably being going undercover as humans at a heavy metal concert in “Terminate Her”). Their leader Warmaster Gorrath is voiced by Clancy Brown, whom you might recognize as the voice of another cruel and sadistic monster from the abyss: Mr. Krabs from Spongebob Squarepants.
It’s like looking in a horribly mutated mirror.
Second on the rogues list is Magnanimous, who is introduced as the chairman of the Galactic Combat Championship Federation (and a very unsubtle parody of the Marvel villain MODOK) in the episode “Battle Royale”. Originally he simply wanted to use Megas as part of his scam rigging matches in his own wrestling promotion, but after Coop foiled him the first time, not to mention dropped him into a black hole, he returns in the fittingly titled “The Return” looking for revenge, both for Coop bankrupting him, and also because of his new “disfigurement”; a minor facial twitch (humorously ignoring the nasty new scar he’s sporting over one eye). While the character is entertaining enough on his own, what really puts him over the top is that he’s voiced by geek icon Bruce Campbell, and man, does the show get its money’s worth out of that reference. Not only is Magnanimous clearly based on Campbell visually, he also uses Ash Williams’ iconic chainsaw and shotgun combo in his second appearance, and of course you can’t have Bruce Campbell without getting at least one “Groovy” in there.
Despite the show’s shameless relishing in guy culture, it still took the time to give the characters themselves a chance to develop rather than just have them remain static while the writers spewed an endless stream of pop culture references, as is all too common with shows of this nature. The dynamic between the trio is rather tense when the series starts, as Kiva resents Coop for effectively stealing her work and basically turning it inside out and rendering it unusable for her. She’s also dealing with the stress of fighting the Glorft in present-day Earth with no backup from the resistance, and trying to find a way to repair the time drive. Meanwhile, Jamie resents Kiva for taking away Coop’s attention, as it had always been the two of them hanging out before, but now Coop has this big important destiny while Jamie feels he’s left with nothing. This finally comes to a head in the season 1 finale “The Driver’s Seat”, when Kiva and Jamie are forced to work together to save Coop from the Glorft mothership when one of his less-than-stellar modifications backfires and accidently teleports him right into Gorrath’s command room. By the time Coop is rescued, he’s somewhat freaked out that Kiva and Jamie are suddenly interacting civilly rather than bitterly sniping at each other, and assumes the Glorft tortured them.
Another recurring source of humor in the show was the creators using it to vent their frustrations about a variety of annoyances, most notably the constant abuse of the MTV parody PoP TV, essentially a giant middle finger to MTV and their idiotic mishandling of Downtown. The show took every opportunity to destroy PoP TV billboards, offices, vans, pretty much anything with the logo on it. There’s also the episode “Department Of Megas Violations” where Megas ends up getting towed because Coop parked in front of a fire hydrant (apparently traffic laws apply to giant robots too), and has to get his license renewed at the DMV. The entire episode is basically one long rant about the Kafkaesque nightmare that is dealing with the DMV, complete with enormous lines, near-comatose clerks and small mountains of superfluous paperwork. If you’ve ever had to deal with the DMV, or government bureaucracy in general, this episode will likely make you break into cold sweats. However, the credits gag where Coop uses Megas to destroy the DMV building will by far make up for it, and for a lot of other things that have gone wrong in your life.
I’m pretty sure one of the circles of Hell looks like this. I think it’s where they send adulterers.
Something that sets the show apart from the entries we’ve previously talked about is that it actually lasted for two full seasons rather than just one, giving it a run of 26 episodes instead of 13. This allowed the show to actually progress its overarching story a good deal more than our previous entries, as well as giving room for characters to appear more than once. Coop actually seemingly defeated the Glorft in the season 1 finale, presumably just in case the show wasn’t renewed, but this proved short-lived and they returned early in season 2. According to Chris Prynoski, had the show kept going after season 2, one plot line they had intended to use was the time drive finally being repaired, only for Coop to get flung into the future and accidentally create the Glorft, setting the entire series in motion.
The series concluded with its only two parter, “Rearview Mirror Mirror” that served as the season 2 finale. During a battle with the Glorft, Coop and Gorrath are teleported when Coop inputs a random cheat code on one of his new gamepads and find themselves in an alternate New Jersey that is already in ruins. They’re attacked by a mysterious group of fighters using the Glorfts robots, which Coop is shocked to find is led by an older Jamie, only for the battle to be interrupted by… himself! Or rather, an alternate Coop who decided to take over the universe after destroying the Glorft and any other opposition, including his own version of S-Force and Magnanimous. Kiva joined him, having gone completely around the bend in her desperation to find a way back to the future, a goal she has long since lost track of, leaving Jamie as the leader of a ragtag bunch of resistance fighters opposing Coop and Kiva’s tyranny.To make matters worse, Megas is irreparably damaged in the ensuing fight, leaving Coop, Older Jamie and Gorrath with almost nothing to fight back with. Meanwhile, Evil Coop plans to break through the dimensional barrier and conquer the other New Jersey as well. That is, until Coop realizes that, with Evil Coop having abandoned his own Megas years ago, there is an unused Megas sitting in storage in this dimension! (Apparently Evil Coop doesn’t like throwing things away.) Reluctantly fighting alongside Gorrath, Coop manages to thwart the invasion and trap Evil Coop and Kiva between dimensions, and that’s where the series ends.
While the series at least got to go out with some decent closure, the show still proved woefully short lived, and just like Downtown, its downfall was for the exact same reason: despite rave reviews, Cartoon Network’s inability of promoting the show properly led to low ratings, and rather than try to actually increase them, CN decided to just throw it in the back of the closet and forget it ever existed. And just like Downtown, a resurrection is more or less impossible, but for a much dumber reason than using licensed music: CN used the show as a tax write off!
Yes, according to Chris Prynoski, despite his and the other creators’ attempts at bringing the show back for the past decade, any plans to do so were more or less permanently sunk because CN decided to write the show off as a tax loss, which thanks to the byzantine U.S. tax code means that the show can now legally not be resurrected, at least not within the U.S., without pissing off the IRS. Hell, the show hasn’t even been released on DVD for the same reason, leaving fans with nothing but their fading memories and whatever crappy TV rips can still be found online.
It’s a bit of a downer note to end our countdown on, but as we’ve repeatedly learned throughout this article series, network TV is a cruel, cold place where only reality TV and vapid sitcoms can thrive. Still, perhaps we should be satisfied that we got the shows at all rather than obsess over what could have been. Prynoski, having apparently not learned his lesson yet, went on to create the series Motorcity for Cartoon Network, which, you guessed it, was ALSO cancelled after one season. The show, which was set in a dystopian future Detroit–okay, a MORE dystopian future Detroit–featured much of the same car and mechanics-themed humor as Megas XLR had used, making it a spiritual successor of sorts., though ironically even more short lived than its predecessor had been.
And with that, we finish our look into the world of Criminally Underrated Cartoons. Before we finish, I’d like to take a moment to talk about underrated animation I have left out. The five cartoons I’ve talked about here are really just the best of the bunch, as network TV in its familiar incompetence has left a swathe of promising shows to gather dust somewhere so they can promote crappy sitcoms featuring washed-up comedians. If you’ve enjoyed the shows I talked about here, you might be interested in checking out the following honorary mentions:
God, The Devil And Bob (13 episodes)
Sheep In the Big City (26 episodes)
The Critic (26 episodes)
Freakazoid (24 episodes)
Clerks: The Animated Series (6 episodes)
Bordertown (13 episodes)
And there are very likely more shows that even I have never come across, waiting to be discovered in YouTube channels forgotten by man and God.
-Henrik M.