Men In Black animated series...

[Warped9]

Does anyone else remember the Men In Black animated series? I thought it had rather a quirky charm to it. I understand it run for four seasons and yet I only saw Season 1.

Has it ever been available on dvd?

[Peach Wookiee]

They haven't released it on DVD here in the US yet. Apparently Australia saw a release of the first season, though. And it was an epic show!

Jennifer Lien, who played Kes, was the voice of Agent Elle for the first three seasons. I loved this show. It was fun to watch and being a teen and later a college student watching the series, I really appreciated it!

[Mr. Adventure]

They show it on The Hub, Hasbro's cable channel rebrand of Discovery Kids.

[Christopher]

Warped9 wrote:

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Does anyone else remember the Men In Black animated series? I thought it had rather a quirky charm to it. I understand it run for four seasons and yet I only saw Season 1.

You didn't miss much. Season 1 was great, a smart, sophisticated, character-driven show, but after the first season, its writing staff mostly moved over to Godzilla: The Series and the quality suffered. It became more strictly plot-driven and gimmick-driven than character-driven. There were some entertaining, if shallow, episodes in season 2, but it got progressively sillier as it went on. The comic-relief alien sidekicks increasingly took over the show at the expense of the main characters. Most annoying were the four "Worm Guys," who had a minor role in the movie and in the first season, but who became dominant in most of the rest of the series, even though they had absolutely no personality beyond one single joke, an obsession with coffee. It got reallllllly tiresome after a while.

Also, after the first season, Ed O'Ross was dropped (or left?) as the voice of Agent K, and was replaced by Gregg Berger, who gave a much blander, more droning performance. This was along with a character redesign that made him look almost like a completely different person (although most of the character designs were streamlined after season 1) and a complete abandonment of his complex, enigmatic, reserved but witty personality in favor of robotic ultracompetence. It was like K was replaced by a pod person and nobody noticed. The same thing happened to L in the fourth season. Not only was Jennifer Lien replaced by a much less sultry-voiced actress, but her cool, capable, levelheaded personality vanished as well; she became the sidekick and foil to a showboating alien agent and was constantly frustrated, angry, and subjected to indignities as a result of his antics.

In short, it started out strong, and the first season got stronger as it went, but each season thereafter got progressively worse, until in the fourth season it was a travesty of its former self.

The show does rerun on The Hub, but for some reason, they never show one of the best first-season episodes, "The Neuralyzer Syndrome," so my taped collection of the first season is stuck at one episode short. I'm wondering why that episode is censored. Usually when old cartoon episodes are dropped from network reruns, it's because of some sort of similarity to 9/11, but I can't recall whether there was anything like that in this episode.

[O'Dib]

I recall another show from that era, a Batman Beyond spinoff about a runaway robot. I didn't follow through its full arc, but it seemed interesting enough. So that might be worth catching up with as well. Except I believe it was cancelled before any resolution was reached in the story?

[Anwar]

It ended in a proper way, they saved Earth from an all-out invasion led by Alpha and then neuralyzed the whole planet into forgetting.

[cylkoth]

O'Dib wrote:

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I recall another show from that era, a Batman Beyond spinoff about a runaway robot. I didn't follow through its full arc, but it seemed interesting enough. So that might be worth catching up with as well. Except I believe it was cancelled before any resolution was reached in the story?

That was The Zeta Project.

[Christopher]

Anwar wrote:

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It ended in a proper way, they saved Earth from an all-out invasion led by Alpha and then neuralyzed the whole planet into forgetting.

By "it," of course, you mean MiB:TS, not The Zeta Project, which the poster above you was asking about. The juxtaposition of posts could be misleading. As far as TZP goes, I didn't watch most of it, but yeah, I'm pretty sure it ended without the storyline being resolved.

And yeah, MiB:TS had a big finale, but it wasn't particularly good. As far as I'm concerned, the "proper" incarnation of the show ended with the first-season finale, and everything thereafter was a pale imitation.

[marillion]

Christopher wrote:

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You didn't miss much. Season 1 was great, a smart, sophisticated, character-driven show, but after the first season, its writing staff mostly moved over to Godzilla: The Series and the quality suffered. It became more strictly plot-driven and gimmick-driven than character-driven. There were some entertaining, if shallow, episodes in season 2, but it got progressively sillier as it went on. The comic-relief alien sidekicks increasingly took over the show at the expense of the main characters. Most annoying were the four "Worm Guys," who had a minor role in the movie and in the first season, but who became dominant in most of the rest of the series, even though they had absolutely no personality beyond one single joke, an obsession with coffee. It got reallllllly tiresome after a while.

Also, after the first season, Ed O'Ross was dropped (or left?) as the voice of Agent K, and was replaced by Gregg Berger, who gave a much blander, more droning performance. This was along with a character redesign that made him look almost like a completely different person (although most of the character designs were streamlined after season 1) and a complete abandonment of his complex, enigmatic, reserved but witty personality in favor of robotic ultracompetence. It was like K was replaced by a pod person and nobody noticed. The same thing happened to L in the fourth season. Not only was Jennifer Lien replaced by a much less sultry-voiced actress, but her cool, capable, levelheaded personality vanished as well; she became the sidekick and foil to a showboating alien agent and was constantly frustrated, angry, and subjected to indignities as a result of his antics.

In short, it started out strong, and the first season got stronger as it went, but each season thereafter got progressively worse, until in the fourth season it was a travesty of its former self.

The show does rerun on The Hub, but for some reason, they never show one of the best first-season episodes, "The Neuralyzer Syndrome," so my taped collection of the first season is stuck at one episode short. I'm wondering why that episode is censored. Usually when old cartoon episodes are dropped from network reruns, it's because of some sort of similarity to 9/11, but I can't recall whether there was anything like that in this episode.

That sounds like almost a play by play with what happened to "The Real Ghostbusters" after Season 2 (IIRC)... The animation and writing became crap and the focus shifted from the Ghostbusters to Slimer and all the "crazy slap-stick" hijinks he would get into.

[Christopher]

^Actually, as I recall, some of the later Real Ghostbusters episodes had gorgeous animation even though the stories were dumbed down. Both of which were consequences of being on the network as opposed to syndication -- they were more toned down for Saturday morning, but there were fewer episodes per season so they could have more care lavished on the animation. Whereas MiB:TS remained a Saturday morning network show the whole time.

[marillion]

^^ Maybe our ideas of good vs. bad animation are different... I should have said the change in look was what I found bad... Before the show became "Slimer-centric" the characters had a bit more realistic look about them. As the focus turned toward Slimer, it got a more little kid-friendly cartoony look, IMHO...

[David cgc]

Christopher wrote:

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The show does rerun on The Hub, but for some reason, they never show one of the best first-season episodes, "The Neuralyzer Syndrome," so my taped collection of the first season is stuck at one episode short. I'm wondering why that episode is censored. Usually when old cartoon episodes are dropped from network reruns, it's because of some sort of similarity to 9/11, but I can't recall whether there was anything like that in this episode.

Was that the one where K got nerualized and thought he was a teenager again? There actually was a 9/11 related thing in that one: The way he's finally convinced that it's not the 1960s anymore is he sees the World Trade Center, which J told him were the tallest buildings in New York now.

[Christopher]

marillion wrote:

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^^ Maybe our ideas of good vs. bad animation are different... I should have said the change in look was what I found bad... Before the show became "Slimer-centric" the characters had a bit more realistic look about them. As the focus turned toward Slimer, it got a more little kid-friendly cartoony look, IMHO...

That wasn't a change, just a supplement. In its third season, it was turned into an hourlong format called Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters, which combined normal half-hour RGB episodes in the standard visual and storytelling style with 2-3 Slimer! shorts which were more kid-oriented and cartoony-looking. But that was only for one season, whereas the standard RGB episodes continued for two more years beyond that. It's the standard episodes I'm referring to, not the Slimer! shorts.

David cgc wrote:

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Was that the one where K got nerualized and thought he was a teenager again? There actually was a 9/11 related thing in that one: The way he's finally convinced that it's not the 1960s anymore is he sees the World Trade Center, which J told him were the tallest buildings in New York now.

Actually it turns out that it's now on YouTube (which it wasn't the last time I checked), and there's also a scene where an alien ship almost crashes into the WTC.

Although, seriously, it's been nearly a decade. The kids that are supposedly being protected by the episode's removal from television wouldn't even remember it. And DisneyXD no longer seems to be skipping the '90s Spider-Man episodes that featured an exploding skyscraper and were pulled after 9/11. So it seems The Hub is overreacting here.