THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 1994 - PART 4

THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 1994 – PART 4

Written By:

Alan Boon

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. They hit the schedules alongside established shows, hoping for a long run, but it’s not always to be, and for every Street Hawk there’s two Manimals. But here at STARBURST we celebrate their existence and mourn their departure, drilling down into the new season’s entertainment with equal opportunities square eyes… these are The Telephemera Years!

1994-95

Other than perennial favourites 60 Minutes and Murder, She Wrote, the top ten ratings made poor reading for CBS in the 1994-95 season, but the network had high hopes for some of their new shows, especially sitcom Cybill – Cybill Shepherd’s return to TV after failing to translate her Moonlighting fame into movie success – and the mawkish Touched by an Angel. NBC still ruled the roost, with Seinfeld joined at the top of the ratings pile by new arrivals ER and Friends, completing an irresistible Must See TV block on Thursday nights with Mad About You. Sitcoms were also popular over at ABC, where Home Improvement, Grace Under Fire, and Roseanne all pitched up in the top ten.

Also making their bow in Fall 1994 were Party of Five on Fox and something called The Daily Show on Comedy Central, but it was genre fans who were treated best in terms of new arrivals, with Sliders (Fox), Star Trek: Voyager (UPN), and both Gargoyles and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in syndication making it a banner year for fans of sci-fi and fantasy TV, even if they would be saying goodbye to the ground-breaking Batman: The Animated Series at the end of the year. Those were all shows that adults (if not grown-ups) were watching, though: what about those aimed at a younger demographic? This is the story of 1994’s new kids’ shows…

Skeleton Warriors (CBS): Landmark Entertainment was created in 1980 with a mission to “create new forms of entertainment for an expanding global audience,” whatever that means. Founders Tony Christopher and Gary Goddard came from a theatrical production background, with Christopher formerly Vice President of Entertainment at DisneyWorld and DisneyLand, also working as theatrical director for Epcot. Goddard had a background in Hollywood, having written Tarzan the Ape Man in 1981, which starred Bo Derek as a voluptuous Jane, and was responsible for an uncredited rewrite of 1987’s Masters of the Universe movie, having produced a touring live stage show featuring He-Man and company.

That same year, Goddard created another TV show for Landmark in Captain Power, an attempt to create wholly owned characters for Landmark to exploit through stage shows, theme park rides, toys, and a syndicated cartoon. Twenty-two episodes of a cartoon were produced in association with Ventura Pictures, with a toyline produced by Mattel, but it was a short-lived affair that attracted criticism for its violence. That, coupled with troubles with syndication sales, put an end to the experiment after twenty-two episodes.

In 1994, inspired by a scene in the Conan the Barbarian live show at Universal Studios, where the titular hero fights skeletons, Goddard tried again, this time conceiving Skeleton Warriors. The property was again devised to be used for various income streams, including live shows, action figures, and an animated series, with Playmates Toys signing on early as a merchandising partner and Marvel Comics agreeing to produce a six-issue comic book adaptation. A thirteen-episode cartoon series was sold to CBS through Graz Entertainment, new to the market but already with credits including Conan the Adventurer, My Little Pony Tales, Stone Protectors, and X-Men on their books. The basic story told of warring powers on the distant planet of Luminaire, battling to take control of the Lightstar Crystal which powers the planet’s capital, Luminicity. The evil Baron Dark manages to seize one half of the crystal, with good King Justin grabbing the other. Dark’s half of the crystal turns him into a living skeleton and gives him the power to do the same to those with evil in their hearts, creating an army of – yes – skeleton warriors. Justin – renamed Lightstar – and his siblings Jennifer (Talyn) and Joshua (Grimskukll) are imbued with amazing powers, including light blasts, flight, and travelling through shadows. Under the guidance of Ursak the Guardian, the trio take the battle to Dark in the hope of reuniting the crystal and return Luminicity to its former glory.

Skeleton Warriors was one of a new breed of children’s cartoons that enjoyed an ongoing storyline. Furthermore, it had a definite ending, with appropriate room given for another chapter, should CBS be amenable to a second season, or a syndicator be willing to pick it up for an expanded run. Unfortunately, neither happened and Landmark abandoned the TV business, returning to what they knew best, producing award-winning productions and attractions for theme parks and touring shows based on established properties.

Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills (USA Network): Jim Fisher and Jim Staahl were in the same Second City class as John Belushi, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Harold Ramis. While there, Fisher became part of the first national touring cast, became the first cast member to direct a show, and compiled the first list of Second City alumni. Upon graduation from the Chicago improv theatre, Fisher and Staahl formed a trio with Tino Insana named The Graduates, performing nationwide and on The Tonight Show. As a sideline, and playing off their experience writing sketches for the Second City TV and Big City Comedy shows, the two Jims began writing scripts, earning credits on Mork & Mindy, The Love Boat, Sledge Hammer!, and Charles in Charge, and in 1988 had 110 Lombard, a pilot for roommate comedy starring Mike Myers and Ryan Stiles, almost taken to series.

In 1994, a year after they wrote a lacklustre reboot movie of The Beverly Hillbillies starring Jim Varney, the pair tried their hand at a children’s show. Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills was originally conceived as an adult sitcom, a parody of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other superhero shows, but the success of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers convinced Fisher and Staahl to retool their pitch, setting it in a Beverly Hills high school where four teenagers are chosen to receive special tattoos by a blobby alien named Nimbar.

Nimbar is the Head Protector of the Power Portals and once failed to protect a world from the evil Emperor Gorganus and is adamant that Earth will not suffer the same fate. The special tattoos bestow combat abilities and weapons based on constellations, so cheerleader Laurie Foster becomes sword-bearer Scorpio, preppy Gordon Henley is Taurus the staff-wielder, poet Drew Vincent transforms into Centaurus with a trident and an axe, and brainiac Swinton Sawyer receives the mantle of Apollo and a double-bladed dagger. The teens are aided by Rick, a survivor of the world Nimbar was unable to save who wields the power of Orion when the situation requires it.

The four teens were played mostly by newcomers, although Leslie Danon (Laurie) had made small appearances in the likes of Charles in Charge and Doogie Howser, MD, and Rugg Williams (Swinton) had a run in the Tv version of In the Heat of the Night, and their fight scenes were performed by masked stunt performers, enabling the teens to fight alien monsters like Ninjabot, Octodroid, Predaraptor, and Slaygar, and undergo the usual high school predicaments. Produced by DIC Productions, the live-action show debuted in October 1994, with forty episodes airing as part of the UPN Network’s USA Cartoon Express block. Unlike Power Rangers, there was no subsequent reinvention and new toyline for a second series and beyond; indeed, there was no toyline for the first, the extent of its merchandising stretching to a lunchbox and accompanying flask. After writing Here Come the Munsters in 1995, Fisher and Staahl continued to write children’s TV for another decade, before setting up their own scriptwriting consultancy.

ReBoot (ABC): First conceived in 1984 by British creative collective The Hub, it took a full decade for ReBoot to come to air. Produced entirely using computer animation, the team worked on the project until 1990, when the technology finally caught up with their creative ambitions and they were able to full explore 3D animation, although their groundbreaking development work had been seen as early as 1985 when two of The Hub – Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair – created the “Money for Nothing” video for Dire Straits. With design work from British comic book artist Brendan McCarthy, production began in earnest in 1991, although it would be another three years until the painstaking process, made possible by the Creative Environment software developed by Montreal studio Softimage, resulted in enough episodes to sell as a first season of thirteen episodes. By that point, they’d also tried the process out on a video for Def Leppard and formed Mainframe Entertainment as a production company, using that name for the environment in which the show took place.

ReBoot is centred around Bob, one of a number of Guardians – he is #452 – tasked with keeping the computer environment Mainframe safe, working with Phong, Mainframe’s COMMAND.COM. Bob, voiced by Michael Benyaer, is friends with diner owner Dot Matrix (veteran voice actor Kathleen Barr) and her younger brother Enzo (Paul Dobson), and it is this trio – and Enzo’s dog Frisket – that usually becomes embroiled in all sorts of misadventures, combatting the threat of order virus Megabyte, his sister Hexadecimal, and comedy henchmen Hack and Slash. Even before the first episode aired, the studio clashed with ABC’s Board of Standards and Practices, who considered their design for Dot to be overtly sexual and that certain scenes – despite taking place in a wholly computer-generated environment – could be easily imitated by young viewers.

Each episode of the first season was self-contained, save for a two-part finale, and – despite their constant interference – ABC renewed the show for a second season of ten episodes, which featured a story arc in its second half. This change came when they received news that ABC would not be ordering a third series and was intended to lead into a movie tying up the storylines, entitled Terabyte Rising. However, ReBoot’s Canadian broadcaster YTV were keen to continue with the show, and the plot for the movie was threaded throughout sixteen new episodes, after which the show was cancelled.

In 1999, though, Cartoon Network showed season three in the US, and then re-ran seasons one and two, leading to Mainframe producing two movies that continued the story for broadcast on YTV and release on DVD, later shown as eight episodes on Cartoon Network. The final episode ended on a cliffhanger, our heroes fugitives from Megabyte, who is now in control of the Mainframe. A reboot of ReBoot from Mainframe (now renamed Rainmaker) did appear on Netflix in 2018, but Bob and company were only minor characters, with the studio claiming nobody wanted the original show back.

Wild CATs (CBS): The mass defection of talent from Marvel Comics in 1992 to form Image Comics resulted in a first wave of comic books from the industry’s premier artists. Alongside Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon, and Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood was WildCATs, the work of former X-Men A-lister Jim Lee and scripted Brandon Choi. The book told of a generations-long war between two alien races, the Kherubim and the Daemonites, who have been continuing their battle on Earth, where the Kherubim – almost immortal, human looking beings with fantastic powers – have been breeding with the native populace, while the monstrous Daemonites use their powers of possession and mind control to take over business and government offices. As the war moves into its final phases, Kherubim noble Lord Emp – posing as owner of the Halo Corporation, Jacob Marlowe – organises a group of Kherubim, human, and half-breeds into his Covert Action Team (the CAT of the title) to combat the Daemonite threat.

Although its sales were eclipsed by those of Spawn, WildCATs was a popular addition to the comic racks, especially with Jim Lee’s cachet still riding high. During his time on X-Men, Lee had drawn the biggest selling comic book of the modern era, and such was the popularity of the X-Men at the time – due in no small part to the work of Lee and his Image compadres – that the comic had been adapted into a Saturday morning cartoon on Fox, with a line of action figures and an arcade game to accompany it, all using character designs created or refashioned by Lee.

There was little surprise, then, that WildCATs was chosen to become the first Image comic book to be translated into a TV cartoon, beating Sam Kieth’s The Maxx to air by six months. CBS were looking for an addition to its Saturday morning line-up that might rival the success of X-Men, Batman: The Animated Series, and the upcoming Spider-Man, all wowing young viewers on Fox. Canadian animation studio Nelvana were chosen to partner with Lee’s Wildstorm Productions, and tasked industry veterans Bob Forward and David Wise with developing the show.

Forward and Wise made a number of changes, sanitising some of the more violent and sexual themes in the comic book (which wasn’t exactly R-rated in the first place but did have one of its main character, Voodoo, be an ex-stripper) to suit a Saturday morning network cartoon. The bulk of Lee’s story remained, the focus being the combat between the Kherubim and the Daemonites, and with Lee’s cool character designs intact, but beyond that, though, some cheap animation, poor voice acting, and hackneyed scripts did not score well with either the target audience or fans of the comic book, and it was widely derided. An accompanying toyline and video game were produced but the show was cancelled after just thirteen episodes; it was later parodied in the WildCATs comic book as MadDOGs when celebrated writer Alan Moore took over the title for a fourteen-issue run in 1995.

Next time on The Telephemera Years: It’s back to 1965, where Paradise Bay awaits…

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: pre-1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1967 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1970 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1974 (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)