Back to the Future: The Animated Series Review

Commencing audio -visual functions. Hello ladies

and gentlemen, this is ToonCast Beyond episode

82. It was recorded months ago, I think? Question

mark? I don't know. I am, of course, TF2 and

Mike, your humble host. Thank you to everyone

who has stuck with me and the hosts, the other

co -hosts on this journey of ToonCastBeyond from

2011 until last year. 2018 is the actual end

date for ToonCastBeyond. We wanted to have this

episode out November 5th, 2018 or November 12th,

2018 because those are both big dates in the

Back to the Future franchise. Please enjoy Steve

Megatron and I, as we are sick, talking about

Back to the Future, the animated series, to wrap

up ToonCast Beyond. Hello and welcome to the

final episode of ToonCast Beyond. This is episode

82. I'm, of course, TFG and Mike. Joining me

is Steve Megatron. What the hell are you doing

here? I came back from the future. Uh -huh. Uh

-huh. Uh -huh. You see what I did there? Uh -huh.

See what I did? Uh -huh. Uh, so we are here,

folks, and it has been a long journey. ToonCast

Beyond started in 2011. It's been eight years

that we went beyond, and damn, we only got to

82 episodes on this part of the series. And you

know what? Now we've had to go back in time.

Yes, that's true. We'll talk about that more

at the end. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of announcements

to announce for ToonCast, which is just going

to be ToonCast now. it's not classic, it's not

beyond, it's just plain old ToonCast. The Facebook

page, if you go over there, it's ToonCast All

Toons All the Time. So, because they made me

make it longer, which is fine, I understand,

and obviously it distinguishes it, whatever.

But yeah, it's been a while since I've done an

episode of ToonCast. The last episode was the

final episode for the X -Men reviews that we

had done. Since that time, Optimus Solo and I,

we haven't rekindled our nightly four or five

hour craft to schedule thing, but we've come

up with ideas in the last six, seven, eight months,

however the hell long it's been since episode

81 and whenever the hell you people are listening

to this now, because I honestly have no idea

when I'm going to edit this and put it online.

I have no clue. I just want to get the damn thing

recorded, get it done, and move on. So there's

lots of ideas, lots of stuff coming for ToonCast.

We are here, as we've been joking and saying,

Back to the Future, the animated series, is going

to be our final episode here on the ToonCast

Beyond feed. We may put out the new announcement

episode of ToonCast coming back on Beyond feed,

but after that, folks, you're going to have to

go back to that original ToonCast Beyond feed.

So any new listeners that listen to ToonCast

Beyond... You're going to have to go back to

the original ToonCast feed for all the other

new stuff. Back to the Future, the animated series.

Ah, joy. This happened between 91 and 92, had

two seasons. Obviously, Back to the Future created

by Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale. Three films, 1,

2, and 3. 85, 88, and 89? No, 89 and 90, I think.

I don't know. One of them things. One of them

years. Yeah, 89 and 90 for 2 and 3. We have been

covering the Back to the Future comics in IDW.

Optimus Soul and I still have to finish that

off, but we have been covering those. Those are

very cool. This series is interesting. Do you

remember watching this back in the early 90s?

I vaguely remember it. What's up? I remember

watching it. What I remember about this more

than anything else is Doc Brown impersonating

Bill Nye. Not really, but I could have sworn

Bill Nye was before. No. I know he's not. He

debuted here. I understand that, yes. But I swear

I saw Bill Nye before I saw this. Obviously,

I'm wrong about that. So you have Christopher

Lloyd coming back for the live action segments.

There's live action mixed in with the animation,

sort of like Fraggle Rock. Fraggle Rock used

to do the live actions with the old man and sprocket

his dog, and then that would go down into the

kind of cartoon -like, puppet -like world of

the Fraggles and the Doozers and all that. Back

to the Future of the Animated Series. I love

this, but at the same time, it's so episode of

the week. It really feels that way to me. How

did you feel about this, watching this back?

It was very formulaic. Very much like anything

else you'd watch, like Magic School Bus or some

of those other shows like that. Yeah. It was

kind of like, alright, we're into the same run

we had last week. Different mission, but it's

the same game. Yeah. It's really not any different,

though, than like... the Mario Brothers show

that kind of came out where you had like the,

the front, you had the actors in the beginning

and the end, and then it was pretty much the

same kind of cookie cutter set up throughout

the whole thing. Yeah. That's kind of a better

example than my Fraggle Rock. I didn't think

about Mario there for a minute. But yeah, I mean,

you have Christopher Lloyd coming back in the

live action segments. You've got Mary Steenburgen

and Thomas F. Wilson reprising their roles as

Clara and Biff respectively. We've actually interviewed

the voice of Jules Brown, one of the children,

voiced by Josh Keaton. So we've got to get Josh

back on for a new interview, because I did not

know he played that voice in this role. Basically,

the show centers around the adventures of the

Brown family, where the movies centered around

the McFly family. This one's all about the Brown

family and the adventures that Doc and the kids

and Clara... all come into. And Mari's kind of

along for the ride. What I love the most about

this is them using Biff Tannen as Thomas F. Wilson's

career as a stand -up comedian kind of a thing

at the end of every episode with him telling

a joke specific to that episode. I love those.

Those are hilarious. That is funny, though. And

he's, you know, and what's funny about him now

is he's playing a time traveler type thing on

Legends of Tomorrow. Legends of Tomorrow. He

plays Nate's dad on Legends of Tomorrow. Yep.

It's so funny. Somebody, my buddy Desmond Reddick,

who runs Dread Media over on earth2 .net, the

earth -2 .net website. He posted an image on

Facebook of James Hetfield, lead singer of Metallica,

and he wrote this post about it thing. But the

image, I swear, James Hetfield could be a stand

-in for alternate timeline Biff from Alternate

85 and Back to the Future 2. I swear it looks

just like him. Oh, God. I don't have a specific

episode. favorite for this one uh i'll say that

out of the first season because there's two seasons

of 13 episodes uh the first season i kind of

like einstein's adventure because we don't really

see a lot of um the dog uh kind of thing uh and

it's the only story in the series that does not

have a science segment following it The Bill

Nye segment following the story Time Waits for

No Frog actually serves as the linking device

between that story and Einstein's Adventure.

Do you have favorite episodes from either one

of the seasons? Not really, just because it's

late. Like you said, kind of a lot of it's just

formulaic. I do love the fact that some of the

original actors and actresses came back. And

they got some people to sound pretty close. But

other than that, like... it's very much a product

of its time. It's almost akin to when they had

like revivals of other series or movies, you

know, talk like Police Academy or Saved by the

Bell or instances like that, or, you know, something

translating from another medium and trying to

reprise it on television. And it just doesn't

relate. do it all that much. I think the Magic

School Bus is a better representation of this

type of media for what they're going for here.

I like the informational segments of Doc Brown.

I think that was cool. I like the way that Doc

would transition from the cartoon, either going

to it or coming back from it. um i do like the

cartoons themselves i just felt re -watching

it x number of years later 25 whatever it is

years later 26 27 um that it wasn't what i it

wasn't what the inner five -year -old in me really

wanted to see because while this does take place

out it does follow The events of it do happen

after the third film, but it's in its own timeline,

is what Bob Gale has said. This and the comics

and whatever else, while they're all in the same

universe, they don't directly link up to the

three films that were Back to the Future. They

might make references, they might show various

things from that, but it's not, it's its own

thing. And I like that they did it at the time.

Going back and watching it, I pretty much binge

-watched the first, I watched 13 episodes in

like two and a half days. That's a lot of Back

to the Future in two days. And I did enjoy it,

but overall, even though I actually bought the

DVD set, because it finally came out on DVD a

couple years ago with the newer Blu -ray version

of the movies, And I like having the DVD set.

Is it something that I'm going to go back to

often enough? Probably not. The only time I'm

probably going to go back is when I grab clips

for this podcast. The DVD does have several bonus

features on it. It has Drawn to the Future, New

Interview with co -creator and executive producer

Bob Gale, writer -producer John Ludden on the

making of the series. Back to the Future, the

animated series revisited a look back at the

creation of the series with the members of the

original animation team. And it's got galleries

and storyboards and that kind of stuff. I love

having it. I think it's super cool. The cartoon

itself, though. Very dated. It is. And we said

at the beginning of this that it felt very formulaic.

What it also did was it referenced everything

under the sun. There was an episode about going

back to the prehistoric age, or there was this,

or there was that. And I understand, it's their

adventures. It's the Vaughn Brown or the Brown

family adventures kind of thing. But some of

the cheesiness of it is a little much. I will

say that... Kudos to them. If they couldn't get

Christopher Lloyd to do the voice for Doc Brown,

getting Homer Simpson is just as good. I mean,

Dan Castellaneta as the animated version of Doc

Brown, that was good. David Kaufman, who I know

is the Jimmy Olsen of the DC animated universe,

he does a fairly good Michael J. Fox impression.

Yeah, and there's been a couple of people that

have done it over the years. But yeah, I mean,

it's either way, it's still tough to play somebody

that's actually a person. Yeah. Like, you know,

it's one thing to play like to mimic another

animated character, but it's still I mean, it's

still difficult. But to match somebody's like

actual voice is a bit more difficult. Oh yeah,

it is. And Dan Castellaneta does and does not

really match Christopher Lloyd's voice. It's

good enough. It's not as good as, say, your Beast

Wars Megatron to David Kaye, who did the voice

himself for Beast Wars way back when. But it's

good enough where it almost fools you. I do enjoy

the series. I think the series is a fun little

romp. But as an overall cartoon continuation

of Back to the Future, it has all the characters

and everything else. I wish the plots were a

little different. I wish maybe we went to that

alternate 1985 again or something like that.

Or maybe an alternate 2015 or whatever. I don't

know. Back to the Future, the animated series,

absolutely dig it. Do wish there was a little

more to it, but it's a fun little thing. It's

a fun little gem for anyone who has seen the

movies and wants more Back to the Future. I would

recommend at least trying one or two of the episodes

or even skipping around because it's not like

these episodes are in any kind of continuity

order or anything like that. Yeah. And that's

all well and fine. Like it's, it's still a product

of its time. It's an old animated series and

it's still, you know, maintained by the creators.

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the Simplistic Reviews podcast, we talk movies.

We talk TV. We talk... Hello, Julie, what the

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that. No, they won't. No, they probably won't.

So as I said, and I know this is a very short

episode here, folks, I've been sick. My wife's

been under the weather. Steve has all his stuff

going on and whatever else. So it's kind of short

on Back to the Future. But I didn't want to drag

this out too long because you really just have

to watch this for yourselves and see how much

90s cheese it has in it. As far as ToonCast,

we're not going to reveal everything here, because

that's the point of the next episode that'll

happen. We're actually going to go back to the

original numbering. We're going to pull a Marvel,

go back to the original numbering, because this,

even though it's episode 82 on ToonCast Beyond,

it's actually the overall 229th episode of ToonCast

in the last 10 years. ToonCast has never, we've

taken hiatuses, but it has never been on a permanent

break. The original idea for the podcast way

back when, when Steve and I were coming up with

the network and whatever else, is that I would

go 100 episodes and it would take two years.

It ran from June 1st to June 1st, 2009 to 2011.

And then I think June 10th or I forget whichever

date it was for ToonCast Beyond Startup. Tooncast

Beyond started in 2011, like a month or so or

whatever it was after Tooncast Classic ended.

And it's ten years later. We're older. We're

wiser. We have a different idea of how to cover

cartoons. And it will basically encompass all

cartoons that we would have done separate review

shows for. Everything. It's not like... As much

as Steve and I enjoyed doing his little baby

Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman may show up

on ToonCast at some point. It's all -encompassing.

The only thing it probably will not encompass

is the Transformers cartoons because those belong

on all things Transformers. Or TFG2 or whatever.

We are going to be doing two different types

of episodes. One would be a weekly... animated

film episode that would air on Saturday because

of Saturday morning cartoons kind of thing. The

other part of the episodes that we're going to

be doing, and we'll talk further into this next

time around, and you'll hear episode 230 on June

1st this year, as long as Optimus Solo and I

can get it recorded. We're going to be bringing

you the Aftertoons Weekday Afternoons. That's

all I'm going to say about it, but basically...

Cartoon podcast, five days a week. You'll get

more details on that in the future. Yes, we are

crazy. Yes, I am hoping to have at least 50 episodes

banked before June 1st. That way the rest of

the year I can just edit and publish and not

have to worry about recording from week to week.

There will be... Hopefully, if Steve agrees to

this, there will be all brand new art for all

this stuff and everything else. We've had some

new art made up already, but that may or may

not change. Depends on what we talk about after

the show. Thank you to everybody who has listened

to Tooncast Beyond for the past seven, eight

years, whatever it's been. Nine, something like

that. No, it would be eight, actually, because

it started, duh, math. Thank you to everyone

for listening to ToonCast Beyond for the last

eight years. It has been a blast. I want to thank

all the co -hosts that were on here with me.

Optimus Solo was kind of MIA, but that gave me

the chance to bring on other people and get other

opinions. There was only one episode. I kind

of feel like he's the geek of Todd from the original

Tooncast. There was one episode that we had Chuck

Dogg on, which was the Superhero Squad show,

and then he never came back after that. I don't

know what happened to that guy. Alternate Dimension

episode? Yes, exactly. I think Thanos snapped

his finger on him. Seriously, though, thank you

to everybody. Thank you to everybody who has

left iTunes reviews on the ToonCast Beyond page

on iTunes. Thank you to everyone who has ever

sent in emails or voicemails, even though there

haven't been many over the years. I do this because

I want to do it, but I also do it because I'm

hoping somebody out there might have the same

opinion as me, besides the people that I'm talking

with, kind of a thing. And I'm looking forward

to the future and seeing what the DeLorean brings

me. Awesome, awesome. Yes, do you have any final

thoughts, any memories of Beyond? I remember

when we started and we covered a lot of superhero

movies. Yeah, see, originally Toon Cast Beyond

was going to have nine seasons and they were

all going to be themed. And the DeLorean episodes.

Yep. Those are my favorites. Yeah, they were.

Yeah, very, very cool. Yeah, the DeLorean episodes

were a way for us to continue ToonCast and covering

all the old cartoons. Meanwhile, ToonCast Beyond

was whenever cartoons were. Exactly. And that

kind of will continue as we go forward. in time

i don't i know optimus solo is going to come

back for episode 230 i don't he and i have got

this new like i said five day a week thing we're

going to be doing and everything else so his

enjoyment and interest is renewed so he's going

to be back as pretty much full -time host there

may be other guest hosts i'm not sure yet i hope

everyone gives it a listen and checks out the

uh the new format here i think that's gonna do

it i think so too Yeah, I'm, like I said, a little

under the weather. I'm kind of stressed out about

my wife right now. With the medical stuff that

she's got going on. Thank you for listening to

ToonCast Beyond. We hope you continue to listen

to ToonCast as it returns later this year, celebrating

10 years of ToonCast, 10 years of the GeekCast

Radio Network. For now, I am TFG and Mike with...

Steve Megatron Phillips. You can find us on Twitter

at TFG1Mike and at SCP21. Also follow at GeekCastRadio

and at GCRNToonCast. Unleash the tune in you,

and we will catch you next time. See you in the

future! Hey, hey, hey, don't be a butthead!