Mega Man Series Recap

Hello ladies and gentlemen, TFJU and Mike here,

and this is going to be Pixels in the Animation

episode 57, our Mega Man recap. We recorded this

a few months ago. Since then, my mom has passed

away, and I'm not doing too well with it. This

will be the final episode of Pixels in the Animation

for a little while. We're going to end on the

Mega Man era. We will come back and do Mortal

Kombat and Street Fighter and all the stuff we

promised we were going to do, but Pixels in the

Animation is going to have to go on... hiatus

for now I don't know when it's gonna be coming

back but we've been giving you you know video

game cartoon reviews for three four years now

I'm just not in the right frame of mind to do

podcasting at the moment I gotta find a new place

to live so that's stressing me the hell out and

everything else but enjoy pixels the animation

episode 57 the Mega Man 1994 TV series recap.

See you in a bit, folks. This is Mega Man and

you're listening to Pixels in the Animation.

Hello and welcome to Pixels in the Animation.

This is episode 57. This is our Mega Man recap

episode. I am one of your hosts, TFG1Mike. Joining

me is Stevie's Mr. Dale. Mega something, I don't

know. I don't know, it's really hard to come

up with stingers for the Mega Man because I keep

wanting to default back to Smoker Mega Man and

that gets old after a while. You talking about

where we use Mega High? Yeah, Mega High. Oh god.

I did it anyway. and of course Steve Megatron.

Hello. How are you guys this time around? Okay.

I'm here, I'm waiting. Wrong franchise. Still

funny. Still wrong franchise. So yeah, we are

done with Mega Man. We finished up the reviews

last time in episode 56. We're here to count

down our favorite, least favorite kind of moments

from Mega Man and all that good stuff. And I

think we ought to just get right to it. Up first,

we're going to be talking about favorite and

least favorite moments from the series. For me,

it's fairly simple for my favorites anytime Gutsman

got blown up. I love seeing him get blown up.

Cutman's horrible, horrible puns, even though

they are bad, they are a cut above the rest.

Anytime Mega Man took a weapon, I love that animation.

That animation sequence of the whole weapon charge

thing, that was awesome. We live in a world where...

Pokemon is everywhere. So anytime I go back to

the 90s and see somebody blasting off again like

dr. Wiley does in this series I'm like, yeah

That's kind of awesome There was an episode I

think it was 20 ,000 leaks under the sea Well,

the episode itself kind of sucks. I did like

seeing how rush Got to learn how to use his his

sub mode. I thought that was pretty cool What

about you Neil? What did you have her favorite

moments from Mega Man? Just in general whenever

they had good animation. It was really good Unfortunately,

it wasn't all the time Some episodes are pretty

bad Yeah, I can't really nail down anything specifically

that I thought was really I Suppose I suppose

just again just being general I thought the the

voice acting was really, well, for the most part,

it was really good. Probably the best possible

voice you could have for Mega Man. I'll probably

expand on this later when we talk about other

things. The thing is, I wasn't super big into

this show, so I don't have a lot of love for

it, so I don't have a lot of favorite moments,

per se, just general feelings. I should probably

just move on. Okay. What about you, Steve? For

favorite moments? Is this a trick question? I'm

just playing. I love when Mega Man is saved by

Mega Man X. That's, of course, one of my favorite

episodes, so that's going to be there. I enjoy

the random upgrades Mega Man gets throughout

the series. Whether it's his flying or his scuba

gear, even though some of it looks ridiculous

as hell, it still is kind of cool to see him

get that kind of an upgrade. That stealth suit

is just completely crazy. But I mean, those would

probably be my main... main moments because like

a lot of the stuff is really cut together bad

puns that are kind of mega high. For me, for

least favorite moments My biggest problem with

this series and I'll talk about this later as

well is the overall plots, but Anytime dr. Light

doesn't know what the hell is going on when he

should know what the hell is going on Like in

campus commandos You mean to tell me he's inside

the university and he doesn't hear all the commotion

that's going on outside if I hear a friggin pin

drop Open my curtains and look out my window

to see what the hell is going on in my backyard

You know That's just that's just a sticking point

for me other than that I mean most of the moments

are you know most of them are fine There's not

really anything negative that I can really say

about the series in that aspect Obviously, we'll

talk about you know other negatives later, but

what about you Neil any least favorite moments

anything that just kind of like made you want

to shut it off? A lot of the derp faces, like

I talked about in one of the last couple episodes,

that made me want to shut it off. Just again,

in general, I thought that the storytelling was

kind of formulaic. At this point, I was a little

older, obviously, than when I watched Transformers

and G .I. Joe, so I kind of expected a little

more, and this was just kind of like... There

was no... I wanted like grander storytelling

and they didn't do that. So and in fact like

the episodes themselves I could I could sit here

with a stopwatch and basically say okay this

is when this is gonna happen and here's here's

the part where the plot turns around and here's

the part where they congratulate Mega Man at

the end and Rush does something silly. So it

was like every episode became predictable after

a while and I didn't like that Any time a new

character came into the show you were pretty

much guaranteed to never see them again unless

it was snake man like snake man was the only

third tier character who made frequent returns

everyone else was disposable and Maybe only had

like one or two interesting lines at all. So

you never really got to I never really liked

the way the robot masters were portrayed just

because they were so They took interesting characters

and made them generic is what I should say. So

I didn't like that Yeah, that's I don't have

a lot of Like I said, I didn't have a lot of

good moments and it's really hard to narrow it

down to bad moments because it's just like an

overall feeling of what I had for the show so

again, I should just kind of move on and I have

more interesting things to say when we get into

the real meat of the show Absolutely. So it was

a collection of bad moments for you? Pretty much.

Come on now, we've seen worse. That is true.

I've heard worse. Hey! No, I'm saying like describing

the shows because I, you know, I wasn't on the

previous episode so I was saying I've heard you

talk about worse shows. Yeah, that's true. Which

I have to concur. I try to defend some of them,

but some of them are just undefendable All right

favorite characters for me obviously Mega Man

I Wish there was more to do with rush. I really

do like I know rush is pretty much relegated

to be the comedic good guy character I mean You

look at a long history of comedic good guy characters.

I would put Rush just slightly above less annoying

than Orko from Hey Man. But I just I really love

Rush. I wish when we interviewed Ian that I could

have had him do Rush's barks. That would have

been awesome. Eddie. Eddie is even though and

again. He was so underused. He was I mean, I

know he's there for emergency type stuff, but

I Just feel that there were certain episodes

where mega man energy was drained that Eddie

could have been there and he wasn't and I don't

know but I mean Scott McNeil using the what I

would know to become the Waspinator voice for

Eddie. I thought that was just brilliant And

I also like cutsman gutman and top man uh...

those three killing you know tom and we have

one of the so i still thought it was cool what

they did with them cutman and gutman the way

they play off each other is just brilliant and

i mean gutman specifically he's it's gary chuck

it's it's optimist primal as a as a bad guy that's

kind of awesome I do like Proto Man I wish you

know like I think neither Neil or Steve said

last time around when we talked about the the

Brobots episode that they had flushed that storyline

out a little bit more than just throwing it into

one episode, but I Do dig Proto Man. What about

you Neil favorite characters from the series?

Neil sorry I You know what Mega Man probably

just cuz he it was like the best cast that they

had it was the best possible Mega Man voice that

they could have had like their shows were like

if you You could kill a show if you cast it wrong.

So they pretty much had the best Mega Man voice.

I mean in comparison to Captain and Mega Man

who sounded like you know Popeye with emphysema

and or the what Capcom does where they give them

a girl's voice, which is also totally inappropriate

this is like this was like the best one they

could have come up with um i also like gutsman

because he he's like the best portrayed character

from the games like i don't really like some

of the ways some of the other characters are

portrayed but he's probably the best one yeah

absolutely um what about you steve favorite characters

from the series uh of course i like the title

character I love the the voice acting on it Yeah,

sorry kiss -ass moment, but um, but uh Yeah,

I enjoy This this rendition of that of Mega Man

and then I I like dr. Light even though he's

kind of a bumbling idiot Just a nice bumbling

idiot unlike dr. Wiley who's a evil bumbling

idiot And I kind of like him too just because

he's got the goofy laugh and all that I Enjoy

Wiley's primary three bots proto man Gutsman

and Cutsman Even though again, they have really

bad puns Other than proto man proto man just

is always like the guy that has to have the last

word And I didn't mind snake man all that much

being that he was the only recurring one for

the most part Yeah, I wish they would add more

recurring ones But it didn't last very long.

I just wish that the series had been more like

an actual flowing story instead of Villain of

the week and let's see what other show we can

copy this week. Mm -hmm Yeah, absolutely All

right for least favorite characters for me Roll

was practically useless. I mean she had a few

good scenes, but maybe I when I say a few I mean

like two and a half maybe three Didn't really

care for brain bot. I mean he is Constant need

to make everything more efficient really just

kind of screwed everything up for everybody else

I've kind of jumped on the bandwagon with Steve

and after because I've rewatched a couple of

the episodes I rewatched the two that Bright

Man was in, and I like the first one Bright Man

was in, but once he comes into that second or

third episode that he was in, it's like, no,

go away. And some of the kids in this series,

there weren't many actual children in this series,

but some of them, they're not as bad as a lot

of the people, a lot of the kids in He -Man and

the Masters of the Universe from Filmation, but

some of the kids in this series were just downright

weird. What about you Neil least favorite characters?

Well, this might be kind of a surprise because

I didn't really allude to this throughout the

series But I did not like dr. Light Really? Yeah,

mainly because he was kind of the I Don't know

he's kind of like the the generic genius It's

like he does he's not really the star of the

show. But whenever they come to the resolution

of the episode He's always a guy who's like,

oh and I made sure that dr. Wiley will never

be able to enact this plan again And I'm like

how? he's just he's just kind of like this convenient

plot device that at the end of the episode they

he's like the really quick explanation as to

how uh this this episode will never repeat itself

or something and i didn't like the voice he just

sounded he sounded weird he did not sound how

i thought dr light should sound he just had this

really i don't know how to describe it he's just

kind of like this mellow genius i guess i don't

I didn't really like them. And the other one

is Proto Man. Really? Yeah, because it felt like

it felt like the the producers of the show maybe

played Mega Man 5 and they thought, oh, Proto

Man is a bad guy. No, he's not. The payoff of

Mega Man 5 is that it's a fake Proto Man and

the real Proto Man comes along and saves the

day. And they kind of jumped the shark with or

not jumped the gun with. With revealing that

proto man is Mega Man's brother because that

was actually the payoff to one of the games You

didn't know who he was didn't know what side

he was on and then at the end of Mega Man 3 you're

like Oh, he's Mega Man's brother. How cute He

was he was like he was like robot number zero

and that's why he's called proto man. He was

the prototype to Mega Man and in this They just

kind of made him into this grating bad guy. In

fact, his big thing with being Mega Man's brother,

he's like, hey, brother, that just kind of got

grating for me after, I don't know, maybe two

episodes. I'm like, oh, shut up. And they never

do anything with him. He's just incessantly evil

for the entire series. And you never, except

for like one episode where he kind of relates

with Mega Man, you never really get a payoff.

So I yeah, he's just not very interesting I wish

you would have come up to Mega Man at one point

and been like or Mega Man could have come up

to him at one point and said So why are you just

a little bastard? This is the 90s and I don't

think they would use that language on Fox. Oh

wait, maybe they would Yeah, I mean, Proto Man,

I mean, they did kind of rip off part of his

story where they said that, I believe they did

say that when Dr. Wiley stole the robots in the

very first episode, that Proto Man was one of

them. That he was the first one that Dr. Light

had created, but they didn't really go too far

into it. And again, if they did this series today,

I would want it more, like Steve said, more story

-driven. like you know actually create a continuity

that Now it doesn't align with the games, but

you know that could be following along like one

of the games could have been you know I would

have made it so that he was a bit more of an

enigma like You just kind of existed in the shadows

like he would have It's gonna be terrible. He

would have been like racer acts or it's like

who is he where did he come from and then Bobby

Heenan would chime in and be like whose side

is he on and Old -school wrestling fans will

get that but They just didn't do anything with

him he was just like he was he turned heel in

the first episode and we never really got anything

interesting At least he's a better heel than

Seth Rollins. Oh don't even start We're gonna

take a quick break. I'm gonna come back with

episodes We love and hate and then overall thoughts

after this. It's action. It's drama. It's comedy

It's to see in the superhero webcomic to see

it's got superhero antics and sexy girls read

it now at the CN calm das I en calm It's showtime

synergy the latest review podcast from the geek

cast radio network is here So join TFG one Mike

Nicole hailstorm and myself lady rec as we will

be reviewing all 65 episodes of John the holograms

in a 25 episode long podcast You can find showtime

synergy on iTunes and geek cast radio comm we

are the truly outrageous podcast that you want

to be listening to Alright folks, it is time

to talk about episodes we love and hate all at

the same time. I gotta say, out of 27 episodes,

there are way too many, like Steve said earlier,

too many plot of the week, or what can we copy

from pop culture at the time? I only have three

episodes that I would actually watch again out

of this entire series. I love the series overall

in theory, but I mean, I just can't watch some

of those other weird plots, but my three favorites

are The Beginning, Mega X, and Future Shock.

Not just because it's the first episode But it's

you know the first time we get to see Mega Man

first time we get to see him in action I would

have liked it like I like we've been saying if

the if the show had been more story -driven I

Would have liked them to build up a little bit

more on Mega Man like you know show us even in

just like a Minute and a half two minute flashback

of him Trying to use his powers before he goes

out and stops doctor Wiley But you know I love

the beginning mega X we've gushed and gushed

and gushed about it a couple weeks ago So that

you know there's there's no sense in really going

over that again and future shock I I wish future

shock and mega X would have been a two -parter

with each other because that way We could have

had more Mega Man X stuff going on that would

have been kind of cool What about you Neil any

favorite episodes probably the first one and

I don't know I don't want to say mega X because

I wasn't really hot on that episode yeah the

first one I know that there was one in season

two that I thought was pretty good but I'm I

don't have my notes anymore so I'm like what

one was that again oh did your notes go I'm just

like well I don't need this text file anymore

delete hey wait up and I'm like oh wait No, I

think I have more memory of the ones that I didn't

like, some kind of blanking on the ones that

were good. I know that there were some that were

animated particularly well. I'm like, oh, these

are neat. I know Brainbot doesn't get a lot of

love, but I did like the animation in that one.

That was OK. And what the heck? I'll give a shout

out to Crime of the Century. It gets a lot of

shit for being the last episode, but it wasn't

a terrible episode. It just should not have been

the finale. So yeah, I'm kind of lukewarm on

the series overall, so maybe that's probably

the best I could say. What about you, Steve?

I really enjoy the first episode. Kind of showing

all the origins and everything. And then Mega

X. Just because I have that familiarity with

the Mega Man X franchise. First. And then going

into Mega Man. And then The Megaman and the moon

I kind of enjoyed just because it was somewhere

different Compared to the constant repeat every

week of some other show That's true not saying

that it wasn't ripping something off, but it

was less blatantly obvious I you know for me

it's more like I said I don't know I wish I don't

know if they would ever make another Mega Man

series but I kind of wish they would because

while this episode well while this series is

nice to go back and look at it and remember it

the next thing we had after this series Was he

the best thing alive or no it was Mega Man nt

warrior. Oh boo the game. Yeah that I Don't know

what's going on with that one, but that one was

just weird All right, and let's see episodes

we hate I actually wrote down here The rest of

them. Okay, you want specifics, okay? Night of

the living monster bots. It's just a horrible

Mega Man animated monster movie So many cliches

in that and it wasn't even a good monster movie

ripoff Robo sore And Bad Day at Peril Park. RoboSaur

Park and Bad Day at Peril Park. They're essentially

the same goddamn episode. I was gonna say, you

mean the same episode? And as I said last time

around when we talked about the final three episodes

of the show... Crime of the century should not

exist. It is a crime of the century that that

episode actually exists. That episode, that series

should have ended on Mega X because it has such

a good ending in Mega X where, you know, Mega

Man X goes back to his time and Mega Man says,

okay, you know, see you later and whatever else.

And it just has a good, clean, no, you know,

strings attached ending. But yet they had to

put... Crime of the century in there. Oh What

about you Neil? What are some of the episodes

that you hate versus alignment? Yeah, I didn't

want to put that in there. I figured somebody

else wouldn't That episode was uh, I we already

said our piece on it. So um, let's see buck transfer

just because it was another another one of the

episodes where it's uh The plot I've seen a million

times the we get a brain transfer between two

characters and the good guy character is like,

wait, it's me. Stop shooting at me. And the bad

guy is like really living it up and pretending

to be the good guy. And, you know, there was

a Turtles episode like this where Splinter and

Shredder switched brains. And I know I've seen

this in like. It was Michelangelo and the Shredder.

Oh, really? There was. I thought it was Splinter.

Well, our listeners can check. I remember that

episode well. And it's like the flash in Lex

Luthor. Lex Luthor. Yeah. Let's see, the robo

-spider. It's good that it was ridiculous that

you had a giant robot spider. It's like, who's

the guy who produced Wild Wild West? It seemed

like he made that episode, for Christ's sake.

And then, yeah, Bad Day at Pearl Park, definitely.

Yeah, there's way too many to name. I think those

are the big offenders for me. Yeah. I mean, I

would say 20 ,000 Leagues Under the Sea, only

because it was a really, really bad copycat of

20 ,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Overall thoughts

on the entire series, Steve. After re -watching

all 27 episodes and talking about them with us,

do you still have that child -like feeling for

the series, or is it something that you won't

watch for another 25 years? Well, it's kind of

a double -edged sword for me. Watch a lot of

old shows just because of nostalgia purposes

and because I just want to go back and watch

them like take for instance You know Beast Wars

inspector gadget the show So, I mean obviously

some are written better than others so what I

tend to do is Retain episodes of particular shows

that I enjoyed as a kid But I keep the best episodes

of them If I do not own the DVD series that is

So that I can have at least the best episode

to remember them by and Not have to own the entire

thing and see all the garbage that it had actually

was Yeah Which is why the beginning episode of

mega acts are like my two favorites of the series

because then I forget that The rest of this show

was really bad Yeah. What about you, Neil? Overall

thoughts? Just in terms of character styles,

I thought the way they designed the characters

was really weird, because I like the game design

characters, the ones that Fune drew. The way

Mega Man looks in the games, he's kind of like

this short, squatty character. And the whole

game is kind of cutified. And they turned it

into more of an adult -type character. And it

doesn't, I don't know, it just doesn't gel with

me. The only way I can kind of maybe explain

it is imagine a cartoon or character that you

liked as a kid. And then look at how they turn

him into a bad Rendered CGI character like I

don't know what maybe the new Garfield or the

new inspector gadget that they that just came

out It's like it's like don't even bring that

it's like I really love the way inspector gadget

used to look I hate how he looks now and so when

I look at the Mega Man cartoon, I'm like Yeah,

I don't really like the way they drew him especially

especially his abs his or no not his abs his

pecs like they they kind of like drew him in

like drew them in like a just like a pencil outline

around where his pecs would be and i'm like there's

a more subtle way to do that and they don't just

i don't just drove me nuts the entire show yeah

i didn't like the way a lot of the robot masters

were designed they look like they were designed

very quickly i'm like wait couldn't you just

use the designs that are made for the games i

don't know in fact they were going to do that

like one of the early promos was very much in

line with the games, I'm like, oh man, why didn't

you keep this? And you see a little bit of that

in the show's intro, except that they replaced

all the shots of Mega Man and Roll with the new

designs, and I'm like, eh. Other than that, like

I said, I really like that they used Ian for

Mega Man's voice, it's probably about the best

he could have gotten. He should sound like Goku,

I mean... Goku is just like the ultimate like

goody good guy voice. So why not? Yeah, I kind

of wish that they had I Understand that they

couldn't do like story arcs, but I wish they

could have like Paced the show in such a way

that like maybe that wouldn't maybe they wouldn't

have to worry about like Having a episode episode

continuity, but you could revisit themes from

time to time and have characters that could develop,

unlike the way it is in the series, where robot

masters will come and they come in and say one

or two things and then they're gone forever.

Like I said, this show doesn't really resonate

with me. It had its moments, but... You know,

Ian James -Collett is kind of right when he said...

Don't think this made it into the... Oh, this

is off air. He had needed to do a voice sample

for us. He needed to check what Mega Man sounded

like. And he actually pulled up on YouTube the...

Megaman one of the Megaman episodes and he said

yeah, it's a really catchy simple theme song.

Isn't it? It's just two words the whole thing

It's like, you know, I'm like, yeah, that's the

best part about the whole series. Honestly, yeah

You know as far as the the coverage here on pixels

the animation I Think that the two The two times

that we've broken away for was three times But

two that I'm gonna mention that we've broken

away from Mario cartoons since the beginning

of the podcast and now Was Zelda and Mega Man

and yeah, we did do Captain N But you know that

you know still had plenty of Mario references

in it. So, you know everywhere Some of the music

and all that good stuff, but Mega Man was a nice

little break. I thought it was an interesting

little break from what we had already been doing

and It is great going back and watching the series.

However, there are many things wrong with it.

Firstly, the plots. Wow, did this series need

better writing? Yeah. Oh, man. I mean, all those

classic, you know, what is it? Mega Man 1 through

6 are pretty much the original NES versions,

right? Right. Why couldn't they have I mean those

games all have somewhat satisfying endings and

story don't I mean what little story there is

there? But you know what I mean? Why couldn't

they have gotten some of the game writers to

write for animation that would have been kind

of cool well not they didn't necessarily need

the game writers, but they could have taken cues

from the games were Like the games don't really

have like a really solid narrative, but they

do tell a story each one of them do have a story

and particularly Mega Man 2 and 3 were probably

the best resources to make, to pull from I should

say. Mega Man 5 and 6 are kind of, they're good,

they're good games but I wouldn't pull stories

from them just because one was like a generic

tournament and then like the guy running the

tournament pulls his mustache off and wig and

so uh -huh surprise it's it's me Dr. Wiley all

along pulls off his mustache even though he already

has one but uh yeah I would I would have Pulled

from Mega Man 2 and 3 and just repeated those

themes and left the other games alone Yeah Alright

folks, we're gonna take another quick break here

come back with final thoughts and overall rating

for the series We'll be back after this Hello

geeks Want a podcast that covers a vast array

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with the Altered Geeks every Friday on the GeekCast

Radio Network. Steve what do you got coming up?

What are you working on? Altered geek pretty

much Okay What about you Neil what's going on

with The scene and all that good stuff. I've

been kind of poking at the drawing pad here and

I've been kind of Not the most motivated by moving

along very slow and steady and just kind of keeping

my mind occupied with I've been listening to

OSW the which is like an old -school wrestling

podcast. So that's why I've been kind of dropping

wrestling references lately Because they're really

I I heartily recommend anyone who likes old wrestling

go check them out Other than that not all highly

recommend not hardly recommend. Well, I think

I said heartily. Oh Okay. Yeah, so yeah Yeah,

just trying to keep busy although I've been kind

of not burned out, I'm just kind of getting back

into the rhythm and it's kind of hard after you've

been kind of not drawing after a couple months.

So yeah, I'm just kind of getting back into the

rhythm. All right. That's going to do it for

the Mega Man era of the podcast, folks. Thank

you for joining us here on Pixels of the Animation.

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folks. Combat begins again, Sting of the Scorpion,

Acid Tongue, Skin Deep, Old Friends Never Die,

and Familiar Red. For now, I am TFG1 Mike with

TV's Mr. Neal and Steve Megatron Phillips. Tune

in next time and help us find the pixels in the

animation.