Battletoads, Bubsy, and Mortal Kombat Pilot Episodes Review

We got a big old man and a T -Bird in the sky!

Across the universe, now we're green and we're

totally fine! We were juiceners from Oxnard,

now we're Superdose -Works and all! Smash hits,

kill all of us to carry the load. face to face

in a secret tournament. But though the number

of warriors is very small, the stakes are enormous.

The fate of the realm of the Earth hangs in the

balance. For five centuries, Outworld has won

every tournament. Nine in a row. They must not

win the tenth tournament. They must not win Mortal

Kombat. been chosen above all others as the last

best hope for the realm of Earth. Liu Kang, famed

by village monks. Lieutenant Sonya Blaze, U .S.

Special Forces. And Johnny Cage, famous Hollywood

star. Hello and welcome to Pixels in the Animation.

This is episode 69, and we're gonna be here talking

about Strip -A -Rella Season 2. Oh wait, that

didn't even happen. Damn it! No stripper Ella

folks, which is sad very very sad as you can

tell TVs. Mr. Neil is here. Not willingly Episode

69. Oh, yeah, so I had to this is years ago folks

cuz we've been doing this podcast since 2013

I've been doing this damn thing for four, almost

five years at this point. And originally, we

were going to go through at the time I thought

we could... watch every single episode of Donkey

Kong Country so the original schedule did not

even have half of the stuff on it that we've

already released so from like it always had Mega

Man, it always had the Mario stuff, the Zelda

stuff, the Captain N stuff and all that but like

the Mortal Kombat stuff that we did, Darkstalkers,

Earthworm, it didn't have any of that stuff until

I realized at the time way back when that I could

not find anywhere to either purchase or watch

Donkey Kong Country episode by episode. I've

since obviously found a place to do so. but uh...

yet next next are we're going to talk about the

country overall because it would kill us to have

to go through every single episode of this i'm

going to try to watch as many of them as i can

before we record episode seventy but we were

just kind of stumped and stuck okay well okay

so what other video game cartoon can we talk

about we kind of already talked about power team

a little bit I think we did like a really small

short episode on the power team from the video

Power Show. I think we did it within the context

of Captain N. It was like, here's the bizarro

version of that. Yeah, something like that. And

sadly, Wizards and Warriors. Well, Wizards and

Warriors did have a... Well, it was part of Power

Team because... What was his name? Not Kronos.

Kuros? Yeah, Kuros. That's what it is. Fabio.

Yeah. Yes, that's very true. So episode 69, we

wanted to put together a video game cartoon series

that only had a pilot or just one episode. We

came up with three and these are the three of

the worst cartoons in animation history. Oh yeah.

I swear there was a fourth, I can't remember

for the life of me what it was. If anyone out

there remembers, please tell us and I'll just

give it a preemptive zero. Yeah. Absolutely.

It's probably bad. Absolutely. Oh, Lord. Okay,

so, um... I did a mashup of various things at

the very beginning of the podcast for these episodes.

We're gonna be talking about Battletoads, Bubsy,

and Mortal Kombat The Journey Begins. Save the

best for last. I did this according to time,

okay? When you sent me the, when you sent me

the YouTube links, alright? Okay. Battletoads

is 21 44, Bubsy is like 24 minutes and change,

and for some odd stupid reason, Mortal Kombat,

the journey begins is like 39 minutes and something.

I'm like, when you, huh? Why the hell is a cartoon

series 30 not like okay bubsy and Battletoads?

Okay standard 21 22 minute without commercials.

I get that. That's fine Why the hell is is Mortal

Kombat nearly 40 frigging minutes? Well, only

two of these were intended for air the third

one Was intended to be kind of an intro to the

Mortal Kombat movie for some reason Yeah, because

apparently they didn't think the movie did a

good enough job explaining who all the characters

are when in fact it did, and under no circumstance

do you need to watch this. It adds nothing. I'm

gonna say this right now, you're probably gonna

fall out of your chair, but I'm gonna say this

right now. Outside of a couple of the voice actors

that are in Journey Begins, like Jennifer Hale

as Sonya Blade, that's just epic, awesome, and

amazing. Outside of that, Defenders of the Realm

is better. I mean look, Defenders of the Realms

plots were stupid as hell, but the animation

is better, the voice acting is not hit or miss,

but I mean that 13 episode cartoon series is

better than 39 minutes of this. And they tried

to do, look, I will defend... The 1994 Spider

-Man animated series until my dying breath, because

I still love that show. I don't care how much

the red bleeds, dammit. But, you know, Mortal

Kombat journey begins, like you said, it was

kind of unneeded. And my point of bringing up

Spider -Man was, Spider -Man, as we know in that

series, did the 2D, 3D thing, because every now

and then when he was swinging on the webs, they

would do the 3D animation through the city. They

tried to do that here with this and I can't believe

I'm getting into this now, but Journey begins

try to do the same damn thing which I'll talk

about and invent about later So battle toads

I have seen this game. I have never actually

played it I've seen one It's a very competent

game it plays well, but it's I would almost argue

It's not worth playing because nobody ever gets

past the third stage that stupid turbo tunnel

okay there are guys out there that can breeze

through it but you know you guys are fucking

robots the rest of us can't do it yeah absolutely

so the cartoon series well they were going to

have a cartoon series for Battletoads it's basically

a half hour animation special produced by Deke

Entertainment of all things Because they wanted

to capitalize on the popularity of the Teenage

Mutant Ninja Turtles! Well, they would have been

the norm for the time. I mean, Deke did a lot

of things in the 90s. Yeah. Well, yeah. Almost

all the cartoons with the exception of Earthworm

Jim. Yeah, absolutely. I sent you a link earlier

that I'll throw in the post as an embedded YouTube

video. After I get done watching Battle to the

Battletoads cartoon, you know how on the side

after you finish something YouTube will say,

hey, suggested posts and whatever else. And I

think it was Battle to the Death or Death Battle.

It was Death Battle from Screw Attack. It was

Death Battle, Leonardo versus the lead Battletoader,

Stitz or Tiz or whatever the hell his name is.

They're all skin conditions. It's rash and pimple.

Just disgusting. Oh my god. Folks, there are

no words. The Dark Queen was hot. The voice was

alright. The Dark Queen is my favorite part of

the franchise. Somehow that doesn't surprise

me. But basically the story even serves as a

prequel to the video game franchise And I yeah,

it's it's my least favorite kind of episode the

origin story Yeah, which I guess I guess is okay

for a TV series because you're still gonna have

more stories except this one didn't you know

Origin stories are always really boring and oh

look who wrote it David Wise Okay, look when

i saw that because because i okay look when i

saw that i'm like really look i've interviewed

that guy once in the nine you know nine years

i've podcasted and we mainly talked about the

87 turtle series and his love of turtles and

that kind of stuff and other things like transformers

and stuff like that but And that interview was

so long ago, I probably should re -interview

him at some point. So, normally when I see a

writer that I have loved their other work, and

I'm like, oh, okay, I'll kinda give this a shot,

but, and this is, and I highly doubt he'll ever

hear this episode, but if he does, David, I'm

not trying to insult you, sir, but I say this

about anybody. Somebody must've needed a paycheck

that week, because, oh my god, really? This is

a guy that wrote how many episodes of Turtles?

How many good episodes of Tur... You know what

I mean? It's like... Yeah. He does get the shit

shovel. He does have to do a lot of the origin

stories or, you know... First episode of the

season where you have to introduce like 40 new

toys like in like season 4 of Transformers. Hey,

leave Rebirth alone. Like there's no, there's

no story because you have to keep introducing

all these goddamn toys. Technically it was 120

new characters according to him in one of his

old interviews. Oh my god. Well, that was how

many robots were actually in the toy line at

that point. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Might have

been that many in the episode. No, I don't remember.

I'd have to re -watch it. And I honestly love

Rebirth. I would rather watch Rebirth than watch

this. I would rather watch... What's the one?

I would rather watch Carnage in C minor than

watch Battletoads. That's just one. I'd rather

watch Webworld than watch this. I mean, Battletoads,

it was alright, but again, you have these three

quasi -teenagers, mid -like 13, 14, however the

hell old they're supposed to be, and apparently

the principal thinks that they are such a bad

influence on each other that he wants them to

split up. First of all, no principal. To my knowledge,

in my 37 years of living in my close to 13 and

a half years of school, no principal has the

authority to suspend you for hanging out with

other kids. Unless you're doing, unless you're

graffitiing the wall, unless you're vandalizing

this, just for hanging out with somebody? Seriously?

You can say that you want them suspended? Really?

Come on now. That's a little much and what I

like about this is We see that they try to abide

by that they each go off in their own own thing

the fat kid does sports the other kid does something

else and the other one does technology or whatever

and They're not so good on their own, but they're

okay, and they're great when they're you know

together as a team So one does machines one is

cool and rude and one is a party dude There's

no leader Yeah, this this show is aimless Oh

It wasn't obvious enough that this was just a

cash in on the turtles yeah pretty much this

is and sadly this is probably like the best one

because I look at stuff like Don't know what

was it Street Sharks and I swear to God there

was like a hundred different Ninja Turtle knockoffs

in the 90s. Yeah, there was Street Sharks extreme

dinosaurs and a bunch of other ones, but yeah

And apparently it had You despite it never did

despite the comic -style ads in Game Pro magazine

Claiming that it had been picked up. It was never

picked up Apparently Obviously no DVD edition.

Why would we why would Deke or I don't even think

Deke's even around anymore. Are they? They've

been they've been consumed by cookie jar Yeah,

I mean, I don't even think any company would

put a pilot episode just on a DVD I mean Well,

they could have done it with one of the cereal

box campaigns, if you remember that. Remember

opening up a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and

there's a DVD of Heathcliff and Super Mario Bros.

3, for some odd reason. You had the voices of

Kathleen Barr, Ian James Corlett, Michael Donovan,

Andrew Cavadas, Scott McNeil. and a bunch of

others, which are all great voice actors and

everything. So that was interesting. But yeah,

no, Battletoads wasn't... I would say the reason

why we're starting with Battletoads tonight is

because it's probably the best out of the three,

even though it's not that great. But out of the

three... So Like I said before after watching

it I watched this death battle thing from screw

attack on on YouTube where it was Leonardo versus

zits and obviously Leo won because they got him

down into the sewer part of the level of the

87 team and T game and in the in the video I

don't have you ever seen this video basically

in the video where I Saw it this afternoon. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah Basically in the video, Leo gets to

sneak in and out through the sewer grates and

through the sewer tunnels and basically kill

the Battletoad character. That's hilarious. Alright,

so Bubsy had a television pilot again. After

I watched this, I found something, a history

of Bubsy by somebody on YouTube. and i watched

that and it's basically you know kind of what

you would do sometimes on your you know on your

youtube i'm not your youtube you're on your face

book page thing where you would show the history

of various things is similar to that you know

where he talks about the games and the very short

-lived cartoon pilot and whatever else i saw

that so i kind of have a history of bugsy now

where they wanted him to be the answer to mario

and sonic And let's face it folks, really honestly

the answer to Mario and Sonic after the 16 -bit

generation was Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the

Dragon. It was Crash and Spyro all the way and

the sad thing is there was no real war between

those two because Crash and Spyro were both on

PlayStation! They actually ended up having like

a crossover game at some point. There was a couple

of Game Boy Advance games that could... Swap

data between them and one was a crash game and

the other was a Spyro game Oh, I would have killed

for that on the big screen on the actual system.

That would have been awesome So yeah, the the

bubsy television pilot Started had that in animated

animated form in 93 Basically called what could

possibly go wrong which is bubsy's catchphrase

The motto of the show. Yeah. Produced by Calico

Creations, Rob Paulson provides Bubsy's voice

alongside voices from Tress McNeil, Jim Cummings,

Pat Fraley, BJ Ward, and Neil Ross. The pilot

was not picked up obviously for a full series.

And that's pretty much all of the information.

Like, the plot of this one, folks, is basically

Bubsy has to save the world from... verminous

reality or virtue ver - Virgil reality or whatever

Virgil reality creates a virtual reality helmet

essentially and this evil queen cat lady wants

it to you know so she can make herself rich and

what it's your standard cartoon plot and Bubsy

consistently says that he's the hero of the piece

and he's not really the hero of the piece he

is but yeah I love Rob Paulson to death. I've

talked to that guy two times. I've interviewed

him two different times in the time I've been

podcasting. And I like him as the voice of Bubsy,

but the character itself is annoying. And I wanted

to kick that armadillo like the Patriots kick

a field goal. Oh my God. Seriously, that armadillo

got on my nerves more than Bubsy did. Well, fortunately,

this show choked like the Falcons. Yeah, you

gotta love that choco -cola. Oh God, do you do

you have any thoughts on the bubsy cartoon? I

I just I started it up and I didn't even get

through the opening song and I just hated it

I was just kind of puzzled by it. I'm like I

could barely follow what was going on. It was

something about a virtual reality helmet news

basically making their thoughts real. And there

was a bunch of stupid running gags that weren't

funny. See, that's the thing about running gags,

they have to actually be funny, or else they

just turn into like a Mr. Nakamura joke. And

please don't ask me to explain, that's a long

thing to explain. You know what? Honestly, you're

probably better off explaining that, because

we'll be able to pad this episode at this point.

It's basically a running gag that fails. That's

the best way I can describe it. And, um... Yeah,

uh... Yeah, Bubsy was a little weird. I did like

the princess. No, not the princess. That was,

um... That's, um... Damn it. That's battle toads

princess and dark queen that's about us Yeah,

the only time I laugh is she called bubsy by

the right name and bubsy goes you got my name

right she goes I did Yeah, absolutely like apathy

that was funny But yeah, I mean, the Bubsy cartoon

was just... And then he finally... So they go

through this scene close to the end where they're

fighting over the virtual helmet, and everybody

gets a wish, essentially. And then when Bubsy

puts it on, it goes haywire, because Bubsy's

nuts. You know, and that's what virtual reality

said. Oh, I need somebody who's happy. Or nuts.

You know. And Bubsy's nuts, so basically his

nutsoid brain destroys... I mean, he... Bubsy

is even crazier than Freakazoid. And Freakazoid's

a good cartoon. Yeah, this is like a half -baked

Freakazoid episode. That's what I was trying

to think of. Pretty much. It's like, if this

was a Freakazoid episode, they would've spent

a bit more time writing it. Yeah, they would've.

Yeah. Like, there's a germ of an idea here, and,

uh... It just didn't work. He said germ. Thank

God you didn't say gem. No, it's not a gem. It's

more of a misfit. Yeah, this episode is so not

truly outrageous. Okay, so we're going to send

you over to Scorpion, folks, and then we'll be

back as our journey begins. He's got superhero

antics and sexy girls. Read it now at TheCN .com.

That's right, folks. I threw in the real Mortal

Kombat anthem, which they kind of use in this,

but not to my satisfaction. Like, the best point

of using it in The Journey Begins is when the

New Line Cinema's logo comes up. So yeah, The

Journey Begins is meant to be a prequel to the

1995 classic Mortal Kombat film. I have always

loved the first film. I like Annihilation. I

understand Annihilation is bad, but Annihilation

is better than this. Oh yeah, it is. Yeah, Annihilation

is way better than this. But no, I remember when

the 1995 World Combat film came out. You know,

Robin Hsu, Ez Lu Kang. Christopher, what's his

name? God damn it. Christopher Lambert. There

they go, yeah. As Raiden. And Shang Tsung in

that was awesome. Cary Tagawa, I believe, is

his name. Right off the top of my head, I think

that's what it is. But the problem with Journey

Begins right off the bat for me is, is the voice

acting for certain characters? I have no qualms

with Jennifer Hale being the voice of Sonya Blade

because Personally, she was a better voice of

Sonya than the actresses that were in the film,

as far as the voice of the character goes. But

like, not getting Liu Kang to do, or not getting

Robin Hsu to do Liu Kang, or not getting Kerry

Tagawa to do... I believe it was Jim Cummings

that did Shang in this. It might have been one

of the other ones, but it was just one of those

things where, oh my god, that does not sound

like... shang tsung it doesn't sound like he

should sound and the fact that uh... the only

interesting thing here is they reuse the uh...

or they can start to use the come here get over

it like i swear that is a use the actual assets

from the game yeah yeah i swear that's the same

damn guy that did scorpion in the game uh...

and I love that about it. It's probably like

either Ed Boon's voice or the other guy. Yeah.

Because I think they did the voices. Yeah. But

this is just silly. You don't need a prequel

to a movie that actually gives you the orally...

The Mortal Kombat movie explains everything that

this thing explains, but better. Christopher

Lambert has a better explanation and whoever

did the voice of Raiden in this just... almost

say that this isn't even a cartoon this is more

like that like an animatic yeah you know what

an animatic is it's basically like it's just

it's not even intended to be shown to the public

it's just a presentation that very very rapidly

throws together the structure of the story and

the animation style from scene to scene doesn't

even have to be the same just has to convey the

plot yeah that's what this is it's like sometimes

it's a cartoon sometimes it's it's CGI for some

reason And it all seems to be very, you know,

dependent on what's needed to be done. Like,

obviously, when they're doing the choreography

of the fight scenes, they would go to the CGI

because that's what's more practical. And if

this was a finished cartoon, they would have

sent that to Korea and had them actually animate

over that. But this is like something that's

not even finished. And did you notice that some

of the assets were cut and pasted? the Baraka

clones. That was all the same run cycle. It was

the same character pasted over and over into

a single shot. Yeah. That was just lazy. That

was bad. That was very lazy. And I don't want

to... I don't want to get in trouble for this,

but I'm pretty sure I'm going to. Why did you

have a... Why did you have Goro be yellow and

his brother be brown? I didn't even think about

that. I mean, did you see the colors of the two

characters when they're fighting over the jewel

or gem or whatever the hell it is? The Chaos

Emerald. Yeah, whatever. It kind of did, which

kind of ties into what we'll be talking about

for the rest of this year, but we'll get to that

at the end of the podcast. you know but yeah

Goro is yellow and his brother I forget what

his brother's name is off top my head because

this just was kind of a blur to me honestly and

I know you say this a lot so I'm stealing your

line the best part of this was the ending because

you had the cool Mortal Kombat theme and you

had the character profiles as the ending credits

With them on crazy looking baseball card things

for some odd reason. Yeah. I don't think I could

ever watch these ever again. Thank God none of

these got a series. Like I said at the beginning,

this was not meant for air. This was sent out

as a home video release. And there is a DVD...

or a blu -ray release of it I know it I don't

The thing I was reading didn't specify if they

meant Mortal Kombat the movie or the other cartoon

series that was released with Right. It was probably

the movie Yeah Absolutely All right folks, I

think that's gonna do it for episode 69. I almost

wish stripper Ella had a second season God that

show was funny Yes, it was Yes, it was Coming

up next time around Steve Megatron is gonna be

joining Neil and I to talk about Donkey Kong

Country the animated series an overall hole I'm

gonna try to watch as many episodes of Donkey

Kong Country as I can between now and then and

That'll be episode 70 and then after that Neil

and I start celebrating 25 years of Sonic the

Hedgehog. We're gonna go through The Dark Sonic,

which is Sad AM, and then we're gonna go through

the Comedy Sonic, which is Adventures of Sonic,

and then after that, episode 95, I believe, is

when you start talking about the moichin -dizing.

Because that's what it always comes down to,

right, Yogurt? Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mario the Movie,

Mario the Video Game, Mario the Thermos! Mario

the Flamethrower! That would be awesome. Alright

folks, you can catch us on geekcastradio .com.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Keep helping

us find those pixels in the animation. Where

can the people find you, sir? Posted in the Liberty

of the American Girl section, and then there's

there's a new comic called energy called energized

that is going to be releasing like every week

or every other week I haven't decided yet, but

that will be that will be running and At some

point. I'll get back to the main to see in storyline

and finish up that chapter But a lot of stuff

a lot of stuff getting posted and you can check

out Parker's Twitter at peel in Bailey Don't

go to the bathroom on her Like I said before

I couldn't get her name as a Twitter account

because someone else had it. God damn it You

could have done park parc All right folks like

I said coming up next we're we're all gonna go

ape It's the ape escape Gotta go ape spit.