Clerks: The Animated Series (2000)

In our last edition of One Season Wonders, we covered a kids cartoon based on a movie license. This time, we flip the script to see how an adult cartoon based on a movie series would fare in prime time. The answer: not so well. Snoochie Boochies, it's Clerks: The Animated Series. Unlike our previous reviews which saw shows cancelled after their 13 episode one season run had finished, Clerks stumbled ass over teakettle out of the starting gate, premiering on May 31st, 2000 on ABC, only to be cancelled on June 7th, 2000. Only two episodes originally saw air out of the mere six that were completed. Eventually the remaining episodes saw release on DVD and aired on television later on through Comedy Central and Adult Swim.

Clerks first saw reality in 1994 as an independent film from director Kevin Smith. The black and white misadventures of Dante Hicks, a convenience store clerk from Leonardo, New Jersey. Despite his constant complaints of how he wasn't supposed to be there that day, he still has to deal with being #37, his slacker coworker Randall Graves who works for the next door video store RST Video, a pair of goofball drug dealers named Jay and Silent Bob, among other things. The movie proved a massive success, grossing 3 million dollars from it's 27 thousand budget and launched Smith's career as a director. Following that, Smith continued the View Askewniverse with Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma.

The plan next was to bring Clerks to television through an animated series, which was picked up by ABC. And knowing ABC's poor history with any animated prime time sitcom not named The Flintstones, the show never stood a ghost of a chance. As previously mentioned, only two episodes ever saw air and even then those two weren't in production order. Be it the crude humor of the series or just a lack of interest, ABC ultimately canned the show without giving it a chance. But did it deserve that chance? Let's look through the episodes to see if we can mine some gold.

SERIES OVERVIEW

Clerks: The Animated Series pretty much leaves us where we left off with 1994's film as we see the continuing adventures of Dante and Randall. However, now that it's an animated series, the adventures are more wacky and the humor more over the top (kind of like what Clerks 2 became if you think about it). Unlike most movie-to-cartoon adaptations, all of the original core cast reprise their voice roles. Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson return as Dante and Randall while Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith return as Jay and Silent Bob. However, due to ABC's standards and practices, Jay and Silent Bob are no longer drug dealers, but sell illegal fireworks among other miscreant misadventures. Much like shows at the time like Family Guy, Clerks also relied heavily on cutaway gags and crude humor, but knowing Smith's writing style for the Askewniverse, this fits right up their alley.

The Karate Kid (1989)

The concept of One Season Wonders seems to benefit the best from animated adaptations of popular film franchises. And in our hunt through yesteryear, that may end up being our most visited avenue. And to show that in its full form, we're going to start this trek through film to animated TV adaptations with one based on an iconic 80s franchise, The Karate Kid. The Karate Kid franchise started in 1984. The tale of a New Jersey boy named Daniel LaRusso moving to California with his mother and running afoul of the local bullies, who all learn Karate at the hands of John Kreese and his dojo the Cobra Kai. With the aid of his home's maintenance man Mr. Miyagi, Daniel not only learns karate, but also life lessons that better him as a person. And these ultimately help Daniel win the karate tournament, best the Cobra Kai and win the heart of sweet, sweet Elizabeth Shue.

The Karate Kid proved a box office smash, making 90 million from its 8 million budget. So obviously a sequel would come about. In 1986's The Karate Kid Part II sees Daniel and Miyagi go to Okinawa as Miyagi goes to see his dying father and settle a long standing issue with an old rival and a former love, while Daniel also deals with similar matters. The movie proved to be another massive hit at the box office with 113 million from a 13 million budget, despite less than favorable reviews. The Karate Kid Part II also spawned the infamous LJN NES game (developed by Atlus). With the franchise on a roll, a third movie The Karate Kid Part III was released in the summer of 1989... and flopped in the box office and critically as people felt it was too much of a retread of the original movie.

But that wasn't the only piece of Karate Kid media to premiere in 1989 as in the fall of that year an animated adaptation of the series premiered on NBC's Saturday morning lineup, blocked in with newcomers like Camp Candy, Captain N and of course, Saved by the Bell. It was produced by Dic and Saban and aired 13 episodes from September 9th to  December 16th of 1989. So, how do you take a film franchise mostly about life lessons and character based stories? Why fill it to the brim with magic and globetrotting adventure of course? Is that a recipe for disaster, or is this a hidden gem in disguise? Let's find out.

SERIES OVERVIEW

As previously stated, The Karate Kid forgoes the concept of the show and goes for an adventure motif as Daniel, Miyagi and an Okinawan girl named Taki Tamura set out on a quest to find a stolen shrine that grants the holder magic powers. The group would have to deal with the villain of the week, teach whoever has the shrine a life lesson, try to get back the shrine, only for it to be gone again. Basic formula for this kind of adventure series.

Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars (1991)

Welcome to the inaugural edition of One Season Wonders, a blog that will look at cartoon shows that only ran one season and to ask the question on if the show deserved to have a longer run. These will consist at looking at 13 episodes series, usually the shows that aired briefly on Saturday mornings in the 80s and 90s, though branching out to longer one-season runs might be considered if there's a lot of stuff to go through. And we start this adventure in another dimension. Another time and space. Where a parallel universe has fallen on its face. But from out of the shadows, who else can it be but the animal adventurers of S.P.A.C.E. Yes, we're gonna croak us some toads and look back at Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars.

Bucky's origins start out as being created by Larry Hama and Michael Golden as a comic book that was first published 1984 for the anthology comic "Echo of Futurepast". Despite Bucky only having a brief run in the 80s in the comic world, it wouldn't be the last of the series. 1987 gave us Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, an animated adaptation of the Kevin Eastman/Peter Laird comic book. To say the turtles became a massive hit would be an understatement as the franchise became a merchandising juggernaut. And with it came plenty of other "anthropomorphic hero" teams that were ready and willing to try and take the turtle throne. One of those was Bucky O'Hare.

Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars premiered in the fall of 1991 in the UK and in North America. Although the name was changed to "Toad Menace" for the Canada and UK airings. While it's a well known fact that the word "ninja" was often banned from use in a lot of UK stuff, the word "war" was also considered problematic. It's why in Canada we got Beasties instead of Beast Wars and Shadow Raiders instead of War Planets. The merch machine was pretty good for Bucky out the gate, with Hasbro handling the toy department (I remember having several figures including Bucky, Willy and the Toad Air Marshall),  along with Konami in their heyday creating video games. An arcade beat-em up and a really good NES platformer. Seriously, it's worth shilling the extra money for. It's that good a game.

And with the preamble about where the show came from out of the way, it's time to cover the show. Instead of just doing 13 separate reviews, I'm going to combine all 13 into one review with a brief overview of the plot. As I watch each episode and give my more detailed thoughts on the show, giving my "best and worst episodes" at the end, along with my thoughts on if this show holds up, or at the very least should have continued for more than one season.