While this pilot episode didn’t accomplish the goal of creating a cartoon series. It succeeded in creating a memorable six player beat ‘em up arcade game.
I never played a arcade game before. My parents got me a playstation 2 for Christmas when I was a kid. My little cousin Vera had a playstation 1 . That was the first game system I played. My fiance has the X men cartoons on a flash drive But he has the ones from 90s .
Same here. Well actually there was an episode in spiderman and his amazing friends with an x-men cameo and an australian wolverine, but it led me to this one and then the comics.
My best friend got the VHS from a school book fair and I remember being mind blown. Also bought another VHS of Spider-Man, Iceman, and some fire chick.
Nah they would have still done it. I'm surprised we never got a show in the 70s and 80s before it. Like what was the point of making two 1981 Spider-Man shows running simultaneously. I mean we got a Spider-Woman show instead of X-Men. Thats wild to me We even got a botched up 1978 Fantastic Four show which didn't even have Johnny Storm in it due to TV licensing rights held up on a failed live action show based on him (which is probably also why he wasn't in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends show in 1981). But yeah, much in the same way Marvel failed the first time trying to localize Super Sentai in 1984 through Sun Vulcan but the woman who tried (Margaret Loesch) ened up doing it eventually through different means and different company (Fox and Saban) via Power Rangers, so too did the very same woman do that with X-Men. The failure of Pryde of the X-Men was through her at Marvel Productions, but once she quit there and moved to Fox, she, like Super Sentai, took that same dream and pursued it with Saban Entertainment through Fox with X-Men TAS.
They made the X-Men Animated Series after the MASSIVE popularity of X-Men Volume 2 # 1 -which has become the best selling comic of all time-in 1991. They thought they’d be successful with the show as well and they were right. Fox made several other shows in the 90s, from which only Spider-Man TAS was succesful.
@@Darwaxion X-Men TAS was made because Margaret Loesch was hired by Fox to be it's CEO of Fox Family in 1990. Fox also hired Saban Entertainment who were known for such shows like Inspector Gadget. The two worked together to create X-Men TAS and a year later, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. This is because Margaret Loesch and Haim Saban had previously tried but failed to bring over Japanese superhero live action shows to the U.S., both rejected by TV execs. But now that Margaret Loesch was in a high position she couldn't be rejected. Haim Saban tried to bring over 1985's Super Sentai Bioman in 1986 but was rejected Margaret Loesch, who at the time in 1984, was hired by Stan Lee to be his CEO of Marvel Productions studio, had tried to bring over 1981's Super Sentai Sun Vulcan but was rejected. Then later, in 1989, Margaret Loesch tried to put together a pilot episode for an X-Men cartoon called Pryde of the X-Men. She even hired Japanese animation studio Toei, since they had a previous working relationship with Marvel due to animating both 80's Spider-Man cartoons, Hulk cartoon, G.I. Joe and Transformers. When Toei couldn't animate all of Transformers, Margaret Loesch would hire a B team out of Korea called AKOM, but the level of quality wasn't as good. Anywho, Pryde of the X-Men was rejected, but again that's because no one was at a high enough level to green light it through. Konami would later use its story and art style as the base for its 1991 X-Men beat em up arcade game though... Now that Margaret left Marvel and had a higher position at Fox, and Saban and Margaret were on the same wavelength of ambition, they both agreed to localize 1992's Super Sentai Zyuuranger and repurpose that in to Power Rangers, and also create X-Men TAS, which finally gave us our first X-Men cartoon series, and probably to save money, Margaret hired AKOM instead of Toei animation to do the animation for X-Men TAS. Perhaps if Stan Lee hasn't given up on his ambition to localize Super Sentai, Marvel wouldn't have been in such financial strain on the 90's because Haim Saban and Loesch in just under two years was able to turn Power Rangers into a 2 billion dollar franchise, while also reaping success from the X-Men show, while two years later, Marvel was filing for bankruptcy
@budgiecat9039 this was part of the syndicated marvle action hour, iron man and fantastic 4 where syndicated for 2 years, before fox took over animation of marvle shows, spiderman was a hit on fox, so Fox wanted another superhero show, so xmen , waa revamped from this failed pilot. Xmen waa super popular so I don't know that this pilot had much to do either way other than a focus on jubilee, vs city pride
@@petewillson205 I think you got your history out of order sir. Margaret Loesch ran Fox Family from 1990 to 1997. She worked previously at Marvel Productions from 1984 to 1989 Before that she worked at Hanna Barbera. X-Men TAS ran from Oct of 1992 to Sept of 1997 Spider-Man the Animated Series ran from Nov of 1994 to Jan of 1998 Fantastic Four cartoon under Fox debuted in 1994 Same with Iron Man and Hulk cartoons So..... X-Men came first by 2 years And this is why it nearly got rejected. Because Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk and Iron Man ALL had cartoon series before but X-Men never did. All they had was a reject pilot in 1989, and two guest appearances on 1981's Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. Meanwhile Spider-Man had the 1967 series, he would show up in 1979's Spider-Woman cartoon series, he has a 1978 live action TV series, and he he had two separate cartoon series in 1981. Hulk had the 1966 series, a live action TV series from 1977, and a 1984 cartoon series Fantastic Four had the 1967 cartoon series by Hanna Barbera, and a 1978 cartoon series So this is why Margaret Loesch's superior kept rejecting X-Men when she kept pitching it at Fox, because it was already rejected on 1989 and it has not her proven itself and was never a cartoon series in the 60's, 70's or 80's This is even by Margaret's own words in an interview: she said her superior kept asking why are you so adamant and sure of this IP because he just doesn't see it and she said she would b willing to put her job on the line for it so he gave her a chance. The same happened when she green lit Power Rangers. TV execs didn't know or care about the comic industry and how well certain IPs were doing in them. They only cared of it could translate vto profit for syndication.
@@fro-zone2k nah man, we had an entire 8 episodes in their 90s gear as well as the og series. Now for season 2 they're going for black and yellow leather from Morrisons x-men, their og costumes were definitely a nice little treat for 2 episodes. Considering we probably aint gonna get another adaption of them again, unless they wanna do something hella retro.
@@mrsynth2643 Still, the X-Men need their 90s costumes back cause X-Men '97 is supposed to be a continuation of X-Men '92 & the X-Men not wearing their Jim Lee costumes is considered poor marketing.
@@5lim.0 so if that's the case wouldn't his claws get worn down over time? True adamantium is impossible to destroy or fracture! unless they recently changed it in the comics.
@@RICOFRITO just speaking through real world physics. If you smash a material against itself it will cause damage. No matter how strong a material is. Similar to how a diamond can be used to cut diamonds. So while nothing else can break or cut adamantium. Adamantium would absolutely be able to cut another adamantium item
I was skeptical, but this is the best looking version of Pryde of the X-Men on UA-cam. Most upscale is from a bad upload, but this looks like it's right from a VHS rip.
Yep, VHS. I can still see the tracking. The result is mostly more like artifacting than any natural-looking improvement of the image quality. IMO, the AI shouldn't be "turned up" so much on sources like these. Looks best on closeups, naturally.
@@JoseBronxRican That is because this supposed HD Format isn't exactly HD at all, it's just a VHS Quality UA-cam Upload with some resulting Editable Cleanups along the way... But overall it doesn't look anywhere near any better then it Originally was on VHS at all... My VHS Edition of the Pilot could actually compare to this Version, & arguably be considerd actually better in Quality terms... But i've actually seen also cases where VHS Quality / DVD's actually get worst overtime the longer they are around on the Market, because they degrade over time... But in weird cases, i've actually seen situations where the Quality is not degraded over time, & I actually have a few DVD's that have survived, & still look great Today, even though many, many Recordings int he same formats by the same machines all met with degrading issues... Then it dawned on me, in some situations, the DVD's actually look better on a BluRay Player, then they do on a 4K Disc Player, & in some cases it actually improves them on the 4K TV as well... And I am entirely not sure why that is, but then there are others that look even better on the 4K Player & 4K TV as well, sooo, I dunno... It is what it is... =D
But it’s weird how the pilot’s failure meant that Kitty Pryde completely fell out of favour and was probably the biggest x-men character to not even get a cameo appearance in TAS, as if the pilot’s failure was entirely down to the character of Kitty. Even weirder when you think that Kitty Pryde is a much better and far less annoying character than Jubilee, who replaced her in TAS. Hopefully Kitty will finally get some love in 97
@@The_Humble_Hurricane Have you played Metamorphic Force also by Konami? It came out two years later using Konami's Mystic Warriors arcade board (based off the game of the same name) but it took a lot of what they used in X-Men and built off it. So it's basically like SEGA's Altered Beast but on steroids. Also in that same year they made Violent Storm and Monster Maulers using that same arcade board which were also very good.. Also Gaiapolis by Konami was very good
I wouldn't say that. This pilot came out in 1989. The arcade game came out in 1992, the same year X-men the Animated Series came out. The reason why the characters are wearing the same costumes as in Pryde of the X-Men is because they used those costumes right up until Jim Lee designed new ones also in 1992.
@@R3troZone Nah it's because Toei Animation did this pilot for Marvel Productions under then Marvel Productions CEO Margaret Loesch who had worked with Toei since 1984 and Konami is also in the video industry as a producer and distributor of anime, trading cards, casino machines, not just games. So they had a connection to Toei. Later on in 1998 Toei would animate Yu-Gi-Oh for Konami for example. A lot of Japanese companies are like that in terms of having close ties to other companies and majority of the western public have no idea. For instance, Capcom produced and distributed th localization of X-Men TAS in Japan. That's why the intro and song are different. They did it to cross promote their Marvel VS games. Even now on this year Konami has opened up their own animation studio: Konami Animation.
That actually never changed... He did it in the Pilot, & he did it in the X-Men 90's Series... He was also kinda a Psychopath to the Newcomer in both the Pilot & the 90's Series... Which I totally felt was Ironic & entertaining about him, lOl... Ahhh, the kid aint an X-Men, & she's just a whiny kid, Kitty Pryde attacks Woleverine, & walks away with new found attitude, lOl... In the End of the Pilot, Wolverine is like alright, I guess she can be An X-Men afterall, kid you did good... Oooo, Danger Room, I would love to venture in, & give it a shot... Explosion... This is Wolverine & Gambit, Wolverine ignores Jubilee, & wants to murder Gambit... Jubilee is like hey, quit out the fighting, Gambit, pretty much tells her up yours... Jubilee blasts Wolverine with Fireworks... Wolverine is like ehh, the kid's got spunk, but she's your responsibility, i'm out of here, i'm going out... Xavior is like, shes your responsibility, & shes coming with you... Wolverine is like, what?? The hell she is... Wolverine is like you ride in the back & don't touch anything... In the End of the 90's Cartoon Series, Wolverine is like kid you've earned your respect, from now on your an honnorary X-Men... Be proud of yourself, now go have fun with the new kids... In Secret, Wolverine is like I hate new comers, why are the all the same, & they never change, just kidding, just kidding, hahaaaa... ^_-
lol "alt costume" like he's a fighting game character. He wore the brown and yellow costume throughout pretty much the entire 80s, and IIRC Jim Lee was the one who put him back in his old 70s costume around 1993.
“Now we meet Storm, whose mutant ability to control weather itself is still not completely understood.” Do we completely understand all the other powers?! Converting sound into light? “Line-of-sight” teleportation? Optic blasts? I love this pilot episode with all my heart, but certain parts have always made me giggle. I love how he says Nightcrawler has mastered the art of line-of-sight teleportation, like it’s a martial art anyone can pick up. :-D
The whole point of that line was this: Nightcrawler can't pass into a Room, or Teleport into it, without actually visuallizing what the Room looks like... If he's never been there, he could very well possibly end up Teleporting into a Wall, or the Floor, or something, because he's got to be precise with his Teleporting Abilities... He's mentally maping out in his mind where he's Teleporting to the locations of... There are Characters in Marvel who have an even more powerful Teleportation then Nightcrawler himself, who are a lot more effective at Teleporting them him, & a lot more skilled at it, too, & don't actually need to rely on the same method of Teleportation that Nightcrawler uses... I'm just pointing out that this is what they were refering to when stating the line: Line Of Sight & Teleportation...
I'll never forget finding this VHS in a random bin at some savings store my parents dragged me to as a child. I was already watching X-Men The Animated Series and was stunned something else existed. I watched it so many times after buying it. The theme song still kinda slaps tbh.
Although I grew up in the 90's with the X-men the animated series, I definitely would have enjoyed this....especially the animated art style of the 70's and 80's which was a lot more fluid and realistic compared to the cartoons of the 90's. Good stuff!!
@@Jackie535Same studio (Sunrise who Toei often hired (for anime like Voltes V, Combattler V, Dainos etc) and Marvel Productions used in the 80s for Spider-Man, Hulk, G.I. Joe and Transformers cartoons)
Same. I'd think of this as sometime after 97 season 1, where each member is just sitting around in a place while trapped in the random points of the time they're in. Mainly with Wolverine, Xavier, Magneto, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops telling the story from each of their perspectives.
That's Toei (yes, THAT Toei) for you. I also love the "Season 2" episodes (aka the origin episodes) they did for Spiderman and His Amazing Friends they did.
If I had to guess... because this was done by Toei Studios through Marvel Productions/Sunbow Productions in 1989, and then at some time later Marvel Productions got renamed to New World Productions, and Toei Studios probably lost the ability to use Sunrise anymore since Bandai bought Sunrise in the early 90s, something Mobile Suit Gundam anime creator Tomino opposed to so much that he went on ln a public rant during his early 90s V Gundam show telling fans not to buy Gundam products so Bandai had him blacklisted from producing mainline UC Gundam shows. So because Toei couldn't use Sunrise and because Fox Family no longer had that connection with Sunrise through Toei, they couldn't use them. The closest was Toei animating the intro for X-Men The Animated Series which was only shown in Japan.not sure if they did those themselves or hired Sunrise through Bandai. But yeah that's have been more of the pie to slice for Fox Family and Marvel (having to pay Toei and Bandai)
@@budgiecat9039 "Tomino opposed to so much that he went on ln a public rant during his early 90s V Gundam show telling fans not to buy Gundam products so Bandai had him blacklisted from producing mainline UC Gundam shows." None of that is true. Stop spreading long disproven rumors jfc
wasnt audience it was the studios fault for not allowing it, it was being pitched to the channels back in the 80's but there were only a few channels so abc, nbc and cbs all said no.. it wasnt till fox started in the late 80's and hired a person who had worked on and tried pushing the x-men animated in the 80's she was put on the fox kids project. it was because of her that we got the 92 x-men.
Yes because many cartoon pilots were animated by japanese studios from Toei. Later the animation would have been crap like many others. Most of the opening sequences look way better than the actual cartoon, Ghostbusters, TMNT, Thundercats, because that reason.
I always loved the animation in this pilot. And if it wasn't for this cartoon pilot of X-Men we wouldn't have gotten that cool multiplayer X-Men videogame that Konami brought out in the 90's! I can watch this over and over again! Great upload!👍
Some episodes of Spider-Man & HAF were produced by Toei Animation a Japanese studio that worked for Marvel under Sunbow. 80s series like Jem, G.I. Joe & Transformers have similar anime style art. The X-Men appeared in Spider-Man episode with the same voice actors prior to this pilot. You can hear Duke in Cyclops voiced by Michael Bell. Memories of this awesome pilot! Thanks
10:58 I love Magneto's design in this. The bottom of his helmet goes farther down past his jaw like I'd imagine Spartan helmets doing. The bolts that hold his cape in place are smaller than in TAS, and they circle around his neck instead of making a square.
@@mrda2611Korean animators hit their stride in the 00's. Now you even have Japanese studios outsourcing to Koreans Though you'll find some Korean nationalist detractors swear they were always good pointing to shows like Taekwon V from the late 70's due to it's use of rotoscoping despite being a clear rip off of Mazinger Z... Incidentally, AKOM was the Korean studio that did X-Men TAS. Margaret Loesch of Fox Family which pushed X-Men TAS, no doubt had familiarity with that Korean company since she used them before as a B team in the 80s for the Transformers cartoon series when Toei Animation couldn't get around to it. They did some seasons. So it makes sense she'd hire AKOM, if she couldn't get Toei anymore. I suspect Toei was outsourcing to Sunrise Animation anyway as they often did. And by the early 90s, Sunrise was bought by Bandaii, who probably asked Fox for more money which is probably why Margaret went with AKOM instead. The last 6 episodes of X-Men TAS however was not animated by AKOM, and you can tell because wow did it take a nose dive.
@@christopherlh4379Na, the overall tone is much better throughout. They just shouldn't have done any of the Australian characterizations, and Juggernaut,Toad, Colossus, and Nightcrawler should have been done differently. Other than that, it is overall much higher quality work and less melodramatic, infantile, and frankly absurd. I ultimately thought the 90s cartoon was okay, but that was in comparison to what was on tv in the 90s; compared to what it could have been, this Sunbow Production but maybe tweaked a bit, it was shit. A real let down after seeing this. Another baby cartoon during the time when primary color baby cartoons with wacky voices were "taking over" (being forced on the newer generation.) It's just a weightier, stronger, denser production in general. The pacing and tempo, the audio mix, less airy and open and still and every voice isn't a Saturday morning cartoon silly voice, just a handful. The drama is less over bearing and the levity is less embarrassing. Just needs a couple small changes and it would have been one of the best shows in history. The 90s show was just the best boy cartoon on Saturday mornings in the 90s. Different distinction entirely. But it's really tough how you just dropped in and shit out that comment. You are a real madman. Just like your little picture suggests. I better watch out for this 'un.
@@jamaalmcphee9332 I'm surprised it was in VHS with just a video of less than 30 min. I would have expected that VHS tape would come with other videos with it.
That commercial in the beginning with Spider-Man always freaked me out. It's so weird. But I used to love this cartoon! It's still really cool. It was the animation that always stood out for me.
Sad this never got to be a full series. It gets a little silly in spots (but then it’s not like the premise is so grounded in realism) but overall it’s a solid pilot! I like how they were setting up character dynamics from the comics, particularly Kitty learning to see Kurt for the kind person he truly is & their eventual friendship. We even got Lockheed! Not sure what he was doing on Asteroid M, but I always love to see the cutest dragon! I’m also not sure why Logan is Australian instead of Canadian here, but they did introduce his personality pretty well, & set up his eventual parental role with Kitty.
I always had figured somehow, the Brotherhood found Lockheed and he just hung with them until he decided to help Kitty, seeing how she was much kinder and how he'd be better off with her and the X-Men than he would be with the Brotherhood. We also saw Toad seem to enjoy "playing" with Lockheed since he was much smaller than him.
4:43 "This murderous mutant..." And nobody even got killed when Magneto was released, even though he was REALLY into this kind of thing. The quality of animation is great for that time.
The art is amazing. Almost, anime-esque. Granted it's a pilot so they went in hard on the animation hoping to get it picked up, and it very likely would've been reduced to fit a show's budget. It still looks amazing, and it's fun to think about a show based on the Giant-sized X-Men era with an Australian Wolverine.
Thanks for uploading, in my country the old X-Men series we all know was advertised using this opening theme, i've always wondered where did it came from and why it wasn't included in the show.
I remember this coming on Saturday morning when I was around 8 or 9. I was familiar with X-Men because of my older brother’s comics. I loved it and kept hoping new episode would come on every Saturday after that. I pretty much ended up wondering if I had dreamed it.
The art was so good in this. When the 90’s X-Men cartoon came later, I remember being so disappointed in how bad its animation was when this pilot proved how good it could’ve been. Seems the MCU is finally bringing it all back again. Hopefully it’ll have amazing art and story-telling. And G.I. Joe’s Duke voicing Cyclops here was icing on the cake!
Korean studio AKOM, who did several seasons of the 80s Transformers series while Toei Animation did most of them, did the animation for X-Men TAS (except for the final six episodes) Clearly Toei Animation (or who at the time Toei would hire, like Sunrise for example) were better quality than AKOM though, but whoever animated the last six episodes of TAS was terrible as the quality nosedived even further. Shame. I'm not sure why they didn't hire Toei back then. I suspect perhaps Toei used Sunrise Animation and Sunrise was bought by Bandai by then and Toei has their hands full on many popular anime at the time like DBZ, or maybe their asking price was too high for Fox.. Toei did do an animated intro for the show in Japan only though....which was an odd move to do but whatever
Xavier telepathically wards them off? Lol I dunno. On the 1992 TV series, Juggernaut did attack the mansion once in the series and it got destroyed earlier and Colossus helped rebuild it yet chose to stay in Russia with his family
There used to be an upscaled version of this from an old Master tape on UA-cam. It disappeared with the channel which hosted it. The channel used to upload all types of TV movies and old shows (They had a lot of the older syndicated Marvel stuff). It was around 2013. It didn't have any of the promotional material and had zero tracking lines it was the best version I'd ever seen. This version is nice, but that version was awesome.
After doing a quick search, they made a newer channel, but with less content and dated 2016. It only has 200 subscribers, but mainly because they only posted some of the less copyright strict stuff. It's definitely the same group but gutted.
Damn the animation is still on point to this day. And most of the voices are great too. I miss this kind of animation, and these kinds of action packed cartoons. X-Men '97 is bringing it back though.
Marvel Productions/Sunbow Productions produced the pilot X-Men episode for NBC. The single episode aired infrequently in syndication during the Marvel Action Universe series on September 16, 1989, and was later released on video. This one time deal left something to be desired. I recall this show coming on during the Marvel Action Hour with Robocop, Dino Riders, and something else, possibly Spider-Man and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. X-Men was made by Marvel Prods., the powerhouse of the 80's, so the voices were some of the same people heard in GI Joe. The story of is fast paced and reads like a comic strip with action left and right. The black bird looks better than the recent futuristic versions out there. They also stay very close to the comic unlike other versions. This one timer was probably just to promote the video game, but it should have been a series. Who knows what would've happened if it was a series, it sure would have been better than the newer versions now. It perterbs me everyone online assumes this was some kind of pilot for the 90s X-Men show but how can they believe that if this aired in 1989 and the X-Men series didn't start 3 years later, until 1992???
To be fair the whole history can be kinda confusing and convoluted. You have several companies all involved here at one time or another Marvel Productions Sunbow Productions Fox Family Hasbro Toei Sunrise animation Saban Entertainment Etc Eventually even Disney got involved and one time in 2004 Marvel sued Disney, only to be bought by them 5 years later
22:43 - "Yes! The X-Men had won, but only for now. Magneto is still out there, waiting, planning, plotting the destruction of the human race. But whatever the challenge, whatever the peril, THE X-MEN will be there!"
Me! Saw the tweet mentioned in an article ad. I wonder what they are going to reference for the finally, maybe the asteroid falling to earth, or nightcrawler's almost death?
@@13579hee oh I'm like a day late on thisi just notice, I just saw the tweet. I guess it was just the asteroid M reference, but thought that was just callback, and reference to xmen #25.
Wolverine was not created by Stan Lee. He was created by Lein Wein and John Romita Sr. Heck, as far I know, only two stories written by Stan Lee have ever involved Wolverine.
Storm: Don't you remember what it was like when you first discovered when YOU were a mutant? And then decades of comics continuity would make it so he literally doesn't
Yes i don't know him by name but he's voice acted in other marvel productions like Transformers, Gijoe and the Incredible hulk. And he did a great job in all of'em!
I love this.. used to watch this on VHS a long time ago and the arcade game.. it's too bad that Marvel Girl/Phoenix, Beast, Sunfire, Archangel, Thunderbird, Banshee and Iceman didn't appeared in the pilot.
While this pilot episode didn’t accomplish the goal of creating a cartoon series. It succeeded in creating a memorable six player beat ‘em up arcade game.
As well as a graphic novel.
And then that led to MvC
Omg that game was amazing
I never played a arcade game before. My parents got me a playstation 2 for Christmas when I was a kid. My little cousin Vera had a playstation 1 . That was the first game system I played. My fiance has the X men cartoons on a flash drive But he has the ones from 90s .
It did accomplish a goal of creating a cartoon series
The fact that Wolverine has an Australian accent was foretelling.
honestly kinda based how little they cared lmaooo
@@highdefinition450braindead
Yeah , I was hell of confused as a kid , seeing Wolverine with a ozzy accent lol an Eastwood accent would have been better
And Hugh Jackman is Australian! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
It's not Australian... It's Cockney London 🤣. The amount of times I was called 'Australian' when I visited America...
I watched this the one and only time it aired in 1989. I was 7 and I was hooked on the X-Men ever since.
Same. Life changing. I could have ended up living under a bridge reading rock lord comics.
Same here. Well actually there was an episode in spiderman and his amazing friends with an x-men cameo and an australian wolverine, but it led me to this one and then the comics.
@@JoeyEnn I remember that. One had Juggernaut.
I was 8.
My best friend got the VHS from a school book fair and I remember being mind blown. Also bought another VHS of Spider-Man, Iceman, and some fire chick.
I feel like I just peered into some alternate reality
especially when you think about wolverine's voice 😂
Perfect episode for What If
It is. The alternate universe of the 80s. A very scary place.
Didn't know i was going to be berated by Spider-Man to register and vote on this x-men pilot episode, but im for it. I'll be a patriot for you
Just amazing anime 😊❤❤❤
I guess hamfisted political messaging was sort of always there, just not as bad until now.
We were all kids when this came out lol
He also commits voting fraud, that devil
Yeah, but did you "tell them that Spider-Man sent you"?
Stan Lee as the Narrator makes this more of.a.treasure so many decades later❤
He used to appear before every episode of Iron Man and Fantastic four to introduce that weeks plot. It was pretty cool.
@@davidbeyerle6996 before that, he introduced the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and the first Incredible Hulk cartoon from the early 80s.
Love the ads at the beginning.
Legit takes me back to my childhood. I still have the VHS tape that I got from the Scholastic Book Fair. ❤🤙
Without this pilot episode, we would never have gotten the 90s X-Men we all know about today ❤️
Nah they would have still done it.
I'm surprised we never got a show in the 70s and 80s before it. Like what was the point of making two 1981 Spider-Man shows running simultaneously.
I mean we got a Spider-Woman show instead of X-Men. Thats wild to me
We even got a botched up 1978 Fantastic Four show which didn't even have Johnny Storm in it due to TV licensing rights held up on a failed live action show based on him (which is probably also why he wasn't in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends show in 1981).
But yeah, much in the same way Marvel failed the first time trying to localize Super Sentai in 1984 through Sun Vulcan but the woman who tried (Margaret Loesch) ened up doing it eventually through different means and different company (Fox and Saban) via Power Rangers, so too did the very same woman do that with X-Men.
The failure of Pryde of the X-Men was through her at Marvel Productions, but once she quit there and moved to Fox, she, like Super Sentai, took that same dream and pursued it with Saban Entertainment through Fox with X-Men TAS.
They made the X-Men Animated Series after the MASSIVE popularity of X-Men Volume 2 # 1 -which has become the best selling comic of all time-in 1991. They thought they’d be successful with the show as well and they were right. Fox made several other shows in the 90s, from which only Spider-Man TAS was succesful.
@@Darwaxion
X-Men TAS was made because Margaret Loesch was hired by Fox to be it's CEO of Fox Family in 1990.
Fox also hired Saban Entertainment who were known for such shows like Inspector Gadget.
The two worked together to create X-Men TAS and a year later, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
This is because Margaret Loesch and Haim Saban had previously tried but failed to bring over Japanese superhero live action shows to the U.S., both rejected by TV execs.
But now that Margaret Loesch was in a high position she couldn't be rejected.
Haim Saban tried to bring over 1985's Super Sentai Bioman in 1986 but was rejected
Margaret Loesch, who at the time in 1984, was hired by Stan Lee to be his CEO of Marvel Productions studio, had tried to bring over 1981's Super Sentai Sun Vulcan but was rejected.
Then later, in 1989, Margaret Loesch tried to put together a pilot episode for an X-Men cartoon called Pryde of the X-Men. She even hired Japanese animation studio Toei, since they had a previous working relationship with Marvel due to animating both 80's Spider-Man cartoons, Hulk cartoon, G.I. Joe and Transformers.
When Toei couldn't animate all of Transformers, Margaret Loesch would hire a B team out of Korea called AKOM, but the level of quality wasn't as good.
Anywho, Pryde of the X-Men was rejected, but again that's because no one was at a high enough level to green light it through.
Konami would later use its story and art style as the base for its 1991 X-Men beat em up arcade game though...
Now that Margaret left Marvel and had a higher position at Fox, and Saban and Margaret were on the same wavelength of ambition, they both agreed to localize 1992's Super Sentai Zyuuranger and repurpose that in to Power Rangers, and also create X-Men TAS, which finally gave us our first X-Men cartoon series, and probably to save money, Margaret hired AKOM instead of Toei animation to do the animation for X-Men TAS.
Perhaps if Stan Lee hasn't given up on his ambition to localize Super Sentai, Marvel wouldn't have been in such financial strain on the 90's because Haim Saban and Loesch in just under two years was able to turn Power Rangers into a 2 billion dollar franchise, while also reaping success from the X-Men show, while two years later, Marvel was filing for bankruptcy
@budgiecat9039 this was part of the syndicated marvle action hour, iron man and fantastic 4 where syndicated for 2 years, before fox took over animation of marvle shows, spiderman was a hit on fox, so Fox wanted another superhero show, so xmen , waa revamped from this failed pilot.
Xmen waa super popular so I don't know that this pilot had much to do either way other than a focus on jubilee, vs city pride
@@petewillson205 I think you got your history out of order sir.
Margaret Loesch ran Fox Family from 1990 to 1997.
She worked previously at Marvel Productions from 1984 to 1989
Before that she worked at Hanna Barbera.
X-Men TAS ran from Oct of 1992 to Sept of 1997
Spider-Man the Animated Series ran from Nov of 1994 to Jan of 1998
Fantastic Four cartoon under Fox debuted in 1994
Same with Iron Man and Hulk cartoons
So..... X-Men came first by 2 years
And this is why it nearly got rejected.
Because Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk and Iron Man ALL had cartoon series before but X-Men never did.
All they had was a reject pilot in 1989, and two guest appearances on 1981's Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends.
Meanwhile Spider-Man had the 1967 series, he would show up in 1979's Spider-Woman cartoon series, he has a 1978 live action TV series, and he he had two separate cartoon series in 1981.
Hulk had the 1966 series, a live action TV series from 1977, and a 1984 cartoon series
Fantastic Four had the 1967 cartoon series by Hanna Barbera, and a 1978 cartoon series
So this is why Margaret Loesch's superior kept rejecting X-Men when she kept pitching it at Fox, because it was already rejected on 1989 and it has not her proven itself and was never a cartoon series in the 60's, 70's or 80's
This is even by Margaret's own words in an interview: she said her superior kept asking why are you so adamant and sure of this IP because he just doesn't see it and she said she would b willing to put her job on the line for it so he gave her a chance.
The same happened when she green lit Power Rangers.
TV execs didn't know or care about the comic industry and how well certain IPs were doing in them. They only cared of it could translate vto profit for syndication.
Even in the mind projection, charles is still in a wheel chair
Lol
😂😂😂
I'm definitely going to get registered to vote Spidey! Thanks for the reminder!
MAGA baby!!
The suits have made a comeback in 97.
Exactly, and it was great to see them back
I get the idea but the X-Men should have remain in their 90s costumes
@@fro-zone2k nah man, we had an entire 8 episodes in their 90s gear as well as the og series. Now for season 2 they're going for black and yellow leather from Morrisons x-men, their og costumes were definitely a nice little treat for 2 episodes. Considering we probably aint gonna get another adaption of them again, unless they wanna do something hella retro.
@@mrsynth2643 Still, the X-Men need their 90s costumes back cause X-Men '97 is supposed to be a continuation of X-Men '92 & the X-Men not wearing their Jim Lee costumes is considered poor marketing.
@@fro-zone2kNo, it’s not “considered” “poor marketing”, it just doesn’t appeal to your nostalgia.
I like the fact that wolverine is constantly sharpening his ADAMANTIUM claws! 🤨😂
His claws stay sharp because of the metal never degrading. He’s just being a show off to make up for his wonderful accent
I remember seeing a parody where Wolverine paints his claws with nail polish and it causes Cyclops eye to bug out of his visor.
Which would definitely cause chips because Adamantium can break adamantium
@@5lim.0 so if that's the case wouldn't his claws get worn down over time? True adamantium is impossible to destroy or fracture! unless they recently changed it in the comics.
@@RICOFRITO just speaking through real world physics. If you smash a material against itself it will cause damage. No matter how strong a material is. Similar to how a diamond can be used to cut diamonds. So while nothing else can break or cut adamantium. Adamantium would absolutely be able to cut another adamantium item
This brings me back to my childhood. I've still got this on VHS. I watched it so many times I'm surprised it never wore out.
I have the VHS cassette too!!!!
I was skeptical, but this is the best looking version of Pryde of the X-Men on UA-cam.
Most upscale is from a bad upload, but this looks like it's right from a VHS rip.
Yep, VHS. I can still see the tracking. The result is mostly more like artifacting than any natural-looking improvement of the image quality. IMO, the AI shouldn't be "turned up" so much on sources like these. Looks best on closeups, naturally.
@@JoseBronxRican
That is because this supposed HD Format isn't exactly HD at all,
it's just a VHS Quality UA-cam Upload with some resulting
Editable Cleanups along the way... But overall it doesn't look
anywhere near any better then it Originally was on VHS at all...
My VHS Edition of the Pilot could actually
compare to this Version, & arguably be
considerd actually better in Quality terms...
But i've actually seen also cases where
VHS Quality / DVD's actually get worst overtime
the longer they are around on the Market,
because they degrade over time...
But in weird cases, i've actually seen
situations where the Quality is not degraded
over time, & I actually have a few DVD's that
have survived, & still look great Today, even
though many, many Recordings int he same
formats by the same machines all met with
degrading issues...
Then it dawned on me, in some situations,
the DVD's actually look better on a BluRay Player,
then they do on a 4K Disc Player, & in some
cases it actually improves them on the 4K TV
as well... And I am entirely not sure why that is,
but then there are others that look even better
on the 4K Player & 4K TV as well, sooo, I dunno...
It is what it is... =D
The pilot crawled, so X-Men TAS could walk. X-Men TAS walked, so X-Men 97 could run! This was a fun pilot!
*X-Men TAS flew so that 97 could walk
✈️🤬
But it’s weird how the pilot’s failure meant that Kitty Pryde completely fell out of favour and was probably the biggest x-men character to not even get a cameo appearance in TAS, as if the pilot’s failure was entirely down to the character of Kitty. Even weirder when you think that Kitty Pryde is a much better and far less annoying character than Jubilee, who replaced her in TAS. Hopefully Kitty will finally get some love in 97
@@philcorrigan5641hopefully so. She seems to be a likable character to me.
@@FirstnameLastname-my7bzFacts.
Oddly enough they thought this was going to be such a huge success that they made the wildly popular arcade game based on it.
Facts. It to tgis day it's still one of the BEST arcade games of all time
@@The_Humble_Hurricane Have you played Metamorphic Force also by Konami?
It came out two years later using Konami's Mystic Warriors arcade board (based off the game of the same name) but it took a lot of what they used in X-Men and built off it.
So it's basically like SEGA's Altered Beast but on steroids.
Also in that same year they made Violent Storm and Monster Maulers using that same arcade board which were also very good..
Also Gaiapolis by Konami was very good
I wouldn't say that. This pilot came out in 1989. The arcade game came out in 1992, the same year X-men the Animated Series came out.
The reason why the characters are wearing the same costumes as in Pryde of the X-Men is because they used those costumes right up until Jim Lee designed new ones also in 1992.
@@R3troZone
Nah it's because Toei Animation did this pilot for Marvel Productions under then Marvel Productions CEO Margaret Loesch who had worked with Toei since 1984 and Konami is also in the video industry as a producer and distributor of anime, trading cards, casino machines, not just games. So they had a connection to Toei.
Later on in 1998 Toei would animate Yu-Gi-Oh for Konami for example.
A lot of Japanese companies are like that in terms of having close ties to other companies and majority of the western public have no idea.
For instance, Capcom produced and distributed th localization of X-Men TAS in Japan. That's why the intro and song are different. They did it to cross promote their Marvel VS games.
Even now on this year Konami has opened up their own animation studio: Konami Animation.
Excelsior true believers! Best quality I’ve seen for this, thank you.
As a Canadian, I am deeply offended by Australian Wolverine.
😂 Hugh Jackman from Australia says Hi!
@@arenbe Ha! Prescient, or an 11 year long con by Jackman? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Canada England Australia, all the same thing
@@mojo-eq4ln Not even remotely.
Wasn't Pryo Australian in this too or was he just fucking around with that shrimp on the Barbie line? 😂🤔
R.I.P. Earl Boen. Who voiced Magneto.
He had a great voice for the Roleplay
✖️
The psychologist of terminator?
@@UA-camgucken24 yep.
R.I.P. Earl Boen. Who voiced The Beyonder in Spider-Man in 1997.
@@Christian39521 The voice of the Beyonder
It’s like they knew an Australian would one day play Wolverine….what a classic cartoon.
@@micro-organism-pv5gd Not that it matters tbh, his "official" height fluctuates a lot in the comics anyway...
Very ironic that Wolverine is trying to keep from accepting someone on the team when he himself struggled as being an outsider
That actually never changed...
He did it in the Pilot, & he did it in the X-Men 90's Series...
He was also kinda a Psychopath to the Newcomer
in both the Pilot & the 90's Series...
Which I totally felt was Ironic & entertaining about him, lOl...
Ahhh, the kid aint an X-Men, & she's just a whiny kid,
Kitty Pryde attacks Woleverine, & walks away with
new found attitude, lOl...
In the End of the Pilot, Wolverine is like alright,
I guess she can be An X-Men afterall, kid you did good...
Oooo, Danger Room, I would love to venture in,
& give it a shot... Explosion... This is Wolverine & Gambit,
Wolverine ignores Jubilee, & wants to murder Gambit...
Jubilee is like hey, quit out the fighting, Gambit,
pretty much tells her up yours... Jubilee blasts
Wolverine with Fireworks...
Wolverine is like ehh, the kid's got spunk,
but she's your responsibility, i'm out of here,
i'm going out...
Xavior is like, shes your responsibility,
& shes coming with you...
Wolverine is like, what?? The hell she is...
Wolverine is like you ride in the back & don't touch anything...
In the End of the 90's Cartoon Series, Wolverine is like kid
you've earned your respect, from now on your an honnorary
X-Men... Be proud of yourself, now go have fun with the new kids...
In Secret, Wolverine is like I hate new comers,
why are the all the same, & they never change,
just kidding, just kidding, hahaaaa... ^_-
That's a well-known phenomenon among immigrants, actually. But it is ironic, true.
And stop calling me a kid, I'm 14 years old.
And stop calling me an old man, I'm 39 years old.
One made sense back then, another makes sense nowdays
And now i hace 17 years old :v
Michael Bell: “Do you want me to do anything different for Cyclops’s voice?”
Studio: “Nah, just do Duke.”
He's actually a pretty versatile voice actor. Sounds nothing like Duke in Soul Reaver.
Or be Prowl.
When Drew Pickles would occasionally yell, or argue with his brother, I could hear Duke
Michael bell is the voice of Duke in gi Joe cartoon in the 80s. And super friends Jan and gleep. And just so much.
I actually thought he sounded a little Tom Cruise-ish.
Cam Clarke did Leonardo in the 80s TMNT cartoons. He's instantly recognizable as well.
Man.... that was the true 80s Xmen team..... it even had wolverines alt costume....
Alt voice too
This is still my favorite costume of his.
@@cozmo840Same! 👍
lol "alt costume" like he's a fighting game character. He wore the brown and yellow costume throughout pretty much the entire 80s, and IIRC Jim Lee was the one who put him back in his old 70s costume around 1993.
Buy for some reason they gave him an Australian accent.
“Now we meet Storm, whose mutant ability to control weather itself is still not completely understood.” Do we completely understand all the other powers?! Converting sound into light? “Line-of-sight” teleportation? Optic blasts?
I love this pilot episode with all my heart, but certain parts have always made me giggle.
I love how he says Nightcrawler has mastered the art of line-of-sight teleportation, like it’s a martial art anyone can pick up. :-D
It's almost like they were adapting a Superhero comic. 🤔
Uncanny...
The whole point of that line was this:
Nightcrawler can't pass into a Room, or Teleport into it,
without actually visuallizing what the Room looks like...
If he's never been there, he could very well
possibly end up Teleporting into a Wall, or
the Floor, or something, because he's got
to be precise with his Teleporting Abilities...
He's mentally maping out in his mind where
he's Teleporting to the locations of...
There are Characters in Marvel who have
an even more powerful Teleportation then
Nightcrawler himself, who are a lot more
effective at Teleporting them him, & a lot
more skilled at it, too, & don't actually
need to rely on the same method of
Teleportation that Nightcrawler uses...
I'm just pointing out that this is what
they were refering to when stating
the line:
Line Of Sight & Teleportation...
we do understand cyclops’s eye portals to the punch dimension
I'll never forget finding this VHS in a random bin at some savings store my parents dragged me to as a child. I was already watching X-Men The Animated Series and was stunned something else existed. I watched it so many times after buying it. The theme song still kinda slaps tbh.
Logan returning from the outback with a dodgy acccent
Although I grew up in the 90's with the X-men the animated series, I definitely would have enjoyed this....especially the animated art style of the 70's and 80's which was a lot more fluid and realistic compared to the cartoons of the 90's.
Good stuff!!
This animation reminded me of Transformers and G.I Joe of the 80s….
@@Jackie535Same studio (Sunrise who Toei often hired (for anime like Voltes V, Combattler V, Dainos etc) and Marvel Productions used in the 80s for Spider-Man, Hulk, G.I. Joe and Transformers cartoons)
@@Jackie535Good eye it is that animation studio I believe.
I feel there was room for both TAS and a Pryde series.
this pilot either had one hell of an animation budget or animators that were really passionate about the potential project
They took the funding from another shows episode. Can't remember what one
Robocop
Toei Animation did the animation
They hired based on competence back then.
It was only one episode. Not thirteen do the math.😅
Here to complete X men 97 homework.
Same.
I'd think of this as sometime after 97 season 1, where each member is just sitting around in a place while trapped in the random points of the time they're in. Mainly with Wolverine, Xavier, Magneto, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops telling the story from each of their perspectives.
I wish that they would revisit this style of animation.
Same here
I don't
The art/animation was great, but the writing/voice acting was SHIT.
That's Toei (yes, THAT Toei) for you. I also love the "Season 2" episodes (aka the origin episodes) they did for Spiderman and His Amazing Friends they did.
@@TenNoZeorymer72it makes sense, it looks very anime-like, despite the character design style which is very american.
“BrRrRrr .. kids.” - Wolverine
I wish they coulda kept this semi-anime style but with the voice cast of the 1992 series.
If I had to guess... because this was done by Toei Studios through Marvel Productions/Sunbow Productions in 1989, and then at some time later Marvel Productions got renamed to New World Productions, and Toei Studios probably lost the ability to use Sunrise anymore since Bandai bought Sunrise in the early 90s, something Mobile Suit Gundam anime creator Tomino opposed to so much that he went on ln a public rant during his early 90s V Gundam show telling fans not to buy Gundam products so Bandai had him blacklisted from producing mainline UC Gundam shows.
So because Toei couldn't use Sunrise and because Fox Family no longer had that connection with Sunrise through Toei, they couldn't use them. The closest was Toei animating the intro for X-Men The Animated Series which was only shown in Japan.not sure if they did those themselves or hired Sunrise through Bandai.
But yeah that's have been more of the pie to slice for Fox Family and Marvel (having to pay Toei and Bandai)
@@budgiecat9039 "Tomino opposed to so much that he went on ln a public rant during his early 90s V Gundam show telling fans not to buy Gundam products so Bandai had him blacklisted from producing mainline UC Gundam shows."
None of that is true. Stop spreading long disproven rumors jfc
@@narutoman876 nah it's true that's why he can't make UC Gundam stuff
This is a vastly smoother animation style than the 90's X-Men. The animation was always choppy, but the stories were so strong that it didn't matter.
This held up extremely well. the artwork is awesome. I wish they could have gotten further than a pilot with this version
The animation was top notch. I guess the audience wasn't ready yet. We still got the 92 Fox show but the original would have been dope
wasnt audience it was the studios fault for not allowing it, it was being pitched to the channels back in the 80's but there were only a few channels so abc, nbc and cbs all said no.. it wasnt till fox started in the late 80's and hired a person who had worked on and tried pushing the x-men animated in the 80's she was put on the fox kids project. it was because of her that we got the 92 x-men.
Yes because many cartoon pilots were animated by japanese studios from Toei. Later the animation would have been crap like many others. Most of the opening sequences look way better than the actual cartoon, Ghostbusters, TMNT, Thundercats, because that reason.
100% agree with you.
This looks a lot like the Gi joe animation
@@drnockaableit basically is. They also used the same voice actors
Thanks a lot for postings the whole video, now i dont have to risk ruining my vhs just to reminisce and enjoy some good nostalgia
I'm so happy the world has never had to suffer Australian wolverine.
Storm: "Don't you remember what it was like when you first discovered you were a mutant?"
Wolverine: "....No."
😂
I always loved the animation in this pilot. And if it wasn't for this cartoon pilot of X-Men we wouldn't have gotten that cool multiplayer X-Men videogame that Konami brought out in the 90's! I can watch this over and over again! Great upload!👍
I can still watch this at any given time. It's been over 30 years at least and it's still cool
I have a large comic collection
@@ByCrom me too,been collecting since 1980
Definitely held up well over all these years.
Some episodes of Spider-Man & HAF were produced by Toei Animation a Japanese studio that worked for Marvel under Sunbow. 80s series like Jem, G.I. Joe & Transformers have similar anime style art. The X-Men appeared in Spider-Man episode with the same voice actors prior to this pilot. You can hear Duke in Cyclops voiced by Michael Bell. Memories of this awesome pilot! Thanks
10:58 I love Magneto's design in this. The bottom of his helmet goes farther down past his jaw like I'd imagine Spartan helmets doing. The bolts that hold his cape in place are smaller than in TAS, and they circle around his neck instead of making a square.
I really do think a lot of this is because this only one film which they can go all out on with animation as opposed to a running show.
Truly a master of magnet.
I cannot understand why this pilot never had its own series , it looks great
The end of the later opening credits winks at this, lining up team Magneto vs team Xavier.
None of the networks at the time picked it up unfortunately.
i so wished this was a series in the 80's would of been a good series.
"would of" 😢
Still one of the best, loved the accents, they really felt multi cultural and distinct.
That Colossus/Juggernaut fight was better than the one I saw in Deadpool 2.
The animation is simply gorgeous super fluid and perfectly smooth.
I didnt understand pilot episodes then. I just figured the series went on somewhere on some channel i wasnt getting.
Wow, this series had a better Animation quality than the later 90s series.
Yep! Too bad the writing & voice acting SUCKED.
That's what happens when you outsource to Japan instead of Korea in the '80s.
@@mrda2611Korean animators hit their stride in the 00's.
Now you even have Japanese studios outsourcing to Koreans
Though you'll find some Korean nationalist detractors swear they were always good pointing to shows like Taekwon V from the late 70's due to it's use of rotoscoping despite being a clear rip off of Mazinger Z...
Incidentally, AKOM was the Korean studio that did X-Men TAS.
Margaret Loesch of Fox Family which pushed X-Men TAS, no doubt had familiarity with that Korean company since she used them before as a B team in the 80s for the Transformers cartoon series when Toei Animation couldn't get around to it. They did some seasons.
So it makes sense she'd hire AKOM, if she couldn't get Toei anymore.
I suspect Toei was outsourcing to Sunrise Animation anyway as they often did. And by the early 90s, Sunrise was bought by Bandaii, who probably asked Fox for more money which is probably why Margaret went with AKOM instead.
The last 6 episodes of X-Men TAS however was not animated by AKOM, and you can tell because wow did it take a nose dive.
@@christopherlh4379Na, the overall tone is much better throughout. They just shouldn't have done any of the Australian characterizations, and Juggernaut,Toad, Colossus, and Nightcrawler should have been done differently. Other than that, it is overall much higher quality work and less melodramatic, infantile, and frankly absurd.
I ultimately thought the 90s cartoon was okay, but that was in comparison to what was on tv in the 90s; compared to what it could have been, this Sunbow Production but maybe tweaked a bit, it was shit. A real let down after seeing this. Another baby cartoon during the time when primary color baby cartoons with wacky voices were "taking over" (being forced on the newer generation.)
It's just a weightier, stronger, denser production in general. The pacing and tempo, the audio mix, less airy and open and still and every voice isn't a Saturday morning cartoon silly voice, just a handful.
The drama is less over bearing and the levity is less embarrassing. Just needs a couple small changes and it would have been one of the best shows in history. The 90s show was just the best boy cartoon on Saturday mornings in the 90s. Different distinction entirely.
But it's really tough how you just dropped in and shit out that comment.
You are a real madman. Just like your little picture suggests. I better watch out for this 'un.
🧢
7:40 Just realized that this shot was used to introduce Storm in the 92 show's intro
They reused various shot of Magneto, as well.🤔🤔🤔
I’m happy some these costumes get referenced in X-men 97.
Owned this on VHS as a kid. Played it too many times to remember.
just this one episode?
@@jaykay-_-ok Yeah. It was a pilot.
@@jamaalmcphee9332 I'm surprised it was in VHS with just a video of less than 30 min. I would have expected that VHS tape would come with other videos with it.
@@jaykay-_-ok It didn’t! lol 😂 If I’m not mistaken I got it from a clearance rack at a grocery store.
That commercial in the beginning with Spider-Man always freaked me out. It's so weird. But I used to love this cartoon! It's still really cool. It was the animation that always stood out for me.
Definitely better animation
Yeah, his ears were really pronounced, and the Spidey sense thing at the end...
@@cardo92w they made wolverine sound like crocodile dundee😄
Sad this never got to be a full series. It gets a little silly in spots (but then it’s not like the premise is so grounded in realism) but overall it’s a solid pilot! I like how they were setting up character dynamics from the comics, particularly Kitty learning to see Kurt for the kind person he truly is & their eventual friendship. We even got Lockheed! Not sure what he was doing on Asteroid M, but I always love to see the cutest dragon! I’m also not sure why Logan is Australian instead of Canadian here, but they did introduce his personality pretty well, & set up his eventual parental role with Kitty.
Kinda ironic considering he's played by a real Aussie years later😅
Ikr?? Like did they have future vision?
I always had figured somehow, the Brotherhood found Lockheed and he just hung with them until he decided to help Kitty, seeing how she was much kinder and how he'd be better off with her and the X-Men than he would be with the Brotherhood. We also saw Toad seem to enjoy "playing" with Lockheed since he was much smaller than him.
I still laugh at Wolverine's voice because I keep picturing on of Zartan's Dreanoks!😂
@@BryonYoungblood It wouldn't surprise me if they had a Lockheed origin episode at some point in a hypothetical series.
4:43 "This murderous mutant..." And nobody even got killed when Magneto was released, even though he was REALLY into this kind of thing.
The quality of animation is great for that time.
The art is amazing. Almost, anime-esque. Granted it's a pilot so they went in hard on the animation hoping to get it picked up, and it very likely would've been reduced to fit a show's budget. It still looks amazing, and it's fun to think about a show based on the Giant-sized X-Men era with an Australian Wolverine.
"Magneto's hordes are on their way to pillage, burn, and plunder. But there's one team that will not yield, the team that strikes like thunder!"
The character designs are beautifully done. They need to revive this version
this took me back, I had this on a vhs tape . However I remember as a kid wondering why dazzler of all people was there but not Jean.
I've seen this once as a kid, and i still love the Animation style and movement i just wish it continued
Thanks for uploading, in my country the old X-Men series we all know was advertised using this opening theme, i've always wondered where did it came from and why it wasn't included in the show.
I remember this coming on Saturday morning when I was around 8 or 9. I was familiar with X-Men because of my older brother’s comics. I loved it and kept hoping new episode would come on every Saturday after that. I pretty much ended up wondering if I had dreamed it.
That was great. Thanks for posting. The animation is still amazing. It is a shame this piece of comic book history never got an official HD release.
The game gear!!! I cant believe how long it took Nintendo to catch up to that thing.
Odd "GI Joe" like feel, but oddly feels pretty authentic to the original tone of the comics.
Same Japanese Animation studio (Toei, who most likely outsourced to Sunrise Animation as they frequently did)
I could have sworn the guy voiceing Cyclops also voiced Duke iirc.
@theblocksays
Yep, Michael Bell.
Later, famous for playing Raziel in Soul Reaver.
@@ottoacid1800 What's funny is that Raziel looks a bit like Nightcrawler.
@@theblocksaysMichael Bell
The show the original arcade game was based on.
The VHS tracking sounds/visuals hit harder than I ever would have imagined.
When you make the connection that the 92 arcade game ties in with this story 🤯
in x men 1992 what is the real human appearance of mystic? can somebody explain it to me?
the ai upscale worked fantastically. Great quality for it's age (I've seen rough copies/compressions out there)
I will never get over hearing Duke from GI Joes voice come out of Cyclops.
Thank you for preserving this!
The art was so good in this. When the 90’s X-Men cartoon came later, I remember being so disappointed in how bad its animation was when this pilot proved how good it could’ve been.
Seems the MCU is finally bringing it all back again. Hopefully it’ll have amazing art and story-telling.
And G.I. Joe’s Duke voicing Cyclops here was icing on the cake!
Korean studio AKOM, who did several seasons of the 80s Transformers series while Toei Animation did most of them, did the animation for X-Men TAS (except for the final six episodes)
Clearly Toei Animation (or who at the time Toei would hire, like Sunrise for example) were better quality than AKOM though, but whoever animated the last six episodes of TAS was terrible as the quality nosedived even further. Shame.
I'm not sure why they didn't hire Toei back then.
I suspect perhaps Toei used Sunrise Animation and Sunrise was bought by Bandai by then and Toei has their hands full on many popular anime at the time like DBZ, or maybe their asking price was too high for Fox..
Toei did do an animated intro for the show in Japan only though....which was an odd move to do but whatever
What is stopping the villains from attacking the mansion on a daily basis?
Xavier telepathically wards them off? Lol I dunno. On the 1992 TV series, Juggernaut did attack the mansion once in the series and it got destroyed earlier and Colossus helped rebuild it yet chose to stay in Russia with his family
plot armor
Well it usually has defense mechanisms (which Kitty ruined) to act as a deterrent.
The legendary X-Men arcade game is based one this one and only episode.
Well that was something else. Thanks for the upload. Now if I only had five friends with quarters.
that Spiderman PSA is something else
Thanks for uploading this pilot episode.
Australian Wolverine is the craziest thing I've seen since Japanese Spider-Man.
I like turkish spider-man who stabs people
There used to be an upscaled version of this from an old Master tape on UA-cam. It disappeared with the channel which hosted it. The channel used to upload all types of TV movies and old shows (They had a lot of the older syndicated Marvel stuff). It was around 2013. It didn't have any of the promotional material and had zero tracking lines it was the best version I'd ever seen. This version is nice, but that version was awesome.
Do you remember the name of the channel?
@@dennisosorno8898 lvlagneto, they went by the moniker Sticky Tape TV. The original channel is gone but their fourth channel lvlagneto IV is still up.
After doing a quick search, they made a newer channel, but with less content and dated 2016. It only has 200 subscribers, but mainly because they only posted some of the less copyright strict stuff. It's definitely the same group but gutted.
Damn the animation is still on point to this day. And most of the voices are great too. I miss this kind of animation, and these kinds of action packed cartoons. X-Men '97 is bringing it back though.
I thought she was going to phase the ship
I wish this was on DVD
Just make a copy of this and burn it to DVD then lol
4k!
Marvel Productions/Sunbow Productions produced the pilot X-Men episode for NBC. The single episode aired infrequently in syndication during the Marvel Action Universe series on September 16, 1989, and was later released on video.
This one time deal left something to be desired. I recall this show coming on during the Marvel Action Hour with Robocop, Dino Riders, and something else, possibly Spider-Man and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. X-Men was made by Marvel Prods., the powerhouse of the 80's, so the voices were some of the same people heard in GI Joe. The story of is fast paced and reads like a comic strip with action left and right. The black bird looks better than the recent futuristic versions out there. They also stay very close to the comic unlike other versions. This one timer was probably just to promote the video game, but it should have been a series. Who knows what would've happened if it was a series, it sure would have been better than the newer versions now.
It perterbs me everyone online assumes this was some kind of pilot for the 90s X-Men show but how can they believe that if this aired in 1989 and the X-Men series didn't start 3 years later, until 1992???
To be fair the whole history can be kinda confusing and convoluted.
You have several companies all involved here at one time or another
Marvel Productions
Sunbow Productions
Fox Family
Hasbro
Toei
Sunrise animation
Saban Entertainment
Etc
Eventually even Disney got involved and one time in 2004 Marvel sued Disney, only to be bought by them 5 years later
had this on vcr 📼 as a child
thankful for those spider man commercials it was EXACTLY like that on that tape! 90s baby!
The animation quality is absurdly high in this.
Why was this actually good
"I am Magneto, Master of Magnet"
Welcome to die!
Excellent show
22:43 - "Yes! The X-Men had won, but only for now. Magneto is still out there, waiting, planning, plotting the destruction of the human race. But whatever the challenge, whatever the peril, THE X-MEN will be there!"
NEXT TIME ON DRAGONBALL Z
Thanks for letting us watch this masterpiece ❤
Who is here after Beau de mayo's tweet.
I am, but. I'm familiar with this pilot. It use to air on TV every now and then during the 80s. Definitely loved rizz master NightCrawler in this. Lol
I guess me but not because of a clickbait article that mentioned the tweet and I actually owned the vhs of this episode as a kid. Got it from k-mart.
Me! Saw the tweet mentioned in an article ad. I wonder what they are going to reference for the finally, maybe the asteroid falling to earth, or nightcrawler's almost death?
@@dendralenWait, what did he say about the show? I was wondering if they would try to work this into 97
@@13579hee oh I'm like a day late on thisi just notice, I just saw the tweet. I guess it was just the asteroid M reference, but thought that was just callback, and reference to xmen #25.
Toy Galaxy brought me here. Though ive seen this countless times as a child on VHS
Can someone explain to me why cartoons can't look like this anymore?
Because this kind of animation takes time and budget and in the modern era companies want everything quick and cheap.
Unique talents of the artists of that time.
Wow so Toad sounds like Waspinator but is voiced by the guy that was Megatron!! Insane
More closer to Slimer than anything.
I can't believe Stan Lee agreed to Wolverine having an Ausy accent.
It's not one of his
it foretold the future
Wolverine was not created by Stan Lee. He was created by Lein Wein and John Romita Sr. Heck, as far I know, only two stories written by Stan Lee have ever involved Wolverine.
If it’s the only way to escape Trudeau, then I’m all for it.
@@majorgear1021 I doubt you are even Canadian.
Storm: Don't you remember what it was like when you first discovered when YOU were a mutant?
And then decades of comics continuity would make it so he literally doesn't
Hot take: I miss when he didn't know his origin.
I've never seen this!! 🤯🤯 this is awesome!!
Me either 😮
Y’all didn’t notice in X-Men 97’ that the costumes were paying homage to pryde of the X-Men
Love professor Xavier voice actor
Yes i don't know him by name but he's voice acted in other marvel productions like Transformers, Gijoe and the Incredible hulk. And he did a great job in all of'em!
Who did he voice on the Incredible Hulk?@@yuljohnson6838
@@yuljohnson6838His namec was John Stephenson, he passed away in 2015.
@@ValiantWrestling Thank you.
@@ValiantWrestling I was reminded of his G1 Windcharger; that voice was most similar to this one.
This is my first time seeing this. I really like it the Animation is on point I see why they changed wolverines voice
I love this.. used to watch this on VHS a long time ago and the arcade game.. it's too bad that Marvel Girl/Phoenix, Beast, Sunfire, Archangel, Thunderbird, Banshee and Iceman didn't appeared in the pilot.
They would've been in the show eventually if it got picked up