While Disney satirized Batman with Darkwing Duck, they also tried to emulate the toon noir style that had been popularized by Batman: The Animated Series with a fantasy-crime drama that deserved a better fate.
Gargoyles started with a 5 episode miniseries in 1994. In all, 13 episodes were produced for the first season, and 52 more in season 2 for an industry standard 65 episode order for syndicated weekday programming.
Keith David ("They Live") headed an all star cast as Goliath, the leader of what would become known as the Manhattan Clan, a group of gargoyles brought to life at night after being transported from their ancestral home in Scotland.
We previously had discussed the series' 3rd & final season, when it went to a weekly format and shifted to ABC, where it was sub-titled, The Goliath Chronicles, after its main protagonist. Network meddling, particularly the need to adhere to FCC guidelines as it relates to Saturday programming (moral messages, etc.), led to the series demise. Repeats of the first two seasons continued, as memory serves, and when ABC pulled the plug, Disney put the whole shebang in the vaults.
The supporting cast had a strong Star Trek flavor, starting with Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation) as corrupt businessman David Xanatos, who starts as an enemy of the Gargoyles, their answer to Superman's nemesis, Lex Luthor. Somewhere along the way, probably after Xanatos got married and started a family, he turned into an ally of the Gargoyles. Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, & Michael Dorn (Next Generation), Kate Mulgrew (later of Star Trek: Voyager), and Nichelle Nichols (the original Trek) were also heard, as were Ed Asner (who also worked on Batman & Spider-Man for Fox) and Bill Fagerbakke (Coach).
The episode, "Deadly Force", comes from season 1, and was subsequently banned from future broadcasts. The easily impressionable Broadway (Fagerbakke) makes a near fatal mistake....
As I noted before, I didn't watch much of the 3rd season, but it's largely been condemned for catering to network suits. There is an episode in season 2 where detective Eliza Maza briefly becomes a Gargoyle herself, confused about the state of her budding relationship with Goliath.
Rating: A.
6 comments:
It's a shame this episode wasn't rebroadcast as I thought it was well done (the message that guns aren't toys) and the fact that the protagonist was still recovering from her injury in subsequent episodes! That was very rare to see in animation.
I think it was because it was on in the daytime, when kids are home from school, especially the more impressionable elementary kids, and Disney was pressured by certain focus groups to pull the episode.
I was 4 months old when this show started.
And I was 31. All is relative.
So you were born in the 1960's? I was born on June 5, 1994. When is your date of birth?
Groundhog Day, February 2, 1963.
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