Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Rein-Toon-Ation: Alienators: Evolution Continues (2001)

In 1986, DIC adapted Ivan Reitman's 1984 smash, "Ghostbusters", into The Real Ghostbusters, and got 5 seasons out of it between ABC & syndication. 10 years after the series ended, DIC, in conjunction with DreamWorks and Sony, took another Reitman film and made it into a cartoon, but with less spectacular results.

Alienators: Evolution Continues, as the title implies, picks up threads from the "Evolution" feature film, which starred David Duchovny (The X-Files), Orlando Jones (ex-MadTV), and Seann William Scott (later of such films as "American Pie" and "The Rundown"). Obviously, none of the actors opted to return for the series, and, since it was on Fox, it was a miracle that it got 2 seasons worth of episodes, crammed into 1 (2001-2). Here's the open:



Unfortunately, the series is not available anywhere on cable presently, and there are rights issues, I think, between DreamWorks, Sony, & Cookie Jar, which bought out DIC a while back, that are preventing a DVD release. Reitman's vision was to make "Evolution" a variant on the "Ghostbusters" formula, but using a different kind of menace. The cartoon tried to follow, but, because of Fox's frequent, unadvertised schedule shifting, it couldn't find a steady audience, and was gone by the time 4Kids took over programming the Saturday block.

Having not seen the movie, I tried to watch this show and was, understandably, unimpressed.

Rating: C.

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