Four the hard way

There's a new "Fantastic Four" cartoon, based on the Marvel comic book that spawned a (truly terrible) movie last year with Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis (or as I call him, "The Commish") and Julian McMahon (you put Julian McMahon in a movie and you don't show his naked butt? Ridiculous). As a staunch comic book fan, I was a little suspicious about this animated series because of the complete lack of any type of promotion for it - I didn't even know the darn thing existed until a week before it was set to debut, and this is someone who compulsively checks Newsarama several (hundred) times a day. My Spidey-sense, excuse me, my Fantastic Four-sense, was tingling. The fact that it's nowhere to be seen even on Cartoon Network's official site adds an extra level of dubiousness to an already dubious prospect.

It debuted last Saturday night; I missed it, but a friend gave it the ringing endorsement of "I watched the first 5 minutes and was annoyed, so I turned it off."

Despite these many, many, many warning signs, much like a "Star Wars" prequel, I watched it tonight anyway. And as one could guess, it was bad - like a really bad, poorly-dubbed Anime, which is puzzling since as far as I'm aware its country of origin is the good ol' U.S. and A. All the characters looked stupid (with Johnny Storm in particularly sporting a ridiculous haircut) and it was slow and generally difficult (and not fun!) to watch. Really, the most intriguing aspect is why it even exists, and why is it getting so little promotion - was it a deal that was made back when FF was originally optioned as a movie, and they were obligated to get out even though the producers involved obviously just wanted to cut their losses with it? Who knows.

It is, you know, not the first Fantastic Four cartoon. Let's take a look down memory lane (although given some of these shows, it's more like memory lame, right? Right?)

This one was produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1967-69, sort of a middle era in their decades-long animation reign (post-"Flintstones" and "Jetsons," pre-"Scooby-Doo"). It was actually pretty good; very faithful to the revered Stan Lee and Jack Kirby source material and sported character designs from the legendary Alex Toth, who died earlier this year. I have very little negative to say about this show.

In 1978, the foursome would face a threat more insidious than Dr. Doom, the Mole Man and um, some other bad people, combined. Rumor has it that concerned parents were concerned ('cuz that's what concerned parents do, duh) that impressionable (read: stupid) youth would emulate the Human Torch by setting themselves on fire. I feel obligated to mention that it turns out this rumor is probably a big lie, but it's more entertaining than the actual truth so that's disappointing. Not as disappointing as the fact that no children actually did try to set themselves on fire. I wouldn't want them to get hurt, but it'd be funny to try, admit it. Anyway, the Human Torch was phased out in favor of H.E.R.B.I.E., a not too popular, cutesy robot (standing for Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics, of course). He was basically the comic book equivalent of Poochie, the Rockin' Dog, and essentially guaranteed that show's inevitable failure. The movie was still worse.

Then there was the 1994 cartoon. Instead of opining about that show, I'll just give you the theme song lyrics:

"On an outer space adventure!
They got hit by cosmic rays!
And the four were changed forever!
In some most peculiar ways!

No need to fear, they're here!
Just call the four!

Reed Richards is elastic!
Sue can fade from sight!
Johnny is the Human Torch!
The Thing just loves to fight!

Just call the Four!
Fantastic Four!
Don't need no more!
That's ungrammatical!
Reed Richards is elastic!
Sue can fade from sight!
Johnny is the Human Torch!
The Thing just loves to fight!"

Yeah.

TAKE IT TO THE CHORUS.