Reply to: Anyone remember this cartoon? (Mutant League)
elsworth
wrote:
>Only "Mutant League" talked about the real corruption in sports -
>about how the corrupt owners manipulate the players, sabotage player
>unions, arrange victories to suit themselves and the like. The league
>president (Krog, I think he was named) was a thoroughgoing bastard,
>easily the equivalent of every owner of every professional sports
team
>I ever heard of.
Prig. Zaldor Prig, actually, though I'm not sure of the spelling. He
was the commissioner of the Mutant League and also the owner of the
Slayers. This often caused a conflict of interest which was another
interesting aspect of the show and the character. In other words, he
was willing to cheat if it helped his team win.
I don't know if I would describe him as a "thoroughgoing bastard" but
he was corrupt and evil. It was a good example of that type of sports
owner in real life. Prig would say to his players "I own you! You do
as I say when I say it!". He also swore a lot, though it was a
futuristic/mutant swear word so they got away with it.
>Heck, the "Mutant League" video games practically admitted the truth:
>the only reason many people watch sports, such as car racing, is to
>see people get hurt and die in a spectacular fashion.
True in the show, too. Prig at least once changed the rules before a
match to increase the violence. When asked by a reporter, he defended
it by saying "it's what the public yearns for". As for the players,
"they'll heal", said Prig.
>And the player
>of those videogames was encouraged to increase the bloodshed as much
>as possible, even killing cheerleaders and bystanders.
Um, no, that wasn't really possible in the game. Mostly it was
killing other players. You could blow up the mutant marching band at
half-time if you wanted, merely a mini-game thrown in. You could
attack the ref but he was hardly a bystander since he could be bribed
to effect the game, though killing the ref was a penalty.
The genius of the game was that someone just trying to kill the other
team or just play the sport would lose to someone that knew how to
play the sport as well as kill or injure the other team. It was one
of the first console games that took injuries into consideration, too.
You couldn't rely on one powerful player play after play like in past
games because he would end up dead from repeated injuries.
>And yet, in the cartoon, Bones Justice (a vast name improvement from
>the "Bones Johnson" in the games) kept to the morality that sports is
>SUPPOSED to have. It was a cheap, infuriating cartoon, but at least
it
>had some intentions of doing more than selling toys.
The character from the videogame was Bones Jackson. It was a take on
Bo Jackson, a very popular athlete at the time. Bo Jackson was the
first modern-day two professional-sport athlete, playing pro baseball
and pro football. I think they changed the name on the show to avoid
a possible lawsuit. The game maker, Electronic Arts (EA), was going
through a lawsuit with ESPN for using a similar, unlicensed fictional
network called EASN in their games so they were probably a little
gunshy.
You're right, though, Bones Justice was a big improvement. He is
truly one of the coolest characters ever created for a show. He was
honest, he was tough, he was fair, he was a leader. The show with all
of it's depicted violence may not have been good for kids but Bones
displays of character would have been. True, he was a mutant. But
they often showed that what made him the best was his strong
character. It wasn't just the "bad guys" that did things wrong,
Bones' teammates fell prey to insecurity, greed, fear, etc.
Unfortunately, too often the anti-hero is the popular one these days,
like in comicbooks. Wolverine is far more popular than Cyclops, so
much so that Cyclops has been re-written to make him more of a "bad
ass". The same has happened for Superman and there have been dark
edges painted on Captain America, too. But I digress...
>I'll trade you "Mutant League" for "Home Movies" on the worst cartoon
>list, any day.
I liked Home Movies. Maybe it says something about my tastes since I
liked Mutant League, too, though I can't see how they are related.
Able to overlook bad animation maybe? Is that a flaw if I like the
story?
I found this thread while looking for info on Mutant League.
Apparently despised by animation fans but I am interested in it.
There isn't much info on the net, though! If anyone has the show on
video (any format), please contact me.