Mega Man (Ruby-Spears)

Mega Man is a animated television series created by Ruby-Spears that ran from 1994 to 1996, debuting in most markets on Saturday morning, September 11th, 1994.


 * The reason for the show's cancellation is that Bandai had cut several toy lines because they were not meeting sales expectations and had supposedly been putting merchandising pressure on Capcom. Capcom give the order to cancel both the toy line and the show, before a third season could be fully planned. The decision was not made due to the show's storyline not matching the storyline in the video game series. There were more toys that were in production and were scrapped as a result. Ironically, Bandai has since merged with another video game publisher, Namco, the home of Pac-Man. (See the "Merchandise" section of this page to learn more.)


 * Bandai reportedly had heavy influence on the second season, encouraging the producers to place Elec Man and Snake Man in more episodes (because they had action figures on the way for the '95 holiday season) and give the show a more "toyectic" feel sometimes (thus, came the creation of Mega Man's special armors and the Land Blazer). Warner Brothers gave the same "advice" for the movie Batman & Robin, which bombed and was panned by critics, partially because of it's over-the-top cartoon-ish look.

Season One

 * Episode 1: The Beginning
 * Episode 2:Electric Nightmare
 * Episode 3: The Big Shake
 * Episode 4: Mega Pinocchio
 * Episode 5:The Incredible shrinking Megaman
 * Episode 6: Bot Transfer
 * Episode 7: Ice Age
 * Episode 8: Cold Steel
 * Episode 9:Future Shock
 * Episode 10:Robosaur Park
 * Episode 11: The Strange Island Of Doctor Wily
 * Episode 12:The Mega Man In The Moon
 * Episode 13: 20,000 leaks Under The Sea

Season Two

 * Episode 14: Campus Commandos
 * Episode 15:The Day The Moon Fell
 * Episode 16: Showdown At Red Gulch
 * Episode 17: Terror of The Seven Seas
 * Episode 18:Mega Dreams
 * Episode 19:Robo Spider
 * Episode 20: Master of Disaster
 * Episode 21:Night of The Living Monster Bots
 * Episode 22:Curse of The Lion Men
 * Episode 23:Brain Bots
 * Episode 24:Bro Bots
 * Episode 25:Bad Day At Peril Park
 * Episode 26:Mega X

Season Three

 * Episode 27: Crime of The Century

Cast

 * Mega Man: Ian James Corlett
 * ProtoMan: Scott McNeil
 * Dr. Wily: Scott McNeil
 * Roll: Kathleen Barr
 * Dr. Light: Jim Byrnes
 * Rush: Robyn Ross
 * Cut Man: Terry Klassen
 * Bright Man: Jay Brazeau
 * Snake Man: Ian James Corlett
 * Eddie (Flip Top): Scott McNeil

Tony Sampson (of Ed, Edd & Eddy) also supplied voices on this show. Terry Klassen also served as Dialogue director.

Characters (cartoon versions)
Click here to learn about the characters from the show and how different they were from their video game counterparts. (This page is seperate from the main characters page.)

Other Characters
Click here to learn about characters who appeared on the cartoon show but never appeared in any of the Mega Man video games like Brain Bot.

Locations
Click here to view and learn about the various settings of certain episodes, Dr. Light's lab and of course Skull Fortress.

Merchandise
Click here to view a list of merchandise based on the Mega Man cartoon show.

Trivia

 * Even during the peak of the Power Rangers, the X-Men and Batman animated series and the Spider-Man animated series (the latter of which debuted shortly after Mega Man), the show was highly rated in many markets, which made the cancellation of the show a very short-sighted move.

(You wouldn't know it was her, because she sounds nothing like Roll in the movie) Scott McNeil was also in that movie with her! She also provides a voice on the show Ed, Edd and Eddy which also sounds nothing like her Roll voice. Kathleen voiced a character in the "Liberty's Kids: est. 1776" cartoon. Also featured in this cartoon were verteran CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, Billy Crystal, Michael Douglas (Fatal Attraction), Sylvester Stallone (Rocky, Rambo) and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not long ago, Kathleen was nominated for an Annie award in the Outstanding Achievement for female voice acting category for her work on the series Dragontales. As a stage actor in Canada, she won a Jessie award in the early 1990's.
 * The cast of Mega Man has moved on to bigger things...
 * Ian James Corlett (Mega Man's voice) has developed popular Canadian animated shows like Yvon of the Yukon and the award-winning Being Ian, which is comically based on Corlett's own life as a young film maker ("Ian Kelley" the character is based almost directly on Ian himself.) Ian has said in interviews that he doesn't like dubbing his lines for Anime series as much as North American shows because usually the actor cannot dictate the pace of the acting because the animation has already been completed and was drawn to match the overseas actor's pace. Corlett is now the voice of Best Buy ads in Canada, does several radio and television ads and has a production company called "C & C Entertainment", with a producer named Brent Chapman. Ian also won a Gemini award (Canada's version of the Emmy) for writting for an animated series. Corlett also voiced Dr. Wily on the old Captain N cartoon series. Ian has also directed live-action short films and recently directed a short featuring actor Richard Burgi (Desperate Housewives, 24: Season One) entitled "Door-to-Door Voice Acting" But, Ian does not appear in the movie himself.
 * Scott McNeil (ProtoMan and Dr. Wily) is arguably the most popular ex-Mega Man cast member and is well known for several cartoon shows, especially the recent Transformers series. He makes constant (and sometimes un-announced) appearances at anime and Transformers fan conventions. He almost always wears a cowboy hat and flannel with jeans at appearances and usually does his character voices on-demand. Scott is Canadian, but he was born in Australia. Scott played the "Evil Masked Figure" in the second Scooby-Doo live-action movie. Scott is actually a gamer himself! He is an online RPG fan, claiming to have spent quite a few nights up all night gaming, with only a hour left to get to the recording studio!
 * Jim Byrnes (Dr. Light's voice) has been a jazz musician for years, even before getting into voice acting. He has several albums, remains a fixture of the Vancouver Canada music scene and also won a Juno Award (Canada's version of the Grammy). He even had his own T.V. show in Canada entitled The Jim Byrnes Show. He is also well known for appearing on the WiseGuy and Highlander T.V. series and just recently finished filming scenes for a new Highlander movie.
 * Kathleen Barr (Roll's voice) voiced Dot Matrix in the popular ReBoot series and starred in plays in Canada. Recently, she provided the voice of Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer in the movie "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys."
 * The animation style for the show was originally planned to be virtually identical to that of the classic Mega Man video games. A short promo reel was put together by Capcom to promote the show and clips from the promo were put together for ads promoting the show in the weeks before the show's debut. Even though the look of the show changed, some pieces from the promo reel are in the intro of the show. These scenes include a bunch of Pipi's flying around and a purple robot (which is really Napalm Man) firing missiles from it's shoulders.
 * The look of the characters (which didn't please some longtime hardcore fans) was actually not the only look the producers had in mind. In addition to the more older teenage/young adult look the characters had, the shorter, child-like look from the classic video game continuity was considered (see "Promo reel" above) as well as some others. But, test audiences liked the final interpretation the most. But, at least the characters on this show did have some resemblance to their video game counterparts (whether it's identical like Gravity Man or only slight like Roll's ponytail length and Air Man's fan)... On the old Captain N: The Game Master cartoon series, the appearances of Mega Man, Dr. Light and the Robot Masters were drastically changed.


 * The Killer Bullets from the first game and Napalm Man can be seen briefly in the intro, but they never appear in an actual episode.
 * The Bubble Bats from the Mega Man games appear on a few episodes of this series. But, they are called by their Japanese/"Rockman" name from Mega Man 4: Battontons. However, the Sniper Joes (other well known secondary enemy bots from the Mega Man games) were never featured on the shows.


 * The producers of the show decided to make Roll a more prominent character because of the possible crossover appeal she would have with young female viewers. The producers said in an interview that they made the decision because, "Also, it showed we're not male chauvinistic pigs as our wives think."


 * Some time ago, some websites had listed Jay & Silent Bob... yes, the Jay & Silent Bob as having guest starring parts on an episode which was scrapped when the show was canceled. The credit even appeared in Kevin Smith's filmography on the sites. The funny thing here is that the actual Jay and Silent Bob characters were supposed to have appeared (as played by the real actors) in this "lost episode"! These reports are totally false and have long since been removed. (In case you don't know who Jay and Silent Bob are, they are almost like Beavis and Butt-Head. This would not have been good for the kids to see.)


 * Voice actor Kirby Morrow is credited as voicing Mega Man on some websites. This is completely false, see above or "Cast" section.


 * The Bomb Man action figure was reportedly pulled from store shelves shortly after the Oklahoma City office bombing that took place in real life before the show's second season. The figure is reportedly the most expensive in the line even out of it's original packaging.


 * Some time after the show no longer aired on television, the reruns were picked up by the Fox Family channel (which has since been taken over by ABC). Some episodes were heavily edited for content. The show's intro (which featured a city under attack, and later in ruins thanks to Dr. Wily) was chopped in half and every scene where Roll was attacked by a male robot was removed. All of the unedited episodes are now available on DVD in box sets by ADV video. The first season set is titled A Hero is Born. The second season set (which includes the lone third season episode) is titled Battle for the Future. However, many retailers are starting to sell out of the box sets, but online rental companies like Blockbuster Video still rent the individual discs separately.
 * In 1994, two other very popular kids shows debuted, Reboot (the first computer-animated cartoon) and Bump in the Night (the last good family-friendly "claymation" cartoon). In an ironic twist of cruel fate, both of those shows and "Mega Man" debuted within weeks of each other and were canceled at virtually the same time exactly two years later in 1996. Oddly enough, in some markets, "Mega Man" continued to air in reruns almost a full year after it ceased production. The other shows didn't (Except in Canada, where Reboot was renewed and enjoyed it's greatest success, producing two more seasons of new shows.)


 * Reportedly, Marvel Comics had picked up the rights to produce a monthly series based on the Mega Man shows. However, the deal fell through when the show was canceled by Capcom. This was reported on the popular fan site mmhp.net Mega Man Home Page, but the reference to the canceled series has since been removed. The truth is still not known for sure.
 * The composers of the music heard on the Mega Man show and it's main theme (and possibly it's infamous lyrics) are John Mitchell and Tom Keenlyside. Keenlyside is actually a well-known musician who has won a Juno Award. He has also worked on various albums with rock icons Aerosmith. And most interestingly, Keenlyside also appeared on an album of Jim Byrnes, Dr. Light himself! It was that album that won him the aforementioned Juno for Production.
 * In Germany, the show had a completely different theme song and a high-tech, euro pop sound and a lone female singer. Most of the lyrics from the Keenllyside/Mitchell theme were removed, leaving in only Mega's name and the "Super Fighting Robot" verse. In fact, "Super Fighting Robot" and "Mega Man" were switched around to "Mega Man... Super Fighting Robot." The clips in the intro were not modified for the German version.
 * In the games, Mega Man just changes colors when he gets a weapon. But here, Mega Man does not change colors, and we actually see the the schematics of the weapons (except the Rolling Cutter, which is just Cut Man's head without it's cutter or outer armor).
 * Many die hard Mega Man fans hated the fact that ProtoMan was a bad guy rather than a good guy drifter like he is in the games. But, the show's storyline is not too inaccurate. In the games, ProtoMan had supposedly been working with Dr. Wily for a while shortly ever the battle for everlasting peace began, then he turned on him when he helped Dr. Cossack's daughter escape from Wily's clutches. Wily later tried to frame ProtoMan for Dr. Light's kidnapping. With the production of a Bass action figure rumored, it is possible that ProtoMan could have turned on Wily in the unproduced episodes and be replaced by Bass himself.

Misc
Here is a rare television commercial for the show on the website Youtube.com. This ad contains some of the animated sequences from the original promo reel mentioned above in the facts section. Also, here is a gem of a video of Scott McNeill doing ProtoMan's, Dr. Wily's and Eddie's voices for some fans at a recent convention.

NsjkfYWqwfo&NR N8seLrRkBwI (Scott McNeil YouTube video from planet-megaman.com)