Mega Man (Ruby-Spears)

Mega Man is an animated television series multi-produced by Capcom, Ruby-Spears, Ashi Productions, and Ocean Productions that ran from 1994 to 1996, debuting in most markets on Saturday morning, September 11, 1994.

Season One

 * Episode 1: The Beginning
 * Episode 2: Electric Nightmare
 * Episode 3: The Big Shake
 * Episode 4: Mega-Pinocchio
 * Episode 5: The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man
 * 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 (Extra episode)

Cast

 * Ian James Corlett: Mega Man, Rush, Snake Man and Metal Man
 * Scott McNeil: Proto Man, Dr. Wily and Eddie
 * Jim Byrnes: Dr. Light, Pharaoh Man, Magnet Man, Air Man, Quick Man, Crystal Man, Gravity Man, Top Man, Star Man, Gyro Man (in disguise), Sigma
 * Robyn Ross: Roll*, various female characters
 * Kathleen Barr: Roll*
 * Terry Klassen: Cut Man, Bomb Man, Elec Man, Ice Man, Crash Man, Shadow Man, Drill Man, Toad Man, Hard Man, Dive Man, Dust Man (also dialogue director)
 * Garry Chalk: Guts Man, Bright Man, Needle Man, Heat Man, Stone Man, Newscaster (ep. 20),
 * Cathy Weseluck
 * Richard Newman: Wood Man, Spark Mandrill
 * Tony Sampson
 * Louise Valance
 * Phil Hayes
 * Marcus Turner
 * Shirley Milliner
 * Kaitlyn Stewart
 * Michael Donovan: Mega Man X
 * Jay Brazeau:
 * Crystaleen O'Bray

(*Note: there is some speculation as to which voice actress played Roll and it is not 100% confirmed which episodes -if any - which Robyn Ross voiced Roll. Some fans have noticed a slight change to Roll's voice over the course of the show.

Promo

 * A promotional video of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon in its early stages shows the cartoon with aesthetics faithful to the art direction of the games, similar to Mega Man: Upon a Star. However, after the show was green-lit into production, Ruby-Spears gave it a complete overhaul, "Americanizing" the cartoon.
 * One clip from the cartoon promo was used by Capcom of Japan in the Mega Man 7 commercial.

Canceled Projects

 * 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.
 * Ruby-Spears once planned on doing a Mega Man X spin-off cartoon, but this never came to be due to the main show cancellation.

Music

 * The composers of the music heard on the Mega Man show and its main theme are from John Mitchell and Tom Keenlyside.
 * Mega Man's background music was subsequently used in Ocean Studio's dub for the Dragon Ball Z anime series.

Differences from the games

 * Unlike the games, when Mega Man gains or uses a new weapon, he does not change colors. Instead, it shows him downloading the weapon. The weapons do not always function as they do in games, such as defeating Gyroman instead gave Mega Man the use of his back-mounted gyro, allowing him to fly.
 * Megaman and Protoman are only able to transform their left forearms into buster cannons, said forearms being decorated with rivited metal at the wrist, resulting in assymetrical designs.
 * Rush is able to talk in the cartoon, although in broken english similar to the voice of Scooby Doo.
 * Roll possesses a variety of household machines repurposed into weapons built into her left arm, the most common of which being a superpowered vacuum cleaner, whereas in any video game appearance she makes with a combat role, she instead uses external weaponry.
 * In the cartoon, Proto Man acts very differently from his video game counterpart. In the cartoon he is a full fledged member of Dr. Wily's robots, and is bitter rivals with Mega Man. He's also cocky, arrogant, and not as mysterious as his video game counterpart. Common perception is that the creators of the show did not complete MM3 or 4; however, it is more likely that they simply needed an appropriate rival for Mega Man, as Bass was not created until after the show went into production. This is further supplemented by the fact Dark Man 2 appeared alongside Protoman in two episodes of the cartoon.

Reruns/Releases

 * Some time after the show was no longer airing on television, reruns were picked up by the Fox Family channel (which has since been taken over by ABC). Some episodes were heavily edited for content, such as the show's intro, which featured a city under attack, and later in ruins, were edited, and scenes where Roll was attacked by a male robot were removed. 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.
 * The PlayStation 2 version of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection contains "The Beginning", which is made available by the defeat of Astro Man in Mega Man 8.

Videos
Below is a rare television commercial, which contains some of the animated sequences from the original promo reel mentioned above. Also below is a video of Scott McNeil doing Proto Man, Dr. Wily, and Eddie's voices at a convention.

Trivia

 * A majority of the voice actors from the series also did regular work on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Some specific ones include:
 * Ian James Corlett - Coconuts
 * Kathleen Barr - Katella
 * Scott McNeil - MacHopper
 * Terry Klassen - Dr. Quark
 * Garry Chalk - Grounder and Captain Rescue (Dr. Robotnik in Sonic Underground)
 * Jay Brazeau - Spelunk
 * The Emerald Spears group in Archie Comics' Mega Man series is an allusion to Ruby Spears, the creators of the cartoon.
 * One of the reasons 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. Despite having great ratings, the show was cancelled before a third season could be fully planned. There were more toys that were in production that were also scrapped as a result.
 * No Robot Masters from Mega Man 6 or Mega Man 7 ever appeared in the series, though the former was released a year before the cartoon first aired and the latter immediately before the end of the first season.
 * All Robot Masters from Mega Man and Mega Man 3 appeared in the series. Of the first five games, the ones who didn't make it into the show are:
 * Bubble Man and Flash Man from Mega Man 2.
 * Skull Man from Mega Man 4 (possibly because producers thought his appearance was inappropriate for a children's show).
 * Charge Man from Mega Man 5. Though Napalm Man didn't appear in any episodes, he appeared in the opening theme.
 * Despite their absences, it is shown on the IMDB page for this cartoon that Charge Man, Plant Man, and Knight Man had voice actors, hinting that the cartoon would also feature robots from Mega Man 6.
 * The Battontons from Mega Man 4 appear on a few episodes of this series.