Siege Alpha Strike and Phantom Strike sets getting re-released?

[Sabrblade]

To be fair on this one, that's hardly a Hasbro mandate and networks in general prefer episodic to serials.

Plus this was the 90's, before serial storytelling became somewhat standard in western TV shows.

They were trying to push boundaries and create something exceptional, though, like how Batman TAS, X-Men TAS, Gargoyles, and Spider-Man TAS all were. The latter three were also very serialized shows. They didn't want Beast Wars to be just another run-of-the-mill toy tie-in.

 

[LordGigaIce]

They were trying to push boundaries and create something exceptional, though, like how Batman TAS, X-Men TAS, Gargoyles, and Spider-Man TAS all were. The latter three were also very serialized shows. They didn't want Beast Wars to be just another run-of-the-mill toy tie-in.

Funny you mention Spider-Man TAS. That show also had to fight tooth and nail to tell serialized stories because the toy manufacturers (who pretty much ran Marvel at this point in history) and the network both believed it would be hard to get kids into a show if they started watching mid-story. They were adamant that episodes had to be toyetic and stand-alone. The series fought and fought that mentality the entire time it was on the air, and was ultimately cancelled early because despite them and others proving that serialized kid shows could work, the conventional thinking of the powers that be dictated that this thing get cancelled before its continuity gets too unwieldy.

Even BTAS and STAS, the gold standards of 90s kids animation, fell victim to this. Their ratings were still very strong when they were cancelled and they'd racked up multiple awards and a mountain of critical acclaim.
Still, WB suits thought all of that built up continuity, with characters who aged and matured, would turn off potential new viewers so BTAS and STAS got cancelled in favour of the focus group-approved "teenage Batman" idea.

That the DCAU folks were able to take that bit of corporate mandated bs and spin it into the excellent Batman Beyond is a minor miracle.

The DCAU, Spider-Man TAS, Beast Wars, and others all proved that serialized, serious kids programming was viable, but those lessons were only learnt later on.
In their time they had to fight the conventional thinking of their overlords.

 

[Shadewing]

Funny you mention Spider-Man TAS. That show also had to fight tooth and nail to tell serialized stories because the toy manufacturers (who pretty much ran Marvel at this point in history) and the network both believed it would be hard to get kids into a show if they started watching mid-story. They were adamant that episodes had to be toyetic and stand-alone. The series fought and fought that mentality the entire time it was on the air, and was ultimately cancelled early because despite them and others proving that serialized kid shows could work, the conventional thinking of the powers that be dictated that this thing get cancelled before its continuity gets too unwieldy.

Even BTAS and STAS, the gold standards of 90s kids animation, fell victim to this. Their ratings were still very strong when they were cancelled and they'd racked up multiple awards and a mountain of critical acclaim.
Still, WB suits thought all of that built up continuity, with characters who aged and matured, would turn off potential new viewers so BTAS and STAS got cancelled in favour of the focus group-approved "teenage Batman" idea.

That the DCAU folks were able to take that bit of corporate mandated bs and spin it into the excellent Batman Beyond is a minor miracle.

The DCAU, Spider-Man TAS, Beast Wars, and others all proved that serialized, serious kids programming was viable, but those lessons were only learnt later on.
In their time they had to fight the conventional thinking of their overlords.

This is basically what I was saying; that you can't really put much blame to Hasbro execs wanting episodic, when that still wasn't the mind set at the time. The fact that they started to exist was most in spite of it rather then because anyone higher up wanted it. This was just the style at the time, compared to the other clashes mentioned which were all on them making stuff difficult for the writers.

 

[Sabrblade]

The series fought and fought that mentality the entire time it was on the air, and was ultimately cancelled early because despite them and others proving that serialized kid shows could work, the conventional thinking of the powers that be dictated that this thing get cancelled before its continuity gets too unwieldy.

Can we really say it was cancelled when it successfully reached the 65-episode minimum requirement that FOX originally ordered? Sure, the final episode ended on a cliffhanger, but that was a gamble to give the show an extension beyond its original 65-episode count. While it didn't receive an extension, 5 seasons of 65 episodes was the original goal, and that was met.

Even BTAS and STAS, the gold standards of 90s kids animation, fell victim to this. Their ratings were still very strong when they were cancelled and they'd racked up multiple awards and a mountain of critical acclaim.
Still, WB suits thought all of that built up continuity, with characters who aged and matured, would turn off potential new viewers so BTAS and STAS got cancelled in favour of the focus group-approved "teenage Batman" idea.

That the DCAU folks were able to take that bit of corporate mandated bs and spin it into the excellent Batman Beyond is a minor miracle.

STAS I'll give you since it did get canceled (just 11 episodes short of reaching the 65-episode minimum), but BTAS was also originally ordered for 65 episodes, and it did get an extension of 20 more episodes, and a continuation in the 24-episode direct sequel series TNBA. BTAS well surpassed its original expectations too much for it to have been considered canceled (unless you meant TNBA specifically).

But STAS and TNBA weren't canceled for continuity reasons, but because Kids WB had acquired the broadcast rights to Pokemon and suddenly wanted all of the heroes in their shows to be children like Ash Ketchum, because of some bizarre belief that kids can only relate to heroes if they're kids like them instead of adults, which led to the aforementioned Batman Beyond as well as Static Shock focusing on teen heroes instead of grownup heroes.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

some bizarre belief that kids can only relate to heroes if they're kids like them instead of adults

The amount of damage done by entertainment executives operating entirely on coke-fueled guesswork is incalculable.

 

[Exatron]

One of those old internet rumors is how I ended up picking a username. Back around 2000-2001, when we knew that Car Robots would be getting released as Robots in Disguise, but before we knew all the details, there was a rumor about how Gigatron's name would be handled. Basically, the rumor was that when Gigatron became Devil Gigatron, RiD would have Megatron become Gigatron. Being an engineering student at the time, I took that to the next step when I finally registered for an account on the TFW/Transfandom boards and used Teratron. This was way before Terabyte storage was a thing, so everyone always associated it with Terra and assumed I was a girl. Wasn't the message I was trying to send, so I eventually took one more upgrade to Exatron, and that's been my general username for most everything ever since.

Fun times. I managed to really get into the online fandom scene just in time for HE TELL ME!

 

[LordGigaIce]

Can we really say it was cancelled when it successfully reached the 65-episode minimum requirement that FOX originally ordered? Sure, the final episode ended on a cliffhanger, but that was a gamble to give the show an extension beyond its original 65-episode count. While it didn't receive an extension, 5 seasons of 65 episodes was the original goal, and that was met.

I think it's all part of the same story of conflicting visions and priorities. The show's writers wanted to continue their story, which is why the last episode ends on a cliffhanger.
But the powers that be said "nope you hit the limit for syndication and that's that."

The whole syndication argument was another reason why so many execs didn't want kids shows to be serial. They wanted stand alone stories they could play in any order on syndication.

So Spider-Man getting shafted was right along with that- the show's writers having a vision that the suits just had no time for.

STAS I'll give you since it did get canceled (just 11 episodes short of reaching the 65-episode minimum), but BTAS was also originally ordered for 65 episodes, and it did get an extension of 20 more episodes, and a continuation in the 24-episode direct sequel series TNBA. BTAS well surpassed its original expectations too much for it to have been considered canceled (unless you meant TNBA specifically).

More so I consider it cancelled because the show's creators didn't have agency in how it ended. BTAS may have met and exceeded the 65 episode mark, but the decision to cancel the show wasn't down to low ratings, slumping toy sales, or even the creators going "ok we've told our story."
It was a bunch of suits who applied their broken logic re: kids programming to end a show that still delivered strong viewership while also raking in critical acclaim and industry awards.

"Kids shows can't tell serial stories," "Kids shows need kids as main characters," and "you get sixty-five episodes to get onto syndication" were all kind of inseparable from each other, each part of a larger world view that held sway for decades, through the 90s.

It took S-MTAS, STAS, BTAS, Beast Wars, Gargoyles, Reboot, and more to break the dominance of that kind of thinking, and each of those shows has behind the scenes horror stories of fighting execs with outdated and nonsensical thinking every step of the way.
BTAS and STAS probably has the best developmental cycle in that WB animation seemed generally behind them, but even then you have pretty notable examples of WB execs throwing wrenches in the works.

The amount of damage done by entertainment executives operating entirely on coke-fueled guesswork is incalculable.

So when it became apparent that Jason David Frank was going to be leaving Power Rangers Hiam Saban told Johnny Yong Bosch to grow his hair out. Why? He thought that Tommy was popular because he had long hair.

How do these people build and maintain children's entertainment empires without actually knowing anything about children's entertainment?

 

[Sabrblade]

It took S-MTAS, STAS, BTAS, Beast Wars, Gargoyles, Reboot, and more to break the dominance of that kind of thinking, and each of those shows has behind the scenes horror stories of fighting execs with outdated and nonsensical thinking every step of the way.

Don't forget about The Legend of Prince Valiant. That one was surprisingly serial to an extent in its storytelling, having multiple ongoing plotlines and character arcs that developed and progressed over the course of its two-season run of 65 episodes (and was also super violent and dramatically serious for what was supposed to be a G-rated animated series). And its release predated that of BTAS by a full year.

So when it became apparent that Jason David Frank was going to be leaving Power Rangers Hiam Saban told Johnny Yong Bosch to grow his hair out. Why? He thought that Tommy was popular because he had long hair.

I've heard Johnny tell it that growing out his hair was his own choice, that he felt he was fading into the background too much and that if he grew his hair out to make it long like JDF's hair was, that kids might notice Adam a little more if he looked a little more like Tommy.

 

[Shadewing]

I've heard Johnny tell it that growing out his hair was his own choice, that he felt he was fading into the background too much and that if he grew his hair out to make it long like JDF's hair was, that kids might notice Adam a little more if he looked a little more like Tommy.

I must be the odd one out, Adam was my second favorite after Tommy.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Well, Beast Wars's voice director was Sue Blu, the voice of G1 Arcee.

I appreciate the credit you give me when I was a teenager, but I honestly knew squat about voice acting at the time, and didn't look at that stuff at all.

If anything, Beast Wars might have been what helped ignite my interest in it. But it certainly wasn't something I looked at when I began watching.

As far as BTAS goes, that never felt very continuity-heavy to me. You'd get occasional callbacks, like a villain getting an origin in one episode and reappearing later, but then you also got stuff like Joker seemingly meeting his end, and just popping up again later like NBD.

Heck, unlike Superman, the show began in media res, if that term applies here. Batman was an established hero, no origin story given, just got right into it.

It would build up a semblance of continuity over time, especially with subsequent DCAU shows, but yeah, BTAS was pretty episodic on its own, for the most part.

 

[Blot]

Don't forget about The Legend of Prince Valiant. That one was surprisingly serial to an extent in its storytelling, having multiple ongoing plotlines and character arcs that developed and progressed over the course of its two-season run of 65 episodes (and was also super violent and dramatically serious for what was supposed to be a G-rated animated series). And its release predated that of BTAS by a full year.

It's why I will commend Carl Macek for one aspect of Robotech: sure he hodgepodged together three unrelated shows and wound up getting Macross stuck in a three decade long rights quagmire, but the man gave the networks their 65+ episodes and then still said "but too bad, the show's still going to be a serial and for extra points I'm keeping all the death and drama in there too".

 

[Sabrblade]

It's why I will commend Carl Macek for one aspect of Robotech: sure he hodgepodged together three unrelated shows and wound up getting Macross stuck in a three decade long rights quagmire, but the man gave the networks their 65+ episodes and then still said "but too bad, the show's still going to be a serial and for extra points I'm keeping all the death and drama in there too".

Yeah, but all that stuff was already there before they even made it into Robotech. Prince Valiant was 100% western animation and writing all from the ground up. Such a high caliber American animated series was unheard of in 1991 or prior to then. And I say that as one of the many folks on here who have a fondness for several western animated series from the '80s and older.

Seriously, to anyone on here who is both a fan of 1980s American animation and has not yet watched TLOPV, I highly recommend it. It may have debuted in 1991, but it looks and sounds like something from the '80s, but with premium quality. I watched it all on Tubi, but it can also be found on Pluto TV and I think other platforms too.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I've heard Johnny tell it that growing out his hair was his own choice, that he felt he was fading into the background too much and that if he grew his hair out to make it long like JDF's hair was, that kids might notice Adam a little more if he looked a little more like Tommy.

Ah... the story I heard was that it was Saban who told him to do it.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Ah... the story I heard was that it was Saban who told him to do it.

Clearly, Johnny was told by Saban to grow out his hair to be more popular, and he said "Screw you, old man! I'm growing my hair out because I want to! And that will make me more popular!"

And Saban's just like, "Sure, whatever... damn teenagers and their attitudes... oy, what was I thinking?"

*sees his bank account*

"Ah, right."

 

[Sabrblade]

Yeah, those twenty-something-year-old teenagers. Hmph!