Throwback Thursday: X-Men: The Animated Series Episodes One and Two

Before Hugh Jackman was Wolverine, there was X-Men: The Animated Series!!! I remember watching this as a kid and thinking it was the most amazing show ever, and 20 years later I still feel the same way. Here's why X-Men: The Animated Series (still) rocks the house:

1.) The ladies kick butt.

Oh my Jeebus. Within the first five minutes of episode one, Storm and Rogue are fighting a robot the size of a building while saving Jubilee's life. No Prince Charming needed here, the ladies have it covered. Throughout the two episodes (and the series), the women continue kicking major bootay. In the first two episodes, although teenaged Jubilee is still getting used to her powers, she uses them whenever necessary. The ladies of the X-Men (X-women?) do not take things lying down! And, they are gosh-darned pretty to boot! Extra bonus: in the X-Men universe, a woman is president!

2.) A diverse cast.

Only Marvel could put together a group of folks from all over the world and still somehow make the X-Men story feel natural and believeable. There's wealthy Charles Xavier, eternal drifter from everywhere-and-nowhere Wolverine, the fairly vanilla Cyclops, the African Queen Storm, the Southern Belle Rogue, Gambit the Cajun, intellectual-turned-blue-monster Beast, and Chinese-American foster child Jubilee. Despite their different backgrounds, the characters feel authentic, not forced or "written in" for diversity's sake.

3.) The action!

I don't normally like watching violent television shows, but I get excited when the X-Men beat up the bad guys!!!! You're going down, gigantic, evil robot!

4.) The smart, fast-paced writing.

In the first three minutes of episode one, there's so much going on. First there's Jubilee's foster parents' anxiety over her being a mutant, Jubilee's hurt and sadness over being given up to the Mutant Control Agency, and then, in the third minute, a touch of snark:

Jubilee is playing video games in an effort to forget her sorrow. She inevitably ends up breaking the arcade game with her firecracker power. The owner is upset, naturally. He approaches Jubilee.

Arcade Guy: Do you know how much this thing costs???

Jubilee: (nonchalantly drinking her soda and putting her sunglasses back on) Yeah. A quarter.

And later in the Danger Room, when Wolverine and Gambit are training:

Wolverine: Had enough, Cajun? Just say, "oncle."

LOLOLOLOL!

I'd forgotten just how much fun cartoons could be. As a mom, I try to pick wholesome cartoons that have a moral. I'm not certain X-Men would be considered wholesome, but there are certainly lessons to be learned from watching X-Men as well. Tolerance, not being greedy, and learning to control your temper are just a few (yeah, I'm looking at you, Wolverine!). But morals aren't the reason I want to watch X-Men. I like watching X-Men because it's just plain FUN!

X-Men: The Animated Series, recommended for ages 9+ for cartoon violence and scary situations. (My rating, not an official one ;-) )

Photo Credits

The photo of the clashing mutants above was taken from here.

ABC Family's The Fosters

Tonight I watched the pilot episode of ABC Family's new series, The Fosters. I will be honest with you. I really, really wanted to hate this show. ABC is owned by Disney, and Disney is evil, right? And somehow, after watching the trailers, I felt that the show was trying too hard to be diverse and interesting. It almost seemed like the casting directors had a checklist of races and ethnicities they needed to have in the show. There was Teri Polo playing the blonde police officer, Stef, with the heart of gold. Sheri Saum plays the African-American vice principal of a perfect charter school, and Stef's wife. She also has a heart of gold. Stef has one biological child from her previous marriage with her ex-husband, who happens to be Latino. They adopted a pair of fraternal twins, Mariana and Jesus, played by Cierra Ramirez and Jake T. Austin who used to be their foster kids. And our protagonist, Callie, played by Maia Mitchell rounds out the cast. Before I watched the show I wondered, could they really pull off all the roles without falling into tokenism?

Thankfully, I was pleassantly surprised. If you watch the show, you will see that there are so many layers to the characters that you really begin to feel for them and relate to them as human beings. The acting is superb overall, with each actor adding depth to the characters they portray. By the end of the hour (which flew by) I saw them as a regular family facing struggles like any other. If that is the message the show's creators were trying to send out, I would say they succeeded.

My only complaint would be (and this probably not a problem for anyone else but me) is the lack of chemistry between Stef (Teri Polo) and Lena (Sherri Saum). I wonder if they did this on purpose?

Please be advised, due to violent scenes, this show is for older children.

Photo Credits

The Fosters logo was taken from here.