May 23, 2024 • 27 mins
In this Special "Sit Down With..." Mole sits down and visits with his good friends that just so happen to be the writers of "X-Men: The Animated Series" plus they are also special consultants on the long awaited but now streaming "X-Men '97" on Disney Plus which continues right where X-Men TAS left off .Catch them on their Twitter ( I refuse to call it X ) @xmentasAlso be sure to get random with us here at www.digitalzoneent.com where you'll find all kinds of stuff from podcasts to videos to whatever randomness we feel like perpetrating.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:38):
Welcome to another special sitdown episode fromthe Molin Friends Get Random podcast channel.
It's been a long time since I'vetalked to my favorite people in the world.
They have been very busy. Uh, mister Eric and missus Julia Lee
Wald. You guys would know himbetter from. Uh, I don't know.
A little show called X Men,the animated series. They were little
writers. They are also executive consultantson the new Disney Plus series X Men
(01:00):
ninety seven. Guys, last timeI had you on, we talked,
well, we kind of talked aboutit because you guys couldn't talk about it,
but you knew something was gonna happen. Uh So fill me in,
man, what has been going on. I've heard nothing but positive things about
this new show. I've watched thefirst couple of episodes. I haven't gotten
a chance to watch the rest thathave bonded lately. I'm slowly getting there.
(01:25):
But so tell me how how isthe experience on this this new show
going. Uh, well, it'sit's kind of it's it's you know,
could have gone all sorts of ways. When you rede a show that was
a beloved show, you know,you kind of hold your breath across your
figures and hold your breath because mostof them don't work out very well,
right, And just the track record, Yeah, Hollywood, they just you
(01:49):
know, the people either didn't likethe original or or times of change or
whatever reason. It just comes outand it just doesn't feel right. Man.
This one really seemed to, especiallywithin the X community, just just
to hit a home run. Imean, it just was. It just
really got it right and got peopleexcited and got people thrilled, and got
people waiting, Oh my god,I gotta wait till the next week now
(02:12):
to see tell me what's going tohappen, to tell me what's going to
do. So it worked, andyou know, all credit to the hundred
or some young folks that put thisthing together, with showrunner Baudomeo at the
very top. It was his baby, was his vision. She willed it
to be as good as it was. And he told us his first rule
(02:34):
for hiring his staff was did youlove the old series? And if they
said no or they were equivocal,he didn't hire them. So that was
the deal. So there were onehundred true believers behind this thing. And
I think it really shows from thefirst two episodes that I've gotten to see.
I am very excited to watch therest day and truth, it brought
(02:57):
me back to when I was akid, honestly when the original was out
and I was like, I'm soexcited for what's gonna happen next week?
Like I don't I'm not a bigfan of the binge loading of episodes,
you know what I mean, LikeI prefer to be on my edge waiting
for the next week. It getsme excited, gets me, you know,
like motivated to actually watch the wholeshow, like when it's out.
(03:19):
And I tell you, man,the first two episodes got me hooked.
They got me hooked. I justreally haven't had a chance to just sit
down and watch them. The nextcouple. I'm just so excited, Like
how do you guys, Like,what do you guys think of this?
Because compared to the original? Well, I'm gonna jump in here and just
play off the the binge versus weeklyrelease moment, right because I've said it
(03:42):
before, in these last god tenweeks, within the last ten weeks and
then you're twenty twenty four, wehave been the only people in the whole
wide world in the history of humanitybefore us and now and after us who
had the opportunity to experience X Menninety seven on a week of the release,
which is how the good old XMen animated series was released a few
(04:04):
decades ago on Foxy Kids. AndI love that that one week release for
these episodes this season really gave fansan opportunity to be stunned, be startled,
be surprised, to spend the restof the week you know, oh
my gosh, what's gonna happen next. The trick is if you didn't watch
(04:24):
all ten episodes, then you hadto avoid a lot of spoilers because people
were losing their minds. I havepurposely stayed off of the Twitter box and
the Facebook machine just so I don'thave any spoilers because it is so hard.
Everybody you write is talking about thisshow, yes, and they're very
positive. There is like I've heardlike people say that it's bringing them back
(04:49):
to their childhood again and like they'relike never, actually, they haven't been
this excited about a Marvel show ormovie, like you know, period in
the NC you in a long longtime, And this show is really hitting
a home run for these people.And I and I I really enjoy the
fact that you know, they keptit as close to your guys' original you
(05:12):
know what I mean like that it'sit's super close to the way you know,
I remembered feeling when I watched it, so uh goddam, I'm just
so flabbergasted about it because I was, like, I feel like a kid
again, like actually watching this,you know, catching up on this now.
I've done a little bit of youknow, looking into it. But
how much of the original cast isactually coming back? I know Alison Court
(05:35):
came back, I know a coupleof times. Yeah, she has a
different character there. I think they'rethree or four that came back as their
characters. Allison, Ceely Smith,call Dodds over Storm, call Dods,
wolver Rogue. Yeah. God,we're missing. But everybody that we are
(05:59):
aware of who was in the originalvoice cast has reappeared in some capacity,
which is yeah, yeah, veryremarkable, remarkable lot. You know,
it's been thirty years. People's voiceschanged, you know, it's and so
they they wanted to get as manyas they could, and they voice tested
(06:19):
them and used pretty much everybody theycould. Even if they said, well,
you know, we we have aslightly different vision of what of what
this particular that particular character's voice mightbe. Uh, and we're so we're
gonna be casting someone young to takethis role. They would take the previous
(06:42):
act actress and give them a majorsupporting role. And so they brought the
old family in as much as theycould. There have been two or three
of our folks that have passed,you know, for example, one quick
story, Norm Spenser. For example, Norm Spencer was the voice of Cyclopes
for us, also the voice ofpreviously on X Men, right right.
Sadly he passed, but they broughtback voice actor Ray Chase. And there's
(07:04):
a beautiful moment in one of thefirst few episodes where Val Cooper, who
is voiced now by Katherine Disher,who was our original Gene Gray. She's
now back as Val Cooper. There'sa moment where as doctor Cooper, she
turns to Cyclops and says, youknow, Professor x to him, Professor
(07:25):
Xavier would be so proud of you. And Ray Chase himself said he was
choking up because that's Catherine Disher talkingto him in the role of It was
it was very meta. It wasvery many layers folding on top of himself
just how hard it was for thesepeople creating, building this world and making
(07:45):
the creative decisions. They had thirtymore years of books to integrate into this
or to think about as possible researchbits for this, and they had a
couple generations of life thrown at themin between nineteen ninety two and now when
you know, when we did ourshow, and they had their own perspectives.
(08:05):
And yet everyone is telling us,look, it feels seamless. I
can watch seventy six episodes of youroriginal show. I can then turn on
the first of this and it feelslike it's the next episode. It feels
like an extension, which is giventhe different technologies, given the different I
mean, we are so envious.They had four times four times a time
(08:30):
and eight times a budget of whatwe had to do our first season.
And it's beautiful and it's stunning,and you know, it's theatrical level beautiful
animation. At the same time,they took all all these pains to make
it to make us feel comfortable,like that's the same Scott moving through the
(08:52):
that's the same Wolverine moving through thescreen. And that's a great effort.
It couldn't have been had the firsttwo or three passes. They had to
really work at that. Yeah,I mean, I'm I'm kind of glad
they waited a while though to putit out, tell you the truth,
and now you know they made sureit was that good. I'm sorry,
go ahead me to cut you offto Okay, No, I don't know
if I can make this work ornot here, but if you can see
(09:15):
this, oh yeah, I couldsee just perfect her favorite story. So
this heasty at the upper one.That's the altny title sequence and a scam
but throwing his cards to the camera. And we were discovered thirty years later
that the pit for the Ace ofSpades was drawn upside down. Right right
here we are. We're sharing thatstory with the folks doing X Men ninety
seven, and in X Men ninetyseven they threw the pit for the Aces
(09:37):
Spades upside down. The awesome that'sso awesome. That is that cool?
Is that kind of fidelity. It'sjust twenty eight years to find that Larry
drew that in nineteen ninety two,and it wasn't until twenty twenty we were
writing our art book and we lookat a print out of it. It
wait a minute, that spade doesn'tlook right. And then he checked and
(09:58):
he checked, and it's like hewas going south, wasn't it. Over
the course of what Yeah, hehad to hand draw the entire and draw
the opening title over a weekend andWill looked at it with Margaret Lash.
They said, okay, we've gotthese, you know Justice. They spent
about another day on it. Sothe opening title that you see in our
original show, which people love astheir favorite ever, is like is three
(10:22):
days of frenzied work by our twobest artists, Larry and Will. That's
a lot of work, Like,yeah, I tried it back, Yes,
no, no, I'm sorry.I'll just say I've tried to draw
you know, a little short likefive second animation. I can imagine the
second yeah. Yeah. And MargaretLash, the president of Fox Kids then,
(10:46):
who was the person responsible for sayingwe're making an x Men series.
She her part of her marching orderswere even though X Men was the biggest
selling comic book at that time innineteen ninety two, that was still a
very small slice of pop culture backthen, and there was no social media,
there was no Google, there wasno Internet. And she said,
(11:07):
you you Eric on the writing side, and Will and Larry. On just
the introduction side, You've got toset up who the X Men are,
what they are, what's mutation,who are they fighting? What are their
names? What are their power Youhave a huge cast in the opening title
scene because eighty five percent of thepeople tuning in to our new show aren't
going to know what the heck ofMutant is and what the X Men world
(11:28):
is. So you have to becareful and simple and patient and clear and
have a great interest have a greatintro. That's one of the notes she
gave on the first pass at theintro. We need more on these the
lead characters and identifying who they areand showing their powers, and less of
the background action. Background action canwait for the show. Let's focus on
(11:50):
the characters. And that was agreat note and I think it made the
opening, you know great. Yeah, Now the opening is seriously the best
opening and animation like period, Ithink. And I was a big fan
of all the other you know,the marvel like Spider Man and his amazing
friends and you know all them andlike I, I I liked the uh
(12:13):
the fact that you did you didlike they got everybody that you knew who
was who and like you basically gottheir personality like from that opening sequence,
you know what I mean, sothat you can't get any better than that.
Honestly, what do you think ofthe uh the progression of like the
(12:35):
I want to say, the thestorylines like not like how like I know
they're progressing with the the morph youknow where he's a I guess he's they
come out as gay. I can'tremember what they were. He's he's come
out as a teammate, a teammember. He's a full on he's got
(12:56):
his own card and the yeah yeah, because you know, when we wrote
him, we just wrote him tokill him in the first episode. That
was our plan. So that's whyhe's not in the title right and now
he's just it's just his image.When we drew him, he was that
we went to the books and founda shape shifting and changeling and so his
model was based on changeling from thebooks. Who's only in four or five
(13:20):
of the books, so very veryminor character. And they said, well,
look, let's do something a littlemore you know, twenty first century
with him. It's more current withhim, and make his normal state be
it a kind of amorphous looking creature. He's kind of white and no hair
and you know, kind of weirdeye sockets, and so they made him,
(13:43):
you know, as a shape shifter. When he was shape shifting,
he was shape shifting into all sortsof creatures and men and women and all
every So he was very much acompletely fluid character in our episode. It's
just when we saw him at rest, he looked like the Changeling, this
guy from a nineteen you know,eighty comic. But they just stay upgraded
(14:07):
him a little bit. I don'tthink there's a you know, there was
kind of a big deal for afew months before the show came out.
So is this some sort of weirdyou know, gender fluid. That's what
I was trying to trying to hiton there. I was trying to,
yeah, upset about it even ifhe was, which the difference, like
right, even if he was.But anybody that had any weird worries about
(14:30):
that got past that in about fiveminutes because you know, his characters,
you know, is there and hegets more screen time and his you know,
his fun loving, quirky, weird, you know, nudging character is
blossoms in the show, and soso it's just they get past his look
in about five seconds. It's notit's not the issue we thought it might
(14:52):
be. And also, we asa human species, we are thirty years
ahead of where we were in nineteenninety two, right, and it's really
easy to forget. I mean,the world's on fire right now, but
it's easy to forget how much progresshas been made regarding certain certain issues in
our society. There are words youthe words got we couldn't say yeah,
(15:16):
or pretend to say or scored aroundin a Saturday morning kids show back in
the nineteen nineties. The fact thatX Men ninety seven has whatever, the
PG fourteen rating, whatever the ithas a slightly more mature rating anyway on
Disney Plus. They are able totalk about and deal with issues we couldn't
imagine dealing with back then. Yeah, because it was We're very much a
(15:39):
kids show, and that kids televisionthat serious limits. So yeah, I'm
kind of glad that, I reallyactually I'm glad that the audience for this
is now older because we were allyou know, we all grew up for
it. Now we know, youknow, we're all adults now we're watching
with our kids, and you know, I kind of I really do like
that they're touching on adult you know, more adult or into themes, you
(16:00):
know what I mean, Like,uh, we're not really more adult,
but really like uh in general,like you know, life, like what's
going on, like you know whatI mean. Like they're touching on everything
from the you know, the sexualityand all that, but all that,
you know, I just think it'sgood that they're they're leaning down more towards
that the US that grew up withthe original show, and they know we
(16:22):
grew older and they know, like, you know, the topic should be
a little bit more for us,and you know, as well as geared
towards the kids being on Disney plus, you know what I mean. So
for the first couple of episodes I'veseen, they did a very good job
blending all that together into a quitefrankly a great continuation of the original.
Like the one person said that youbrought up it's you can watch the original
(16:45):
episodes and then come and pick upand watch this first, you know,
first couple episodes, to be like, all right, it's just a new
season, you know, it's it'sThat's what I wanted. I really didn't
want them to go askew and tryto do, you know, something totally
different and then lose that original audiencebase you know who grew up with the
original show. By the way,since you haven't had a chance to see
(17:06):
the entire yet, buckle up.Oh I'm clear. I really am either
your smelling salts to your fainting couchor a strong beverage or something. Yeah,
because I'm so into this. Ilike, I I sat down,
I got I got to watch,uh the first two episodes, and then
I was like, uh, thisis gonna be good. I haven't gotten
(17:30):
a chance, and I've been justbusy in general life. I haven't gotten
a chance, and I didn't wantto, like not be able to focus
on it, you know what Imean, Like, sit down, I
appreciate that show. Yeah, yeayeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna sit
down with my kids today because myoldest son is an X Men freak like
I am. So he loves theoriginal and he's he was so neat and
(17:52):
I have the postcard from you guyslast time, you know that he sent
us and he was like, ohmy god, He's like you're famous,
and I'm like I'm like, no, I just know some really cool people,
so you know us, I don'tknow, so all right, Like
again, I didn't want to keepyou guys too long because I know you
(18:14):
guys have a lot of stuff todo. But overall, are you you're
you're very happy with this new XMen ninety seven product, I'm assuming,
or like, do you have anyreservations going forward with it? Or do
you want anything to like do yousee anything that might be looking like it
needs to change? Or do youguys like, are you just generally happy
(18:36):
with the new series? Like overall, I think it generally happened. Just
so you know, they they're thewriting on season two is is you know,
mostly it's mostly they are already reallycranking on season two and it's the
real thing. And we've been involvedin that a little uh And they've just
screen lit season three, so that'sbeen announced and we've been signed on,
(19:00):
we've been signed out again, Soreally we're we're on board for however many
years it takes to get those thosetwo seasons together. I'm sure she'll be
quicker than like the three years ifit's spent on the first season. He
is up because so much stuff isset now. But yeah, if it
goes for eight seasons, we're onman, We're on board that. I
(19:23):
did have one point I was goingto ask you before now I remember the
original series more than Wolverine had areally good relationship before he dies, Like
they were are they going to pickthat? Did they like? Are they
gonna kind of thing? Will letyou watch? Then will the season?
(19:45):
But again, the fact that everythingthat that you laid out that as a
writer wrote for X Men, theanimated series, they the folks were doing
X Men ninety seven. They knowthat stuff deep backwards, forward, sideways,
and they're pulling out resources. Imean they're pulling on threads. It's
(20:07):
like, oh my god, Iwait, was that an episode X y
Z? Was that a character standingbehind that character? You are show better
better than we do. And itjust because it just becomes a question.
They're not looking to change it.They're not looking looking to adjust the relationships
(20:27):
or anything. They're just they they'renaturally as creators. They may get excited
and say in a season, givea run, you know, spend more
time with Cyclops, or spend moretime with Rogue, or spend more time
with somebody that we we adjusted asthe seasons went, but some of the
(20:48):
seasons seemed to be kind of Wolverineheavy. And then we then there was
the time when we had the twoPhoenix saga's kind of back to back for
nine episodes, so that was realGene heavy and Gene and Sky heavy.
So it those kinds of decisions aboutthere's there's such a huge group of characters.
It's such a big, rich worldthat as their creative interests shift left
(21:11):
right center, you'll see more ofone character less than another. We find
ourselves when we're doing our show,I'm like, we haven't really focused on
for four or five episodes, whatare we doing? You know, you
try to keep a balance, andyou get enthusiasms that take you one way
or another, and then you haveto catch yourself and say, oh,
(21:32):
let's get back and let's let's getback to characters we maybe haven't touched on
as much as we need to.So however that goes for them, their
intention is to just exploit this wonderfulworld that they were handed, not to
get rid of half of it,or to throw six or seven new characters
in that nobody cares about from ourshow and diminish the ones that are in
(21:56):
our show. They're very much behind, you know, keeping it what it
is. I also want a bigdifference was thirty two years ago, previous
X when the animated series was kindof crafted in individual season chunks. You
were tapped to do one season becausethe higher ups at Fox didn't think it
(22:18):
would last. So those first thirteenwere crafted kind of of a piece and
then sent out into the universe tosee how the world responded. Well,
it was a hit, but itwasn't a hit that you were drafted to
do former seasons. You were draftedto do a second season, so the
second season is kind of savage land, little bit self contained. Yeah.
Finally after that, you were thentapped to do wildly decided Okay, this
(22:42):
is such a big get. We'vemade so much money, we'll commit to
another thirty nine episodes. And that'swhen we kind of got to blow it
wide open and do things like thePhoenix Sagas and go off into space and
the Meat meet lots of new charactersthat we did didn't really have time or
space for in the first two seasons. But so I say that because good
(23:04):
old X Men ninety seven, thereseem to be a lot of eyes staring
ahead in the same direction. Andthis season one. Yes, it's as
we got dogs for these ten episodesare there, they're complete, but I
think they themselves are looking ahead toa season two and a season three at
(23:27):
least as far as we know today. Well, I'm so happy for you
guys. Like remember said, I'mecstatic. I cannot wait to see where
this goes. I'm actually gonna sitdown tonight and watch at least two episodes.
So I again, thank you guysso much for coming on and talking
to me, catching up. Ilove having you on. Please come back
(23:47):
some more. I will thank youagain. Thank you. Well, can
you imagine how weird this is.It's just thirty two years after we started
this job, it's back and it'sthe center of everybody these conversations. Again,
what I'm saying and talking to you. Before it was like, well
it's we can't. Now it's out, it's out. It got It has
(24:08):
to be such a relief for youguys to be able to talk about this
stuff. But we still have towatch what Oh I know, that's why
I wasn't trying to pro too wet. All right, thank you guys so
much. I thank you again.I will get hold of you whenever you're
not so busy and come back.You know, I really want you guys.
(24:29):
I know you're all over the placecomic cons. Do you have anything
in the future real quick that youneed to promote that you're going to be
at? Uh gee. We justcame off with the Ontario California, which
was wonderful. They had so manyof the Voice Talent ninety seven and yeah,
yeah, the Voice Talifornia had areally good panel. The two big
things that we have seth set forlater in the year besides that, we're
(24:52):
trying to keep things kind of open. One of them is a the l
A comic con is early October thisyear, Los Angeles coming It's usually in
early December, so that's that's anearlier thing. And in September there's a
wonderful thing called The Uncanny Experience inMinneapolis where they take over an old gentleman's
club, a seventh story old gentleman'sclub and turn it into the X Mansion.
(25:15):
And this will be their second yearthere, and Mart and basically everybody
there is a crazy X Men fan, and most of them in cosplay,
and yeah, it's it's it's it'sit's it's a fun thing. So we'll
be at both of those and maybeat things in between. We're not sure.
We have some delightful family stuff inthe background too, so yeah,
a great year. Family stuff isalways good. And glad you guys are
(25:36):
keeping busy. I will talk toyou again. Everybody, please watch X
Men ninety seven and and on socialmedia. Get it, Eric and Juliet.
I'm sure they would love to answeryour questions, you know anything you
have and I know uh that youguys are very very excited about the show,
and I'm glad everybody else is veryexcited about the show. I'm very
(25:56):
excited about the show. So onceagain, watch it two nights, uh,
and I watched the old X Menanimated series while you're at it,
because everybody is so all right,everybody, have a great night. Thank
you guys again, and I willtalk to you soon. Thank you. Bye.
Welcome to another special sitdown episode fromthe Molin Friends Get Random podcast channel.
It's been a long time since I'vetalked to my favorite people in the world.
They have been very busy. Uh, mister Eric and missus Julia Lee
Wald. You guys would know himbetter from. Uh, I don't know.
A little show called X Men,the animated series. They were little
writers. They are also executive consultantson the new Disney Plus series X Men
(01:00):
ninety seven. Guys, last timeI had you on, we talked,
well, we kind of talked aboutit because you guys couldn't talk about it,
but you knew something was gonna happen. Uh So fill me in,
man, what has been going on. I've heard nothing but positive things about
this new show. I've watched thefirst couple of episodes. I haven't gotten
a chance to watch the rest thathave bonded lately. I'm slowly getting there.
(01:25):
But so tell me how how isthe experience on this this new show
going. Uh, well, it'sit's kind of it's it's you know,
could have gone all sorts of ways. When you rede a show that was
a beloved show, you know,you kind of hold your breath across your
figures and hold your breath because mostof them don't work out very well,
right, And just the track record, Yeah, Hollywood, they just you
(01:49):
know, the people either didn't likethe original or or times of change or
whatever reason. It just comes outand it just doesn't feel right. Man.
This one really seemed to, especiallywithin the X community, just just
to hit a home run. Imean, it just was. It just
really got it right and got peopleexcited and got people thrilled, and got
people waiting, Oh my god,I gotta wait till the next week now
(02:12):
to see tell me what's going tohappen, to tell me what's going to
do. So it worked, andyou know, all credit to the hundred
or some young folks that put thisthing together, with showrunner Baudomeo at the
very top. It was his baby, was his vision. She willed it
to be as good as it was. And he told us his first rule
(02:34):
for hiring his staff was did youlove the old series? And if they
said no or they were equivocal,he didn't hire them. So that was
the deal. So there were onehundred true believers behind this thing. And
I think it really shows from thefirst two episodes that I've gotten to see.
I am very excited to watch therest day and truth, it brought
(02:57):
me back to when I was akid, honestly when the original was out
and I was like, I'm soexcited for what's gonna happen next week?
Like I don't I'm not a bigfan of the binge loading of episodes,
you know what I mean, LikeI prefer to be on my edge waiting
for the next week. It getsme excited, gets me, you know,
like motivated to actually watch the wholeshow, like when it's out.
(03:19):
And I tell you, man,the first two episodes got me hooked.
They got me hooked. I justreally haven't had a chance to just sit
down and watch them. The nextcouple. I'm just so excited, Like
how do you guys, Like,what do you guys think of this?
Because compared to the original? Well, I'm gonna jump in here and just
play off the the binge versus weeklyrelease moment, right because I've said it
(03:42):
before, in these last god tenweeks, within the last ten weeks and
then you're twenty twenty four, wehave been the only people in the whole
wide world in the history of humanitybefore us and now and after us who
had the opportunity to experience X Menninety seven on a week of the release,
which is how the good old XMen animated series was released a few
(04:04):
decades ago on Foxy Kids. AndI love that that one week release for
these episodes this season really gave fansan opportunity to be stunned, be startled,
be surprised, to spend the restof the week you know, oh
my gosh, what's gonna happen next. The trick is if you didn't watch
(04:24):
all ten episodes, then you hadto avoid a lot of spoilers because people
were losing their minds. I havepurposely stayed off of the Twitter box and
the Facebook machine just so I don'thave any spoilers because it is so hard.
Everybody you write is talking about thisshow, yes, and they're very
positive. There is like I've heardlike people say that it's bringing them back
(04:49):
to their childhood again and like they'relike never, actually, they haven't been
this excited about a Marvel show ormovie, like you know, period in
the NC you in a long longtime, And this show is really hitting
a home run for these people.And I and I I really enjoy the
fact that you know, they keptit as close to your guys' original you
(05:12):
know what I mean like that it'sit's super close to the way you know,
I remembered feeling when I watched it, so uh goddam, I'm just
so flabbergasted about it because I was, like, I feel like a kid
again, like actually watching this,you know, catching up on this now.
I've done a little bit of youknow, looking into it. But
how much of the original cast isactually coming back? I know Alison Court
(05:35):
came back, I know a coupleof times. Yeah, she has a
different character there. I think they'rethree or four that came back as their
characters. Allison, Ceely Smith,call Dodds over Storm, call Dods,
wolver Rogue. Yeah. God,we're missing. But everybody that we are
(05:59):
aware of who was in the originalvoice cast has reappeared in some capacity,
which is yeah, yeah, veryremarkable, remarkable lot. You know,
it's been thirty years. People's voiceschanged, you know, it's and so
they they wanted to get as manyas they could, and they voice tested
(06:19):
them and used pretty much everybody theycould. Even if they said, well,
you know, we we have aslightly different vision of what of what
this particular that particular character's voice mightbe. Uh, and we're so we're
gonna be casting someone young to takethis role. They would take the previous
(06:42):
act actress and give them a majorsupporting role. And so they brought the
old family in as much as theycould. There have been two or three
of our folks that have passed,you know, for example, one quick
story, Norm Spenser. For example, Norm Spencer was the voice of Cyclopes
for us, also the voice ofpreviously on X Men, right right.
Sadly he passed, but they broughtback voice actor Ray Chase. And there's
(07:04):
a beautiful moment in one of thefirst few episodes where Val Cooper, who
is voiced now by Katherine Disher,who was our original Gene Gray. She's
now back as Val Cooper. There'sa moment where as doctor Cooper, she
turns to Cyclops and says, youknow, Professor x to him, Professor
(07:25):
Xavier would be so proud of you. And Ray Chase himself said he was
choking up because that's Catherine Disher talkingto him in the role of It was
it was very meta. It wasvery many layers folding on top of himself
just how hard it was for thesepeople creating, building this world and making
(07:45):
the creative decisions. They had thirtymore years of books to integrate into this
or to think about as possible researchbits for this, and they had a
couple generations of life thrown at themin between nineteen ninety two and now when
you know, when we did ourshow, and they had their own perspectives.
(08:05):
And yet everyone is telling us,look, it feels seamless. I
can watch seventy six episodes of youroriginal show. I can then turn on
the first of this and it feelslike it's the next episode. It feels
like an extension, which is giventhe different technologies, given the different I
mean, we are so envious.They had four times four times a time
(08:30):
and eight times a budget of whatwe had to do our first season.
And it's beautiful and it's stunning,and you know, it's theatrical level beautiful
animation. At the same time,they took all all these pains to make
it to make us feel comfortable,like that's the same Scott moving through the
(08:52):
that's the same Wolverine moving through thescreen. And that's a great effort.
It couldn't have been had the firsttwo or three passes. They had to
really work at that. Yeah,I mean, I'm I'm kind of glad
they waited a while though to putit out, tell you the truth,
and now you know they made sureit was that good. I'm sorry,
go ahead me to cut you offto Okay, No, I don't know
if I can make this work ornot here, but if you can see
(09:15):
this, oh yeah, I couldsee just perfect her favorite story. So
this heasty at the upper one.That's the altny title sequence and a scam
but throwing his cards to the camera. And we were discovered thirty years later
that the pit for the Ace ofSpades was drawn upside down. Right right
here we are. We're sharing thatstory with the folks doing X Men ninety
seven, and in X Men ninetyseven they threw the pit for the Aces
(09:37):
Spades upside down. The awesome that'sso awesome. That is that cool?
Is that kind of fidelity. It'sjust twenty eight years to find that Larry
drew that in nineteen ninety two,and it wasn't until twenty twenty we were
writing our art book and we lookat a print out of it. It
wait a minute, that spade doesn'tlook right. And then he checked and
(09:58):
he checked, and it's like hewas going south, wasn't it. Over
the course of what Yeah, hehad to hand draw the entire and draw
the opening title over a weekend andWill looked at it with Margaret Lash.
They said, okay, we've gotthese, you know Justice. They spent
about another day on it. Sothe opening title that you see in our
original show, which people love astheir favorite ever, is like is three
(10:22):
days of frenzied work by our twobest artists, Larry and Will. That's
a lot of work, Like,yeah, I tried it back, Yes,
no, no, I'm sorry.I'll just say I've tried to draw
you know, a little short likefive second animation. I can imagine the
second yeah. Yeah. And MargaretLash, the president of Fox Kids then,
(10:46):
who was the person responsible for sayingwe're making an x Men series.
She her part of her marching orderswere even though X Men was the biggest
selling comic book at that time innineteen ninety two, that was still a
very small slice of pop culture backthen, and there was no social media,
there was no Google, there wasno Internet. And she said,
(11:07):
you you Eric on the writing side, and Will and Larry. On just
the introduction side, You've got toset up who the X Men are,
what they are, what's mutation,who are they fighting? What are their
names? What are their power Youhave a huge cast in the opening title
scene because eighty five percent of thepeople tuning in to our new show aren't
going to know what the heck ofMutant is and what the X Men world
(11:28):
is. So you have to becareful and simple and patient and clear and
have a great interest have a greatintro. That's one of the notes she
gave on the first pass at theintro. We need more on these the
lead characters and identifying who they areand showing their powers, and less of
the background action. Background action canwait for the show. Let's focus on
(11:50):
the characters. And that was agreat note and I think it made the
opening, you know great. Yeah, Now the opening is seriously the best
opening and animation like period, Ithink. And I was a big fan
of all the other you know,the marvel like Spider Man and his amazing
friends and you know all them andlike I, I I liked the uh
(12:13):
the fact that you did you didlike they got everybody that you knew who
was who and like you basically gottheir personality like from that opening sequence,
you know what I mean, sothat you can't get any better than that.
Honestly, what do you think ofthe uh the progression of like the
(12:35):
I want to say, the thestorylines like not like how like I know
they're progressing with the the morph youknow where he's a I guess he's they
come out as gay. I can'tremember what they were. He's he's come
out as a teammate, a teammember. He's a full on he's got
(12:56):
his own card and the yeah yeah, because you know, when we wrote
him, we just wrote him tokill him in the first episode. That
was our plan. So that's whyhe's not in the title right and now
he's just it's just his image.When we drew him, he was that
we went to the books and founda shape shifting and changeling and so his
model was based on changeling from thebooks. Who's only in four or five
(13:20):
of the books, so very veryminor character. And they said, well,
look, let's do something a littlemore you know, twenty first century
with him. It's more current withhim, and make his normal state be
it a kind of amorphous looking creature. He's kind of white and no hair
and you know, kind of weirdeye sockets, and so they made him,
(13:43):
you know, as a shape shifter. When he was shape shifting,
he was shape shifting into all sortsof creatures and men and women and all
every So he was very much acompletely fluid character in our episode. It's
just when we saw him at rest, he looked like the Changeling, this
guy from a nineteen you know,eighty comic. But they just stay upgraded
(14:07):
him a little bit. I don'tthink there's a you know, there was
kind of a big deal for afew months before the show came out.
So is this some sort of weirdyou know, gender fluid. That's what
I was trying to trying to hiton there. I was trying to,
yeah, upset about it even ifhe was, which the difference, like
right, even if he was.But anybody that had any weird worries about
(14:30):
that got past that in about fiveminutes because you know, his characters,
you know, is there and hegets more screen time and his you know,
his fun loving, quirky, weird, you know, nudging character is
blossoms in the show, and soso it's just they get past his look
in about five seconds. It's notit's not the issue we thought it might
(14:52):
be. And also, we asa human species, we are thirty years
ahead of where we were in nineteenninety two, right, and it's really
easy to forget. I mean,the world's on fire right now, but
it's easy to forget how much progresshas been made regarding certain certain issues in
our society. There are words youthe words got we couldn't say yeah,
(15:16):
or pretend to say or scored aroundin a Saturday morning kids show back in
the nineteen nineties. The fact thatX Men ninety seven has whatever, the
PG fourteen rating, whatever the ithas a slightly more mature rating anyway on
Disney Plus. They are able totalk about and deal with issues we couldn't
imagine dealing with back then. Yeah, because it was We're very much a
(15:39):
kids show, and that kids televisionthat serious limits. So yeah, I'm
kind of glad that, I reallyactually I'm glad that the audience for this
is now older because we were allyou know, we all grew up for
it. Now we know, youknow, we're all adults now we're watching
with our kids, and you know, I kind of I really do like
that they're touching on adult you know, more adult or into themes, you
(16:00):
know what I mean, Like,uh, we're not really more adult,
but really like uh in general,like you know, life, like what's
going on, like you know whatI mean. Like they're touching on everything
from the you know, the sexualityand all that, but all that,
you know, I just think it'sgood that they're they're leaning down more towards
that the US that grew up withthe original show, and they know we
(16:22):
grew older and they know, like, you know, the topic should be
a little bit more for us,and you know, as well as geared
towards the kids being on Disney plus, you know what I mean. So
for the first couple of episodes I'veseen, they did a very good job
blending all that together into a quitefrankly a great continuation of the original.
Like the one person said that youbrought up it's you can watch the original
(16:45):
episodes and then come and pick upand watch this first, you know,
first couple episodes, to be like, all right, it's just a new
season, you know, it's it'sThat's what I wanted. I really didn't
want them to go askew and tryto do, you know, something totally
different and then lose that original audiencebase you know who grew up with the
original show. By the way,since you haven't had a chance to see
(17:06):
the entire yet, buckle up.Oh I'm clear. I really am either
your smelling salts to your fainting couchor a strong beverage or something. Yeah,
because I'm so into this. Ilike, I I sat down,
I got I got to watch,uh the first two episodes, and then
I was like, uh, thisis gonna be good. I haven't gotten
(17:30):
a chance, and I've been justbusy in general life. I haven't gotten
a chance, and I didn't wantto, like not be able to focus
on it, you know what Imean, Like, sit down, I
appreciate that show. Yeah, yeayeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna sit
down with my kids today because myoldest son is an X Men freak like
I am. So he loves theoriginal and he's he was so neat and
(17:52):
I have the postcard from you guyslast time, you know that he sent
us and he was like, ohmy god, He's like you're famous,
and I'm like I'm like, no, I just know some really cool people,
so you know us, I don'tknow, so all right, Like
again, I didn't want to keepyou guys too long because I know you
(18:14):
guys have a lot of stuff todo. But overall, are you you're
you're very happy with this new XMen ninety seven product, I'm assuming,
or like, do you have anyreservations going forward with it? Or do
you want anything to like do yousee anything that might be looking like it
needs to change? Or do youguys like, are you just generally happy
(18:36):
with the new series? Like overall, I think it generally happened. Just
so you know, they they're thewriting on season two is is you know,
mostly it's mostly they are already reallycranking on season two and it's the
real thing. And we've been involvedin that a little uh And they've just
screen lit season three, so that'sbeen announced and we've been signed on,
(19:00):
we've been signed out again, Soreally we're we're on board for however many
years it takes to get those thosetwo seasons together. I'm sure she'll be
quicker than like the three years ifit's spent on the first season. He
is up because so much stuff isset now. But yeah, if it
goes for eight seasons, we're onman, We're on board that. I
(19:23):
did have one point I was goingto ask you before now I remember the
original series more than Wolverine had areally good relationship before he dies, Like
they were are they going to pickthat? Did they like? Are they
gonna kind of thing? Will letyou watch? Then will the season?
(19:45):
But again, the fact that everythingthat that you laid out that as a
writer wrote for X Men, theanimated series, they the folks were doing
X Men ninety seven. They knowthat stuff deep backwards, forward, sideways,
and they're pulling out resources. Imean they're pulling on threads. It's
(20:07):
like, oh my god, Iwait, was that an episode X y
Z? Was that a character standingbehind that character? You are show better
better than we do. And itjust because it just becomes a question.
They're not looking to change it.They're not looking looking to adjust the relationships
(20:27):
or anything. They're just they they'renaturally as creators. They may get excited
and say in a season, givea run, you know, spend more
time with Cyclops, or spend moretime with Rogue, or spend more time
with somebody that we we adjusted asthe seasons went, but some of the
(20:48):
seasons seemed to be kind of Wolverineheavy. And then we then there was
the time when we had the twoPhoenix saga's kind of back to back for
nine episodes, so that was realGene heavy and Gene and Sky heavy.
So it those kinds of decisions aboutthere's there's such a huge group of characters.
It's such a big, rich worldthat as their creative interests shift left
(21:11):
right center, you'll see more ofone character less than another. We find
ourselves when we're doing our show,I'm like, we haven't really focused on
for four or five episodes, whatare we doing? You know, you
try to keep a balance, andyou get enthusiasms that take you one way
or another, and then you haveto catch yourself and say, oh,
(21:32):
let's get back and let's let's getback to characters we maybe haven't touched on
as much as we need to.So however that goes for them, their
intention is to just exploit this wonderfulworld that they were handed, not to
get rid of half of it,or to throw six or seven new characters
in that nobody cares about from ourshow and diminish the ones that are in
(21:56):
our show. They're very much behind, you know, keeping it what it
is. I also want a bigdifference was thirty two years ago, previous
X when the animated series was kindof crafted in individual season chunks. You
were tapped to do one season becausethe higher ups at Fox didn't think it
(22:18):
would last. So those first thirteenwere crafted kind of of a piece and
then sent out into the universe tosee how the world responded. Well,
it was a hit, but itwasn't a hit that you were drafted to
do former seasons. You were draftedto do a second season, so the
second season is kind of savage land, little bit self contained. Yeah.
Finally after that, you were thentapped to do wildly decided Okay, this
(22:42):
is such a big get. We'vemade so much money, we'll commit to
another thirty nine episodes. And that'swhen we kind of got to blow it
wide open and do things like thePhoenix Sagas and go off into space and
the Meat meet lots of new charactersthat we did didn't really have time or
space for in the first two seasons. But so I say that because good
(23:04):
old X Men ninety seven, thereseem to be a lot of eyes staring
ahead in the same direction. Andthis season one. Yes, it's as
we got dogs for these ten episodesare there, they're complete, but I
think they themselves are looking ahead toa season two and a season three at
(23:27):
least as far as we know today. Well, I'm so happy for you
guys. Like remember said, I'mecstatic. I cannot wait to see where
this goes. I'm actually gonna sitdown tonight and watch at least two episodes.
So I again, thank you guysso much for coming on and talking
to me, catching up. Ilove having you on. Please come back
(23:47):
some more. I will thank youagain. Thank you. Well, can
you imagine how weird this is.It's just thirty two years after we started
this job, it's back and it'sthe center of everybody these conversations. Again,
what I'm saying and talking to you. Before it was like, well
it's we can't. Now it's out, it's out. It got It has
(24:08):
to be such a relief for youguys to be able to talk about this
stuff. But we still have towatch what Oh I know, that's why
I wasn't trying to pro too wet. All right, thank you guys so
much. I thank you again.I will get hold of you whenever you're
not so busy and come back.You know, I really want you guys.
(24:29):
I know you're all over the placecomic cons. Do you have anything
in the future real quick that youneed to promote that you're going to be
at? Uh gee. We justcame off with the Ontario California, which
was wonderful. They had so manyof the Voice Talent ninety seven and yeah,
yeah, the Voice Talifornia had areally good panel. The two big
things that we have seth set forlater in the year besides that, we're
(24:52):
trying to keep things kind of open. One of them is a the l
A comic con is early October thisyear, Los Angeles coming It's usually in
early December, so that's that's anearlier thing. And in September there's a
wonderful thing called The Uncanny Experience inMinneapolis where they take over an old gentleman's
club, a seventh story old gentleman'sclub and turn it into the X Mansion.
(25:15):
And this will be their second yearthere, and Mart and basically everybody
there is a crazy X Men fan, and most of them in cosplay,
and yeah, it's it's it's it'sit's it's a fun thing. So we'll
be at both of those and maybeat things in between. We're not sure.
We have some delightful family stuff inthe background too, so yeah,
a great year. Family stuff isalways good. And glad you guys are
(25:36):
keeping busy. I will talk toyou again. Everybody, please watch X
Men ninety seven and and on socialmedia. Get it, Eric and Juliet.
I'm sure they would love to answeryour questions, you know anything you
have and I know uh that youguys are very very excited about the show,
and I'm glad everybody else is veryexcited about the show. I'm very
(25:56):
excited about the show. So onceagain, watch it two nights, uh,
and I watched the old X Menanimated series while you're at it,
because everybody is so all right,everybody, have a great night. Thank
you guys again, and I willtalk to you soon. Thank you. Bye.
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