Jade Rambles: Megaman - The Ruby-Spears Cartoon

[JadePharaoh]

Ah, another cartoon cliche; the body-swap episode!

- Megaman instantly recognized the machine in the cargo hold being one of Wily's, but why? While Dr. Wily does have a habit of slapping a giant "W" on his stuff, this happened to be the exception.
- I really like Snakeman's design. It's a bit different from the official artwork, but still looks really good with the reptilian eyes and the stylized snake-head arm cannon.
- Protoman: "Boy, what's the world coming to when you can't trust your own brother?"
LOL
- Megaman switches bodies with Snakeman, who also happens to be voiced by Ian Corlett.

[JadePharaoh]

- Is it me or does Mr. Zero look a lot like Dr. Cain from the MMX games?
- Iceman and Airman with their banter all throughout this episode...
- Megaman and Roll can't beat Airman... Surely that won't become a meme...
- Megaman: "This isn't some video game you're playing...!"
... Should we tell him...?
- Mr. Zero: "You're mad!"          Dr. Wily: "No, I'm happy!!"
LOL!!!
- Pipi, the super-annoying bird-bot from MM2 puts in a minor appearance. Once more, though, it's as one of Dr. Light's robots instead of Wily's.
- For all of the screen time and attention Iceman seemed to get this episode, it's a shame he never appeared in any other episodes after this one... Then again, he did turn on Wily near the end, which would explain that. But then, he was originally one of Dr. Light's robots to begin with... (even in this series if you think back to the first episode; albeit so were Cutman and Gutsman.) Still rather unfortunate...
- Odd how Iceman refers to his weapon as just "freeze ray", when the first episode correctly named it Ice Slasher. (Similarly, Airman's weapon was called "tornado fan" in this episode instead of Air Shooter.)

[JadePharaoh]

Wily's big plan this time; brainwashing the masses with his own brand of mind-control music. Still better than Nickleback...

- Makes sense Dr. Light is a music buff, considering the theme naming he gives his robots. Odd, however that he is apparently not into rock-&-roll, considering he named two of his first robots, well, Rock and Roll... Also, Rush, who I figured is a reference to the rock band Rush, again given his theme naming, and Eddie, possibly a reference to Eddie VanHalen. 
- Those paper-thin disguises Wily's robot masters don as the band Cold Steel. One has an arm cannon that he's somehow playing guitar with. One has a conspicuous propeller on his back. And another has those big probes on his hands. Nothing suspicious here at all...
- Megaman once again gets his energy drained from being underwater. And as if he didn't have it bad enough, Eddie makes him drink from an E-Tank with a nipple attached to it...
"Hey, do me a favor; next time, bring a straw!"
- Geminiman doesn't really live up to his name. He uses the Gemini Laser, sure, but never uses the body double ability that he's named for. (He's one of my favorite robot masters from MM3, so I consider it a shame he never showed up in any episodes after this one)
- Dr. Wily: "Why am I surrounded by fools?"           Dr. Light: "Maybe because that's all you know how to build, Dr. Wily."
OOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!!! You're gonna need to bring Iceman back to help you with that sick BURN!!!

[JadePharaoh]

Now for the time-travel episode!

- Metalman, you just had to take Cutman's puns, didn't you?
- Really cool concept for this episode, however, showing an alternate 'bad future' where Wily wins.
- However, I would have expected to see more of his robot masters in that case. Instead it's just Cutman and Gutsman again, along with robot-master-of-the-week Metalman. Other than that it's just generic police-bots.
- Shame we had to wait so long for an actual Megaman comic book. First the short-lived Dreamwave comic, then the seriously excellent Archie comic.
- "Blaster Masters"? Wrong game, Roll. I'm trying to place what stage enemy from the games they're actually supposed to be. They most remind me of the Helipons from MM4.
- KUNG-FU CUTMAN!!! Just... that... Along with that, Roll made a gun out of a toaster. Love it.
- And while it was brief, I loved Metalman's little add-ons, the saw skates on his feet combined with the sawblades on his arms.
- Another thing I just thought of. This being a time-travel plot, it would have been cool to see Quint show up as well.

[JadePharaoh]

And here we are; the Season 1 finale.

- Wily brings stone golems to life, and then loses control of them. I never understood what the stone creatures were to begin with. Were they always like that, or are they the petrified remains of an ancient tribe?
- "Well, nobody asked you; and if I want your opinion, I'll program it."
Wow... Wily in a nutshell, ladies and gents...
- A quick throwaway gag of Dr. Light's weather-controlling machine. Could Cloudman in MM7 be the final product?
- So this episode turns into the heroes and villains teaming up to stop the golems after they go berserk. Of course, Wily wasted no time making it obvious of his intent to backstab our heroes. It still gave us some nice interactions between Megaman and Protoman; if only they were friends...
- Cutman's attacks aren't very effective against the golems; rock beats scissors, amiright?
- Though Megaman does threaten to shoot Wily; again reminiscent of the end of MM7. And a lot more cold than we're used to through the entire Enemy Mine.
- Woodman: "Welcome to your doom, jerk-heads!!"
Worst. Threat. Ever.

[JadePharaoh]

Okay, onward to season 2, then. Season 2 seemed a lot less consistent than the first as far as production quality was concerned; episodes seemed to alternate between looking amazing - far better than season 1 - and looking like utter crap. It definitely shows that there were multiple animation studios working on these. (Actually, now that I mention it, it's reminding me of a very similar controversy going on now with DragonBall Super's production quality and it's lack of consistency thereof).

Again, the order I'm posting them here is the episode order on my DVD sets. The actual broadcast order might have been different.



- This episode shows another trend that started with this season; they start putting Megaman in a variety of suits and vehicles that weren't in the games. This was quite obviously done with the intent to introduce them to the toyline had the series been allowed to continue farther. I'll talk more about the merchandising in a later post.
- The suit introduced in this episode is an aquatic combat suit that presumably allows for greater mobility underwater and equips Megaman with a harpoon gun. It might be accidental, and I could be reaching, but it kinda makes him look like Bubbleman, to compensate for him never actually showing up in the series.
- By the way, the robotic mooks that Wily uses in this episode, as well as other episodes in season 2, don't seem to resemble anything I've seen in the games... as if there was any shortage of them to choose from...
- Elecman just floored Megaman with a single Thunder Beam; very faithful to the games if you ask me...
- Another thing I've noticed that seems to have changed from the previous season to this one. In season 1, Protoman was very insistent on either convincing Megaman to heel-turn or destroy Megaman himself, and would blatantly disobey Wily in doing so. In season 2 he doesn't seem to do that nearly as much and is more willing to go along with Wily. I wonder if the doctor did a little reprogramming offscreen?
- All of that firepower on Wily's sea-fortress, and whoever's shooting clearly graduated from the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy. Keep firing, assholes!!
- Roll got some really good character development this season. This episode in particular shows her doing plenty of kickass stuff herself, including doing reconnaissance on Wily's fortress and holds her own just fine against Wily's robot masters. Beats the hell out of the "stay in the kitchen" moments she got back in early season 1.
- Love the gag with Gutsman and the doors
- Megaman destroyed the fortress's reactor by copying Protoman's weapon, which somehow enhanced the power of his own Mega Buster. That might have been executed better if Wily didn't explain it to the audience about a minute or so before it actually happens...
- Overall though, I think this was one of my favorite episodes of the whole series.

[JadePharaoh]

- Wily's invented a device that lets him transmit his robots into peoples' dreams and control them through hypnotic suggestion. This episode came out well before Inception, but since this is the future, I like to think Wily came up with the plan after watching it, although it's missing the whole "dreams-inside-dreams" bit.
- Interesting; Megaman and Roll were watching The Last Dragon, an actual kung-fu movie by the late, great Bruce Lee.
- Also interesting how Megaman could tell what the mayor was wearing through his car that he should have been driving by too fast to tell...
- This episode is riddled with plot holes. A security code is one thing, but why would Wily need to probe the police chief's head to get a simple name of the space station's head of security? Is that really classified information not available to the general public? Kept at police headquarters, no less? It just always felt like a really convoluted way just to find out a person's name outside of, say, Death Note...
- BTW, the chief of police is a serious pansy in his dreams...
- Roll: "Megaman! The police chief is at police headquarters...!!!"
Me: You gotta be shitting me, Roll; what the hell would he be doing ther...
Roll: "... in his bathrobe!"
Me: Oh. Okay.
- The cliffhanger before the first commercial break actually puts Megaman in the same death-trap from Future Shock; paralyzed to a train track with a train approaching. Only with a dumber resolution. How shooting the track made it flip him in the air the way it did is one thing, how he did it without derailing that train and killing or injuring a whole lot of people on it is something else...
- Once again we see Dr. Light employing robots like the ones from the games instead of Dr. Wily. In this case, they look like either Bunby Heli from MM1 or Helipon from MM4. 
- So Wily got in the security chief's head, but is it odd that none of the rest of the security force questioned his order to attack Earth's hero? Perhaps that's why they merely arrested him rather than "destroy him on sight" as they were told?
- Strange that despite not seeing him yet, Megaman knew it was Bombman who "almost got" them with the explosive in the jeep. Yes, I know "bomb" is in his name, but he's far from the only one who can use explosives and that wasn't one of his traditional acme bombs he uses.
- Finally the episode is resolved with Megaman going Freddy Kreuger on Wily's robots in the dream world.
- Once again, I know I am thinking way too hard about these. I guess that's what happens when you're at work late at night and you're bored

[JadePharaoh]

This is one of those episodes that had some pretty poor production quality from a visual standpoint (compared to what we've seen so far from Season 2), yet I still really like this episode regardless.

- The plot, essentially; Dr. Light has devised a new defense system for the U.S. military; Dr. Wily counters with a nigh-invincible robotic spider, complete with energy-draining webs. Good times all around.
- Y'know, it just occurred to me; Wily didn't seem to use robotic spiders in the games too much, but the first fortress boss of MMX was one, and it was a bitch for me to kill the first time playing that game. Wonder if he was taking notes...
- The restaurant scene is a little interesting. We saw it a little with Rush and his battery biscuits in earlier episodes, but we see here that robots apparently do eat. Albeit a different kind of food, some kind of robot food at the very least. (Now that I think about it, the E-Tanks were treated as something similar as well.) Technically they shouldn't have to eat, but they apparently have a way of doing so as a way of blending in with humans a little more. It's a bit of a plot point in a later episode, so I thought I'd mention that at least.
- That was an neat plot point for Megaman to use his weapon copy ability to copy the spider's web so Dr. Light can analyze it and discover a weakness. Unfortunately, it contained a glaring plot hole; Dr. Light already HAD a piece of the web. Why did Megaman and Roll have to do through all the trouble that they did to copy ANOTHER web?
- A minor observation; the return of cheesy journalist extraordinaire, Brie Ricotta. Just thought it was worth pointing out since, as mentioned before, most OCs in this series have been one-shots.
- Probably my favorite part of this episode, Quickman puts in an appearance.
- Battontons also make a return. They seem to be the most recurring stage enemies in this series.
- The robot museum has one exhibit featuring a tall skinny humanoid robot alongside a short, dome-headed robot. The reference is not lost...
- Quickman was pretty slow in the head though, to fall for a trick like that...
- Brightman makes a return as well. Again, why him and not Pharaohman I will never understand... Nonetheless, he was pretty formidable here.
- Rather unnecessary tension with having to guess the two negative wire strands, if you ask me.
- Brightman's weapon is super-effective on Quickman; seeing how similar it is to Flashman's Time Stopper, it makes absolute sense.

[JadePharaoh]

I believe that, despite appearing as Ep. 4 on my DVD set, this was the first broadcast episode of Season 2, and I remember it certainly leaving me wanting more the first time it aired!

- So the plot of this episode involves a meteor crashing to Earth, and Dr. Wily harvesting a material of it as a super power source for his robots. I wonder if Megaman 8 swiped a good chunk of its plot from this episode...
- Snakeman and Drillman both make a return appearance.
- Some of my own Megaman LPs incorporated the "Wily, you are a sick man!" clip that, while not quite a meme, was still something I found quite appropriate for some of them...
- I always thought it was funny how Megaman seems to just be able to hover in the air there at 7:42.
- Megaman: "I feel like I'm in a video game!"
... Should we tell him...?
- By the way, what IS up with this wild west-style town? I'm guessing this is some kind of amusement attraction; I can't imagine this being an actual old-west town in the Megaman universe.
- The way the train was crashed looks like it should have killed, or at least severely injured, just about everyone on board. Fortunately (unfortunately?) for them the episode doesn't place any importance on them after this.
- But still Dr. Wily goes for the Bond Villain stupidity as far as Megaman is concerned. He and his robots had at least a couple of solid opportunities to kill Megaman, but squandered it on some kind of death trap instead, be it with the Battontons, or dragging him behind that horse.

[JadePharaoh]

It's been so long since I've done one of these. But I need to finish up so I can move on to other series
Anyway, what I've posted on Facebook before and the Halloween episode.



- So Dr. Wily's grand scheme this time: he's built robots based on classic horror monsters - the Mummy, Wolfman, Dracula, and Frankenstein's monster - to terrorize the English countryside, film their antics as a "monster movie" and use it to threaten the rest of the world into submission.
- I love how snarky Protoman is in this episode:
Wily: The world may call me insane, Proto...
Protoman: Sounds right to me.
- Given the theme of this episode, I would have rather liked to have seen Skullman and/or Shademan appear in this episode. Granted, this show was likely produced before MM7, so no Shademan; in fact the Dracula robot might have been slightly based on him. Other than that, however, no robot master of the week other than Cutman and Gutsman.
- Despite this being the future, England seems to be still stuck in the Victorian era - similar to the previous episode, where they seemed to be stuck in the old West. Either it's a VERY backwoods town this is happening in, or it's some kind or tourist attraction.
- A one-off character for the episode, Evelyn Wray; she's probably supposed to be a reference to Faye Wray, the original "scream queen", best known for her role in the original King Kong movie.
- Overall I liked this episode, but byfar the silliest part was how Wily's Wolf-bot and Dracu-bot could literally transform Dr. Light and Evelyn into a werewolf and vampire respectively. I'll get back to that later...
- Now that I think about it, Megaman 7, not only had Shademan, a vampire-based robot master, but his stage also featured were-bots as stage enemies. I dunno if Capcom based him off this episode like Slashman felt based on Robosaur Park, or if it was all an amazing coincidence.
- The scene at the end seems to imply the whole thing was just one of Evelyn's movies, thus explaining the transformations mentioned earlier. Still a bit of a funny ending.