What A Cartoon! - Mighty Max "The Maxnificent Seven"

You guys briefly mentioned Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, Dic's localization of Hyper Agent Gridman. Gridman actually just had a revival anime last year from Studio Trigger, SSSS Gridman, with the four S's referencing the name of the American localization and several characters taking names from that version as well. It was easily one of my favorite anime of last year and I highly recommend it. Its director, Akira Amemiya, was a longtime fan of Gridman from when he was a kid and previously directed an animated Gridman short for Studio Khara's Animator Expo anthology series.

Tom Aznable

You asked if anyone had fond memories of Mighty Max and I sure do. It was my favorite toy as a kid. I had so many of those sets, I think partly because they were always in bargain bins (I even had some Polly Pockets.) I wore a Mickey Mouse hat with a big M on it because it was very similar to Max’s hat, and I had a traumatic experience of losing one of the toys in my back yard. I never took them outside again. Anyway, I had a VHS that included the episodes “The Mother of All Adventures” and “Rumble in the Jungle.” I still remember the first time I saw it and how it scared the crap out of me. Still, I loved it. I think it was one of the earliest things that led to my love of horror. One final note: the Mighty Max game is awful. I could never even beat the first level, even as an adult. But. The song to that level is rad, at least in the Genesis version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAoFft1G3XQ&app=desktop

Luke Baty

Mighty Max was seemingly made for me, but I just couldn't get into it. I was all-in on the mini or micro-craze of the era. I don't know the reason, but I just thought tiny toys were neat. I always wanted to see more mini action figures like the little man in my Lego set, but I guess I was born too early as licensed Lego sets were still many years away. Mighty Max toys looked cool, reminding me of tiny He-Man sets as the one I remember most is the skull-faced one (of which there are probably multiple types). They were just too gimmicky, and I hated gimmicks like action features in figures. Plus the main character wasn't some cool mutant, but a kid with a magic hat. Same for the show, I just couldn't work past the premise and being a non-morning kid also played a role as I never watched TV before school. It's too bad as it sounds like I missed out on something better than the usual slop found on TV during the same era. Network executives hate continuity in children's shows for various reasons. Like Kat, I hated how inconsequential episodes of cartoons were because everything is reset at the end. It would even bother me on The Simpsons. X-Men got to play with it for its first season, which ended up serving as an example of why execs hated it when they had a delay on one episode. "The Unstoppable Juggernaut" had a bunch of animation problems and had to be sent back, so Fox had to skip it and air it out of order. That episode answered the question of who smashed the X-Men's home so for the first airing that question just went unanswered and in the next aired episode everyone is just re-building the mansion. And it's interesting that you brought Exo-Squad up, because that's the show most of the X-Men people worked on next. Fox was slow to renew X-Men for a second season, so the writers and staff needed work. Fox also forbid them from keeping the serialized format, so they took their talents to Exosquad. When X-Men finally got renewed, most of the staff went back though I know some prominent writers remained on Exosquad, Mark and Michael Edens in particular, limiting their contributions to the later seasons of X-Men.

Joe Hodgson

Oh furry stuff, you don't happen to know Rom?

Kris

Also a Fresno native! Feels bad when the podcast disses Fresno but I completely understand; it's horrible here.

Oops link: https://archive.org/details/disney-adventures-v5i8/page/n11

Mike Mariano

When you mentioned that Mighty Max has almost information online I was surprised, but you’re right. Even the Internet Archive has very little information, though one fun thing I found was a Disney Adventures magazine article about a contest winner who got to create his own Might Max villain who appeared on the show. Congratulations now-35-year-old Adam Shaw.

Mike Mariano

Had completely forgotten about this show until it got mentioned in the Captain Simian episode. Then, all the memories came flooding back as soon as you mentioned the name. I would catch this while eating my breakfast before school, and I loved more mature themes. The depth and stakes made other cartoons feel puddle-deep afterwards. Returning to it now, I'm surprised at how well it held up, and how the themes of responsibility and sacrifice have taken on new levels of meaning to adult me. I really appreciated this return to something I didn't know I missed. Now to dive through those Youtube rips. Thanks team!

I second that! Kat Bailey is my favorite recurring podcast guest. She is very entertaining and has really interesting expertise, from Star Trek to Football. Also I had no idea this show existed but I am definitely interested now.

Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo

Any episode with Kat Bailey is an A+ episode but I am so happy that you covered Mighty Max. This was my absolute favorite weekday morning cartoon (and in fact the only one I can really remember.) The continuity, the dark world, the smart writing it was fantastic. I had no interest in the toys, but this show caught my interest amid all the dreck around it. Great show!

Abrahm Simons

Originally from Fresno and it's pretty bad there

Kris

Didn't know Polly Pocket was making a comeback...with that bit of info, I'm actually surprised *slight Toy Story 4 spoilers* they didn't utilize the brand, because there was a Polly Pocket-esque character.

Frank Grimes

Are there any shows you absolutely refuse to cover? Not that I'm clamoring for a Fantastic Max episode, but I am curious about where you draw the line.

NervousWrex

My first Mighty Max experience was when I was about 7. A close friend of mine was in a skiing accident and hit a tree. During his recovery he got lots of new toys to keep his mind off things. He got several Mighty Max sets and I still remember how cool the one that was shaped like a skull was. I remember my bratty 7 year old brain thinking “I wish I was in an accident so I could get Mighty Max”. My friend has totally recovered from the accident but I don’t know if he’s ever gone skiing again .

Team Stryker

I was happy to hear a brief mention of "Cro" in this episode, because it immediately put the Cro theme song directly into my head. It is an extremely catchy tune that has wedged its way deep into my brain stem despite not hearing it for DECADES. Listen for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq95Blz5nxI When flipping channels during the transition between shows, I would always stick around for the Cro theme song, then switch to something better (because the show itself was awful). It's pretty cheesy, and definitely goes to too great pains to explain the show's (bad) premise, but I will defend its catchiness with my dying breath.

Mighty Max is a remarkably good (and at times, surprisingly dark, as you said) show for something I can't say I've ever heard of before. It's a damn shame since this would absolutely have been something I'd have loved as a kid. I'll have to make the time to watch some more of it...

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag