Ruby-Spears: Crime of the Century

Guest Starring: Bomb Man

Plot Synopsis
Proto Man, Guts Man, and Cut Man are in a toy shop after hours trying out Wily's new invention. Proto Man fires some sort of gun that launches a tiny dart at a doll, which brings it to life and under Wily's control. "So what," asks Guts Man. "What can that thing do that we can't?" Well the doll jumps up on top of Guts Man, rips his head off, dribbles it down the toy store and slam dunks his head into a basketball net. Ok, this episode is seriously going to have to go downhill pretty god damned fast for me to not fucking love it at this point!

The next day, Mega Man, Dr. Light and the mayor are discussing a new find Mega Man discovered, a giant black pearl. Mega Man is afraid Wily is going to try and steal it, but the mayor assures him that he has the entire police department as security, so they have nothing to fear. Wily doesn't seem all that interested though as he sends his new toys on a crime spree through town, there's even a shot where a doll holds up a bank! Hilarious!

Mega Man gets a hold of one of the toys and brings it back to Dr. Light who finds the tiny dart that is controlling it and he begins working on a countermeasure. With the police spread thin because of all the crime sprees, the mayor is forced to have Mega Man be the sole security for the Black Pearl which is being transported by train. While covering the train from Rush Jet, Mega Man spots one of Wily's copters and chases it into a cave. It's a setup though, just to lure Mega Man away from the train, and Bomb Man uses his explosives to seal off the entrance to the cave, trapping Mega Man inside. Wily appears on a monitor and lords over his arch nemisis.

"Let me guess Wily, you're going to fill this cave with water?" says Mega Man. "Oh nothing so extravagant as that Mega Man, I'm going to fill it with BOMBS!" There's a line that's pure gold. Mega Man manages to escape as Wily's toys and his bots get aboard the train. I tell you there's nothing funnier than a toy panda wielding a double barrel shot gun, holding people hostage! With Dr. Light at gun point, Mega Man surrenders the pearl to Proto Man, but while Wily's bots are about to leave, Dr. Light reverses the control of the toys, putting them back to normal. Mega Man quickly goes after Proto Man on the top of the train and recovers the pearl.

Critique
The idea is nonsense, the imagery? Fantastic, top work all around this episode, and the dialog is actually decently funny. This is also like the fourth episode in a row where Guts Man laughs at Mega Man, and then Mega Man just immediately blasts him! That will be funny to me every time. This episode is also well animated. If every episode was this good, Mega Man would have survived past this episode.

Rating: Thumbs up!

And that's it for the Ruby-Spears production of Mega Man. You know, I gave this show a lot of shit, and plenty of it rightfully deserved, but I wouldn't go as far to call this a bad show. Not a great show, as there are so many episodes that simply lack any tender loving care that the quality suffers really bad. A few episodes are great though, and Scott McNiel really keeps this show together at it's worst times as the voice of Proto Man and Dr. Wily. The music is also timed well, even though there are only about four or five tracks, and the "Super Fighting Robots" theme is catchy, even if the lyrics are dumb.

The thing is, a show is only as good as it's competition at the time, and Mega Man was at least a generation behind in animation quality. Warner Brothers absolutely dominated the cartoon market once again with Steven Spielberg producing masterpieces like Animaniacs, and Tiny Toons, and Freakazoid! and Earth Worm Jim. In addition, Warner Brothers was also following up with several DC superhero cartoons such as Batman and Superman that were just much more superior animated all around. The production value of all these animations was much higher, had better writers and artists, and a sound studio orchestra. Mega Man's show couldn't possibly compete with that, and the show didn't even air on any single network, but rather ran in syndication it's first run, ouch.

Even if the show had survived long enough in syndication, Pokemon was about to come out and just fucking destroy every single cartoon before it. The competition was just too fierce for the Blue Bomber to hang in there. I often wonder where the show would have gone, had it managed to stay on air. Would we have seen Proto Man switch to the good guys, and Bass come to replace him? Would Mega Man X make a reappearance, or perhaps even have a spin off? What about Dr. Cossack or Beat? The Star Droids? Yellow Devil? Mecha Dragon? Gutsdozer? Or for Mega Man X the appearance of Zero? Truth be told, this series had some potential it never lived up to, and the appeal of it is pretty limited. Kids who don't know Mega Man are watching other, better cartoons, and Mega Man fans are either avoiding the show for it's "impurities" or just not taking notice of it.

Still, one day we might see another Mega Man cartoon of some sort, although to my knowledge there are no Mega Man cartoons currently running, except some reruns of Rockman.exe Beast in Japan, and the original run of Star Force in China. That could change again though, as the classic series is making use of it's resurgence in popularity with the announcement of Mega Man 10. Astroboy hitting the US might also have some impact on the future of Mega Man cartoons, because after all, Mega Man was designed after Astroboy. We'll have to wait and see, but I know my six year old cousin just so happens to love the Mega Man cartoons and the character, but he thinks the games are too hard, although his tastes might change when he starts developing some sense about himself.

Anyway, if you yourself are a Mega Man fan, you'll have a mostly good time catching this series. The DVDs are out now, so do yourself a favor and enjoy Scott McNeil.