Megas XLR

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Megas XLR

Megas, Kiva, Coop, and Jamie.
Genre animated television series
Creator(s) Jody Schaeffer
George Krstic
Starring David DeLuise
Wendee Lee
Steven Jay Blum
Scot Rienecker
Clancy Brown
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes 26 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time 26 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel Cartoon Network
Original run May 1, 2004 – April 26, 2005
Links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Megas XLR is an American animated television series that aired on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network and is produced by Cartoon Network Studios. It was created by Jody Schaeffer and George Krstic. Its opening song is "Megas XLR Theme (Chicks Dig Giant Robots)" by Ragtime Revolutionaries (as listed in the credits).

Originally entitled Lowbrow, the pilot episode was shown during Cartoon Network's 2002 Summerfest wherein 8 original Cartoon Cartoon pilots were shown. Megas XLR would become a new series as it was the most popular among viewers. After being delayed from its original debut in December 2003, Megas XLR finally debuted on Toonami in May 1, 2004 and was cancelled on April 26, 2005. However, there is a fan effort to save the show and an online petition to put it on DVD. Before and since the show being cancelled, characters have appeared in Cartoon Network's branding in both 2D and 3D CGI form. Megas XLR is now in comic form in the pages of DC Comics' Cartoon Network Action Pack with stories written by its co-creator George Krstic.

Contents

[edit] The story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the distant future, Earth is fighting a losing war with an alien race known as the Glorft. In order to save the planet, the human resistance steals a prototype giant robot from the Glorft and modifies it, renaming it Megas (Mechanized Earth Guard Attack System). The idea was to send Megas back to the Battle of the Last Stand, which was the last major offensive fought by humanity against the Glorft. Humanity lost that battle, but the members of the resistance believe that Megas can tip the scales and hand the Glorft a decisive defeat.

Before the plan can be executed, however, an attack by the Glorft forces the human resistance to send Megas back in time. The prototype timedrive, however, accidentally sends the now-crippled Megas (its head was blown off in the attack) all the way back to 1936. Megas languishes in a New Jersey junkyard until it ends up in the hands of two slackers, Coop and Jamie (who bought it for two dollars), around the year 2004. Coop turns Megas into a hot rod project and names it XLR, for eXtra Large Robot.

Kiva goes back in time to retrieve Megas, and when she finds she is unable to pilot it because of Coop's modifications (using car, stereo and videogame parts), she grudgingly decides to train Coop for fighting, but is surprised to find that he knows how to control it better than she does.

[edit] Characters

  • Coop Cooplowski (David DeLuise): The pilot of Megas, Coop is overweight and has an insatiable appetite. Due to years of playing video games, he is an excellent, if unconventional, pilot. He's not exactly the brightest person around, often lacking awareness of how serious the situation he and his robot are in—- his amazing heroics are mainly just accidents, and he usually ends up destroying more than he protects. However, he has the capacity to display a strong sense of justice and compassion (for example his emotions during a 1-on-1 fight with Gorrath after their arrival in what seems to be a completely decimated Jersey City) . He does seem to possess exceptional skill in mechanics and electronics, frequently "upgrading" Megas and tinkering with video game consoles and cars. Coop also is quite strong as depicted by his demonstrations of raw power, such as being able to punch through his frozen car window and breaking it without flinching or using a wrench to wreck a null distortion missile on Megas - but being a slacker gamer, he has no stamina and suffers for it in several episodes. He usually wears a shirt with the number 12 on it. His best friend is Jamie and he gets along with Kiva more throughout the story. In an alternate timeline, Coop destroyed the Glorft, but his lust for challenge and battle has gradually turned him into an evil warlord, which may provide insight into his character and motivations. However, this Coop may be fundamentally different from the Coop from the known timeline (see "Evil Coop" below).
  • Commander Kiva Andrew (Wendee Lee): Born Sept 14, 3012, Kiva is a military pilot and engineer who traveled back in time from over a thousand years in the future. She has a no-nonsense personality, but adopts a small sense of humor as the series progresses, and is highly skilled in both robotic and hand-to-hand combat. Kiva is intelligent, tough, and fearless. Originally meant to be the pilot of MEGAS, she can no longer pilot it due to Coop's extensive modifications, and finds herself stuck in the present time. Instead of piloting MEGAS herself, she tries to train Coop, who would usually rather eat, play videogames, or tinker with cars or with MEGAS. As the series progresses, she seems to grow more comfortable in the present time. In one episode it has been shown that Kiva fell in love with Jamie and then became evil with alternate dimension Coop.
  • Jamie (Steven Jay Blum): Coop's best friend and a smart-aleck slacker. He spends much of his time hitting on cute girls (and often fails) unlike Coop who throughout the series never showed any interest in girls. He can be very cowardly and often runs at the sight of combat, but he always remains loyal to his best friend Coop; if he is not running away and screaming like a little girl. Despite sitting in the passenger seat, he appears to offer nothing of use during combat other than back seat driving and criticism. He has, however, displayed an unusual talent; he is almost always the first one to spot potential dangers. In one episode, it showed that in another dimension, Jamie will fall in love with Kiva and then break-up, but he stays in the good side trying to protect Earth from evil Coop and evil Kiva.
  • Goat (Scot Rienecker): The owner of the junkyard in which Coop found Megas, Goat sold him "anything in the junkyard for two bucks"-- which turned out to be MEGAS. Goat dreams of finding a robot of his own. Like Jamie, he tries to hit on girls (usually Kiva and always fails like Jamie) and falls just a bit short. Although he did get lucky with Galaxia apparently. Goat also appeared in the MTV series Downtown and another Cartoon Network series Metalocalypse.
  • Gorrath (Clancy Brown): The head of the Glorft. Gorrath followed Kiva and led a significant fraction of his military forces back in time to try and retrieve Megas; he not only failed, but found that he and his soldiers, like Kiva and MEGAS, were trapped in the present. He hates Coop and often launches attacks to try to kill him and reclaim Megas (or as he calls it: "the prototype"), but always fails in some way or other, usually because of sheer dumb luck on Coop's part. In one episode, Gorrath was helping our Coop try to defeat evil alternate dimension Coop and almost came to peace afterwards with good Coop had he not accidentally destroyed his army once again right before they shooke hands. In a different episode, he had a robot similar to Megas built only silver and roared like Godzilla, possibly a joke on Mechagodzilla. Gorrath appears to be more muscular than most of the other glort seen and also walks on two legs(these characteristics are also seen with a special group of glorft guards in the episode "The Driver's Seat"). He also wears a full body mech suit that resembles the one he pilots.

[edit] Minor Characters

  • Little Tommy (Sean Marquette): A kid who lives in Jersey City, he often goes "Coooooool." when he sees something unusual, such as an alien appearing in the middle a baseball game.
  • Cal (Greg Eagles): The owner of the impound lot. He seems to know Coop rather well.
  • Tiny (Kevin Michael Richardson): A friend of Coop's. Like Coop he is also fond of working with cars. He competed against Coop in an auto show and also assisted him on a number of occasions.
  • Georgie (Kevin Michael Richardson): He is a video game expert much like Coop, only he isn't as good as Coop is. He also seems to be fond of the lerps (tiny orange creatures who resemble smurfs). He has a lerp doll which he calls "his precious". He was later seen in Las Vegas with Goat at the gaming convention.
  • Gina (Rachael MacFarlane): A girl Jamie tried to date, she thought he had a really cool car which was actually Coop's (MEGAS's head module, in fact). So Jamie lied to get her to go for a ride which ended up turning into a cat-and-mouse chase with the Glorft.
  • Ally (Julie Nathanson): Kiva's ancestor from the past, Gorrath tried to kill her which would directly destroy Kiva and this would cause Coop to not have Megas at all in a Terminator-esque plot line. Fortunately for her, Coop was there to rescue her from the Glorft.
  • Skippy (Frankie Ryan Manriquez): Coop's bratty cousin. Coop was forced to babysit him in an episode. Coop decides to take Skippy into space where they encounter the Glorft who were using the Moon to attack Earth, when Coop accidentally released Skippy (by pressing the “Eject Skippy” button), he ended up finding the device needed to deactivate the thrusters which would push the Moon into Earth.
  • Coop's Mom (Miriam Flynn): She never appears on screen, but in several episodes she can be heard yelling at Coop.
  • Glorft Commander (Kevin Michael Richardson): Gorrath's second in command. He seems to have an inferiority complex and is often scared of his commanding officer. His most common reaction when approached by Gorrath is to cower and say "NOT THE FACE!"
  • Magnanimous (Bruce Campbell): Head of the Intergalactic Robot Fighting Tournament. He uses Coop to make money in his battle arena, but when Coop refuses to lose for him they have a big fight resulting in Magnanimous being thrown in to a quantum singularity. In a later episode, Magnanimous comes to earth to challenge Coop for his title and to get revenge. (When asked how he escaped, he simply replies "It wasn't easy.") His appearance is a combination of MODOK and Campbell himself, consisting of an enormous, large-chinned head with tiny limbs. He often quotes lines from the Evil Dead film series.
  • REGIS Mark V (Michael Dorn): Short for Replicant Engineered for Galactic Infiltration and Sabotage. An advanced and powerful alien robot, it was supposed to be dumped into a black hole by a cloaked ship. Unfortunately, Coop damaged the ship and the robot landed on Earth. R.E.G.I.S. is capable of absorbing metal to make it grow, regenerating after being damaged, replicating itself, and is equipped with multiple laser weapons. It was defeated when Coop unwittingly made a smoke screen that cut off its supply of solar energy (similar to the clouds surrounding Earth in The Matrix). At the end of the episode, a little boy found REGIS’s broken face, which it seems wasn’t quite dead. The producers may have wanted REGIS to make a comeback in later episodes, but the show was cancelled before it could happen.
  • Skalgar (Jeff Bennett): Skalgar strives to be the most feared criminal in the universe, but is often made fun of because of his small size. Despite this he is incredibly powerful. When he gets word of a universal controller made by Coop, he goes to claim it for his own thinking it will let him control the universe. He is defeated by MEGAS when Skalgar's own attack turns against him. He resembles the Transformers villain Unicron in appearance (which is ironic considering his small size and Unicron's massive size).
  • Warlock (Neil Dickson): A space pirate, captain of the Saving Grace. Warlock has a fetish for red hair (regardless of gender), and he unsurprisingly fell in love with Kiva. He tricked her by promising that he would give her a time drive, but he really wanted to make her his queen. He was defeated when Coop threw a car horn into the Saving Grace, which attracted the Florgnots to it and made them attack it. He is a parody of Captain Harlock and anime characters in general.
  • Florxin and Tolbit (Wally Wingert): Crab-like aliens who perform tasks. Their first job was to dump the REGIS mark V into a black hole but thanks to Coop their mission was accidentally sabotaged. Florxin is the tall cynical one and Tolbit is the short clueless one. They appear again in "Junk in the Trunk" to apparently pick up litter thrown in space.
  • T-Bot (Phil LaMarr): A robot who resembles Mr. T. He was one of Coop's challengers in "The Return". He often spoke in a mean rhyming tone saying stuff as "T-Bot will pounce you! Trounce you! And Utterly Denounce you!" He later tried to attack Magnanamus when he learned he lied about the cash prize.
  • Gerkek (Beau Billingslea): A giant space alien who cares for nothing but destruction and misery. He was sealed away long ago, but was released by Coop when he was (square-peg-into-round-hole-style) testing a new game, not knowing it was a containment cartridge. Coop fought Gerkek and then blasted him, but this only turned him into a cocoon and transformed him into a bigger and meaner Gerkek. Gerkek was defeated when he got caught in a tidal wave which Coop caused and it shrunk him back down to size. He is now trapped in a "Love those Lurps" game console cartridge, thoroughly having the crap annoyed out of him. He somewhat resembles the American Godzilla
  • Varsin (Rob Paulsen): A redneck-type alien who owned a junk planet. He allowed Coop and his friends to look for a photonic stabilizer only so he could take MEGAS and its time drive, so he could go back in time and steal the universe's junk. He pilots a monstrous robot known as the Franken. He was defeated when Coop yanked a photonic stabilizer out from the Franken's body. Varsin also claimed he could "fix anything".
  • Fred: Varsin's pet space worm that attacked Megas upon arrival to the junk planet.
  • Darklos (Tia Carrere): A space alien bounty hunter who controlled giant beasts. She was ordered to find and capture Kiva Andru so her clients could study her and her future knowledge. Apparently she also comes from the future but her time is further than Kiva's. She lost when the beasts she controlled broke free of her control and took her to prison on their homeworld. She is currently performing community service. She bears a slight resemblance to the Yautja hunters of the Alien versus Predator series, only female, and without the mandibles.
  • R.E.C.R. (Phil LaMarr): Short for Reverse Engineered Collective Robot. A robot created by Area 50. Its prime programming was to "defeat the enemy", but due to a programming flaw it considered everything to be its enemy. It was awakened by MEGAS. It feeds off of energy and becomes stronger as it feeds. It also needs external energy to operate properly. Coop later buried the robot in the Grand Canyon to prevent it from draining any more power, but that act also destroyed the popular tourist site in the process.
  • Planet Sized Monster: A giant alien that was wandering through space devouring anything that gives off radio waves. When Coop caused a big blast of television waves that extended to deep space, it came to Earth and started eating the satellites around Earth. Due to its massive size, none of the missile attacks that Coop launched had much effect, and all the damage he caused inside it had little lasting effect on its health. Eventually, Coop caused it to blow up when he shot a missile that he used as a refrigerator containing pop rocks and soda into its stomach. This caused a torrential downpour of candy-covered monster guts on Earth (which Coop found delicious).
  • Gynok (Daran Norris): An alien plant spore from Saturn, it requires heat to grow and germinate. Taking the disguise of Auggie the Adorable Aardvark (a parody of Sonic the Hedgehog, it fought MEGAS because it considered it to be a threat to its germination process, it later multiplied and took the guises of the other parade balloons. Coop defeated it by feeding it extra heat it didn't need causing it to burn from the inside and explode.
  • S-Force: A group of superheroes from another galaxy, modeled after various Sentai groups (taking elements from Gatchaman's Battle of the Planets dub, Power Rangers, Silverhawks and Voltron), they first suspected Coop to be a bad guy most likely due to Coop's senseless destruction, they later learned that he was just stupid, not evil. Despite this they became great allies and later helped each other in a later episode. They pilot Zorps (direct parody of Zords - Falcon, Rhinoceros, Gorilla, Kangaroo and Panther - all of which were used in Sentai shows), which resemble animals. The pilots are Mac (Frank Welker), Argo (Scott Innes), Jax (Alan Young), Sloan (Ronnie Schell), and Duchess (Jennifer Hale). Their advisor is Targon, a floating holographic head (a reference to Zordon). Due to their interaction with Coop, the S-Force have picked up his habits, becoming fast-food loving, less than serious, video game junkies. Although in S-Force S.O.S they appeared to have reverted back to their serious selves.
  • Ultra-Cadets: Space chicks who came to Earth looking for Coop, instead they found Jamie. They needed Coop's assistance in fighting the Kurdock so Jamie, claiming to be Coop to impress the girls, went instead, not knowing what he was getting himself into. Later, Coop & Kiva showed up on their planet, and it was revealed that Jamie was an impostor. In the end, the Ultra Cadets were attacked by the Kurdock and it is unknown if they survived, but apparently they did as Goat was able to go to a movie with one of them. They are Galaxia, Comet, Pulsar, and Nova, and parodies of Sailor Moon and her teammates, the Sailor Scouts (this doubly ironic given that Galaxia is the name of a Sailor Moon villainess). Their voice actors are (Tara Strong), (Apollo Smile), and (Janice Kawaye)
  • Cryohocks: Otherwise known as the "Space Bigfoots" Their planet was being invaded by the Ceruleans, robots with the ability to transform into tanks much like the (Transformers). Coop helped them defeat the Ceruleans but at the same time also destroyed the planet Surell which kept the planet Cryhock cool in its shade. All the ice melted and now the Cryohocks now live on a warm planet, much to their chagrin.
  • Ator (Keith Szarabajka): The chieftain of the Space Bigfoots. He is the leader of his tribe of Cryohocks who lived in an ice village. His village was protected by a defector of the Cerulean army but Coop mistook him for the enemy. Ator then explained this to Coop and Coop in return became their guardian....for a short while. Named after the Italian Conan knock-off Ator.
  • Drarlig (Jeff Bennett): The Leader of the Ceruleans. He resembles Megatron in his appearance. (His soldiers resemble Shockwave.) He wanted ice to power up his ship. His ship was destroyed when a meteor from his own planet hit his ship.
  • Number 32 (Cam Clarke): An evil alien robot who, along with a number of other destructive robots, was brainwashed and reprogrammed as a gardener by Quarrel, the head of Prisoner Planet. After Coop and the gang accidentally ended up on that planet, they ask Number 32 for directions back to Earth, which rejogs his memory and puts Coop in conflict with Quarrel and his security robots. After Coop manages to destroy Quarrel's mind-controlling satellite dish, Number 32 and the other inmates resume their destructive habits, and Number 32 decides to 'thank' Coop for his help by attacking Earth.
  • Quarrel (Peter Cullen): The head of Prisoner Planet. Quarrel reprograms the AIs of dangerous criminal robots for the greater good. He mistook MEGAS for one of these, but the misunderstanding was soon cleared up. Quarrel decided to destroy MEGAS anyway due to Coop's interference. Ultimately, the criminals were all released thanks to Coop, who thought the robots were being held as slaves by Quarrel. This is possibly a reference to the novel/movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in which the protagonist lands himself in a mental asylum and tries to liberate the good-hearted inhabitants from a harsh dictator. In this case, however, the convicted robots are evil. Quarrel's ultimate fate after the release of the prisoners is unknown.
  • Ender (Dorian Harewood): One of the S-Force's enemies. He showed up while Coop was fighting the S-Force the first time and, mistaking him for a fellow villain, wanted to team up with Coop, but when Coop insisted he was good, he instead fought against Coop; he lost when Coop 'integrated' the Zorps into MEGAS (by brute force-- he shoved his arms and legs inside them) and used their power to defeat Ender, much to the dismay of the S-Force. Ender was sucked into an anti-matter rift all the while still praising Coop's "evilness".
  • Zarrik (Jeff Bennett): Another of the S-Force's enemies. He took over their planet and tried to throw the S-Force into the Infinity Zone but Coop came to their rescue and defeated him and his army. He pilots a giant snake mech and he looks sort of like a vampire.
  • Alternate Jamie (Steven Jay Blum): The leader of the resistance force in an alternate dimension. He is the hero of that Earth who fights against the evil forces of Coop and his army of robots. He apparently had a relationship with Kiva but Kiva left with Coop and became evil. Alternate Jamie is a battle-hardened man with a knee brace and is very brave and muscular. He modified the Glorft mechs into battle bots they can control.
  • Evil Coop (David DeLuise): The villain of the alternate dimension. After defeating the Glorft he snapped, he then wanted to defeat every baddie in the world and keep fighting, he eventually abandoned MEGAS (that is, he sealed it away) and became Evil. He now rules the alternate Earth with an iron fist, that is, until good Coop showed up and allowed Evil Coop to go to his dimension and take over that Earth. He was defeated by Coop, Gorrath, and Alternate Jamie and is now trapped in the Lurp Dimension. His shirt number is 13. His mech is a parody of Char Aznable's MSN-04 Sazabi.
  • Evil Kiva (Wendee Lee): Evil Coop's second in command. She followed Coop in the alternate dimension hoping to return home but she lost sight of her goal as well as her humanity. She became evil like Coop and follows his orders to a T. She, like Coop was trapped in the Lurp Dimension. She was a cyborg, who could control some aspects of her mech with her mind.

[edit] Megas

See: Megas (character)

[edit] Episodes

See: List of Megas XLR Episodes

[edit] Trivia

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Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.

[edit] External links

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[edit] Unofficial Sites

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