Megas XLR

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Megas XLR

Title card of the series
Format Animated television series
Created by Jody Schaeffer
George Krstic
Voices of 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 – January 15, 2005
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Megas XLR (XLR = eXtra Large Robot) is an American Anime-influenced 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 (now Deathwish 9) (as listed in the credits).

Originally entitled Lowbrow, the pilot episode was shown during Cartoon Network's 2002 Summerfest, wherein eight original Cartoon Cartoon pilots were shown. As it was chosen as the most popular among viewers, Lowbrow was greenlit and became Megas XLR. 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. 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 the stories written by its co-creator George Krstic. Currently, Cartoon Network has no plans for an official DVD release of the series.

Contents

[edit] The story

In the distant future of 3037, 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 in time to the Battle of the Last Stand in 3035, 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, an attack by the Glorft forces the human resistance to send Megas back in time ahead of schedule. Kiva, one of the main architects of the plan, decides to pilot it and attempts to transfer into it from her own mech. During the attempt, Megas' head is blown off by enemy fire, destabilizing its timedrive and sending the robot 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 which Coop didn't pay anyway), around the year 2004. Coop turns Megas into a hot rod project and names it XLR, for eXtra Large Robot.

Kiva and the Glorft also go back in time in the hopes of retrieving Megas, arriving in Coop's time. When Kiva finds it she discovers that she is unable to pilot it because of Coop's modifications: the Glorft attack on Megas while Kiva was trying to send it back in time destroyed its entire head/control center, so Coop jerry-rigged together a new set of controls using car, stereo, and videogame parts. It also turned out that Coop's constant video game playing had made him the perfect destructive power when it came to piloting Megas, and almost any other giant robot for that matter. Kiva grudgingly decides to let Coop remain the pilot and train Coop in Megas' proper use until she can repair the timedrive.

[edit] Format

The series follows a fairly consistent villain of the week format. Few villains ever recur, and those that do serve much the same capacity.

Each episode begins with some mundane or seemingly unimportant task Coop is trying to perform. In doing so, Coop will often awaken, irritate, or otherwise incur the wrath of some alien force, usually possessing a mecha or something mecha-sized, if not an entire army of them. This threat will inevitably interrupt whatever task Coop is trying to perform, leading to a battle.

During the battle, Coop or the enemy will wreck a fair portion of Jersey City or an alien equivalent, Coop usually doing more damage (in one instance, when a gray-colored clone of Megas is destroying the city, people believe it's Coop because of the destruction). When in Jersey, they often wreck comically implausible buildings (Conveniently Placed Oil Refinery which Coop blasted a flaming robot into, for example), until a standoff results. At this point, Coop will reel off an average of three unforgivable things his enemy has done (more often than not, they are actually Coop's fault and when pointed out he just states that he is on a "roll"), the third one being the most "heinous" of all the crimes, which is almost always an incredibly trivial thing that Coop hardly even cares about himself (during the series finale, Coop declared that the very worst his alternate self did to him was make himself skinny). While reciting the list, Coop always revs MEGAS' engine, and once the list is finished, he proceeds to defeat the enemy. For the final showdown, Coop often uses some special 'power' surprisingly fitting the situation (i.e. "5 minutes until end of episode" button).

After the threat is over, Coop will return to the task he was performing, usually to discover that his battle has rendered doing so impossible. Coop also has a habit of destroying whatever he failed to destroy during the battle, usually by accident. Coop's battles also have a tendency to be for the opposite side. For example, he "frees" a group of brainwashed robots that are actually prisoners of a penal colony in "A Clockwork Megas".

[edit] Characters

[edit] Main Characters

Coop Cooplowski (David DeLuise)

Coop is an overweight, always-hungry video-game obsessed car enthusiast who against all odds has come into possession of Megas. 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. 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 destroyed Jersey City).

In spite of his apparent lack of intelligence, Coop possesses exceptional skill in mechanics, artistry and electronics, frequently "upgrading" Megas and tinkering with video game consoles and cars, though more often than not they malfunction. Coop has an insatiable appetite, which is a running gag throughout the series. Despite his physique, Coop is also quite strong, capable of punching through a television barehanded — being a slacker gamer, he suffers in the stamina department. Coop seems actually quite proud of his size, once correcting someone who called him "chubby" by saying he's "fat."

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. This Coop got into shape and abandoned Megas for a more war-oriented robot. However, this Coop may be fundamentally different from the Coop from the known timeline.

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, and is highly skilled in both robotic and hand-to-hand combat. Kiva is intelligent, tough, and fearless. She has a no-nonsense personality, but adopts a small sense of humor as the series progresses, and seems to grow more comfortable in the present time.

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. Instead of piloting Megas herself, she tries to train Coop, who would usually rather eat, play video games, or tinker with Megas.

In the series finale, the Kiva of an alternate dimension had started a relationship with Jamie, but decided to follow Coop as she was unwilling to abandon her attempts to get home. Later forgetting returning to the future, she continued to follow Coop (now evil), eventually becoming an uncaring cyborg ruling the alternate world with Coop.

Jamie (Steven Jay Blum)

Coop's best friend and slacker comic sidekick, Jamie, spends much of his time pondering schemes to use the Megas to get rich and hitting on cute girls (usually failing). He is a stark contrast to Coop, whose only thoughts tend to center around food. He appears to offer nothing of use during Megas combat other than criticism, but is almost always the first one to spot potential dangers, and his advice (usually ignored by fight-minded Coop) is generally prudent. Physically slight of build, Jamie would rather run away than fight; despite this cowardly nature, he always remains loyal to his friends and saves them in a few episodes. Even so, Coop actually has a gear marked Save Jamie.

In the series finale, "Rearview Mirror, Mirror", an alternate dimension Jamie had a romantic relationship with Kiva, but it fell apart after Coop and Kiva became evil. This Jamie became the heroic, muscular, and deadly serious leader of the resistance against the evil Coop.

Goat (Scot Rienecker)

The owner of the junkyard in which Coop found Megas, Goat unwittingly sold the destructive machine to Coop after Coop's pestering about a pile of junk prompted the response "anything in that pile for two bucks" — Megas, of course, happened to be (in) that very pile. Goat dreams of finding a robot of his own. Like Jamie, he often tries to hit on girls (usually Kiva), though he has shown a small amount of success compared to Jamie. Goat also appeared in the MTV series Downtown and another Cartoon Network series, Metalocalypse.

Gorrath (Clancy Brown, voiced by Mick Foley in Lowbrow.)

The leader 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. Gorrath is a straightforward strategist, fond of overwhelming force or spectacularly destructive weapons, ramming Earth's moon into the planet itself being just one example. He dislikes failure with a passion, which he usually takes out on his second in command. Gorrath is fond of threatening to remove the "jhorbloks" of others.

Gorrath, completely unwilling to accept that the "primitive monkeys" that are humans could defeat him, hates Coop and often launches attacks to try to kill him and reclaim Megas, but always fails in some way or other, usually because of sheer dumb luck on Coop's part. In the series finale, Gorrath almost decides to make peace with Coop after the two are forced to work together to defeat an evil Coop from an alternate dimension. In the process of shaking hands, Coop trips on a piece of debris and accidentally destroys Gorrath's army, thus ending any possible friendship.

Gorrath appears to be more muscular than most of the other Glorft 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] Recurring Characters

Magnanimous (Bruce Campbell)

Magnanimous is the 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 Bruce Campbell, consisting of an enormous, large-chinned head with tiny limbs. He often quotes Ash's lines from the Evil Dead films. The mechs he creates are Elvis parodies, in reference to Campbell playing Elvis in Bubba Ho-Tep, and in "The Return" he fights Coop with a mech that has a chainsaw on its right arm, and a gun in the left hand (another reference to his Evil Dead character).Coop has trouble pronouncing his Magnanimous' Name

S-Force

A group of superheroes from another galaxy, the S-Force is modeled after various Sentai groups (taking elements from Gatchaman's Battle of the Planets dub, Power Rangers, Silverhawks and Voltron).They also reference a team within one of the brave series. They first suspected Coop to be a bad guy, most likely due to Coop's senseless destruction, but they later deem him to unintelligent, rather than evil. Their name is a reference to the G-Force from Battle of the Planets, who they also resemble. Also, the character Duchess is a reference to Princess from Battle of the Planets. They pilot Zorps (direct parody of Zords - Falcon, Rhinoceros, Gorilla, Kangaroo and Panther) which resemble animals. The pilots are Mac (Frank Welker), Argo (Scott Innes), Jax (Alan Young), Sloan (Ronnie Schell), and Duchess (Jennifer Hale). Their adviser 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. However in S-Force SOS, it appeared that they reverted back to their serious selves, also the villain in that episode Zarek bears a striking resemblance to the villain Berg Katse from Battle of the Planets.

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of Megas XLR episodes

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)
  • In episode 5, "Buggin the System", a reference is made to Larry Niven's Ringworld (Halo style).
  • The tiles of episodes 25 and 26 ("Rearview Mirror, Mirror" parts one and two) of season two, are a reference to an episode of The Original Star Trek Series. In the Star Trek episode the crew of the Enterprise encounter a dark mirror universe populated by "evil" versions of themselves. This is similar to the Megas episode where Coop finds that the alternate dimension version of himself has destroyed Jersey City and plans to take over the world.
  • In "Coop D'Etat", Zanzor and Guyvan resemble Mazinger Z and Raideen. They are also voiced respectively by veteran voice actors Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, who performed mortal enemies Optimus Prime and Megatron in the original Transformers series.
  • The "Reflex Cannon" is taken from Robotech's adapted name for the super dimension energy cannon.
  • In The Episode Space Booty, Captain Warlock is a parody of an anime character Captain Harlock. Furthermore his ship "Saving Grace" is a parody of Harlock's ship Arcadia with the same skull design at the front.
  • "A Clockwork Megas" parodies both The Prisoner and A Clockwork Orange. In "A Clockwork Megas", Coop is heading off the planet and presses a Cruise control button, near the button is a button that says Cruisin' USA, a reference to the arcade game.
  • In the episode "Breakout" Coop references a video game called "Love those Lurps" The Lurps are parodies of The Smurfs as they bear many morphological similaraties differing only in skin colour from their Smurf Counterparts also The symbol on the ancient cartridge looks very similar to the symbol that was used as the Atari logo, Grrkek sounds very similar to Kerrek, a character created in the Homestar Runner online series, also Coop performs an attack entitled The Double Deuce in this episode; this is a reference to the Homestar Runner online series, as the character Stinkoman performed an attack that was called The Double Deuce, which looked identical to what Coop did.
  • In Episode 18, "Thanksgiving Throwdown", a parade similar to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held in Jersey City. Among the balloons in the parade are Augie the Aardvark (an obvious parody of Sonic the Hedgehog) and the Super Fabio Brothers (two red-and-green clad mechanics that resemble Mario and Luigi). In the episode "The Return" The Giant Kaiju seen in the opening (bugma) is very similar to Megalon.

[edit] External links

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