Megas XLR

Megas XLR is an animated series that airs on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network. It was created by Jody Schaeffer and George Krstic.

Originally entitled Lowbrow, the pilot episode was shown during CN's 2002 Summer Contest to determine which cartoon would become a new Cartoon Cartoon; 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.

Contents

1 The story 2 Characters 3 Equipment 3.1 Original equipment 3.2 Non-original equipment 4 Episode list 4.1 Season 1 4.2 Season 2 5 Theme song 6 Trivia 7 External links

The story

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 giant robot, Megas (Mechanized Earth Guard Attack System), from the Glorft and modifies it. 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 hand 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 the early 20th century. Megas languishes in a New Jersey junkyard until it ends up in the hands of two slackers, Coop and Jamie, around the year 2000. 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, she decides to train Coop for fighting.

Characters

• Coop (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 pilot. He's not exactly the brightest person around—often his amazing heroics are just accidents, and he usually ends up destroying more than he protects.
• Kiva (Wendee Lee): 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 and is highly skilled in both robotic and hand-to-hand combat. Kiva is intelligent, fearless and tough. Originally meant to be the pilot of Megas, she can no longer pilot it due to Coop's modifications. Instead, she tries to train Coop.
• Jamie (Steven Jay Blum): Coop's best friend and a smart-aleck slacker. His contribution to the team is, well, nothing.
• Goat (Scot Rienecker): The owner of the junkyard in which Coop found Megas, who dreams of finding a robot of his own.
• Gorrath (Clancy Brown): The head of the Glorft. Gorrath followed Kiva and led his army back in time to try and retrieve Megas. He hates Coop and often launches attacks to try to kill him and reclaim Megas, but always fails some way or another.

Equipment

Megas has some unusual and familiar components installed onboard—many are taken from popular anime series, though there are some original Coop designs among the weapons.

Original equipment

• The Jammer (first appeared in "Battle Royale") – A weapons-grade karaoke system that, when teamed with Coop's (very) off-key singing, is capable of generating a wave of sonic destruction capable of annihilating a space station. Use of The Jammer may very well constitute a war crime—not to mention a crime against all that is music.
• Super-Destructor Mode (first appeared in "S-Force S.O.S.") – A mode that covers Megas from head to toe in missile launchers. It would be devastating—if only Coop had finished debugging the targeting system.
• Mazer Refractor (first appeared in "Universal Controller") – Fires a beam that creates an invincible, deflecting force field around whatever it hits (although weapons that are inside the shield can still be shot out). If the polarity is reversed, it creates a reverse shield that lets everything in and nothing out.
• Energy Sword (first appeared in "Space Booty") – The hands of Megas can create a huge energy sword in a manner similar to that of Voltron.
• Cool Blade Thingy (first appeared in "Junk in the Trunk") – Blades surround Megas's entire body. Spinning blades have also appeared.
• Nitrous (first appeared in "The Fat and the Furious") – A mode that accelerates Megas's speed a thousand times, enabling it to move at lightning-like speed and leave dead mechas in its path.
• Manual Overdrive (first appeared in "The Fat and the Furious") – A Dance Dance Revolution-style system used as a back-up when the automatic driving gears fail. Coop dances, and Megas mimicks Coop's exact movements. Despite the silliness of the system, this can actually be very handy for use in combat.
• 5 Minutes Till End of Episode (first appeared in "Coop D'Etat") – Megas's fists burst into flames, enabling it to melt anything it touches

Non-original equipment

• Wave Motion Gun (Taken from Space Battleship Yamato, appeared in "Test Drive") – This highpowered weapon comes out of the front of Megas, consisting of not only the cannon, but a sizable portion of the bow of the Yamato as well. Accuracy is an issue, however.
• Autobot Matrix of Leadership (Taken from Transformers, appeared in "The Fat & the Furious") – Though not called by its name, the Matrix somehow wound up in Megas, where Coop and Jamie promptly injected pasteurized cheese spread into it and somehow created a cheese monster.
• Reflex Cannon (Taken from Robotech's adapted name for the super dimension energy cannon in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, appeared in "Viva Las Megas") – The ultimate weapon of the Macross is now part of Megas's armament. The weapon was part of a giant fortress; the front of it; and when the ship transformed, the front of the ship made two huge cannons.

Episode list

Season 1

1) "Test Drive" (5/1/2004)
2) "The Fat & the Furious" (5/1/2004)
3) "Battle Royale" (5/8/2004)
4) "All I Wanted Was a Slushie" (5/15/2004)
5) "Bad Guy" (5/22/2004)
6) "Buggin the System" (5/29/2004)
7) "Breakout" (6/5/2004)
8) "Dude, Where's My Head?" (7/31/2004)
9) "DMV: Department of Megas Violations" (8/7/2004)
10) "Junk in the Trunk" (8/14/2004)
11) "TV Dinner" (8/21/2004)
12) "The Driver's Seat" (8/28/2004)
13) "Coop D'Etat" (4/26/2005)

Season 2

14) "Ultra-Chicks" (10/16/2004)
15) "The Return" (10/23/2004)
16) "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Coop" (10/30/2004)
17) "Viva Las Megas" (11/6/2004)
18) "S-Force S.O.S." (11/13/2004)
19) "Space Booty" (11/20/2004)
20) "Thanksgiving Throwdown" (11/27/2004)
21) "Terminate Her" (12/04/2004)
22) "Ice Ice Megas" (12/11/2004)
23) "A Clockwork Megas" (12/18/2004)
24) "Universal Controller" (1/1/2005)
25) "Rearview Mirror, Mirror (Part 1)" (1/8/2005)
26) "Rearview Mirror, Mirror (Part 2)" (1/15/2005)

All air dates are U.S. air dates and are in U.S. format (month/day/year).

Theme song

Living here in Jersey
Fighting villains from afar
You've gotta find first gear
In your giant robot car
You dig giant robots
I dig giant robots
We dig giant robots
Chicks dig giant robots
Nice!

Trivia

• The pilot episode was extended 15 mintues for the episode "Test Drive."
• The animation style of the series is similar to that of anime.
• The voice actors for Jamie and Kiva (Steven Blum and Wendee Lee) are both popular anime voice actors.
• Mick Foley was the voice of Gorrath in the pilot episode. Clancy Brown is the voice of Gorrath in the series.
• The character Goat is originally from the animated series Downtown.
• The character Goat originally was with a cigarette in his mouth all the time, but it was changed to a lollipop in Season 2, probably because of Cartoon Network's broadcast standards.
• The character Magnanamus is based on the profile of Bruce Campbell who also lends his voice. His catchphrases are taken from his cult slapstick horror movies Evil Dead.
• Pop TV is an obvious parody of MTV (even the logos are almost completely identical).
• A recurring theme in the series is that anything that belongs to Pop TV (and, by extension, MTV) is destroyed. The most likely reason for this is that MTV cancelled Downtown, the animated series created by Chris Prynoski, the director of Megas XLR.
• Jody Schaeffer and George Krstic are huge fans of anime and video games.
• In "Breakout," Megas's double-deuce move seems to be taken from two Strong Bad emails. In one, Strong Bad flips the bird at a viewer with both hands (which he calls "the double deuce"). In the other, Stinkoman, whose signature move is the Double Deuce, is introduced.
• Michael Dorn (notable for playing the character of Worf in various Star Trek films and series) provided the voice for R.E.G.I.S. Mark V in the episode "All I Wanted Was a Slushie" and Number 14 in the episode "A Clockwork Megas."
• The episode "Ultra-Chicks" features four magical girl-type characters apparently parodying the feel of the English-dubbed version of Sailor Moon. This is evident in the long, elaborate intro sequences, the costumes, and even the appearances of the four characters. If one didn't know better, one would have mistaken the double-ponytailed girl for Sailor Moon herself.
• A sequence in "A Clockwork Megas" pokes fun at A Clockwork Orange.
• The S-Force characters are a parody of the G-Force group from the classic anime, Battle of The Planets.
• There is a rather surprising parody of Captain Harlock as the center of the episode "Space Booty" as well. The legendary establishing shot of Harlock's ship, the Arcadia, is directly ripped in every detail in the Megas episode. Although the Harlock rip off and the parody of the Arcadia are named differently, and the Harlock parody is considerably different in personality to the real Harlock; it is impossible for those familiar with the material to not notice. This is often considered the most daring anime parody in the series yet, as Harlock is seen as something of a sacred series among anime enthusiasts; the episode was something of a big surprise and well established that Megas XLR meant business when it came to parodying anime and games.
• In the episode "Space Booty", the VF-1 Valkyrie from Macross can be clearly seen in the hanger of the Space Pirate Ship.

External links

• Cartoon Network | Megas XLR (http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/megasxlr/index.html)
• TV Tome's Megas XLR guide (http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-25636/Megas_XLR/)
• G4techTV interview with Jody Schaeffer and George Krstic (http://www.g4techtv.com/screensavers/features/49962/Two_Minutes_with_Megas_XLR.html)
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