Megas XLR

*Megas XLR*
Megas XLR
	File:Megas XLR.png Megas, Kiva, Coop, and Jamie.
Created by	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
Production
Running time	26 minutes
Original release
Network	Cartoon Network
Release	May 1, 2004 –; April 26, 2005

Megas XLR is an American animated 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.

Originally entitled Lowbrow, the pilot episode was shown during Cartoon Network'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 and was cancelled in April 26, 2005.

The story

Template:Spoiler 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 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 late 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—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, tough, and fearless. Originally meant to be the pilot of Megas, she can no longer pilot it due to Coop's modifications , and finds herself stuck in the present time. Instead of driving MEGAS herself, 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. The only thing he does is hit on cute girls (and he can't even do that.).
Goat (Scot Rienecker): The owner of the junkyard in which Coop found Megas, Goat dreams of finding a robot of his own.
Little Tommy: A kid who lives in Jersey City, he often goes "Coooooool!!!!" when he see's something cool.
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.
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 (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.
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. When approached by Gorrath he cowers and says "NOT THE FACE!"
Magnanamus (Bruce Campbell): Head of the Intergalactic Robot Fighting Tournament. He is uses Coop to make money in his battle arena, but when Coop refuses to lose for him they have a big fight resulting in Magnanamus being thrown in to a quantum singularity. In a later episode Magnanamus comes to earth to challenge Coop for his title and to get revenge.
R.E.G.I.S. Mark 5 (Michael Dorn): 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 consuming metal to make it grow, regenerating after being damaged, replicating itself, and is equipped with multiple laser weapons. It was defeated when Coop made a smoke screen that cut off it's supply of solar energy.
Skalgar (Jeff Bennett): Skalgar strives to be the most feared criminal in the universe, but because of his size he is often made fun of, dispite 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.
Skippy: 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 accidently released Skippy, he ended up finding the deviced needed to activated the thrusters which would push the moon to Earth.
Warlock: A space pirate captian of the Saving Grace. Warlock has a fetish for red hair. Which is no surprise why he fell in love with Kiva. He tricked her promising that he would give her a time drive, but really wanted to make her his queen. Dispite this he was defeated when Coop threw the car horn into the Saving Grace causing the Florgnots to attack it in a rage.
Gerkek: 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 testing a new game, not knowing it was a containment cartridge. Coop fought Gerkek then blasted him, but this only turned him into a cacoon 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.
Varsin (Rob Paulsen): A redneck type alien who owned a junk planet. He allowed Coop and his friends to look for a photonic stablizer only so he could take Megas and take the time drive so he could go back in time and steal the universe's junk. He pilots a monstorus robot known as the Franken. He was defeated when Coop yanked a photonic stablizer out from the Franken's body.
Darklos: A space alien bounty hunter who controlled giant beasts. She was ordered to find and capture Kiva Andru so her clients could study her apparently she 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.
ERCR (Phil Lamarr): A robot created by Area 50. It's prime programming was to defeat the enemy, but due to a programming flaw it considered everything to be his enemy. He was awakened by Megas. It feeds off of energy and becomes stronger as it feeds. It also needs energy to operate properly.
Gynok (Daran Norris): A alien plant spore from Saturn, it requires heat to grow and germinate. Taking the disguise of Auggie the Adorable Ardvark, it fought Megas because he considered it to be a threat to his germination process, it later multipled and took the guises of the other parade ballons. Coop defeated it by feeding it extra heat it didn't need and it exploded.

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, usually based on his obsession with video games, complete with control pads, joysticks, Trackballs and light guns.

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 "Battle Royale") – 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.
The Do Not Touch Button This launches multiple nuclear warheads. Fortunately, Kiva is able to keep Coop from actually using it. (first appeared in Viva las Megas)
Big Red Button of Irony (debut in Ice Ice MEGAS) involves using the enemy's own beam of destuction against them, it doomed two entire species directly and indirectly
Bet You Can't Guess What This Button Does (debut in Driver's Seat) - This is the ejector seat for the passenger side, which Coop uses to launch Gorrath into the air. He was surprised that it actually worked and stated "And who says my modifications backfire?"
Light Gun (debut in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Coop) - Pulling the gun out of the holster causes Megas to retract its right hand, forming a blaster. The blasts are powerful, but you have to 'reload' it after eight shots, by pointing down at the reload monitor, kinda like a arcade game and pull the trigger.
Custom Horn (appeared in Space Booty) - After discovering that Megas's custom horn severly enrages a colony of dragon-like alien creatures, Coop uses it to his advantage, hurling the horn into the ship of Captain Warlock, which leads the swarm of creatures inside, causing mass hysteria.

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.
Something Bigger (Taken from Robotech/Macross, although the name is original) - Megas transorms into a bipedal battleship, complete with cannons, missile launchers and rocket launchers.
Secondary Command Centre is an obvious allusion to the Enterprise Ds rather less than high tech secondary bridge. It includes various old monitors and control pad with twist buttons, and, surprisingly, a CB radio. Appeared in "Dude, where's my head?")
EMP Torpedo (Taken from Star Trek, appeared in "TV Dinner") - The design is obviously copied from the photon torpedo of the Star Trek movies, which was used as Spock's coffin in Star Trek II, Wrath of Khan.

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)
A team called the S-Force tried to stop Coop because they think that he's the bad guy! 6) "Buggin the System" (5/29/2004)
Coop accidently went into a spot in space full of mines!! Then he landed on a doughnut-like planet full of bugs... 7) "Breakout" (6/5/2004)
8) "Dude, Where's My Head?" (7/31/2004)
9) "DMV: Department of Megas Violations" (8/7/2004)
A bouty hunter tried to kidnapp Kiva. But Coop managed to stop her. 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 songs

Opening

"Megas XLR Theme (Chicks Dig Giant Robots)" by Ragtime Revolutionaries

Lyrics

Living here in Jersey

Fighting villains from afar

You 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 minutes for the episode "Test Drive", which was aired in four separate parts at half-hour intervals. The first part was aired during the left-over "end-of-block" time from the last day of Giant Robot Week (February 28, 2003).
Steven Blum and Wendee Lee are both popular anime voice actors who had been in several giant robot anime, which include Vandread, Big O, and Universal Century Gundam.
Mick Foley was the voice of Gorrath in the pilot episode. Clancy Brown is the voice of Gorrath in the series.
Goat is originally from the animated series Downtown.
Goat originally had a cigarette in his mouth all the time, but it was changed to a lollipop in Season 2, probably because of CN'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 the Strong Bad emails segment from Homestar Runner. In one SBE segment, Strong Bad flips the bird at the viewer with both hands (which he calls "the double deuce"). In another other, an anime version of Strong Bad named "Stinkoman", whose signature move is the Double Deuce, is introduced. It is important to note that both characters do not have visible fingers.
Michael Dorn (notable for playing the character of Worf in various Star Trek movies and series, as well as Weasel in the cartoon series I Am Weasel) 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." Additionally, the acronym R.E.G.I.S. was likely generated from the Cyborg Name Decoder.
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 could have mistaken the double-ponytailed girl for Sailor Moon herself. They are also a parody of the Japanese superhero Ultraman in that they can transform into large (robotic) versions of themselves and call themselves the 'Ultra Cadets', a jab at both Ultraman and the Sailor Senshi's dub name, the "Sailor Scouts."
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. However, they are also a parody of the Sentai/Power Rangers genre in general (they pilot "zorbs" as opposed to "zords" and their mentor is a floating holographic head in a tube). It also seems to be a parody of the popular anime Voltron, since the giant robot of the S-force looks extremely similar to the Voltron robot.
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 hangar of the Space Pirate Ship.
There were video game references throughout the series. Some include Mario, Luigi, Sonic, and Zero Wing.
Two of the robots who are fighting for the throne in Coop D'etat sound very much like Optimus Prime and Megatron from G1 Transformers Which were voiced by the original voice actors Peter Cullen and Frank Welker.
There is a planet which is identical to the planet-sized Transformer known as Unicron.
The two part series finale "Rearview Mirror, Mirror", features many references to the original Star Trek and Universal Century Gundam. The basic plot of the episodes, which center on an alternate universe where Coop and Kiva have gone evil and a battle-hardened Jamie opposes them, is taken from the classic Trek episode Mirror, Mirror, as the title references. Evil Coop's army consists of silver Zaku-lookalikes, while his personal machine has a head nearly identical to the MSN-04 Sazabi. Similarly, the relationship between the alternate reality characters (where Kiva chose to stay with Coop, instead of Jamie) mirrors the tragic relationship of Gundam protagonist Amuro Ray, his rival Char Aznable, and the young soldier Lalah Sune. The first part of this two-part also features a reference to the all your base are belong to us phenomenon, a similar phrase shows in a screen when Coop remembers his life of defeating aliens in video games.
Before launching his final attack against the villain, Coop usually makes some sort of speech or rant. These follow roughly the same formula, beginning with "Alright you (name of adversary), you (greviance commited against Coop), then you (another greviance commited against Coop) and now you (the greviance the villain is currently instigating against Coop)" followed by Coop declaring his intention to destroy the villain. There are variations, occasionally Jamie and Kiva will correct Coop on details of the rant ("I've got one word for you- GAME OVER!" receiving the response "Two words, Coop") and in the episode "Space Booty" Kiva interrupted the rant to complete it herself.
Megas' head has a strong resembeliince to a 1972 Plymouth Barracuda.
The episode Coop D'etat features robots that are homages to several 70s-era super robots, the two most obvious being Mazinger Z and Raideen. Several of the other robots bear partial resemblences to Gaiking, Dangard Ace and Baratac.

External links

Unofficial Sites