The Shit We Put Up With: Highlander - The Animated Series

Saturday morning cartoons are great. Whilst the genre has undoubtedly seen its peak with Ben 10, there's a lot of people who will tell you that the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties was very much the "Golden Age of Saturday Morning Cartoons". With shining examples like Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Thundercats, Warner Brothers' Batman and the massively underrated Battletech as examples, this would indeed seem to be a convincing argument. However, what historians often do is to gloss over the unsavoury parts of a claim. And by "unsavoury", I mean "things that don't fit in with their argument". What I'm saying is that while the above may be true: for every Inhumanoids there was Bucky O'Hare and for every M.A.S.K. there was a Gobots.

Actually, M.A.S.K. wasn't that good either.

However, the single greatest failure in the history of Saturday Morning Cartoons has to be this:

Yeah. You just saw what you thought you saw. Highlander: The Animated Series.

Everyone here has seen the film Highlander, right? If not, get the fuck off of this website. You can't be emotionally fourteen and not have seen this film. It's pretty much bad acting, awesome sword fights and a Queen soundtrack from start to finish. Kind of like Krull but with awesome sword fights and a Queen soundtrack.

Those of you who have seen the film know that the basic premise is that some people are born immortal, and these immortals have to fight each other to the death (they may only be killed by decapitation) until only one of them remains. Those of you wondering how violent swordfights and decapitation are going to transfer to the Saturday morning cartoon format are probably wondering the same thing as the owners of the Highlander franchise, the writers of Highlander: The Animated Series, and the confused children watching Highlander: The Animated Series and wondering what the bloody hell this has to do with the movie.

I can hasz irrelevant franchise?

The series fortunately managed to avoid this problem by not showing any decapitation and setting the story 700 years after the movie. Thereby having absolutely nothing to with the movie at all.

The story took place on a post-apocalyptic Earth, 700 years after a meteorite collided, killing almost all of the population. In this Madmaxian wasteland, the Immortals united and swore an oath to put aside the sword-fighting and killing, to preserve the knowledge that humanity had lost. Why the hell they'd want to do that is anyone's guess. If I was Immortal on a planet full of Immortal people, I know we'd be using rocket launchers on each other all day just for the hell of it.

However, one Immortal named Kortan (not to be confused with with the movie's villian "The Kurgan", despite the fact that by this point confusion is inevitable) did not ally himself with the other Immortals. He still sought the prize and his empire grew until he controlled most of the planet from his fortress "Mogonda" (not to be confused with the word "mong", despite that being funny).

Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert *applause*) challenged Kortan and was defeated. With Connor's death came the prophecy of the rise of a new immortal, he would defeat Kortan. Don Vincente Marino Ramírez (I think that was Sean Connery in the movie, but who gives a fuck by this point, as he died in Highlander and was back in Highlander II. This frachise and continuity are sworn enemies.), has since waited seven hundred years for the unavowed immortal.

Quentin MacLeod is said to be the descendant of Connor MacLeod. Whilst a lot of Saturday Morning cartoons actually built up mythologies and recurring characters (you all remember how awesome it was when The Rat King turned up for a second time in Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, and don't deny it), Highlander: The Animated Series took an existing universe full of interesting characters and then finger-banged them until they were unrecognisable. Then, they wondered why no-one watched it.

The scary thing? Highlander: The Animated Series actually ran for two seasons between 1994 and 1995. The scarier thing? A box set containing all forty episodes is available on Region 1 DVD. Of course, several crocks of shit that no-one really wants are available on Region 1, so that's not all that surprising I guess.

Highlander: The Animated Series was very much a product of the nineties, and it wasn't the only "adult" product to be twisted and marketed at children. Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles was originally an adult comic series. A toy-line was produced based upon Terminator II: Judgment Day (look out for a future article entitled The Shit We Put Up With: Terminator Merchandising).

This was the point in my life where I realised toys in real-life would never be as cool as they were in adverts.

And, of course, there was this, which thankfully never saw production.

We can't blame Highlander: The Animated Series for being a product of its time. We can however, blame it for the headaches it used to give when we pondered the question "Why?".

Now, to take this rotten taste out of my mouth:

Kung-Fu Thursday

V For Vendetta
Director: James McTeigue
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Fry, John Hurt
Fight Choreographer: Chad Stahelski
Country: US/UK/Germany
Released: 2005

Music Reviews

More music reviews for you now, with the quality of the entire package judged solely on the cover artwork. It's the only fair way.

Eagles of Death Metal - Heart On

I've been into metal and the metal scene since I was eleven. So, I can assure you that any band that is trying *this* hard to be metal has to be either restrained indie, or Machine Head. Neither of which is something that I would endorse.

This whole album cover is trying oh-so-hard to be kitsch, or ironic, (or whatever the hell it is when you're parodying something that you don't really understand) that it has to have been made by a bunch of students. It's got that jolly aren't-we-clever-ha-ha-ha attitude that students have all over their faces before you split their skull in twain with a battle axe. The red glossy nail varnish, the slight spattering of blood, and the slimline red font with the sine wave...all it's missing are the creases the cardboard cover picks up when you find it in a charity shop several years from now.

Either that or its a concept album about a hot woman who likes to pull peoples vital organs out and stick guitar leads into them. In which case this may be the most metal album ever made - 6/10

Franz Ferdinand - Tonight

It's not often that I get to review a band that I've actually heard of. I think the last one to achieve that was Guns N Roses. Maybe there are bands out there that have a presence outside of a track on Guitar Hero, but if there are, then I'm not really interested.

This cover is the perfect example of a band trying to say one thing, whilst accidentally saying something completely different (last witnessed with my review of LAX's The Game (or possibly The Game's LAX, it was kind of hard to tell)). It's clear here that the band is trying to say "No! Stand back! This man has collapsed due to the fantabulous rocking power within! His heart has overloaded and we're going to need to stick a guitar lead in just to get it beating again!"

Unfortunately for the band, it looks like they've just found this dead guy in an alley, and are trying to molest him, when all of a sudden we turn up, and the guy's all like "Whoa! Hi there! It's not what it looks like! We're just trying to help him. His flies were undone when we got here, I tell you! Then, his balls flew out and just happened to land in Simon's mouth!" - 4/10

Bands of the Household Division - Beating Retreat 2008

I'm not sure how this turned up on my review pile. I guess they must be a British battle-metal band of some kind. A "corps of drums" sounds pretty death metal too. This must be some seriously heavy shit. Err...horses, war-drums...swords...battalions...

You know what, I might actually have to hunt a copy of this down... - 10/10

Kreator - Hordes of Chaos

You see now, Eagles of Death Metal? If you'd stop trying too hard to be metal, then you'd end up with awesomeness like this! Blood red spiky font, black death/bootleg H.R. Giger style artwork. It's even called "Hordes of Chaos". This may actually be the most metal album this side of Beating Retreat 2008.

On the downside, looking at the artwork, this may not be an album and may just be an old Amiga game that wound up on my review pile somehow. - 8/10