Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light

This cartoon used was one of the best of its time in the late 80's era. I mean it foretold about the coming of a second age of magic. You would also see spectacular animation such as man transforming into beast.

You would also see the heroic Spectral Knights fight against the evil Darkling Lords. If you haven't seen this movie or television series. You are missing out on a cartoon that became a legend.

Sometimes I wonder why Visionaries remained as a rather obscure 80s cartoon, considering than in many ways it could have easily become a succesful franchise as Transformers, G.I. Joe or even He-Man.

The setting, the characters and their powers had a lot of potential to explore, and it's such a shame that almost nobody remembers this series nowadays.

So anyway, there I was today watching my just recently acquired (from a car-boot sale) VHS of Visionaries, and I suddenly realised that unlike so many kids series from the 80's, this one really held up. It had remarkably good animation for a Saturday morning cartoon, the plots were quite complex without being confusing, the dialogue was sophisticated and not cheesy at all and overall it was just a very imaginative, quality programme. Plus unlike say, He-man, it didn't have some patronising moral that was rammed down your throat at the end of every episode, which has got to be worth at least an extra 50 points in my opinion. Far superior than most of the dreck that gets passed off as children's entertainment these days, this comes highly recommended. It's hard to find though, so keep an eye out..

I loved Visionairies. It was brilliantly written with an older age theme compared to similar cartoons such as Thunder cats.

Very well thought out with the way the good and the bad knights had animals they turned into and special powers to use from their magic staffs. The good and the bad knights were opposites to each other pretty much with the good guys being 'way too nice for their own good' and the bad knights a bit over obsessed with getting their enemies. This just made for some classic action. Don't know how it didn't get an second series! Everyone I know who watched it at the time rate it as the best cartoon they have seen...Classic! You can watch every episode on You tube if you have the time.......and that is time well spent! Ben

Of this series made, I just don't understand...

For once a Hasbro toy based cartoon with a decent plot and a great cast of Voice actors.

The planet Prismos a futuristic earth type world which is thrown back into a medieval type age when the planets suns a re-aligned causing there technology and energy sources to be rendered useless and an age of Magic begins.

Basically it's your same old Good Vs Evil story only both sides have magical totems which alow them to turn into Animals/Mammals/Insect and Beasts for a certin ammount of time, they are also given magical staffs each staff has a differn't power, Wisdom, Light Speeed, Knowledge, Strength, Decay, Destruction, Fear and Invunrability, Visionaries that did not have staffs found that they could magically power machines (which also had powers like the staffs)

The Voice where brilliant and Perfect for each of the parts.

Neil Ross (Springer/Slag (and various other voices) of Transformers Centurions and G.I. Joe) as the voice of Leoric.

The late Chris Latta (Starscream/Cobra Commander of Transformers and G.I. Joe) as the voices of Cravex and Darkstorm.

Peter Cullen (Voice Of Optimus Prime in Transformers) as the voice of Cindar

Roscoe Lee Browne (Voice of The Kingpin in the 90's Spiderman cartoon) as the voice of Merklyn/Reekon.

Jim Cummings (Winnie the poo and Tigger) as the voice of Witterquick and the Bearer of Knowledge.

Jennifer Darling (probably know for her role as Callahan in the six million dollar man series) as the voice of Virulina.

Bernard Erhard (Cy-kill's voice from the Go-Bots) as the voice of Cryotek (Cool name which was recently reused for the name of a repaint of Transmetal 2 Megatron toy (from the beast wars series) as a Robots In Diguise Toy)

The late Jonathan Harris (probably best know as Dr Zachary Smith from the 60's series lost in space (which also starred a young Bill Mumy of Babylon 5 fame) as the voice of Mortredd.

Michael McConnohie (Cosmos and Tracks voices from Transformers) as the voices of Ectar and Lexor.

Hal Rayle (Voice of Shrapnel and Snarl in Transformers) as the voices of Arzon and The Wisdom Owl.

Beau Weaver (Voice of Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic) from the 90's Fantastic four series and Octane from Transformers) as the voice of Feryl.

A great series which should along with G.I. Joe be brought into the 21st century by Hasbro by making a new series for it, granted it would'nt be the same without the likes of Chris Latta and Richard Harris but I'd love to see a Visionaries series remade possibly with CGI.

Or at least have the original episodes remasterd by Rhino and released on DVD.