Fantastic Four

I have very fond memories of watching this show when it first aired in the early 90's and while it is defiantly not the best animated show I have ever seen it is far and wide better then the previous Fantastic Four cartoons. I did not catch this show often enough just when I was really starting to get into it it was gone. Still I remember Stan Lee opened every show and that was just awesome. I still wish cartoon network or someone would reair this show if not that then at least release it on DVD. I mean it was great you got a half hour with the fantastic four and a half hour with iron man. Not to mention the awesome guest stars that would pop up. I remember in one episode of the fantastic four the Hulk popped up and was fighting the ting almost the entire episode ,just classic. later on Thor showed up and so did the Silver Sufer if I remember right. Also there was a cool inhumans episode. If you see it on the air its defiantly worth watching

This Fantastic Four cartoon was part of the Marvel Action Hour along with Iron Man. At first, the animation and dialogue was pretty bad and they had annoying supporting characters, but the series remained true to the comics. The story lines they took from the comics were done very well, like episodes involving the Silver Surfer. When the second season began, animation vastly improved and the series became more serious. Too bad it was the last for the show.

This series (which was based on the Marvel comic of the same name) initially ran for two seasons in syndication as one half of a weekly show called The Marvel Action Hour (the other half was Iron Man). Perhaps The Fantastic Four was a rare case on a series that actually improved later on. The first season was lacking in various areas. The animation was stiff and appeared to be lacking with the textures (they looked very bright and rough to put it in other words). Somehow, there was at times a feeling that the stories were boarding towards camp. What stands out the most about the first season of The Fantastic Four is the theme song. Although the theme song was catchy, it was also really cheesy and sounded more like a jingle than anything else. Throughout the series, certain annoying factors tended to surface whether it was the theme from the first season or some fairly irritating supporting characters. When the second season came along, several improvements were made. The animation was better, a stronger theme song was put into place, and the episodes felt more action packed.

The first season (or episodes 1-13 if you're watching on Disney+) is really quite poor. This is apparent fairly immediately too as you're hit by a dreadful disco opening theme. The animation isn't terrible but it's not good either, villains especially look bad, most notably Dr Doom and the muscle-bound Silver Surfer (serving a poor Galactus). Unlike the other Marvel cartoons there is no depth to any storylines, they're quick, easy, and very conveniently finished by having Mr Fantastic just saying something about science and you're done. It's a kids cartoon that can only be enjoyed by kids. It's super camp as well, in one episode Johnny Storm even has a musical number for no reason.

5/10

The second season has far better animation, dialogue and plots. It gets a lot more interesting as in the last few episodes there are a lot of crossovers with other characters from the Marvel universe. Perhaps with it being the same release years as other cartoons then plots could have interlinked instead of being repeated though (mostly with Silver Surfer). It's still far from perfect, especially with one of the last episodes just being a very lazy clipshow, but majorly improved.

7/10.

The first season was one of the worst cartoons I'd ever seen in my life; the second season was one of the best.

The first season had bad animation, bad character designs, unbelievably stupid dialogue, bad stories, and a general disregard for the source material. As an example they had both the Thing and the Human Torch rapping (!) And not even in the same episode!!!

All of this I attribute to one Ron Friedman, who treated this show as though he had lost a bet. Numerous examples of his incompetence abound in this series and both the show and fans of the Fantastic Four comic suffered for it.

The second season was a godsend. The animation, while still similar to 1st season, had improved, mostly in the character designs, and the stories and dialogue had improved a thousandfold. I attribute the success of this season to Tom Tataranowicz (taking over for the mercifully s#it-canned Friedman). The producers (I assume Tataranowicz was behind this) made the smart move of adapting scripts directly from the old comics and, in some cases, even improving upon them! It was a real pleasure seeing Jack Kirby's vision finally done justice.

It's such a shame that the big stories (the Galactus trilogy, for instance) had already been butchered by Friedman and friends. It's also a shame that the later success of the show couldn't help it into a third season. But, hey, at least we got cool FF toys out of the deal!