We continue our weekly tradition of looking at messed up cartoons of our past! This time we take a look at 1990’s Swamp Thing! What? Another childrens cartoon after a horror based book? YEP! He also had a successful series of films, one of which is directed by Wes freaking Craven, and a successful TV show!
I think the craziest part of the Swamp Thing cartoon, is it only had five episodes. Growing up I feel like it was on forever, and had a huge line of toys! Most of this is due to it being syndicated by Sci Fi, and being aired on multiple networks in different years. I remember having the swamp playset, where you could place Swamp Thing on a little elavator and push him through some foam “rising” from the swamp. They seem to have delevloped this toy for the cartoon, but since the cartoon didn’t take off, they used footage from the TV show. Ya know, the TV show that was meant for adults.
I can say this, the first episode goes right into it. There isn’t any introduction or origin story, you got Swamp Thing and his villains in the first 20 seconds. This of course after the amazing theme song, a parody of “Wild Thing” instead saying “SWAMP THING YOU ARE A-MAZING”. The oddest thing is the intro STARTS with credits, so you get credits, a guitar riff, and into the fun start.
Swamp Thing wakes up and is immediately attacked by Anton Arcanes henchmen (Dr.Deemo, Weedkiller and heh, Skinman). Swamp of course stops them and sends them running, as we our introduced to Swamps friend, Tomahawk (a Native American of course) and Bayou Jack (a Vietnam Vet). There’s some fodder characters that swamp thing helps throughout the episode as we are also introduced to Abby Arcane, Antons daughter, who is bent on helping Swamp Thing.
Anton realizes his henchmen are trash so in turn, he makes them into THE UN-MEN!! Now they are monstrosities, but still kind of dumb. They don’t really defeat Swamp, more so he just gives up and they take him. Tomahawk and Jack break him out, but have to save him as he dries up. He hydrates, stretches and goes on to kick some un-man ass. The most interesting part of this is how much Jack and Tomahawk actually do. The show almost should have been called Swamp Thing and his crew. The first episode is worth a watch, it holds up, the voice acting isn’t horrible and has Swamp Thing using quite a good amount of his powers.
This show ushered in all the Swamp Thing toys, including the commecial at the top of the article. Multiple Swamp Things, multiple vehicles and playsets made this toy line pretty amazing.
Did you have any Swamp Thing toys? Did you watch the five episodes?! Did you go back and watch the amazing live action TV series?! Join us next week as I trip down memory lane again and cover another fucked up cartoon from the 90s! If you have any ideas for cartoons you’d like me to cover you can leave a comment below, hit us up on facebook or IG, or even email me!
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