This month’s roundtable discussion is about TV cartoons adapted from movies. What were our favorites? What were the weirdest or most tenuous adaptations? Let’s talk about cartoon spin-offs of our favorite films!

Justin: Growing up in a household where many popular movies were forbidden, the big loophole in the late ’80s and early ’90s was indulging in the cartoon spin-offs. And oh boy were there so, SO many in this era!

Probably the greatest and most popular of these was the Real Ghostbusters, which ended up being a genuinely great show in its own right that expanded upon the mythology, gave us some serious spooks, and even had a follow-up series (The Extreme Ghostbusters) in the ’90s. And speaking of spooks, I was totally immersed in the delightful Halloweenish antics of Beetlejuice while that was on the air. That show softened the antagonistic ghost but kept the Tim Burton vibes going strong.

What else? There was the “I can’t believe this even got made” Attack of the Killer Tomatoes cartoon that I loved dearly and set me on a course to be a cult movie reviewers. The Police Academy cartoon was so-so, as was the Back to the Future spin-off (with Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown once more!).

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t share my favorite after school staple, which was a good dose of Batman: The Animated Series. Clearly drawn from the Burton movies while still being its own thing, Batman TAS was not merely a good kids cartoon, it was terrific television, period. It was so incredibly influential in the superhero cartoon scene and the Batman franchise that we’re still feeling the effects of it decades later.

Anthony: When I was a kid, decades ago, Saturday morning cartoons were a sacred ritual, like eating cereals with milk or forgetting to put the seat down after peeing. And the 1980s of my youth were the heydays of cartoons adapted from movies.

I grew up with The Real Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice and Bill & Ted and Teen Wolf and even friggin Robocop! Choosing one would be like choosing my favorite Rick & Morty t-shirt: I dare not hurt their feelings. So it’s a good thing I don’t have to, because my absolute favorite was definitely NOT a Saturday morning cartoon, nor even an ’80s one: MY palm goes to the hilarious and criminally short-lived adaptation of my generation’s manifesto, Clerks.

Quick history recap, here. After the word-to-mouth success of the Kevin Smith indie darling, network TV decided to make a sitcom of it and promptly forgot to invite the man himself. Smith had heard about it and asked to at least sit in on the pre-production because who knows the subject more than the guy who wrote the film, but as per the man himself it was clear the direction taken was nowhere near the tone and soul of his film so after half a day he just quietly walked away. Said sitcom never made it past the pilot stage, and from the looks of it, not a bad thing.

Smith himself tells the story of the show’s inception much better than I ever could, so I’ll just say that since he couldn’t adapt his own movie for live action, he’d write a cartoon show instead. Unlike the sitcom, this one featured the original voices of the movie’s two leads plus the addition of Alec Baldwin playing a new nemesis of the boys named Leonardo Leonardo, and Jason Mewes reprising his Jay persona who now deals firecrackers rather than drugs, because network TV.

ABC picked up the series, it’s second only ever adult animated show after The PJs, and then canceled it just TWO episodes in. Six were produced in total and were released on DVD so that we could enjoy them all and not just the couple that aired. Honestly, I kinda get why the Mouse axed it, as it wasn’t really a show for their own audience, but it didn’t deserve to die so unceremoniously after just two airings. Had it been produced in the 2020s, it would have been perfectly at home on Fox’s Sunday night animation block alongside Bob’s Burgers and Krapopolis, and would even look tame compared to those shows. Heck, bring it back and make it an Adult Swim companion to Rick & Morty or Robot Chicken. Not saying it’s a similar show, I’m saying I enjoy ALL of those. And if you’re a big fan of Kev’s 1990s work I’m positive that you missed out if you haven’t seen this little gem.

Sitting Duck: You might regard the Criterion Collection as a rather unlikely source for Saturday morning animated schlock. Clearly you have been spared from the horror that is the Hanna-Barbera produced Godzilla cartoon from the late 1970s (yes, the Godzilla franchise is in the Criterion Collection, even Godzilla vs Megalon).

But my choice is perhaps a bit more dignified than that. I speak of Samurai 7, which takes the renowned Kurosawa film and weirds things up, adding in stuff like giant robots and flying warships. Also Kikuchiyo gets reimagined as a steampunk-esque cyborg with a chainsaw katana, while Kyuzo looks like Spike Spiegel of Cowboy Bebop cosplaying as Vash the Stampede of Trigun.

For those who insist on an actual Saturday morning cartoon from my misspent youth, I guess I could go with Droids from The Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour. Now unlike certain people who will remain nameless, I’m not ashamed to admit that liked the Ewoks back when I was a kid (yes, even the two TV movies). Even so, I definitely recall preferring the Droids half of that particular programming block.

However, I’m not inclined to find out if it’s managed to hold up over the years. Nine times out of 10, childhood favorites prove to be so much drek for your adult tastes and my preferences in science fiction have shifted away from the Star Wars franchise. So I doubt it’ll be worth shelling out for a Disney+ subscription to find out for sure.

Drake: I’m going to cheat just a little bit here, as this one wasn’t a direct adaptation from the movies. However, Batman: The Animated Series certainly would not have existed without the outrageous success of Tim Burton’s Batman films, and visually and conceptually the cartoon owes a great deal to the movies.

But under the watchful eye of producer and animator Bruce Timm, Batman: TAS took on a life of its own, building a cartoon universe that not only relied on classic villains like the Joker (definitively voiced by Mark Hammill), but introduced new characters as well. And one of them, Harley Quinn (voiced by the character’s own inspiration, Arleen Sorkin), became so ridiculously popular that she made the jump to comics, and then looped back around into film as well. That’s an incredibly rare thing to happen, but the quality of Batman: TAS was such that Quinn made the jump to the official Batman canon effortlessly, her character already established by the cartoon.

For many, Batman: TAS is the Batman, and I’d be hard-pressed to argue. Mixing classic characters with new designs and ideas, it’s an outstanding example of how an intellectual property can excel in the right hands. Now if only they’d let that Timm guy work on the movies…