Trivia / Iron Man: The Animated Series

• Creator Backlash: Being Asian, Season 2 producer Yi-Chi Chen wasn't exactly happy about having to use the Mandarin in the show; he still at the least tried to give the character a more respectful depiction than he had in the first season.
• Divorced Installment: When the show was cancelled after two seasons, the tie-in action figure line was axed before the fifth wave could be released. The figures were repainted, given new head sculpts, and then released as part of the toy lines for Spider-Man: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series.
• Dueling Dubs: There are two Japanese dubs. The first Japanese dub was aired on NHK BS2 in 1996 as part of the "Satellite Anime Theater" block, and features a unique Japanese theme song among other things. The second Japanese dub has a completely different voice cast and was produced specifically for Disney+, where it can be found under the show's Japanese audio track. Unlike the first dub, the second dub retains the original intro and theme music.
  • Oddly enough, the same dubbing studio (HALF H·P STUDIO Co., Ltd.) handled both the original dub and the redub.
• Edited for Syndication: A rather unusual case. When the show was on Netflix for a while, the show was, for the first time since its original broadcast, presented with its original Marvel Action Hour branding (and the Fantastic Four: The Animated Series episodes were included, despite nothing in Netflix's listings indicating that) and Stan Lee intros! (The only thing changed in this case was removed the outdated Marvel and Genesis and/or Saban logos in favor of the current Marvel Animation logo.) However, Season 2 was rather strange since the Season 1 Marvel Action Hour intros were edited together with the Season 2 intros, apparently to remove any trace of the Marvel Action Universe branding they used for that season (possibly because for said season, IM and FF were joined by another New World show, Biker Mice from Mars, which Disney also owns but not the characters and underlying IP); it was very obvious as the voiceover suddenly switched from Jim Cummings to Tom Kane.
• Exiled from Continuity:
  • The 616 version of Force Works featured U.S. Agent, who presumably did not appear because of rights issues (as the character is tied to Captain America).
  • Likewise, the producers could not use Cap himself in Season 2's Armor Wars adaptation. (Cap was referred to in one episode, though.)
• Fake Brit:
  • Neil Ross as Wellington Yinsen.
  • Ed Gilbert and Robert Ito as the Mandarin.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Dorian Harewood took over for James Avery as War Machine, Whirlwind, and Whiplash early into Season 1. Strangely, James Avery returned to voice War Machine in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, despite Harewood having already taken over the role by that point (possibly because Harewood was already voicing the villainous Tombstone on the show).
  • Harewood, Robert Hays (Iron Man), John Reilly (Hawkeye), Jim Cummings (M.O.D.O.K.), and Neil Ross (Fin Fang Foom) were the only cast members to return for Season 2. Virtually everyone else was replaced.
  • Century also suffered from this... twice! His original voice actor James Warwick was among those let go in-between seasons. In "The Beast Within," Jim Cummings takes over voicing the character. But in the "Hands of the Mandarin" two-parter, fellow series regular Tom Kane had the role instead. (This was most likely because H.O.M.E.R. didn't appear in Part 2 and production wanted Kane to have something to do.)
• Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy: Zig-zagged. The first season had the normal, space and hydro armors accurate to the toys. Season 2 replaced the normal armor with a more streamlined version (most notably lacking the mouth slit), which wasn't available as its' own toy; the closest thing was the inferno armor (which owing to the needs of the toy wasn't as accurate). The samurai armor, which was only briefly glimpsed (notably during the intro) was also colored a dark blue/black as opposed to the greeny-blue of the toy, and the stealth armor was colored in shades of gray, as opposed to the dark blue/black color scheme from the action figure. The magnetic, lava and radiation suits were accurate to the unreleased toys, however.
  • Decades later, the Hasbro Marvel Legends Retro Iron Man figure basically attempted to meet halfway between the show's depictions (including an alternate swappable faceplate with mouthslit, and a Tony Stark head with mullet) and those seen in the 1990s video games (specifically the Proton Cannon and the shape of the non-mouth slitted helmet).
• Troubled Production: The show was a mess behind the scenes, with Marvel viewing it as an afterthought whose sole purpose was to sell toys. The second season had no producer until three months into production, which resulted in 12-hour work days with no weekends off. The staff also had little say in things about plots and character designs, which were largely dictated by Marvel and Toy Biz.
• What Could Have Been:
  • If the show had gotten a third season, one idea was to delve more into Tony's inner demons, including his inability to establish a firm relationship with Julia (her giving Tony an ultimatum would send him into a downward spiral) and his guilt over being a weapons manufacturer.
  • In Season 1's pre-production, IM's armor had no mouth slit on the faceplate and the Mandarin's design was different, with a blue outfit instead of green and a yellow helmet that was ultimately omitted (though it still came as an accessory with the action figure). The mouth slit was added late in production; several bits of animation still hint at the original design.

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