Trivia tropes for X-Men: The Animated Series
X-Men '97 has its own page.
Trivia With Their Own Pages
- Acting for Two: In the first season episode "The Unstoppable Juggernaut", Rick Bennett provides the voices for both Colossus and Juggernaut.
- All-Star Cast: The TV Tokyo Japanese dub cast includes many famous voice actors, such as Kōichi Yamadera (Cyclops), Masashi Ebara (Wolverine), Yuko Kobayashi (Rogue), Akio Ōtsuka (Colossus), Tesshō Genda (Cable) and Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (Magneto) among others.
- Ascended Fan Nickname: While officially just called "X-Men," the series has the "the animated series" moniker included on iTunes.
- Creator Backlash: According to the 2020 book X-Men: The Art and Making of the Animated Series, writer Julia Lewald and showrunner Eric Lewald weren't fond of the artistic decision to give Captain America red trunks.
- Creator's Favorite: During an interview done by
Doug Walker as The Nostalgia Critic, Julia Lewald (one of the writers) stated she and the rest of the crew behind the show's favorite character was Beast. Eric Lewald (showrunner) said that his was Professor Xavier. - Creator's Favorite Episode: During the above interview, among the episodes they personally worked on, Julia Lewald stated her favorites were "Days of Future Past, Part 1" and "Beauty and the Beast". In the case of Eric Lewald, his favorite episode was "One Man's Worth".
- Cross-Regional Voice Acting: The original series did this both ways. In the show itself, Storm's first voice and Gladiator's redone voice were performed by Americans (as noted below), while the cast returned to do their roles for the Spider-Man: The Animated Series crossover.
- Dueling Dubs:
- The Japanese version had two dubs, tthe first one aired on TV Tokyo in the 90's which pretty much threw the original script out of the window and turned the series into a comedy (unsurprisingly, this dub was directed by Yoshikazu Iwanami, the same director behind the infamous Gag Dub's of Beast Wars and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)). The second dub aired on Toon Disney in the early 2000's and its available on Disney+ Japan, with the many voice actors from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Unlike the Tv Tokyo dub, this one is very faithful to the original english script.
- The same goes for the Latin American Spanish dub, as there are two dubbed versions: one dubbed in Mexico for TV, and another one dubbed in Argentina for Disney+.
- Edited for Syndication: A few episodes had retakes and were rebroadcast with different and corrected scenes. "Night of the Sentinels Pt. I" had three versions: 10/31/92, 1/9/93, and 4/3/93. "Night of the Sentinels Pt. II" had three versions: 11/7/92, 1/9/93, and 4/10/93. Both episodes aired as a one-hour special on 1/9/93. "Enter Magneto" had two versions: 11/27/92 and 1/16/93. "Slave Island" had two versions, the first on 2/13/93 did not have the cliffhanger ending with the X-Mansion wrecked.
- Exiled from Continuity: Kitty Pryde was apparently barred from appearing in this continuity because of the failure of the earlier Pryde of the X-Men pilot.
- Fake American: Most American characters – such as Cyclops, Jean Grey, or Jubilee – are voiced by Canadian actors. Professor X is voiced by an Englishman, Rogue (who is meant to be from Louisiana) is voiced by Lenore Zann, an Australian raised in Canada who spent time in LA before moving back to Canada, and the German Nightcrawler is voiced by the Canadian Adrian Hough.
- God Does Not Own This World: Stan Lee was not creatively active with Marvel comics at the time the series was being produced so his involvement wasn't particularly big on the series. He gave some producers notes on the first thirteen episodes.
- Meme Acknowledgment:
- When Disney+'s official Twitter account revealed the X-Men '97 revival in late 2021, they did so with a meme of Wolverine wistfully gazing at a picture frame.
- Hasbro's 2022 90's Wolverine figure also includes what's referred to as "and... that picture frame!" and the stock photos indicating that the picture can be removed from the frame, much akin to a Meme Template.
- When Disney+'s official Twitter account revealed the X-Men '97 revival in late 2021, they did so
- The Other Darrin:
- Gambit was first voiced by Chris Potter, but was voiced by Tony Daniels in the final season.
- Iona Morris voiced Storm in the first season and the first few episodes of the second one, but left the show and was replaced with Alison Sealy Smith.
- Colossus was voiced by Rick Bennett in his appearance in "The Unstoppable Juggernaut", while Robert Cait voiced him in "Red Dawn".
- Randall Carpenter voiced Mystique in the first two seasons, while Jennifer Dale voiced her for the remainder of the show.
- Apocalypse was voiced by John Colicos in his first appearance and James Blendick in his second appearance.
- Master Mold gets a new voice actor in Season 4, who sounds completely different. Justified as it's a new model of Master Mold made after the original was destroyed.
- In the French dub, voice actor replacements were pretty common. For example, among the nine main characters, the only ones whose voice actors weren't replaced over the course of the series consisted of Wolverine, Rogue, Beast, and Gambit (who were voiced by Jean Barney, Francine Lainé, Bernard Tiphaine, and Antoine Nouel respectively).
- The Other Marty:
- For Mister Sinister's cameo appearance at the end of "The Final Decision," an actor was directed to read the line in a campy fashion. The writers would later develop Sinister as a more serious villain. After Christopher Britton was hired to voice the character, he re-recorded Sinister's original cameo. The re-recorded cameo appeared in various reruns for years, though the DVD release would feature the original version.
- This also applies to Gladiator in his appearances, with his lines originally recorded by an unknown (and uncredited) actor before replacing him with Richard Epcar (who also went uncredited) for TV airings and reruns. Similar to the Mister Sinister example above, the DVD release features the original performance.
- Out of Order: Some episodes that were intended for season 4 were pushed up to the third season. In turn, some season 3 episodes were pushed back - most ridiculously the episode "No Mutant Is An Island" which is supposed to take place during Jean's death between the Phoenix Saga and the Dark Phoenix Saga.
- "The Unstoppable Juggernaut" originally had to be aired after "The Cure" and "Come the Apocalypse" due to animation problems. The preceding episode "Slave Island" needed to have its ending tweaked to show the mansion intact, but the change still caused continuity hiccups (such as Xavier's being away and the mansion needed to be rebuilt). This was all cleaned up in reruns.
- The series was initially uploaded to Disney+ in this incorrect airdate order. In July 2022, the episodes were finally rearranged to the intended production order.
- Post-Script Season: Word of God states the "Beyond Good and Evil" four-parter was originally intended to be the Grand Finale. A renewal order led to more episodes being produced before the final end with "Graduation Day."
- Role Reprise: In the Japanese Toon Disney dub, many of the characters are reprised by their voice actors from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (though Cyclops is reprised by Takashi Nagasako from the second dub of that cartoon).
- Star-Making Role: For Lenore Zann and Cal Dodd.
- Troubled Production: "No Mutant is an Island," "Longshot," and "A Deal with the Devil" had to be pushed back two years due to severe animation problems. Production was lucky, though, that other episodes were ready to go and fill out the slots. "Longshot" was such a case that the original studio attached to it (Hong Ying, who also animated "No Mutant is an Island") was replaced entirely by a different studio and held over until the show's fifth season, explaining why the designs return to those of the first four seasons rather than using the ones for Season 5.
- An even more severe case happened with the "Night of the Sentinels" two-part pilot, to the point where the animators refused to fix them until Fox threatened to sever the contract.
- Unfinished Episode: While 76 episodes were produced, there remains one script that never made it into active production. It was called "Bring Me Charles Xavier," and would've brought back Colossus, Illyana, Omega Red and Darkstar for a "hard-edged" story set in Russia. The script ultimately went unproduced after multiple note-givers raised concerns about the premise of the story.
- What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
