''M.A.S.K.'' is a 1985 French/American

animated television series An animated series is a set of Animation, animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can ...

produced by DIC and ICC TV Productions, Ltd. The series was based on the

M.A.S.K. M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) is a media franchise created by Kenner. The main premise revolved around the fight between the titular protagonist underground task force and the criminal organization V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network o ...

action figure An action figure is a poseable character (arts), character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are ...

s produced by

Kenner Products Kenner Products, known simply as Kenner, was an American toy company founded in 1946. Throughout its history, the Kenner brand produced several highly recognizable toys and merchandise lines including action figures like the original series of ' ...

. It was animated in Japan by Ashi Productions, Studio World and K.K. DiC Asia (later known as K.K. C&D Asia).

Overview

M.A.S.K. (an acronym for "Mobile Armored Strike Kommand") is a special task force led by Matt Trakker, who operate transforming armored vehicles in their ongoing battle against the criminal organization V.E.N.O.M. (an acronym for Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem) with an emphasis on superpowered helmets (called "

mask A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment and often they have been employed for rituals and rights. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practic ...

s") worn by the characters of both factions. V.E.N.O.M.'s primary goal was obtaining money through either robbery, extortion, counterfeiting, kidnapping, or attempting to steal historical artifacts, but M.A.S.K. always found a way to foil their plans.

Cast

Doug Stone Doug Stone (born Douglas Jackson Brooks; June 19, 1956) is an American country music singer and actor. He debuted in 1990 with the single "I'd Be Better Off (In a Pine Box)", the first release from his 1990 self-titled debut album for Epic Recor ...

– Matt Trakker, Hondo MacLean, Dusty Hayes, Bruce Sato, Nash Gorey, Bruno Sheppard, Boris Bushkin, Maximus Mayhem * Brendan McKane – Miles Mayhem, Alex Sector, Floyd Malloy, Jacques LaFleur, Nevada Rushmore * Graeme McKenna – T-Bob, Brad Turner, Julio Lopez, Calhoun Burns * Mark Halloran – Sly Rax, Buddy Hawks, Cliff Dagger, Ace Riker, Duane Kennedy * Sharon Noble – M.A.S.K. Computer, Gloria Baker, Vanessa Warfield * Brian George – Lester Sludge, Ali Bombay * Brennan Thicke – Scott Trakker

Crew

Season 1 (1985)

* Story editors:

Terrence McDonnell Terrence McDonnell is an American television screenwriter and producer, best known for his collaboration with Jim Carlson in the first ''Battlestar Galactica'' series. The two of them also wrote the 1988 animated feature film ''Pound Puppies an ...

and Gary Warne * Writers: Jina Bacarr, Rod Baker, Creighton Barnes, Patrick Barry, Jack Bornoff, Del Bruckman, Barbara Chain,

Kerry Ehrin Kerry Anne Ehrin (born October 8, 1960) is an American screenwriter, showrunner, and producer. In 1990, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for her work as a producer on the American Broadcasting Company, ...

, Herb Engelhardt, Mel Gilden, Ralph Goodman, David Gottlieb, Barbara Hambly, Trevor Meldal-Johnson,

Fred Ladd Fred Laderman (February 19, 1927 – August 3, 2021),''Tol ...

, Chuck Lorre, Ali Matheson, R. Patrick Neary, Dianne Nezgoda, Jack Olesker, Glen Olson, Alfred A. Pegal, Jessica Radcliff, Ginger Roth, Jeffrey Scott, Chris Weber & Karen Willson, S. S. Wilson, Erica Byrne * Directors: Bruno Bianchi and Bernard Deyries

Season 2 (1986)

* Story editor: Jack Olesker * Writers: Ray Dryden, Jack Olesker * Director: Michael Maliani * Animation Production:

Ashi Production is a Japanese anime studio, located in Suginami, Tokyo, Japan, known for its four magical-girl anime, especially ''Magical Princess Minky Momo''. It was established by Toshihiko Sato and other artists on December 20, 1975, as ''Ashi Productions ...

(credited as Ashi Pro.), Studio World (Only the season two end credits gave credit to these studios on screen)

Episodes

A total of 75 syndicated episodes over two seasons were broadcast from September 1985 to November 1986. The first season consisted of 65 episodes. The second season, whose theme centered around

auto racing Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

instead of crimefighting, lasted only ten episodes.

Production

One of many cartoons produced during the 1980s as a vehicle for toy merchandising, ''M.A.S.K.'' was a hybrid of popular era cartoons '' G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero'' and '' The Transformers''. When originally broadcast, ''M.A.S.K.'' was the first

closed-captioned Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio por ...

series to air in first-run syndication.

Home video

Several episodes of the series were released under Karl-Lorimar's "Kideo Video" branding on VHS in the 1980s, with two episodes per tape. The "racing" second season was distributed by Tempest Video. In the United Kingdom, two releases titled ''M.A.S.K The Movie'', and ''M.A.S.K The Movie II'' were released by

Tempo Video Abbey Home Media was a British home media distributor that released content aimed at children. It was founded in March 2002, as the successor company to Abbey Home Entertainment (AHE), which was acquired by the Just Group in 2000. The company r ...

, featuring episodes edited into a feature-length format. M.A.S.K. episodes have been released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

in three different regions: * USA:

Shout! Factory Shout! Factory is an American home video and music company founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases include previously released feature films, classic and contemporary television series, animation, live music, and comedy ...

acquired the Region 1 DVD rights and released a "Complete Series" set on 9 August 2011 containing only the episodes from the first season of the original series (65 episodes), as well as a separate 2-disc collection of the first 11 episodes, called "Volume 1" and released the same day. The second season, which consists of 10 episodes, are owned by WildBrain and are not part of the acquisition. * UK: A single DVD set containing the first 5 episodes was released by Maximum Entertainment (under license from

Jetix Europe Jetix Europe N.V. (formerly known as Fox Kids Europe N.V.) was a European television broadcasting company that owned children's television channels and programming blocks across the Europe and Middle East, such as Jetix and Jetix Play. History F ...

) in August 2004. In November 2007, Maximum released Collection 1, containing the same number of episodes as the Australian set. Collection 1 was re-released on 31 August 2009, and Collection 2 was finally released on 28 September the same year. Both sets (the re-issue Collection 1 and Collection 2) are distributed through Lace DVD, replacing Maximum Entertainment, and both sets are in Region 2 PAL format. All 75 episodes were released across both sets. * Australia and New Zealand: Madman Entertainment released the complete series over two DVD collections for the first time in Australia and New Zealand. Collection 1 was released in November 2006 and contains episodes 1–38, while Collection 2 was released in March 2007 and contains episodes 39–75 which includes the season 2 episodes.

Reception

While certain critics criticized the show for showing the weaponry and vehicles "at the expense of anything deeper in terms of plotting and characterization", the show was quite successful.

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

voted ''M.A.S.K.'' the 99th-best animated series in 2009, calling it one of the most popular cartoon/toy marketing franchises of the 1980s, stating that it took many of the strengths of ''

G.I. Joe ''G.I. Joe'' is an American media franchise and a line of action figures owned and produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier ( U.S. Army), Ac ...

'' and ''

Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the Autobots and the Decepticons, two alien robot factions at war that can transform into other forms, suc ...

'' while taking few of their flaws.

In other media

In 2015, Hasbro and Paramount were planning a cinematic universe combining Micronauts with ''

'', '' Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light'', ''

'' and ''

Rom Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...

''. A group of writers consisting of Michael Chabon,

Brian K. Vaughan Brian K. Vaughan (born July 17, 1976) is an American comic book and television writer, best known for the comic book series '' Y: The Last Man'', '' Ex Machina'', '' Runaways'', ''Pride of Baghdad'', ''Saga'', and '' Paper Girls''. Vaughan was a ...

Nicole Perlman Nicole Perlman (born December 10, 1981) is an American screenwriter, best known for co-writing the Marvel Cinematic Universe film ''Guardians of the Galaxy'' (2014), and the story for Marvel's '' Captain Marvel'' (2019), and for ''Pokémon Detecti ...

, Lindsey Beer,

Cheo Coker Cheo Hodari Coker (born December 12, 1972) is an American former music journalist turned television writer and producer known for such television series as ''Luke Cage (TV series), Luke Cage'', ''NCIS: Los Angeles'', ''Southland (TV series), Sout ...

John Francis Daley John Francis Daley (born July 20, 1985) is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, and musician. He is known for playing high school freshman Sam Weir on the NBC comedy-drama ''Freaks and Geeks'' and FBI criminal profiler Dr. ...

, Jonathan Goldstein,

Joe Robert Cole Joe Robert Cole (born January 1, 1980) is an American filmmaker and actor. He is best known for his Emmy Award-nominated and Writers Guild of America Award-winning work on the first season of the true crime anthology television series ''Ameri ...

, Jeff Pinkner, Nicole Riegel and

Geneva Robertson-Dworet Geneva Robertson-Dworet (born May 8, 1985) is an American screenwriter. She rose to prominence after being hired in 2015 to rewrite the script for the 2018 Tomb Raider (film), ''Tomb Raider'' reboot, starring Alicia Vikander and directed by Roar ...

was formed in April 2016 to create a writer's room to develop a storylines for the film.

F. Gary Gray Felix Gary Gray (born July 17, 1969) is an Americans, American film director, film producer, and music video director. Gray began his career as a director on numerous critically acclaimed and award-winning music videos, including "It Was a Good ...

was attached to direct the live-action adaptation, while the writer Chris Bremner was hired to pen the script.

Notes

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=0088563, title=M.A.S.K.
Albert Penello's MASK Page
– M.A.S.K. toy information and database
Matt-Trakker.com
– M.A.S.K. information
Boulder-Hill.net
– M.A.S.K. toy and merchandise information French children's animated action television series French children's animated adventure television series French children's animated science fiction television series Television series by DIC Entertainment Animated television series about robots Fictional military organizations Flying cars in fiction Action figures Television shows adapted into comics Comics based on toys First-run syndicated television programs in the United States English-language television shows