''M.A.S.K.'' is a 1985

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

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

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

s of the same name produced by

Kenner Products Kenner Products, known simply as Kenner, was an American toy brand owned by Hasbro. Kenner Products began as a toy company founded in 1946, going on to produce several highly recognizable toys and merchandise lines including action figures for t ...

. It was animated in Japan by

Ashi Productions 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 Productio ...

, 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 A task force (TF) is a unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, the term has now caught on for general usage and is a standard part of NATO terminology. Many ...

led by Matt Trakker, who operate transforming armored vehicles in their ongoing battle against the terrorist organization V.E.N.O.M. (an acronym for Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem) with an emphasis on superpowered

helmet A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets (e.g., a policeman's helmet in the United Kingdom) without protecti ...

s (called "

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

s") worn by the characters of both factions. V.E.N.O.M.'s primary goal is obtaining money through either robbery, extortion, counterfeiting, kidnapping, or attempting to steal historical artifacts, but M.A.S.K. always finds 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 songwriter. 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 Epi ...

– 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 Brian George (born 27 July 1952) is a British actor. He is known for his roles as Pakistani restaurateur Babu Bhatt in ''Seinfeld'' (1989–1998), the Indian gynecologist father of Raj Koothrappali in ''The Big Bang Theory'' (2007–2019), th ...

– 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 (screenwriter), Jim Carlson in the first ''Battlestar Galactica'' series. The two of them also wrote the 1988 animated feat ...

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. The first writer with whom Apple TV+ signed an overall deal, Kerry Ehrin developed and ran the first two seasons of the Apple TV+ series '' The Morni ...

, Herb Engelhardt, Mel Gilden, Ralph Goodman, David Gottlieb,

Barbara Hambly Barbara Hambly (born August 28, 1951) is an American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction. She is the author of the bestselling Benjamin January mystery series featuring a ...

, Trevor Meldal-Johnson,

Fred Ladd Fred Laderman (February 19, 1927 – August 3, 2021),''T ...

Chuck Lorre Charles Michael Lorre ( ; né Levine; born October 18, 1952) is an American television producer, writer, director, and composer. Nicknamed the "King of Sitcoms", Lorre has created/co-created and produced many sitcoms including '' Cybill'' (199 ...

, 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 Production ...

(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 deemphasized crimefighting in favor of

auto racing Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. In North America, the term is commonly used to describe all forms of automobile sport including non ...

, lasted only ten episodes.

Season 1 (1985)

Season 2 (1986)

Production

One of many cartoons produced during the 1980s as a vehicle for

toy A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and p ...

merchandising, ''M.A.S.K.'' was a hybrid of popular era cartoons '' G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero'' and ''

The Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Tomy, Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the heroic Autobots and the villainous Decepticons, two Extraterrestrials in fiction, alien robot fac ...

''. When originally broadcast, ''M.A.S.K.'' was the first closed-captioned 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 VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

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, featuring episodes edited into a feature-length format. Several episodes of season one were distributed by The Video Collection in association with Karl Lorimar's Kideo Video, then a lot of these episodes would be distributed on later VHS tapes by Castle Vision. The episodes from season two were distributed by

Golden Book Video ''Golden Book Video'' American was a line of children/family animated and live-action videos marketed by Western Publishing, which began during the holiday season of 1985. They featured characters and stories from Western's print publications, ...

. ''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 ki ...

in three different regions: * USA:

Shout! Factory Shout! Factory, LLC, doing business as Shout! Studios (formerly doing business as Shout! Factory, its current legal name), is an American home video and music distributor founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases, issued i ...

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 WildBrain Ltd. is a Canadian media, animation studio, production company, production, and brand licensing company, mostly associated as an entertainment company. The company is known for owning the largest independent library of Children's tel ...

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 Europe and Asia, such as Jetix and Jetix Play. History Fox Kids Eu ...

) 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 Madman Entertainment Pty. Ltd., also known as Madman Films, stylized as MADMAN, is an Australian film and television production, distribution, entertainment, and rights management company headquartered in East Melbourne, Victoria, specialising ...

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'' is an American video gaming 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 district and is headed by its former e ...

'' 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), A ...

'' and ''

Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Tomy, Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the heroic Autobots and the villainous Decepticons, two Extraterrestrials in fiction, alien robot fac ...

'' while taking few of their flaws.

In other media

In 2015, Hasbro and Paramount were planning a cinematic universe combining ''M.A.S.K.'' with ''

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

Micronauts Micronauts is a North American science fiction toyline manufactured and marketed by Mego from 1976 to 1980. The ''Micronauts'' toyline was based on and licensed from the '' Microman'' toyline created by Japanese-based toy company Takara in 1974 ...

'', 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 * ...

''. In April 2016, a

writers' room A writers' room is a space where writers, usually of a television series, gather to write and refine scripts. It is a common method of writing television series in the US, but is much less widespread in countries like the UK. Composition The ...

was formed consisting of

Michael Chabon Michael Chabon ( ; born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, ...

, Brian K. Vaughan,

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 Detect ...

, Cheo Coker,

John Francis Daley John Francis Daley (born July 20, 1985) is an American filmmaker and actor. He is best known for playing high school freshman Sam Weir on the NBC comedy-drama ''Freaks and Geeks'' and FBI criminal profiler Dr. Lance Sweets on the crime drama se ...

, and others to develop storylines, but it disbanded in July 2017. The next year,

F. Gary Gray Felix Gary Gray (born July 17, 1969) is an American director and producer. Gray began his career as a director on numerous critically acclaimed and award-winning music videos, including "It Was a Good Day" by Ice Cube, " Natural Born Killaz" by ...

was attached as the director for a live-action ''M.A.S.K.'' adaptation, with Chris Bremner hired in 2020 to write the script. The project has since remained in development.

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. Active YouTube Channel and information site run by Bill Faries
Boulder-Hill.net
– M.A.S.K. toy and merchandise information 1980s American animated television series 1980s American children's television series 1985 American animated television series debuts 1986 American television series endings 1980s French animated television series 1985 French television series debuts 1985 French television series endings American children's animated action television series American children's animated adventure television series American children's animated science fiction television series 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 Fiction about flying cars Action figures Television shows adapted into comics Comics based on toys First-run syndicated animated television series American English-language television shows Depictions of Julius Caesar on television Depictions of Cleopatra on television Cultural depictions of Constantine the Great Cultural depictions of Jesse James Cultural depictions of Kamehameha I Cultural depictions of Ludwig II of Bavaria Cultural depictions of Solomon Cultural depictions of Tutankhamun