''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'', also known as ''Spawn: The Animated Series'' or simply ''Spawn'', is an American
adult animated
An adult is an animal that has reached full growth. The biological definition of the word means an animal reaching sexual maturity and thus capable of reproduction. In the human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and ...
superhero
A superhero or superheroine is a fictional character who typically possesses ''superpowers'' or abilities beyond those of ordinary people, is frequently costumed concealing their identity, and fits the role of the hero, typically using their ...
television series that aired on
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
from 1997 through 1999 and reran on
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...
's
Toonami
Toonami ( ) is an American late-night television programming block that broadcasts Japanese anime and American action animation. It was created by Sean Akins and Jason DeMarco and currently produced by Williams Street, a subsidiary of W ...
programming block in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. It is the first of two adult animated series (alongside ''
Spicy City'') to have premiered on HBO in 1997. Both were produced by their short-lived animation division, with ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'' being a co-production with Todd McFarlane Entertainment.
It has also 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 ...
as a film series. The show is based on the character
Spawn
Spawn or spawning may refer to:
* Spawning, the eggs and sperm of aquatic animals
Arts, entertainment and media
* Spawn (character), a fictional character in the comic series of the same name and in the associated franchise
** ''Spawn: Armageddon' ...
from
Image Comics
Image Comics is an independent American American comic book, comic book publisher and is the third largest direct market comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry by market share. Its best-known publications include ''Spawn (comics) ...
, and won an
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...
in 1999 for Outstanding Animation Program (Longer Than One Hour).
Plot
The series revolves around the story of former
Marine Force Recon
Force Reconnaissance (FORECON) are United States Marine Corps reconnaissance units that provide amphibious reconnaissance, deep ground reconnaissance, surveillance, battle-space shaping and limited scale raids in support of a Marine Expeditiona ...
Lieutenant Colonel
Al Simmons
Aloysius Harry Simmons (born Alois Szymanski; May 22, 1902 – May 26, 1956) was an American professional baseball outfielder who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Nicknamed "Bucketfoot Al", he had his best years with Connie Mack ...
, who worked as a government assassin in covert black ops. He was betrayed and killed by a man whom he believed to be his close friend (the man, later to be revealed as Chapel, burned him alive with a flamethrower during a mission). Upon his death, Simmons vowed revenge on Chapel and hoped that he would one day return to his beloved wife Wanda.
Because of his life as an assassin, Simmons' soul goes to
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...
. In order to accomplish his vow, he makes a pact with the devil
Malebolgia (who was the overlord on the eighth plane of Hell). The pact was a simple one: Simmons would become a soldier in Malebolgia's army (known as a "Hellspawn" or "Spawn" for short) in return for the ability to walk the earth once again in order to see Wanda. However, Simmons was tricked by Malebolgia: his body was not returned to him and he is returned to Earth five years after his death. He had been given a different body which was a festering, pungently cadaverous, maggot-ridden walking corpse that had a massive living red cape attached to it. Because his new body had been rotten for some time and was in an advanced state of decay, his face had become heavily malformed, to the point that he barely appeared human, which led to Simmons donning a mask in order to cover its grotesque appearance.
Upon his return to "life", Spawn seeks out Wanda, who had apparently got over the grief of having lost Al and married another man, Al's best friend
Terry Fitzgerald with whom she had had a daughter, Cyan. Terry, a respectable man, works as an analyst for a man named
Jason Wynn. Wynn is a powerbroker in the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
and secretly a
black market
A black market is a Secrecy, clandestine Market (economics), market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality, or is not compliant with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services who ...
arms dealer, amongst other things (such as the head of secret government organizations within the
NSA and
National Security Council
A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a n ...
). Wynn is revealed to be the man responsible for the death of Al Simmons due to a disagreement that the two had between each other concerning their "work". Jason's actions would also prove dangerous to the lives of Terry, Wanda, and their daughter as well. Realizing that he is no longer the man in Wanda's life, Al swears to protect her and her new family.
The series depicts Spawn nesting in the dark alleyways, killing any who invade his newfound territory. Rejecting these actions as unworthy of Spawn's time and power, Malebolgia then dispatches another of his minions (a demonic creature known as the
Violator that assumes the form of a short, overweight clown) to try to persuade Spawn to commit acts of violence and savagery in the name of Hell.
Spawn struggles to fight the lure of evil, as well as seeking to escape being hunted by not only the forces of Hell, but by assailants from Heaven, who have a need to destroy the Hellspawns in order to cripple the forces of Hell so that they do not gain an edge in the escalating war between the two spiritual hosts. As the war intensifies, the line between the forces of good and evil become increasingly blurry. Spawn finds help along the way in the form of a disheveled old man named
Cogliostro who was once a Hellspawn that overcame the demonic powers resting within, amongst a number of other characters.
In the last episodes of the series, Spawn learns how to shapeshift and, appearing as Terry, makes love to Wanda, impregnating her. It is revealed that there is a prophecy that the child of a Hellspawn will play the deciding factor in
Armageddon
Armageddon ( ; ; ; from ) is the prophesied gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, according to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Armageddon is variously interpreted as either a literal or a ...
, and may be the real reason Spawn was allowed to return to Earth.
Episodes
''Todd McFarlane's Spawn''
''Todd McFarlane's Spawn 2''
''Todd McFarlane's Spawn 3: The Ultimate Battle''
Voice cast
Production
Early development
When HBO first approached McFarlane to do an animated series, he had already had several discussions with networks. These other networks were interested in doing a ''Spawn'' animated series since they had seen that ''Spawn'' was the number one comic book series in the United States at that time.
McFarlane said that since the comic had started selling more than kid-friendly titles such as ''
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer/editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby, the team first appeared in Uncanny X-Men, ''The X-Men'' #1 (September 1963). Although initial ...
'', the network executives thought that the show would be able to work as a
Saturday-morning cartoon
"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series and live-action programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks. The genre was a ...
.
McFarlane recalled in 1997, "I know when I had the conversations with them, they hadn't actually seen the product. Because if they had and had done their homework, then they would see there's no way this guy is meant to be translated onto something that is for an audience that's under the age of 12."
Regarding his initial meeting with HBO executives for the project, McFarlane recalled, "I wanted to ask one question... can I say the word, "fuck?" If they let me do that, there's 100 other things I could get away with, too."
McFarlane was more direct in his meeting with HBO since he was tired of having the same types of conversations with network executives.
[McFarlane, Todd. Audio commentary for ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'' (1997).] He further remarked in 1997 that, "people have such a stereotype about animation — they immediately think cartoons and
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
. They're not used to seeing ''
Silence of the Lambs'', ''
The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American Epic film, epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling The Godfather (novel), 1969 novel. The film stars an ensemble cast inc ...
'' and ''
Seven'' all in one cartoon, but that's what they're getting."
McFarlane believed that since HBO was a cable network, the audience would mostly be over 16 and a "young college crowd", which aligned well with the core demographic ''Spawn'' was aimed at.
Development of the first season
After greenlighting the show, HBO granted it a six million dollar budget for the six episode first season.
McFarlane had approached his deal with HBO the same way he dealt with work in the comics industry, insisting on creative control and a sizable share of profits generated by his vision.
Work on the series occurred in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, although McFarlane lived in
Phoenix at the time, stating in a 2021 interview, "I was flying into
Century City
Century City is a 176-acre (71.2 ha) neighborhood and business district in Los Angeles, California, United States. Located on the Westside to the south of Santa Monica Boulevard around 10 miles (16 km) west of downtown Los Angeles, Cent ...
every week while we were doing that, for three years." The series was the first project of HBO Animation, a newly created division of HBO which was intended to focus on adult animation during its first few years, before eventually branching out into more family-friendly entertainment.
They co-produced the series with Todd McFarlane Entertainment, and both company logos appear in the end credits. While work on the first season was occurring, HBO Animation also started simultaneously producing ''
Spicy City'', an
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...
series by
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi (; born October 29, 1938) is a Mandatory Palestine-born American retired animator and filmmaker, known for his fantastical animated films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent anim ...
, one of the pioneers of adult animation.
HBO Animation was led by
Catherine Winder
Catherine Winder is a Canadian digital media producer and executive.
Winder served as President of Rainmaker Entertainment from May 12, 2009 to June 30, 2012.
Winder is a native of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and began her film career in Japan, whi ...
, and in an interview from when the first season was in production, Winder claimed HBO decided to choose ''Spawn'' as their first animated project since they were drawn to the visuals and the storyline of the comics. She said that "it's very sophisticated and dramatic and there's a wonderful love story underlying the whole property", adding that the show they were creating was "something you've never seen before in animated programming." She noted in this interview that the show could be comparable to Japanese
anime
is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
, but still considered it to be distinct from that style.
According to McFarlane, one of his objectives was to break away from the traditional mold of American animation, and to bring sensibilities from other countries, including not just Japanese anime, but also European animation.
He said in 1997 that the show's heavy usage of black colors and dark shadows was missing from many American cartoons, and he also considered the show's adult-oriented nature to be similar to anime.
The score and opening sequence theme was handled by
Shirley Walker
Shirley Anne Walker (née Rogers; April 10, 1945 – November 30, 2006) was an American film and television composer and conductor. She was one of the few female film score composers working in Hollywood during her career. Walker was one of ...
, who had earlier composed background music for the
Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation Inc. (abbreviated as WBA) is an American animation studio which is part of the Warner Bros. Television Group, a division of Warner Bros., which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery and serves as the animation divis ...
series ''
Batman: The Animated Series''. Other former production crew from ''Batman: The Animated Series'' also worked on the show, including director
Frank Paur (who was involved with the third season) and producer/director
Eric Radomski
Eric Radomski is a producer best known as a co-creator of '' Batman: The Animated Series'' (as well as the co-director of the series' theatrical film '' Batman: Mask of the Phantasm''). He has also acted as producer for '' Spawn: The Animated S ...
.
Radomski was the one who approached Walker to compose for the show, and he had long wanted to pursue darker, more adult-oriented animation, saying "knowing that HBO was definitely interested in pushing their shows to an R-rating was music to my ears."
He believed that he could build on the success and audience he had found producing ''Batman: The Animated Series'', which had a mature tone despite airing as a Saturday-morning cartoon.
After leaving ''Batman: The Animated Series'', he had started working on the comedic Saturday-morning cartoon ''
Freakazoid!'', which was also produced by Warner Bros. Animation, and said he was "very anxious" to get out of the company.
Radomski and his crew of animators were hired roughly four months into the production of ''Spawn'', and the hiring came after HBO and McFarlane had issues with a Californian off-site animation studio. Radomski said the work of this studio "wasn't up to Todd's standards". HBO decided to bring the animation work in-house rather than subcontracting it to another Californian studio, which is what they were originally doing during the first four months of development.
Prior to taking on the project, Radomski had never heard of ''Spawn'' and most of the scripts for the first season had already been written before he arrived, with the head writer for these episodes being ''Spawn'' comic collaborator
Alan B. McElroy. Catherine Winder gave Radomski some of the early ''Spawn'' comics to get him acquainted with the story, and he found McFarlane's writing in them to be "kind of sophomoric".
Radomski also felt that some of the foul language and violence from the scripts for the first season were "gratuitous and unnecessarily repetitive", but he supported the overall level of sophistication and maturity in the end product.
Throughout the production, Radomski said he and others tried to convey to McFarlane how important it was to focus on drama-based elements of the story, with Radomski believing that McFarlane emphasized action over this in the comics.
Radomski said, "we wanted to get to the romance story; it's a guy who lost his life, wants to get back to his wife and he's got a kid. Can't ask for better drama than that. It was continually an education process to say, 'Look, Spawn doesn't get mad and put his fist through the wall, he takes a moment here and there.' That was really important to convey to Todd."
Radomski had served as an executive producer on ''Batman: The Animated Series'', despite also being an animator, and he would continue to serve this duel role on ''Spawn''. At that time, it was uncommon for animators to have creative influence over the shows they were working on.
While ''Batman: The Animated Series'' featured traditional movie orchestra-type music, Radomski requested that Shirley Walker give the series a more organic and subtle electronic soundtrack, with only minimal usage of orchestral sounds.
J. Peter Robinson composed the score for the third and final season.
The series was animated in
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
, which is a common practice in American animation. The South Korean studio which is Koko Enterprises was simultaneously doing several family friendly cartoons while working on Spawn, which McFarlane likened to ''
Care Bears
Care Bears are multi-colored bears, painted in 1981 by artist Elena Kucharik to be used on greeting cards from American Greetings. They were turned into plush teddy bears and featured in ''The Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings'' (1983) and ...
''. He noted that it was difficult for the studio to alternate family-friendly cartoons and ''Spawn'', and that there were issues with how they were animating blood. McFarlane described the blood as sometimes looking more like honey, and said that they would have to re-do it when it came out like this.
Koko Enterprises's animators were also used to "putting color on everything", and didn't understand why the show's producers wanted so many shadows and dark colors. According to McFarlane, it took a long time for the studio to understand that they were intentionally trying to obscure some of the details of the animation by having all the dark colors.
McFarlane had similar issues when he was first working in the toy industry, since manufacturers thought adding dark ink washes to the toys made them look "old and dingy" rather than "new and plastic".
The opening sequence was animated by Japanese studio
Madhouse, and they would later become involved with the animation of the second season's episodes.
The show's plot in the first season is mostly faithful to the comics. However, the series has been considered as more grounded in reality when compared to the comics, which leaned heavily towards fantasy elements like more of a typical comic book story. McFarlane said the goal with the show was to make Spawn himself the main supernatural element, and everything around him more "urban" and "down to earth".
The first episode begins with gangsters shooting a man to death, as Spawn watches on. Spawn retaliates by killing the gangsters. Another man then gets accidentally set on fire, after having earlier been doused in gasoline by the gangsters, with his charred corpse later being visible. The violent beginning was intentional, with McFarlane saying "we wanted to make a statement right at the very beginning. I didn't want Martha and Herman. you know, the 50 year old couple, to turn on the TV set and watch it. I needed them to get really offended real quick and turn off the TV. The audience we were going for, I needed them to watch the show and say at midnight with one of their buddies, 'did I just see a cartoon guy just say the word shit, and put a gun in a guy's mouth?'.
McFarlane added that people would naturally either be offended by the violence or view it as something that was "really cool". Later on in the first episode, the mobsters' boss, Tony Twist, finds out about the deaths, and in this scene Twist is only wearing a pink
thong
The thong is a Clothing, garment generally used as either underwear or in some countries, as a swimsuit. It may also be worn for traditional Ceremony, ceremonies or Sport, competitions.
Viewed from the front, the thong typically resembles a b ...
. There are two other near naked women in his room, whose breasts are exposed, and that are engaging in sexual foreplay with each other. As the first season progressed, there would go on to be more shots of bare naked breasts, with most of the nudity occurring in scenes with Twist. McFarlane believed the nudity was similar to the violence, in that it was "either going to shock or not be much of a problem to people." He said, "it's another one of those taboos that most people aren't used to seeing, either if ever, in animation, because we've been raised on cute, little cuddly stuff and Saturday-morning cartoons." McFarlane added that, "these are the type of things that have shock value, but they're not there for that; we're dealing with a head mafia guy, he's a guy who yields a lot of power but he likes to be promiscuous and he's a bit of a ladies man."
In the third episode, there was also a depiction of sexual intercourse. The character
Chapel
A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...
, (who assassinated Al Simmons before he became Spawn) goes to a nude strip club in this episode and picks up a dancer there, and later has sex in a bedroom with her, but the sex is continually interrupted by flashbacks Chapel is having.
A child killer and pedophile character named Billy Kincaid, who appeared in one of the comic's most controversial issues, is introduced in the second episode. In his opening scene he is luring a little girl from a crowd of children to his ice cream truck, and her body is later dumped in the alley which Spawn frequents. Kincaid ends up kidnapping Spawn's four-year-old daughter towards the end of the first season, and there is a scene which depicts her tied up and blindfolded in a dark room with candles. The first kidnapping didn't show any scenes of the murdered girl being held in Kincaid's house, unlike with when Kincaid kidnapped Spawn's daughter. While Kincaid only appeared in a single issue of the comics before being killed, in the animated series his story arc figures prominently throughout the first season. Kincaid was given a larger role than in the comics by being re-written as the son of a senator, with the senator using his political clout to cover up the crimes. McFarlane said a reason they used Kincaid for the animated series was since he fit with its theme of having Spawn mainly surrounded by urban, non-supernatural characters.
He acknowledged that for some people Kincaid's story was "tough subject matter to deal with", and said it could be argued they were "going a little overboard" by including him, but he added that they "just wanted to try and see if we could come up with ultimately a drama, and when we're done writing the drama, that we then animated it, and don't look at it as a cartoon first, but we look at it as a drama that happens to be animated."
Towards the end of the second episode, a cyborg assassinator from the comics named Overkill is hired by Tony Twist, and he battles Spawn in the following episode. While searching for Spawn, there is a graphic moment in which he pulls on one of the arms of the homeless people in Spawn's alley, and it breaks off. McFarlane was pleased with this particular part.
There were debates amongst the production crew as to whether they should include a character like Overkill, since they didn't want to lean too heavily into the fantasy elements of the comics.
At the beginning of several scenes, a countdown clock is shown which depicts how much energy Spawn has left until he has to return to hell, since every time Spawn uses his powers he gets closer to being returned to hell. McFarlane noted that the countdown clock confused some viewers who weren't familiar with the comics.
The series included live action introductions by McFarlane. VHS and DVD releases which packaged the show's episodes individually included the introductions, but they are removed from releases which present the seasons in a singular movie format. The introductions for the first season were shot inside a location which resembles the top floor of a brick wall castle. At the start of these introductions, McFarlane is in the process of inking a ''Spawn'' comic, and he then proceeds to ask rhetorical questions to the viewer, before introducing the episodes. The first season introductions (excluding the pilot) are followed by short clips recapping the previous episodes, and it then cuts back to McFarlane saying to the viewer, "and now ''Spawn'', so turn off your lights." Following this line from McFarlane, the opening sequence plays. The opening sequence for the first season was entirely animated, whereas the second and third seasons mixed in live action shots of Spawn, and live action shots of skeletons, tribal masks and an abandoned
Sanatorium
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence.
Sanatoriums are often in a health ...
-like building. For the second and third seasons, McFarlane's introductions come after the opening sequence, and they have him inside a more realistic looking basement location, which houses some of the live action props from the opening sequence. The introductions for all three seasons were done in a similar manner to
R. L. Stine's intros for the 1995-98 ''
Goosebumps'' series, which also featured the series author introducing the episodes in basement/dungeon-like locations. ''Spawns first season live action introductions were filmed by future Hollywood director
Doug Liman
Douglas Eric Liman (; born July 24, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing the films '' Swingers'' (1996), '' Go'' (1999), '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002), '' Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (2005), '' Jumper'' (2008), '' E ...
, who at the time was a roommate with one of the HBO executives.
The first season aired at a 12am midnight slot on HBO, following ''
Dennis Miller Live
''Dennis Miller Live'' is an American weekly late-night talk show on HBO, hosted by comedian Dennis Miller. The show ran 215 episodes from 1994 to 2002, and received five Emmy awards and 11 Emmy nominations. It was also nominated six times for th ...
''.
The season concluded on HBO on June 20, 1997, a little over a month after it had begun airing. Prior to the premiere of the first season, the show was being promoted alongside ''Spicy City''.
However, ''Spicy City'' would end up premiering on HBO in July 1997, after'' Spawns first season had already completed airing. It was cancelled after only a month on the air.
Comparisons between the 1997 live action film
At the beginning of August 1997, a live action ''
Spawn
Spawn or spawning may refer to:
* Spawning, the eggs and sperm of aquatic animals
Arts, entertainment and media
* Spawn (character), a fictional character in the comic series of the same name and in the associated franchise
** ''Spawn: Armageddon' ...
'' film was released to theaters. It was a co-production between Todd McFarlane Entertainment and
New Line Cinema
New Line Productions, Inc., Trade name, doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production, film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, a division of the Major film studios, ...
, which coincidentally was owned by
Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City.
It was established as Time Warne ...
, the same parent company of HBO. The live action film was noted for having a more mainstream tone than the animated series, as McFarlane and the producers had to do it as a
PG-13 rated film (although a slightly different
R rated cut would eventually be released on home video as well).
The film omits several characters from the comics who were present in the first season of the animated series, including Billy Kincaid, Overkill and Tony Twist. Another change was the race of Terry Fitzgerald, who is depicted as black in the comics and animated series. He was revised to being white in the film, since New Line didn't want there to be too many
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
characters; they thought this would lead to it being perceived as a film primarily aimed at that demographic. The film also replaced the black male assassin character Chapel, who appeared in the comics and all three seasons of the animated series. He was replaced with a white female assassin character named
Jessica Priest, that was created specifically for the film. The villainous character
Clown
A clown is a person who performs physical comedy and arts in an Improvisational theatre#Comedy, open-ended fashion, typically while wearing distinct cosmetics, makeup or costume, costuming and reversing social norm, folkway-norms. The art of ...
from the comics is included in both the film and the three seasons of the animated series. He has more sexually perverse dialogue in the animated series, and at one point in the first season is masturbating in front of Spawn while talking about his wife Wanda. In both the film and the first season of the animated series, he has a battle with Spawn after transforming into his demonic Violator form. However, in the animated version of this scene, the transformation is much more graphic, with his skin tearing open and blood seeping out as he transforms.
Alan B. McElroy was simultaneously working as the head writer on the first season and as one of the writers on the film.
McElroy subsequently claimed in 2017 that he was able to write freely and in his own voice on the show, dropping in ideas he was unable to add to the film.
He said, "often when people come up to me and say they weren't happy with the movie, I tell them to check out season one of ''Spawn: The Animated Series''."
Development of later seasons
In the summer of 1997, work on a second season of episodes began, which would begin airing in May of the following year. As work on the second season was starting, it was confirmed in late June 1997 that a deal had been struck with HBO for the future writing of a third season of episodes.
While the second season was in production, McFarlane got hired to direct the animated music video for the song "
Do the Evolution", from
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. One of the key bands in the grunge, grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, ...
's fifth album ''
Yield''. The video was done in the same style as the ''Spawn'' animated series, and McFarlane was contacted to work on it by the band's lead singer
Eddie Vedder
Eddie Jerome Vedder (born Edward Louis Severson III; December 23, 1964) is an American singer, musician, and songwriter. He is the lead vocalist, primary lyricist, and one of three guitarists for the rock band Pearl Jam. He was previously a gues ...
, who saw the show on HBO in 1997. Vedder had recorded some of the episodes onto a VHS, and later used the
Avid video editing software to put the music of "Do the Evolution" onto scenes from ''Spawn''. He sent this tape to McFarlane as a way of showing him what he wanted the "Do the Evolution" video to be like. Like with the first season of ''Spawn'', the final stage of animation for "Do the Evolution" was done in South Korea.
When the second season of ''Spawn'' shifted to having animation done in Japan with Madhouse, it took on more of an anime-influenced look.
Radomski said he thought that in the second season of ''Spawn'', the animation had markedly improved, while
CBR described it as the "most visually appealing season" in 2017.
Radomski further said that the storylines were more believable and realistic in the second season, and that it was the closest to what he had intended for the show to be like.
At the end of the first season, McElroy had departed the show, leaving it without a strong authorial voice in the early stages of the second season's production. HBO didn't like the original scripts they saw for the second season, and ordered rewrites after some animation had already been turned in. After these issues with HBO, McFarlane called in two writers he knew,
John Leekley and Rebekah Bradford, to work on the second season of the show. Leekley not only wrote many of the scripts, but also directed the live action parts of the show. He had previously worked in made-for-TV drama movies, and had no experience in writing animation. McFarlane claimed to ''
Variety'' in November 1997 that they were intentionally avoiding animation writers, saying "most animation writers write juvenile stories because the majority of work is for kids shows. So a writer who used to write for ''
DuckTales DuckTales refers to:
Film and television
* ''DuckTales'' (1987 TV series), original TV series
** '' DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp''
* ''DuckTales'' (2017 TV series), reboot TV series
Video games
* ''DuckTales'' (video game) ...
'' can't write the drama that this show needs. They want to, but their minds are atrophied. They're caught up in the expectations of animation."
In 2017, CBR described Leekley's made-for-TV movie background as giving the second season a "strange tone".
In the second season, the overall storytelling approach also shifted away from interconnected stories like in the first season. The second season's episodes had a more self-contained style, with McFarlane adding that they had some "
soap opera
A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...
" thrown in as well.
On October 31, 1997,
St. Louis Blues
The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference. Th ...
hockey player
Tony Twist filed a successful, 10 year long lawsuit against HBO and Todd McFarlane Entertainment, after finding out that the mob boss character from the first season was named after him. Twist initially heard about this character through his mother, and then viewed the show. He stated, "I'm in pink thong underwear, smoking a cigar, ordering the kidnapping of a child while two women are naked on the couch making love to each other. I obviously didn't want any part of that. Even if I was a good guy I wouldn’t have participated. You’ve got kids being kidnapped, you’ve got nudity, you’ve got police raping women. It’s nothing I want to be affiliated with." As a result of the lawsuit, Twist's character was never used past the first season of the animated series, and when early issues of the ''Spawn'' comics were reprinted, the name of Tony Twist's character was changed to "Vito Gravano". However, no changes were made to the episodes of ''Spawn'' where Twist appeared. A female warrior character named
Angela was also the subject of a lawsuit between McFarlane and comic writer
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic series ''The Sandman (comic book), The Sandma ...
, who wrote her original issue of ''Spawn'' in 1993. This lawsuit eventually prevented McFarlane from using the character. She only had a brief appearance in the fourth episode of the first season, but when the show was in production there weren't any legal issues over the rights to this character, and the writers were considering having her come back to the show, before it got cancelled.
With the third season, there was another shift with how the animation was being done. Madhouse was no longer involved with the overseas animation during this season, and director Frank Puar and his crew also got hired to do pre-overseas animation work.
Radomski said he had worked on the third season, but that he took his name off the credits since he was unhappy with HBO. He said that going into the third season, there were internal disagreements regarding how ''Spawn'' should be made, and that some at the company were trying to "dismantle" the previous processes that were in place for the show.
The third season is often viewed as the weakest of the series, and the animation started getting rushed as it progressed.
After getting hired by McFarlane in the second season, John Leekley had continued to serve as a head writer and showrunner for the third season. Radomski said that with the third season, the show was starting to veer too heavily into fantasy elements, such as by frequently using heaven and hell as the settings for stories.
The series ended in May 1999 following the conclusion of the third season on HBO. A fourth season was originally planned, but never came to fruition. Leekley later revealed some of the ideas for a scrapped fourth season. These involved the return of Angela looking to avenge the death of Jade who was her previous lover, several one time characters returning to have larger roles, a gang war spiraling out of control led by the ruthless Barrabas, Spawn befriending a runaway teenage girl named Kristen with a case of pyrophobia, a now disfigured Wynn looking for redemption, Chapel breaking out of an asylum and winding up a pawn for Angela, Merrick having to team up with Twitch to save her daughter, and most of the characters coming to the realization of Spawn's identity. Radomski claimed if the series had entered into a fourth season, it likely would have continued to focus heavily on fantasy elements and "individual hero vs. villain scenarios", in contrast to the first two seasons.
Reception
Some critics believe that the series was overshadowed by the poorly received film adaptation of ''Spawn'', which also debuted in the summer of 1997, and had more of a promotional push behind it. It has achieved a small but loyal cult following who praise the animation, writing, voice acting, music, and dark tone, whereas the graphic violence and intentional unresolved cliffhanger has attracted criticism. ''Variety'' stated in July 1997 that "It's as dark and complex as anything HBO has attempted in the live-action arena. And visually, it's quite the stunner. HBO wanted different, and it surely got it."
A more mixed review came from ''
The Dallas Morning News
''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation in 2022 of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885, by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ' ...
'' in June 1997, who questioned why anyone would "want to subject themselves to such a relentlessly grim, gruesome dehumanizing experience." The ''
Tampa Bay Times
The ''Tampa Bay Times'', called the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by The Poynter Institute ...
'' remarked in 1997 that the first three episodes "unfold in a disjointed, abstract style that owes as much to the animated movie ''
Heavy Metal'' as the
''Batman'' trilogy."
''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
s Eileen Fitzpatrick stated in June 1997 that with the series, HBO were "attempting to capitalize on the growing market for adult-oriented animation now mainly limited to Japanese cartoons." In his review of the pilot episode, Charles Simon of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' said the show was similar to violent anime, and labelled a scene where Spawn wrestles his rotting corpse as "gross". He added that, "media watchdog groups are going to have conniptions when they get a load of the show’s extreme violence — not to mention the scenes of smoking, drinking, profanity, nudity, sex and urination."
In July 1997, ''
CMJ
CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events, online media company and a distributor of up and coming music CDs, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music ...
'' described it as a more adult version of ''Batman: The Animated Series'', and wrote "97 is the summer of Spawn. A live-action, big screen version of the mega-selling comic will be hitting theaters in August, but it's HBO's animated ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'' that has 'cult classic' written all over it." They added that, "it's violent, making sense isn't always a priority and women are basically sexual currency, but ''Spawn'' is a dark, twisted ride you'll want to take more than once."
In September 1997, Martha Day of ''
Animation World Network
Animation World Network (often just "AWN") is an online publishing group that specializes in resources for animators, with an extensive website offering news, articles and links for professional animators and animation fans.
Content
Specifically ...
'' compared it to other mature cable cartoons from that year, including ''Spicy City'' and ''
South Park
''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand the ...
'', writing "cable's version of animation for adults just keeps getting stranger and stranger." In December 1997, Gary Susman of ''
The Boston Phoenix
''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several alternative weekly periodicals published in the United States by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts, including the now defunct ''Boston Phoenix'', '' ...
'' described 1997 as being a year where "animation grows up", writing that "
Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush").
Twelve species ...
's ''
King of the Hill
''King of the Hill'' is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels that initially aired on Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, with four more episodes airing in First-run syndicati ...
'',
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American Cable television in the United States, cable television channel, channel owned by Paramount Global through its Paramount Media Networks, network division's Paramount Media Networks#MTV Entertainment Group, MTV Ente ...
's ''South Park'', HBO's ''Spawn'' and ''Spicy City'', and even
MTV
MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
's ''
Daria
''Daria'' is an American adult animation, adult animated sitcom television series created by Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis, Susie Lewis Lynn. The series ran from March 3, 1997, to January 21, 2002, on MTV. It centers on the titular character, D ...
'' were clearly not for the tots."
Contemporary reception
In his 2008 book ''The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television'', John Kenneth Muir said it and shows like ''Batman: The Animated Series'' were part of a "new generation" of superhero shows in the 1990s. He said these shows proved that "adults would stay tuned
o cartoonsif the writing was good enough", but noted that ''Spawn'' was more "squarely aimed at adults, with the sex and violence quotient raised considerably." In a 2022 article on the 25th anniversary of the live action film, ''
Inverse'' reflected that, "HBO's ''Spawn'' animated series, which also launched in 1997, proved to be a far better adaptation overall. It's a bonafide classic, whereas the live-action film was relegated to cult classic status."
DVDTalk similarly wrote in 2007 that the movie was "decidedly watered down to make it to a mainstream audience", adding that the show contained "the kind of edge that the live action movie was unable to present". Horror website
Bloody Disgusting
Bloody Disgusting is an American independent multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news website specializing in information services that covered various horror media. The company expanded into other media including podcast ...
stated in 2018 that it was "still the character's best incarnation." In 2017, CBR praised the show's music, stating "
hirleyWalker’s work on ''Spawn'' takes the gothic elements of her ''Batman: The Animated Series'' compositions to an even darker place" and that "some of the more 'adult' elements of the series were dismissed as juvenile attempts at maturity, but the score isn’t one of them. It’s moody beyond belief, the perfect musical companion for the bleakness of the series."
Legacy
''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'' was ranked 5th on
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 ...
's list of "The Greatest Comic Book Cartoons of All Time", and 23rd on IGN's list of "Top 25 Primetime Animated Series of All Time" (despite the fact the show was aired at midnight on HBO). IGN also placed it 65th on a list of the "Top 100 Animated Series". In 2011,
Complex
Complex commonly refers to:
* Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe
** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
ranked it 8th on their list of "The 25 Most Underrated Animated TV Shows of All Time". ''
Gamesradar
''GamesRadar+'' (formerly ''GamesRadar'') is an entertainment website for video game-related news, previews, and reviews. It is owned by Future plc. In late 2014, Future Publishing-owned sites ''Total Film'', '' SFX'', '' Edge'' and ''Computer ...
'' placed it 22nd on their list of "The 32 Greatest Animated TV Shows of All Time" in 2024.
Series producer Eric Radomski reflected in a retrospective interview that "''Spawn TAS'' was a personal triumph for me. Very rarely do artists get the opportunity to have as much uncensored creative freedom as I did at HBO on ''Spawn''."
In 2023, Todd McFarlane said he was pleased with
Keith David
Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his deep voice and screen presence in over 300 roles in film, stage, television, and interactive media.
He has starred in such films as '' The Thing'' (1982), ''Pla ...
's voice work as Spawn in the series, and has "trouble hearing anyone else in the role".
A sequel series titled ''Spawn: The Animation'' was in development in 2004 and was set to be released in 2007 with Keith David reprising his role, but due to McFarlane wanting to push the animation further, the project ended up in production limbo until it was quietly cancelled. Keith David would go on to reprise Spawn as a guest character for ''
Mortal Kombat 11
''Mortal Kombat 11'' is a 2019 fighting game developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the eleventh main installment in the ''Mortal Kombat'' series and a sequel to '' Mortal Kombat X'' (20 ...
'' in 2019.
Home media
During the 1990s and early 2000s, all three seasons were released separately on DVD and VHS. These releases edited the seasons into three two-hour long movies, under the titles ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'', ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn 2'', and ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn 3: The Ultimate Battle''. Around this time, the episodic HBO broadcast version was also released on VHS; however these releases only included two episodes per VHS. The two-hour movie version of the first season was first released to VHS in August 1997. During the initial month of release, there were issues with the shipments, with one retail outlet still having 75% of their stock stuck in a
UPS warehouse during that month. In September 1997 and September 1998, the first two seasons were released on
LaserDisc
LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
in the two-hour movie format. The LaserDisc release of the first two seasons included bonus features created specifically for that release, such as an
audio commentary
An audio commentary is an additional audio track, usually digital, consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with a video. Commentaries can be serious or entertaining in nature, and can add informatio ...
track with Todd McFarlane and a "making of" feature with Eric Radomski. The third season was never released on LaserDisc, presumably due to the waning popularity of the format, which was discontinued in the United States in 2000.
When the show's first and second seasons were released on VHS they were came in two differently rated formats. The first format was called the "Uncut Collector's Edition", which is the version that was shown on TV and held a TV-MA rating, and the other was an edited version called the "Special Edited Edition" which held a
PG-13 rating by toning down the violence and sexual content.
In 2005, the first season movie was released in the
UMD format for
Sony
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
's
PSP handheld video game system, but the other two movies were not. On July 24, 2007, HBO Video released a 4-disc 10th-anniversary signature collector's edition on DVD with all 18 episodes and multiple new bonus features.
On July 5, 2016, HBO added all three seasons to its streaming services, HBO GO and HBO NOW. It's also available on
HBO Max
Max (known in other countries as, and soon to be reverted globally to HBO Max) is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. It is a proprietary unit of Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming on behalf of Home Box Of ...
as of December, 2024. The version on streaming services is the episodic broadcast version with McFarlane's live action intros.
See also
*
Spawn (character)
*
''Spawn'' (film)
Notes
* The character's name has also been spelt "Overt-kill" in other media. In the animated series, the written name appears as "Overkill".
References
External links
*
''Todd McFarlane's Spawn''at Toon Zone
{{Portal bar, Animation, Speculative fiction, Television
1990s American adult animated television series
1990s American black cartoons
1990s American horror television series
1997 American animated television series debuts
1999 American television series endings
1990s American superhero television series
Action horror television series
American adult animated action television series
American adult animated drama television series
American adult animated fantasy television series
American adult animated horror television series
American adult animated science fiction television series
American adult animated superhero television series
American animated science fantasy television series
American black superhero television shows
Animated television series set in New York City
Animated thriller television series
Dark fantasy television series
Emmy Award–winning programs
American English-language television shows
HBO original programming
Religious drama television series
Spawn (comics)
Superhero horror television shows
Television shows based on American comics
Television series about demons
Television series based on Image Comics
Adaptations of works by Todd McFarlane