#Mario voice actor robot chicken series#

But the world of animation did offer the Star Trek writers the chance to portray things they could never do on a live-action budget at the time - from three-armed crew members to new and exciting alien worlds. Featuring animation by Filmation, the show didn't typically excel visually - cartoons proved to most definitely not be the final frontier for the Enterprise. Running for two seasons (from 1973 to 1974) on NBC, these Star Trek half-hour adventures are seen by many fans as the lost fourth year of Captain Kirk and crew's legendary five-year mission.

#Mario voice actor robot chicken series#

Lots of live-action TV series have gotten cartoons over the years - Gilligan's Island, Happy Days, even The Dukes of Hazzard! - but rarely have such hand-drawn variations been so successful in conveying the spirit of their forbearers. Watching the series as an adult, one can't help but sympathize a little bit with the Smurf-hating Gargamel - the constantly upbeat and overly saccharine attitudes of most of the Smurfs, mixed with whininess and an extreme overuse of the word 'smurf' by everyone, makes you start to root for the poor, bumbling wizard who just wants to make some nice Smurf stew. The peaceful Smurfs, led by Papa Smurf and predominantly male (with the sole exception of Smurfette), were often chased by the evil wizard Gargamel and his cat Azrael. The animation itself wasn't much to speak of, but the stories told over the course of its 256 episodes were kiddie cocaine to those of us who grew up in the '80s. Based on a Belgian comic strip, the tiny blue-skinned Smurfs became an unstoppable media empire with this popular 1980s Hanna-Barbera animated series. Like many of the shows represented on our Top 100, The Smurfs is a cartoon we here at IGN grew up with, and as such it holds a special place in our memories. But one of the more notable aspects of the show was the fact that it showed a single dad taking care of his only son while fighting the forces of evil. And since Scott was always upgrading his expensive buddy, he provided plenty of validation for the little boys who would grow up to be today's tech geeks and robot nerds. His son Scott and his friend/pet robot T-Bob provided some comic relief. His pimp ride was a red Chevrolet Camaro G3 that transformed into a gull-winged fighter plane. Matt Trakker was the ruggedly handsome, rich, charismatic lead of the show. The masks provided the ethnically-diverse-yet-stereotypical cast with abilities like anti-gravity, flight, and energy beams. But what really set it apart was the namesake of the show - the super-powered masks the characters wore. Joe- Transformers hybrid, but it managed to combine the best elements of those franchises while adopting few of their flaws. One of the more popular cartoon/toy marketing machines of the Eighties was M.A.S.K., the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (yes, command with a 'K', that's what happens when you have to make an acronym fit into your story concept).