CULTURE GECKO
Action Mice Aims To Bring Back 80s Era
Saturday Morning Cartoons
By Ezekiel McAdams
July 6 2018
Jonathan Bryans, has a goal, to recreate Saturday Morning cartoons. He's betting on Action Mice.
Bryans, has had a very lucky life, he worked freelance for various toy companies in the 90s of and on, he developed a property, Nature's Guard, that was pitched as a return to the retro era of 80s animated series. Bryans assembled two comic series, a voice cast, but it never came to fruition. Bryans later redeveloped the property as N-Guard, a younger team of teens that is now in active development.
Bryans, a lifelong fan of G.I. Joe property, had wanted Nature's Guard to be his G.I. Joe, now it looks like he might get his chance with Action Mice.
Bryans signed with Global Genesis Group, through his company, Gaelstone Media and for the last year has fast tracked a property that started with a joke. "I had friends who work at Hasbro, and I got talking to this executive and I'm this huge fan of G.I. Joe, and they said 'we're having no luck, lightning will never strike twice' I could do it and I'll show you." Bryans recalled.
He started with four characters, Whiskers, Chunk, Pika and Silhouette. "We put the first two characters up, which was Whiskers and Chunk and there was good fan reaction and then we put the female Pika up and the G.I. Joe fan sites starting catching and then we put Silhouette up, which was the Ninja and it exploded" Bryans said.
Bryans meanwhile has set his sights higher as well, aiming to have Gaelstone Media be a retro creation company reviving Saturday morning cartoons for a new era and generation. Several others include Pangaea P.D, Amenoids and ExCalibur and many others. Each property taking homage from previous 80s franchises, Amenoids (Battle Beasts), ExCalibur (Visionaries) "Pangaea P.D. would be like my C.O.P.S. if you look at Ironweasels' mad scientist, Dr. Cheesespring, if you took Dr. Mindbender and Dr. Badvibes mashed them up, you'd get Cheesespring." Bryans said.
For Bryans, Action Mice could potentially usher in a new era. A dream he's betting big on.
"We want to rebuild Saturday Morning. It will never happen because of the networks but that doesn't mean the streaming services can't have a Saturday morning, where we put it out on a Saturday morning. Saturday morning was it! And then you'd go outside and your imagination goes wild."
Bryans speculated that the jubilant response was that one of the mice characters was heavily modeled after Storm Shadow, a popular G.I. Joe character. "It was a ninja mouse. We've never seen a Ninja mouse. So let's create more characters." An animation studio came calling, and that spurred Bryans to fast track Action Mice with Global Genesis Group.
In the early 1980s, a similar property now known worldwide, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird also started as a joke. The duo challenged themselves to draw something, which resulted in a lone ninja turtle. Early on it spoofed many elements of Daredevil including calling the evil ninja clan, The Foot instead of The Hand. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise has had multiple iterations of movies, animated series, tv series and comic books and thirty five years later has no plans of slowing down.
Could Action Mice be on a similar trajectory?
Bryans has brought on Kevin Munroe who directed the 2007 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated film, TMNT as well as Steve Lumley, an award winning concept artist known for The Iron Giant among others.
Signing with international partner, Licensing Management International, Action Mice is set to debut on Amazon Prime, sometime in 2019. The current plan is a first season of twenty six episodes.
Bryans is hoping to have a teaser ready for middle or end of July.
