'X-Men' at 25: The Unlikely Story of the Animated Hit No Network Wanted

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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hea...on-hit-1052263

The influential Fox Kids cartoon only hit the air after a studio exec bet her career on it, with the show going on to prove the Marvel Universe "had commercial value far beyond what anybody estimated."

In 1992, Marvel wasn't exactly a powerhouse in Hollywood.

Thirty years after writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby had revolutionized comics by creating a universe of characters with human foibles and colorful costumes, Marvel had failed to find steady success on the big screen or on television. Its crowning achievement was the charmingly campy The Incredible Hulk, which ran from 1978-82 on CBS, but other success eluded the company.

TV executive Margaret Loesch had long championed the idea that there was TV gold to be made with Marvel, and she'd spent years pitching shows to the networks. Loesch was particularly taken with the X-Men, the ragtag team of mutants led by Prof. Charles Xavier, who taught them to deal with their mutant powers, all the while protecting a public who feared and even hated them. She oversaw a failed pilot, 1989's Pryde of the X-Men, (featuring, of all things, a Wolverine with an Australian accent) and vowed not to make the same mistakes again. When Loesch started her role as Fox Kids CEO in 1990, she convinced Fox head Jamie Kellner to let her greenlight an X-Men show, staking her career on its success. She brought in Haim Saban of Saban Entertainment and production company Graz for the show.

X-Men's pilot episode "Night of the Sentinels" aired 25 years ago this week on Oct. 31, 1992 on Fox Kids in the Saturday morning time slot. But costly production delays would keep the rest of the season from airing until January 1993, a setback that would be just the first of many challenges the series faced. The show, which lives on in DVDs and on Hulu, is largely considered Marvel's greatest animated series ever, and many fans even insist it is the definitive onscreen depiction of the X-Men (sorry, Hugh Jackman).

X-Men weathered competing corporate interests, a cost-cutting obsessed producer, and even the threat from the creative staff to quit over a merchandising initiative gone wrong. Through it all, the show persevered, becoming a critical and ratings hit that paved the way for Fox's big-screen X-Men a few short years later and a slew of other successes, such as Saban's Power Rangers. Below, the key players involved share these memories and more with The Hollywood Reporter.

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fox's x-men was my favorite cartoon growing up!! it kind of reminded me of reading an x-men comic book!!

[Hawkee]

When it comes to making cartoons out of comic books especially Marvel comics the finished project sometimes works while some ideas take a long time to process and create. When FOX announced the debut of an X-Men cartoon people thought it would be smart to see an X-Men cartoon that would be as good as the comics but also be used as a way to sell X-Men toys as Marvel also founded Toy Biz in the 90's. And so when it debuted in 1992 FOX knew that they had a winner on their hands because not only was X-Men successful it also inspired FOX to create a block of Marvel cartoons based on Fantastic Four Silver Surfer and Iron Man based on the success of X-Men. But when X-Men ended in 1997 it was not the end for the X-Men cartoon itself but the start of an avalanche of X-Men cartoons and with the successes of the X-Men movies that trend will still continue/ But as you can see when Marvel comics make cartoons they are a huge popularity seller and with X-Men it proved it well
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