Animorphs: the TV show -

[Crichax]

The Animorphs books from the 90s are fantastic, and still hold up to this day. You can find various PDF collections with all of them in it fairly easily, and I highly recommend downloading one of them to give the series a try.

But the show...that was bad. I liked the casting, but the effects were worse than Japanese tokusatsu at the time, and it overall felt like a B-movie parody of Animorphs. 90s low-budget TV wasn't exactly the best place to make an Animorphs show.

I didn't watch it when it was originally airing. I watched some episodes on Netflix (when they had the show up).

Anyway, does anyone else remember this? Am I wrong? Is there some hidden virtue about it I'm overlooking?

 

[Dildo]

I adored the books and read most of them. I never read the last ones to learn their ultimate fate however, missing 2-3 at the end.

Any childs book made into a series during that time was generally terrible though and I'm glad I wasn't aware of it.

 

[Tecumseh]

The same guy who did the Animorphs book review series on YouTube also did one for the TV show.
IMO, the show was really doomed from the start because of it's budget. I mean how many times did we see that hork bajir model? And we never even got to see a taxxon. The actors were ok though.

 

[Marco Fucko]

>children's book series famous for being able to include darker stuff
>adapted into a 90's show

That sounds like trying to fit Spawn on Fox Kids instead of HBO tbh.

I'm pretty sure I never got halfway through the entire series but I do still remember the kids being pretty down to earth, and having better writing than a lot of the adolescent-oriented swill that came out during the late 90s and early 00s.

 

[RapeMan]

Yeerks scared the shit out of me and I wanted Hork-Bajir elbow blades as a child.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

The books, even as a hardened sci-fi fan who has read loads of it, are absolute top kek. I don’t care if they are for kids, or scholastic, or that they vary in quality due to the ghost writing, I love them. The deep lore, things getting brutal from time to time, the characters getting more and more traumatized as time went on, it’s great. I absolutely recommend the books, even to adults. The one book where Jake gets a Yeerk in his head, the other book where Tobias first hunts and kills as a hawk that he’s stuck as, Marcos mom being an absent drug addict and his dad being sad as fuck, war is hell, there’s actually intriguing drama and characterization goin in. They didn’t have to go as hard as they did for this kids series, but I’m glad they did.
But the show, the show sucked. It could have been cool, but it just couldn’t make it. Acting, effects, writing, all just didn’t hit the mark. I did read a book about the behind the scenes and production of the Animorphs tv show, and they clearly tried, but just could hold it together.
It wasn’t as bad as the GameBoy game. That was next to unplayable.

 

[FF 215]

I could never beat the gameboy game, it was hard as hell. A few years ago I had a bunch of broken bones and was holed up for a summer so I reread a ton of these books and geeked out over the lore and stuff. The special books like the Visser one and the one about Tobias' alien dad's past are especially good. Didn't have cable so I couldn't watch the show though, but I wasn't into live action at the time anyway. The core ideas of the series were so neat and interesting. And dark AF. It was a series about war and it never pretended not to be.

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

I remember seeing those books at my elementary school library those covers were pretty creepy

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

I remember seeing those books at my elementary school library those covers were pretty creepy

Yeah, what were they thinking with this one?

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

View attachment 907352
Yeah, what were they thinking with this one?

I would jack off to this but it’s red one not the green

 

[Crichax]

The books, even as a hardened sci-fi fan who has read loads of it, are absolute top kek. I don’t care if they are for kids, or scholastic, or that they vary in quality due to the ghost writing, I love them. The deep lore, things getting brutal from time to time, the characters getting more and more traumatized as time went on, it’s great. I absolutely recommend the books, even to adults. The one book where Jake gets a Yeerk in his head, the other book where Tobias first hunts and kills as a hawk that he’s stuck as, Marcos mom being an absent drug addict and his dad being sad as fuck, war is hell, there’s actually intriguing drama and characterization goin in. They didn’t have to go as hard as they did for this kids series, but I’m glad they did.
But the show, the show sucked. It could have been cool, but it just couldn’t make it. Acting, effects, writing, all just didn’t hit the mark. I did read a book about the behind the scenes and production of the Animorphs tv show, and they clearly tried, but just could hold it together.
It wasn’t as bad as the GameBoy game. That was next to unplayable.

In one episode of the show, there was a guy screaming "OATMEAL! OATMEAL!", and it was supposed to be this serious moment (since oatmeal had to do with the Yeerks' plan in some way). But instead of being intimidated, I ended up laughing.

And I couldn't believe that they tried to put product placement in the first episode (by having some of the characters play the Beast Wars PS1 game).

Those two moments represent the show in a nutshell.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I read some of the books and there were all out of order, but it was a really cool concept for kids. I might have repressed memories of some of the TV show because when it came to my attention a few years ago, some of it looked oddly familiar although I didn't want to check it out any further. But then again, '90s shows just all blend together into CGI and weird wide-shot Dutch angles goop...

 

[qu_rahn]

I was excited for this show to come out when I was a kid and then it sucked, but it was on Netflix a couple of years ago and was entertaining to rewatch. Honestly the intro theme is pretty dope - bootleg Smashing Pumpkins sound

Animorphs Theme Song

I just put this on even though I barley like it now.

www.youtube.com

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

I was excited for this show to come out when I was a kid and then it sucked, but it was on Netflix a couple of years ago and was entertaining to rewatch. Honestly the intro theme is pretty dope - bootleg Smashing Pumpkins sound

Animorphs Theme Song

I just put this on even though I barley like it now.

www.youtube.com

How much of the book series did it cover?

 

[Shokew]

How much of the book series did it cover?

Barely a fraction of it is properly covered (let alone done any modicum of well!). I'd just stick with the books. And yes - I read most of them, once I actually got into it, too. In fact, Animorphs is probably the only book series I've ever been proud to read in my life. Anything else was too much of a chore, simply because they didn't interest me like Animorphs actually did (and this was a time where I was learning to appreciate reading, rather than blowing smoke at the idea, too. God, I want to slap my childhood self for not appreciating this great book series even more than I did to begin with, even if I did eventually come around to liking it, too.).

 

[PL 001]

I adored these books back in the day. Started reading and collecting them from the first book's release. Naturally I was psyched when my friend had told me a live action series was coming to Nick.

Then I watched it...

Yeah, it wasn't very good. The effects were horrible, the kid actors did fine but the adults were clearly phoning it in, the plots were butchered and condensed down. Nature of TV, but it was disheartening to a kid that was such a huge fan of the series. Honestly if they retried it and put more effort into a reboot, I'd probably give it a watch to this day.

 

[Crichax]

Yeah, it wasn't very good. The effects were horrible, the kid actors did fine but the adults were clearly phoning it in, the plots were butchered and condensed down. Nature of TV, but it was disheartening to a kid that was such a huge fan of the series. Honestly if they retried it and put more effort into a reboot, I'd probably give it a watch to this day.

It's almost sad the show didn't last long enough to get to Crayak's shenanigans. Those episodes would've had some gnarly CGI.

 

[PL 001]

It's almost sad the show didn't last long enough to get to Crayak's shenanigans. Those episodes would've had some gnarly CGI.

I'm wondering how they would have handled the end of the series regarding

Spoiler: Spoilers

Rachel's death, Jake's PTSD, Tobias basically giving up on life, the dissolving of their friendship ect...

It was some heavy stuff for a series aimed at middle school kids. Probably the first book series where I really started to care about the characters.

Except Cassie. Fuck that preachy, fence sitting bitch.

 

[Crichax]

Except Cassie. Fuck that preachy, fence sitting bitch.

Nah, everyone was great, IMO. Even the ghost-written books were far superior than some of the atrocious YA of today.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Loved the books, even if I hated how it ended(intentional cliffhanger), but yeah. Cheap crappy tv show was cheap and crappy