Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.A few weeks back, Paxton over at the Cavalcade of Awesome posted a series focused on the 25th Anniversary of Back to the Future and it inspired me to show my own appreciation for the series... by watching cartoons of course!
Little did I know/remember that 'ole Doc Brown and Marty McFly's adventures in time didn't end with the third film after all. In fact, they continued for another year in animated form courtesy of Universal, Amblin TV and CBS. What was really cool about the cartoon is that each show actually began by featuring Christopher Lloyd reprising his role as Doc Brown to introduce his latest experiment or explain the "science" behind his devices. It was a much appreciated touch that helped it better tie-in with the films and exemplified an honest approach to broadening the franchise to a new audience.
The show did manage to capture a generous portion of the chemistry that made the films so great, but doesn't quite hold up as well in my mind. It's still fun to watch, but with an expanded cast and no linear storyline the show just feels a bit too open-ended. It's also cool to see how different, yet similar the animation team's take on Michel J. Fox was compared to the Cartoon Adventures of Teen Wolf series. Apparently the two characters are like long lost twins or something... go figure.
I was happy to see that SOME of the actors from the films were involved, however Dan Castelleneta (Homer J. Simpson) was brought on as Doc Brown. BUT, (And this is confusing) when "The Simpsons Ride" opened, they had Christopher Lloyd as Doc in the queue video! I'm pretty glad they got the real thing, but didn't they already have the next best thing?
BTW, that gag is where Frink tries to save Doc's institute by going back in the Delorean, but he ends up running over the loan officer. So Doc sells the place to Krusty.