How About That Thing?

In the days of the Sega Genesis, there was Mutant League Football, and Mutant League Hockey. Rumor has it there were plans for other games in the Mutant League franchise, and even a working beta of a Mutant League Basketball game found its way onto the internet like things often do anymore.

Unfortunately, I never played these games. Largely because I didn’t even know they existed until about 2005 or so. By then, my Sega Genesis was gathering dust in my mom’s basement somewhere, and I was getting way more mileage out of my PlayStation2. According to sites like Videogamecritic.net, though, it would appear I wasn’t missing anything.

However, while I was unfamiliar with the video game series, I was definitely familiar with the cartoon series.

Yes sir, there was a Mutant League cartoon at one point in the mid 90s. Furthermore, it was one of, if not my absolute favorite cartoon at the time. 

Upon rewatching the series on YouTube, though… Well, for starters, it’s probably safe to say a lot of the animation budget went towards the scene transition graphics than anywhere else. The animation has that real late-80s-early-90s choppy quality to it that you can’t help but notice years later, but you didn’t mind it so much back then because that’s how every cartoon looked. Hell, you probably don’t mind it now, for all I know and care. 

The thing that genuinely surprises me about this show, upon retrospect, is just how much violence they got away with. No joke, people got their limbs ripped off, heads exploded, and a lot of other things that are surprisingly gruesome for a kid show. And I think the fact the characters were monsters, as opposed to human beings, is literally the only reason they got away with it. Well, that, and the fact they made absolutely sure you knew what “the rejuvinator” was.

The rejuvinator, for the record, was a pod like machine that monsters would lie in, and through the science of bullshit, their injuries would heal, their limbs would either grow back or reattach, and so on. Is it bullshit? Oh, totally. Did it mean the main character could have his arm ripped off in the middle of a hockey game and get beaten upside the head with it? Hell yes!

Mutant League was predominantly your stereotypical sports show, once you got past the fact all the athletes were monsters who ripped each other apart on the field. First off, you have the plucky young rookie with all the talent in the world, and a strong moral compass.

Meet Bones Justice. He’s one of two hot new prospects who entered The Mutant League straight out of college. 

This is Razor Kid. He’s the other hot prospect straight out of college. Unlike Bones, who is serious fucking business every waking moment of his life, Razor is the more care-free of the two. Maybe not a comedy relief, but he definitely isn’t the most serious character on the show by comparison.

Razor and Bones end up signing with the worst team in the entire league, The Midway Monsters, as one giant middle finger to this guy.

This is, and I hope I’m spelling it right, Zalgor Prigg. He’s the commissioner of The Mutant League, and the owner of The Mutant League’s equivalent of [INSERT SPORTS TEAM WE’RE ALL SICK OF SEEING WIN EVERY SINGLE CHAMPIONSHIP], The Slay City Slayers. I’ve also been led to believe that he’s essentially Jerry Jones if he stopped bothering to wear his human disguise in public.

A lot of early episodes of Mutant League saw Prigg trying to sabotage The Monsters, and give the advantage back to The Slay City Slayers. Even if it means having to put up with this guy.

Meet K.T. Slayer. He’s a world-class meathead who apparently thinks “pulvagrate” is a word, and threatens to do it to the competition every chance he gets. He’s the team captain of The Slay City Slayers, and is responsible for a shoe commercial so annoying that even Prigg is sick of seeing it.

The Midway Monsters and The Slay City Slayers are often pitted against each other, but every now and then, some other teams see some action. Though it’s implied there are all sorts of teams in the league, though, we only hear from three other teams: The Derangers, The Ooze, and my absolute favorite of the tertiary teams, The Screaming Evils.

My god, you want to talk about a team name so stupid it somehow manages to be awesome, look no further than The Screaming Evils. It’s right up there with The Trash Pandas over in Minor League Baseball, or The Battlehawks over in the XFL. And it’s led by this lunatic right here.

This guy is known simply as Madman. I don’t know why I love this guy as much as I do, but I do. And I love his team.

The actual Mutant League itself is… Confusing. Rather than focus on one sport, like football, or hockey, or basketball, or volleyball, or… Sumo? Or at least the game they refer to as sumo, anyway. Pretty sure they took some liberties with the rules, and not just in the sense you can get away with literal murder.

Instead of focusing on one sport, they decide to have all of them. And it’s not even a matter of “Oh, it’s fall, so we’re focusing on football” or “Oh, it’s summer, so let’s focus on volleyball.” Literally every week, the mutants are playing a different sport. They’ll be playing football one week, then hockey the next, then soccer the week after that, then have a monster truck race the next, and so on. How the hell do they schedule this?

Regardless of what game they’re playing this week, every event is commentated on by this obnoxious little prick.

I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve long since forgotten this guy’s name. It’s been a long time, but I’m beginning to wonder if he even has a name to begin with. Other than something endearingly mocking that the fanbase (if there is one) gave him, of course. He’s clearly trying for Howard Cosell, but as far as my ears are concerned, he sounds like Jerry Seinfeld doing a Howard Cosell impresson at the top of his lungs. That, or that guy who was all about March Madness back when I was in high school. Dick Vitale, I think his name is. I don’t know, I don’t pay attention to college sports.

All I know for sure is I was apparently able to tolerate this prick when I was a kid. I don’t know HOW I was able to tolerate him, because as I rewatched this show on YouTube, I definitely found myself considering his voice to be the worst part of any given episode. And he’s all over the place, with commentating on games, delivering the news, narrating player bios, and ending each episode with what the show insists is the best highlight from the game we just witnessed.

But suppose you can tune him out. Is the show still good? Honestly… Yes and no.

The animation isn’t great, and I would definitely say that some episodes are better than others in terms of plot. However, when it comes to watching through childhood classics, I’ve definitely endured worse.

Honestly, I recommend giving it a watch. If only to marvel at how much they were able to get away with.