How About That Thing?

In the mid 90s, there was a cartoon on Nickelodeon named Kablam!. It had this gimmick of being “where cartoons and comics collide!”, but in the grand scheme of things, it was basically a place to dump a bunch of shorts Nickelodeon most likely didn’t know what to do with. Which is fine, in the long run. Nothing wrong with a good old fashioned sketch show.

Kablam!, like a lot of sketch comedy, was pretty hit and miss for me. When it came to the recurring sketches, I remember absolutely LOVING Prometheus and Bob. And I remember absolutely HATING Life with Loopy. Sniz and Fondue ended up growing on me after a while.

And then, there was this show.

Yes, Action League NOW!. A show whose animation process consisted primarily of chucking action figures into oncoming traffic, and trying to figure out how to write a story around it. No, seriously, this show quite literally does the bare minimum when it comes to stop motion animation. Often times, when a character is talking, the guys putting the show together just waggle the figure around, and hope to god you can’t see their hands at any point in the process. It’s the kind of stop motion animation that, at absolute best, makes Robot Chicken look like a Tim Burton movie.

The titular Action League consists of the following heroes.

This is The Flesh. He’s butt-ass naked, and not sorry about it. He’s super strong, and brick stupid to boot. In fact, about ninety percent of the humor of this show seems to come from the fact he really doesn’t know his own strength. Hence why the rest of the league usually end up getting crushed under pots, or run over by cars.

This is Thunder Girl. She flies. Like Thunder. She seems to be the only one with a superpower that’s even remotely useful… But she ends up getting just as injured as everybody else in the show despite it.

This is Stinky Diver. He possesses the power of having a harpoon gun, and being the only one who can actually swim when thrown in the toilet. I also kind of feel like there was a missed opportunity with him. Seriously, with a name like Stinky Diver, you’d think more people would be offended by the way he smells. I mean it’s definitely possible the rest of the league is nose blind, as the kids these days like to say, but still, put some flies buzzing around him or something.

Last up, we have Melt Man. His ultimate power is apparently getting his ass kicked by life, the universe, and The Flesh’s inability to keep his own strength in check. As memory serves, ninety percent of the mishaps that result in getting hit by cars happen to him specifically.

Not going to lie, he was probably my favorite of the league way back when. I don’t know if it’s because he’s such a sad sack that even the narrator struggles to make him sound useful, or if it’s the fact that hurr hurr funny idiot man get crush by pot, or what, but I remember him being my favorite for some reason.

About seventy percent of the time, the villainous plot of the day comes from this guy.

This man right here is His Dishonor, The Mayor. And… Well… Have you ever felt like you’re on the outside of an inside joke? This character right here always made me feel like there was a reference I wasn’t getting. Like, was this guy supposed to be someone the team making this show knew personally? Was he a parody of a real life 90s politician? Was it just weird for weird’s sake? I don’t know, but in a way, he was my other favorite character.

In short, Action League NOW! was A spectacle. It looked like crap, the characters were nonsensical, the plots went nowhere and rarely had satisfying conclusions… Frankly, the fact they kept getting crushed under random crap, run over by cars, getting chopped to bits in ceiling fans, blown up, and so on, kind of made it hard to take any threat to their success and their lives seriously.

And yet, there was something about this show that was absolutely brilliant despite it all. It was like Team America: World Police, except with G.I. Joe instead of Captain Scarlet. Also, it was more kid friendly… Though the fact they were all action figures was probably how they got away with getting dismembered and decapitated as often as they did.

If I had to guess, this show’s writing reminds me a lot of what I like to call “The Axe Cop method.” I remember hearing a long time ago that the guy who wrote Axe Cop basically just transcribed what went on when his kids and their friends played in the backyard, changed virtually nothing when adapting it into a script, and drew a comic book based off that script.

I feel like Action league NOW! had a similar sort of writing process as far as plot and characters were concerned. This show is like the kind of game a kid would come up with if you put them in a room with a box of random action figures, and just sat back. Nothing makes sense, but you don’t care, because you’re seven, and you’re having fun. To hell if the grown-ups don’t get it, because it’s YOUR world. It’s not MY fault you don’t understand my artistic vision, dad!

The show was a regular fixture of Kablam!, but it eventually broke away from that show, and became its own series. Each episode contained about four different adventures, and some random features to pad out the time slot. Including Action Trivia: where the narrator would ask you a random question about something in the show. SPOILER: the answer was always C. Also, there was Ask the League, where real kids ask fake heroes questions.

It’s currently on Paramount+, so you could definitely watch it for yourself if you wanted. At the same time, though,, I thoroughly recommend pacing yourself. While it’s a fascinating show to sit through, a little of Action League NOW! goes a VERY long way. But at the same time, it’s not the worst show I’ve ever seen.