wait remember mucha lucha muchalucho was an american cartoon that premiered august 17 2002
on kids wb and who didn't love kids wb well at least when growing up with it ozzie and drix hello
kidswp hosted some great stuff and some weird edits and odd dubs for some shows but for the
most part this was a staple for saturday mornings one of the core shows being muchalucha so today
we're gonna take a look back on this show see what became of it and how much
we truly remember welcome back or hello for the first time to the 25 days of fringe miss where i
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mucho lucha ran from its 2002 release until february 26 2005 spanning three seasons the
events of muchalucha take place in the fictional southern california town of
luchaville where nearly everyone in town wears a luchador mask and lives the luchador lifestyle
complete with costumes signature moves and donuts the particular type of wrestling
featured in muchalucha is a form of professional wrestling popular in mexico called lucha libre or
freestyle wrestling lucha libre first emerged in mexico early in the 20th century over time it
developed into combinations of colorful masks unique characters and famed wrestling moves
that it is known for today featuring either solo matches or combinations of tag teams
all with flair and theatrics the iconic mass sworn in professional lucha libre matches are treated as
sacred embodiments of the individual with certain high stake matches going so far as to require the
loser to surrender their mask permanently as someone who is never into mainstream wrestling
here in the states i always did have a fascination with lucha libre i always thought the masks were
very cool i mean i loved ultimate muscle growing up there was also nacho libre heck even shows
like jackie chan adventures had some tie-ins to lucha libre muchaluccio which can be translated
literally as a lot of wrestling love that you know exactly what you're in for focused on a
trio of young wrestlers during their time at the foremost world-renowned international school of
lucha or furfusal for those in the know this trio of young wrestlers who call themselves the three
masqueridas is composed of ricochet bueno girl in the fleet ricochet is the main protagonist of the
series in the self-proclaimed leader of the trio he wears a red and blue uniform with a star on
the forehead he also works tirelessly throughout the series to reach his dream of being luchador
supreme bueno girl is a smart by-the-book wrestler she sports a white purple and green costume with a
large purple ponytail she adheres to the code of mass wrestling often chastising those who break
the code rounding out the trio is the flea a messy semi-feral but talented wrestler who dresses up as
a flea complete with antennas and a fuzzy brown costume the flea despite his impulsive nature he
would do anything for his friends to help them out especially if it involves trash acting as
ricochet's counsel throughout muchalucha is the talking action figure elray based on the
faint fictional mass wrestler of the same name el rey acts as ricochet's moral guide and lives
more often than not in the young wrestler's backpack this summer is opening up the doors
to our top secret animation studio where you'll get a chance to make your very own mini movie
watch moochalucha all new coming up next on kids wb lucha lucha was created by eddie mort and lily
chin morp began his animation career working at walt disney television animation in sydney before
leaving to work at nickelodeon australia where he animated several shorts for the network lili chin
for her part worked as a character designer animator and illustrator before working as a
character designer and producer for muchalucha chin and mort formed flock animation a sydney
based animation studio in 2000. through flock animation morton chin pitched muchalucha to
warner bros animation and bardel entertainment clearly the pitch worked later on in the tv
series run we got to see a direct to video movie called muchalucha the return of al malefico that
aired on october 5th 2004. the villain el malefico was a proper stakes-raising fit but it really just
felt like a longer episode more than anything it was cool to see them at least expand on a
story idea that was longer than their half segment runs but it definitely still had that feeling of a
direct to video release the first two seasons of muchalucha featured music made by michael
tavera who has also made music for such shows as time squad lilo and stitch the series the secret
saturdays and more recently the ghost in molly mcgee the show would come with a label though
being the first ever all flash animated series on broadcast tv and yeah it very much looks
like a flash production that we would kind of see on youtube with the animators in the early
days of the site as well as other video platforms around the time even before youtube's existence
and that's not to say it's ugly or anything it's just not uh detailed i'd say and it's also very
much twitchy some issues here and there with the animation but they make up for it with all the
different and varied unique designs for all the luchadors snow pea is the most adorable thing i
have ever seen and i've seen this the show while having these interesting characters to me at least
feels like they don't do enough with them aside from showing off some really cool wrestling nearly
magical looking moves it constantly feels a bit repetitive versus new or exciting it just needed
that extra little pizzazz either on the visual side or the writing side i watched it a lot as
a kid but viewing it again as an adult i'm far more put off by the show now and that sounds a
lot harsher than i'm intending it to sound it just doesn't have that draw for me that
it once did which is heartbreaking because again i watched the heck out of this show growing up
the fan base for the show sure tuned in when it came to the show itself but what about the off
tv offerings muchalucha had a 2004 jack specific toy line of mix-a-lot action figures which
allowed these body parts to be removed and switch with the body parts of other action figures in
the series kind of like what we would later see with that like skylanders thing where you would
take the skylanders apart and magnetize to the other ones plenty of toys did that i don't know
why i chose skylanders i'm an adult okay along with the mix-a-lot action figures signature move
action figures would also be released around that time with some success i never had any growing up
but i had a friend who did at least had a couple of them and they were pretty cool overall didn't
make me jealous or anything you know his parents loved him more than my parents loved me i get it
i understand unfortunately due to reaching only minimal success with the toy line the second
muchalucha line of toys was cancelled before production began which can also indicate how a
studio can now feel about the property adding a small casted dark cloud over the brand the show
doing well is one thing but if they can't make the money on the toys is there even a show in general
hey don't look at me i didn't say that that's the company in the summer of 2004 dc comics released a
mini-series based on mucha lucho written by eddie mort the dc comic series ended up spawning three
issues these comics included el rey come home it's all bueno and limbo of the lost luchadores with
the events of these comics occasionally referenced in the show bringing them into the overall canon
in 2003 a mucha lucha gameboy advance game called masqueridas of the lost code was licensed and
rated as one of the lowest reviewed games for that console and a playstation 2 game called mysterioso
grande was also scheduled but was cancelled around 2004 as the creators couldn't find a publisher
in 2005 the network decided to cancel the series with no particular reason for the decision stated
but probably mainly due to dying ratings most can assume that's usually the case that and
you know the toy sales just weren't popping off but hey in 2014 morton chin proposed a sequel tv
show called muchalucha para siempre focused around the trio but this time as teenagers
working on their wrestling skills that uh well it didn't happen morton chin went as so far as
to produce a clip with the original cast of the series to pitch this show but unfortunately warner
bros wasn't interested in revisiting the series i know it was just a small animatic but uh it's it's
a little rough looking but i am happy they are at least trying to push for something that they
truly believe in in 2017 mort wrote the web comic mucha lucha tales from the colosseum which was
supposed to serve as a continuation of the show the first issue was published by frogtown comics
and it's been slow going for the congruent next issues the show itself the wrestling matches are
really fun it's mainly just yelling and some crazy looking powered up attacks but at least we see all
of the characters do something unique throughout the show's run while i like the memories i had
growing up with the show it just unfortunately has that early 2000s smell on it and not the
good one it has to do something with the way the flash animation looks to me and i hate that that
is the reason that i can't get into it again i do like the characters and i'm glad they changed the
things they did from the lucha school pilot with ricochet super nina la cucaracha and cyclone wait
who's that it doesn't matter they never made it to the actual show r.i.p my friend but none of this
needs to bend to what my childhood expectations as an adult should be it's just silly wacky and
weird and sometimes gross but it's fine it left me with memories i won't soon forget and it's
in full hd thanks flash you're welcome wow what a dumb joke i hope that's not how we end the video
anyway let me know your thoughts on muchalucha do you think it holds up
or is it something that didn't do it for you on a revisit thanks so much for hanging out with
me today make sure to hit the like button and subscribe for more content like this
follow me on twitter i'll see you tomorrow with another video for my next day of fringe
miss check out the playlist to keep up with this month but until then later
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