Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
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The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20120108020110/http://tv.ign.com:80/articles/121/1214608p4.html
The live-action Flash movie continues to be elusive, but let us not forget that back in 1990 Barry Allen did show up in the flesh-and-blood on a short-lived but fun CBS TV series. Riding on the heels of the first Tim Burton Batman, The Flash show bears a similar vibe with its latex super-suit, dark and theatrical Central City and Danny Elfman title theme. After an early run of fairly pedestrian crooks, the Flash (John Wesley Shipp, a.k.a. Dawson's dad!) found himself up against variations on some familiar DC bad guys, including Mark Hamill as the Trickster – in a role that laid the groundwork for his iconic Joker vocal performance. But the Scarlet Speedster's greatest foe turned out to be the ratings, and after one season he was forced to run off into that great Speed Force in the sky.
#9: Tales From the Crypt
From the Danny Elfman score to the shrieking death-themed puns of the Crypt Keeper, HBO's Tales from the Crypt horror anthology series -- based on the popular 1950s EC Comic of the same name -- was the perfect mix of gore, skin and laughs. Every episode gave us a new pulpy, deadly morality play that focused on greed, lust and, well, the other deadly sins while giving guest starts like Brad Pitt, Joe Pesci, Whoopi Goldberg, Demi Moore, Kirk Douglas, Timothy Dalton, Roger Daltrey, John Lithgow and Malcolm McDowell a place to cut loose and get their fingernails bloody. Famous directors also flocked to the series (which was produced by Richard Donner and Robert Zemeckis) like John Frankenheimer and William Friedkin, while a few actors, like Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger, used the gloriously ghoulish series to try their hand at directing.
#8: The Tick
"SPOOOON!" In the 90's, Ben Edlund (now an executive producer and writer for The CW's Supernatural) created a comic book about a blue-suited blowhard of a superhero who spouted awkward justice-riddled catch-phrases and bandied about town with a doughy man in a white moth costume. And little did anyone know that a FOX kids animated series based on that comic -- which Edlund would be heavily involved in -- would perfectly capture The Tick's bizarre, smart humor in a way that captivated both kids and adults. With characters like Chairface Chippendale, Die Fledermaus, Sewer Urchin, American Maid, Dinosaur Neil, Bi-Polar Bear and the Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight, this show proved its genius week after week. But it was really the booming voice of Townsend Coleman and phrases like "Breadmaster, your culinary crime wave has crashed on the shores of justice!" that made this show a winner.
"Middleman!" We're guessing a good number of you haven't seen this series, which was criminally overlooked during its brief run on ABC Family – a cable channel that was completely the wrong home for a series that was a little bit Buffy, a little bit Men in Black, and yet had a quirky tone and feel all its own. Lost writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach adapted his own comic book, about Wendy (Natalie Morales), a funny, sarcastic, geeky gal who becomes partners with the alien and monster-fighting superhero meets superspy, The Middleman (Matt Keesler). The Middleman managed the deft and difficult trick of being both purposely campy (and very funny) yet also heartfelt when it came to the characters, with extremely clever scripts and excellent performances from Morales and Keesler. And while it stinks that the show ended without a proper series finale, at least Grillo-Marxuach was able to tie the story up in a comic book, bringing The Middleman full circle.
There have been many actors who have played Clark Kent, but it's doubtful any will equal Tom Welling, in terms of the amount of screen time he had to show what life is like for a Man of Steel, across an impressive ten-year run. Yes, Smallville had some wild ups and downs in terms of storylines and seasons, but at its best, it did a compelling job of telling the story of a boy born with powers far greater than those around him, and how he learned to use those abilities for something worthwhile and just as a man. The portrayals of iconic Superman touchstones like Lois Lane (Erica Durance) and Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) were very popular, and the show also created some strong new characters, such as Chloe Sullivan (Alison Mack) and Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman). It was also especially fun, as the show continued, to see more and more DC Comic book characters introduced -- many in their very first live-action appearances.
