Marvel Films
You can count the TV series premieres on one hand this week, with some fingers left over as two of the premieres are actually TV movies, one that wrapped up a series and the other a Hallmark holiday extravaganza with two popular female stars. As far as the three new series, two are animated, one of which is centered around a popular Marvel superhero, and the other is a live-action drama featuring a fictional first for the country. Scroll down to see the shows and movies that premiered this week and tell us if you remember any of them.
1954
- No new series premiered this week in 1954.
1964
- No new series premiered this week in 1964.
1974
- No new series premiered this week in 1974.
1984
- No new series premiered this week in 1984.
1994
- November 19 – Spider-Man (FOX Kids, Five seasons, 65 episodes)
Spider-Man is also known as Spider-Man: The Animated Series. The series finale was the first to introduce the ‘Spider-Verse’ storyline, also known as the ‘Spider-Man Multiverse’, which later inspired similar narratives in various Spider-Man comics, cartoons, and films in the early 21st century. This was the only series the newly former Marvel Films Animations produced in-house, though it was animated by TMS-Kyokuchi Corporation. For several years, it was the second longest-running Marvel series after X-Men, and the longest-running Spider-Man series until 2015’s Ultimate Spider-Man. The show, like many animated series at the time, had to follow certain rules with guns shown only in flashbacks, and no punching, throwing through glass, putting children in danger, vampires and no use of the word ‘sinister’. Marvel had no creative control over the series as the company was facing bankruptcy at the time, but Stan Lee did have influence over the first 13 episodes. To reproduce New York City, photos taken above the city, particularly rooftops, were used, maps were consulted, and buildings were faithfully recreated. Animations cels of the Pan Am Building had to be scrapped after the animation team learned the building had been renamed the MetLife Building a year earlier.
2004
Renegade Animation
- November 19 – Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi (Cartoon Network, Three seasons, 39 episodes)
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi features fictionalized and animated versions of the Japanese pop rock group Puffy AmiYumi. The series was nominated for an Annie Award three times during its short run. The first season included live-action clips of the real Ami and Yumi making childish commentary (in English and non-subtitled Japanese) at the beginning and end of each episode. They only performed short clips at the beginning of the second and third season episodes. Despite the nationality of its characters, the series was one of the few animated shows at the time produced fully in the US.
2014
Brad Krevoy Television
- November 17 – State of Affairs (NBC, One season, 13 episodes)
- November 22 – Hello Ladies: The Movie (HBO, TV movie)
- November 22 – A Royal Christmas (Hallmark Channel, TV movie)
State of Affairs featured Alfre Woodard playing the first black woman to be elected president of the United States.
Hello Ladies: The Movie wrapped up the short-lived sitcom that premiered on September 29, 2013.
Hallmark holiday movie A Royal Christmas starred Lacey Chabert, Stephen Hagan and Jane Seymour. The movie was filmed on location around Sighişoara, Romania.
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