The Marvel Action Hour

Marvel Action Universe

The Marvel Action Hour
Network	syndication
Country of origin	US
Owner	Genesis Entertainment
Formerly known as	The Marvel Action Hour
Format	week end animated series
Running time	60 minutes late 1995: 90 minutes

Marvel Action Hour, later 'Marvel Action Universe. was a syndicated television block from Genesis Entertainment featuring animated adaptions of Marvel comic book heroes the Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Biker Mice from Mars. The Marvel Action Hour debuted in 1994. The Marvel Action Hour lasted two seasons before being cancelled.

Format

The first half of the hour, was an episode of Iron Man; the second half, an episode of Fantastic Four (many episodes of which were direct recreations of episodes from the original 1960s series). During the first season, Stan Lee was featured speaking before each show about characters in the following episode and what had inspired him to create them.

The show underwent a notable modification when broadcast on the BBC in the United Kingdom; because the BBC does not feature commercial breaks, the two shows that made up the Marvel Action Hour would actually only have totaled about forty minutes, and so episodes of the 1980s Incredible Hulk series were added between the two original shows to bring the whole bundle up to the promised hour in length. The Stan Lee segments were, however, dropped.

Both the Fantastic Four and Iron Man were radically retooled for the second seasons, sporting new opening sequences, improved animation, and more mature writing, though the introductions by Stan Lee were shortened and now against a green screen displaying various production paintings from both shows.

In most markets, the second season was known as Marvel Action Universe with the addition of Biker Mice from Mars, which was the name of a previous syndicated programming block in the late 1980s.

See also

• Fantastic Four (1994 TV series)
• Iron Man (TV series)
• New World Communications - Generally, New World owned television stations broadcast The Marvel Action Hour along with generally Fox, WB, UPN, or independent stations in markets where New World did not own a station.