Gargoyles (TV series)
Gargoyles is an animated television series co-produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and Buena Vista Television, Walt Disney Animation Japan for its first two seasons and Nelvana Limited for its final, and originally aired from October 24, 1994, to February 15, 1997. The series features a species of nocturnal creatures known as gargoyles that turn to stone during the day. After spending a thousand years in an enchanted petrified state, the gargoyles are reawakened in modern-day New York City, and take on roles as the city's secret night-time protectors.
Gargoyles was noted for its relatively dark tone, complex story arcs, and melodrama; character arcs were heavily employed throughout the series, as were Shakespearean themes. The series also received favorable comparisons to Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series. A video game adaptation and a spin-off comic series were released in 1995. The show's storyline continued from 2006 to 2009 in a comic book series of the same title, produced by Slave Labor Graphics, and was again revived by Dynamite Entertainment in 2022. In 2023, a live-action reboot for Disney+ was announced, to be produced by Atomic Monster.
Premise
The series features a species of nocturnal creatures known as gargoyles that turn to stone during the day, focusing on a clan led by Goliath. In 994, the clan lives in a castle in Scotland. Most are betrayed and killed by humans while petrified and the remainder are magically cursed to sleep—i.e., be frozen in stone form until the castle "rises above the clouds." A thousand years later in 1994, billionaire David Xanatos purchases the gargoyles' castle and has it reconstructed atop his New York skyscraper, the Eyrie Building, thus awakening Goliath and the remainder of his clan. While trying to adjust to their new world, they are aided by a sympathetic police officer named Elisa Maza and quickly come into conflict with the plotting Xanatos. In addition to dealing with the gargoyles' attempts to adjust to modern New York City, the series also incorporated various supernatural threats to their safety and to the world at large.Episodes
A total of 78 half-hour episodes were produced.The first two seasons aired in the Disney Afternoon programming block. The first season consisted of 13 episodes, including a five-part opening story. This season's episodes were almost entirely written by Michael Reaves and Brynne Chandler Reaves. The second season featured 52 episodes, and a long mid-season story arc dubbed by fans as "The Gargoyles World Tour" in which four of the main characters travel the world, encountering other Gargoyles and confronting various mystical and science-fictional dangers. The writing staff was greatly expanded for season two.
Following Disney's purchase of ABC in 1996, the third and final season aired during Saturday mornings on ABC as Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles. Behind the scenes, the animation producers and writers had almost completely changed from seasons one and two, while on-screen, the Gargoyles' relationship to the world changed considerably.
Voice cast
, Ed Asner, Jeff Bennett, Keith David, Bill Fagerbakke, and Salli Richardson voiced the main characters, and appeared in a majority of episodes.The voice cast featured many alumni of the Star Trek franchise, including Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes, who were featured regularly as principal cast members. Many other Star Trek actors had recurring roles or made guest appearances.
Development
The series bears no creator credit, though there were several people who are responsible for the show's format. Michael Reaves, who wrote the first six episodes and was the primary writer/story editor of the show's first two seasons has described himself with respect to Gargoyles as "in on the ground floor creating something iconic". Greg Weisman also describes himself as one of the creators of Gargoyles having included much of the folkloric, mythological, and historical elements.The series' first season was almost entirely written by the husband-and-wife team of Michael Reaves and Brynne Chandler Reaves, who wrote 12 of the 13 episodes; the remaining episode was written by Steve Perry. All three writers were just coming off having written extensively for Batman: The Animated Series. Weisman officially joined the series as a co-producer with episode 6, and did not have any writing credits on the show until the third season.
The first season was developed on a sliding schedule; each phase of developing the thirteen episodes, such as writing, storyboarding, and animating, was given a ten-month period, with significant overlap. After they had delivered the first thirteen episodes, the production team asked Buena Vista Television to pick up a second season with another thirteen; the show had not yet aired, but Buena Vista agreed for them to start work on six more episodes. Once the show started its weekly syndication run in 1994, it was quickly seen as successful both as a television program and for promoting toy sales, and Buena Vista pushed the show's team to make the second season 52 episodes so that they could run it daily starting in the 1995 television season. Weisman stated they were not prepared for this given their production methods and the lack of timing to get those episodes ready for a fall 1995 premiere, despite telling Buena Vista this several times. When Disney refused to back down from the 52-episode order, the team decided to expand fourfold to handle the additional episodes. The writing staff grew to include Reaves, Chandler Reaves, and Perry, as well as newcomers Lydia Marano, Cary Bates, Gary Sperling, Adam Gilad, Diane Duane and Peter Morwood, amongst others. For this season, story editing duties were handled on a rotating basis by Reaves, Chandler Reaves, Bates, and Sperling. Storylines expanded beyond the Manhattan setting and more characters were added to help create stories to fill the episode count. Weisman said that he had discussions with Michael Eisner of using Gargoyles as a starting point for an action-oriented universe within Disney, comparing this to how Warner Bros. owned DC Comics, and some second-season episodes were used to set up potential hooks for these.
The second season finished with a definitive wrap-up story told over a series of final episodes. However, a third season was unexpectedly ordered—although the series order was reduced to thirteen episodes and moved to a Saturday morning slot. Around this point, Reaves, Chandler Reaves, Perry, and Sperling all left the show. Meanwhile, the reduced episode order was a result of two factors according to Weisman. The first was changes within Disney itself. The fallout from the death of Disney president Frank Wells led to the divide between Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Katzenberg left to form DreamWorks. Weisman's bosses, Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston, who had been supportive of Gargoyles, also left with Katzenberg for DreamWorks. Further, internal pressure on Eisner from Roy E. Disney forced him to treat Gargoyles as part of the studio's older works, thus dropping the larger action universe plans, and leaving the show without any support. Secondly, as the second season aired, the highly publicized trial of O. J. Simpson drew audiences away from Gargoyles often due to preemption from the trial's coverage. By the time the trial was over, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had become more powerful as a brand.
At this point, the show staff did not think they were likely to get a third season, but as Disney had just bought Capital Cities, the owners of the American Broadcasting Company network, they needed programming for its Saturday morning block. They therefore had the mostly new Gargoyles team develop thirteen more episodes for it, now calling the series The Goliath Chronicles. Returning writers included Marano, Bates, and Gilad; Weisman also made his debut as a writer with the season opener. Because the series was on broadcast stations rather than syndication, the show had to meet different Broadcast Standards and Practices which Weisman stated drastically limited his creativity. While he wrote the first episode and spoke of his concerns to Disney, Weisman has contended Disney had removed him from the team and assigned the rest of the show's run to Nelvana leaving The Goliath Chronicles to be classified as being non-canon.
In May 2020, Weisman said in an interview, "Gargoyles is still my baby. I don't own it. I don't get a dime off of it being on Disney Plus. And yet I'm so thrilled that it is, I'm thrilled that it represents a chance — even if it's a slim chance — to bring it back. I've always wanted to do more. I've got a timeline for the show that's 315 pages long. I've got notebooks and comp books full of ideas for it. Spin-off notions and all sorts of things. Literally, nothing would make me happier than to go back and do more Gargoyles."