Action Man (1995 TV series)

Action Man
Title card
Genre	Superhero
Created by	DIC Productions Bohbot Entertainment
Based on	Action Man by Hasbro
Developed by	Bob Forward Phil Harnage
Written by	Julie Fuller and Diane Fresco (live action segments)
Directed by	Jeff Pruitt (live action) Chris Bartleman (cartoon)
Creative directors	Jeff Pruitt Chris Bartleman
Voices of	Mark Griffin Rolf Leenders Joely Collins Dale Wilson Iris Quinn Richard Cox David Hay Garry Chalk
Composer	Stephen C. Marston
Country of origin	Canada United States United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1[1]
No. of episodes	26
Production
Executive producers	Andy Heyward Brad Kreisberg Robby London Michael Maliani
Producers	Kyle Solorio Jim Weathers
Cinematography	Nick Woolfolk
Editor	Miriam L. Preissel
Running time	30 minutes
Production companies	DIC Productions, L.P. Bohbot Entertainment
Original release
Network	Syndication (Amazin' Adventures) (United States) Sky One (Sky One Undun) (United Kingdom)
Release	23 September 1995 (1995-09-23) – 30 March 1996 (1996-03-30)
Related
Action Man (2000 TV series)

Action Man is a children's animated/live-action television series, created by DIC Productions, L.P. and Bohbot Entertainment, which originally aired on the latter's Amazin' Adventures syndicated block. The cartoon is based on the Hasbro toy line of the same name.^[2] The show also featured live action segments before and after the main show, which were filmed at Universal Studios Hollywood and Florida.^[3]

Set in a fictional version of the post-Cold War world where the United Nations has been replaced by the World Security Council after the dissolution of the Soviet Union from which was followed then by the rapid decline of the already known political tensions between some nations and conflicts being waged around the world, leading to the rise of a steady peace in their place. However, what seems to be considered the build-up to world peace, that is slowly happening, is constantly threatened by an international paramilitary terrorist organisation since its emergence. The organisation is staffed by mercenary soldiers called "Skullmen", whose loyalty is to their leader, an evil mastermind who operates under the mysterious phantom identity of Doctor X. Doctor X is determined to achieve his ultimate goal of conquering the world and ruling it with an iron fist, but the only thing that's stopping him and his army of Skullmen from achieving world domination is the Action Team, an elite multinational military task force created by the leader of the World Security Council, Secretary General Norris, that is tasked with stopping all schemes overseen by Doctor X and have the responsibility of capturing him.

The series revolves around the title character Action Man, a British national and the field leader of an elite multinational military task force called "The Action Team", who fight against the evil terrorist Dr. X and his army of Skullmen, an organisation whose goal is world domination. Before joining the Action Team, Action Man was already an enemy of Dr. X and had been pursing his own personal mission of thwarting Dr. X's operations and trying to capture him, all while doing so without being affiliated with any law enforcement agencies or military forces. In his last mission of his solo career, Action Man fought Dr. X at a chalet in Switzerland while also crossing paths with his then future team-mates of Action Team: Natalie, Knuck and Jacques. The battle resulted in the building being set on fire, Dr. X escaping and Action Man being rescued along with Jacques by Natalie and Knuck before the chalet exploded. However Dr. X was able to shoot a brain wipe serum that made contact with Action Man's skin which caused him to have amnesia. Because his team-mates only heard Dr. X address him as "Action Man" on that night they first saw him it became his name from then on. Since then, Action Man tries to follow every lead he can to piece together the clues and recover his forgotten past whenever a random memory of his returns, all while he and Action Team stop Dr. X and his organisation from conquering the world.

Action Team are based on an orbiting space station called Space Station Extreme where travelling to and from it is by their high tech aircraft Jet Extreme, which they also use to travel to any part of the world where they are needed.

Each time a forgotten memory returns to Action Man he'll go to a secret base called "Base Paradise", which is hidden underground on an uninhabited island, where inside there is a machine that Action Man uses to undergo a virtual memory scan in which he enters a virtual simulated mindscape where he views the memory in vivid detail. The machine operates with an artificial intelligence named Vira, whose role is that of an assistant in the mindscape that provides Action Man with information and insight on unlocked memories when he's exploring them. To enter the mindscape, Action Man must wear a virtual reality suit and headset and stand inside a chamber that is a part of the machine, once inside he then gives Vira the verbal command to activate the virtual memory scan.

Action Man is a member of an elite multinational task force named the Action Team (not Action Force) who fight against the terrorist Dr. X and his evil organisation that is not called the "Council of Doom" in the TV series.

• Mark Griffin as Action Man / Matthew Exler
• Rolf Leenders as Doctor X / Dorian Exler
• Joely Collins as Natalie Poole
• Dale Wilson as Knuck Williams
• Iris Quinn as Vira
• Richard Cox as Jacques
• David Hay as Professor Gangrene
• Garry Chalk as Secretary Norris

• Nigel Bennett
• Lisa Bunting
• Christopher Gaze
• Chris Humphreys
• David Morse
• Colin Murdock
• Rick Poltaruk
• Simon Pidgeon
• William Samples
• Devon Sawa
• Paulina Gillis
• Andrew Francis
• Mark Hildreth
• Peter Kelamis
• Michael Dobson
• Tracey-Lee Smyth
• Ingrid Tesch

• The TV series was originally meant to start off with a first season that consisted of 26 episodes and air in the same year, but a decision was made to have it divided into two seasons with each one consisting of 13 episodes. The first of which was released in 1995 and the second in 1996.

• The sixth episode, "The Red Plague", should have been the fourth episode of the series and should have preceded "You Can't Go Home Again". Therefore the latter should have been the fifth episode and "Ancient History" should have been the sixth episode:
  • The unlocked memory of the episode, "The Red Plague", was that of Action Man when he was a boy screaming for his mother and father while standing in front of a burning house.
  • Action Man would revisit that memory again in "You Can't Go Home" and, after he followed a lead to an English village, another memory was unlocked that revealed he had a brother.
  • In "Ancient History", when in the mindscape during a virtual memory scan and while reflecting on the memory of the burning house, Action Man mentioned that he had a brother.

• The twentieth episode, "The Most Dangerous Prey", should have either been the fifteenth episode or the seventeenth episode. The flashback in this episode introduced a memory that Action Man revisits in the eighteenth episode, "Satellite Down". This suggest that the events in "The Most Dangerous Prey" preceded those that happened in "Satellite Down".

• The twenty-first episode, "Points of Danger", should have been the twentieth episode and aired after the nineteenth episode, "Space Walk".

• The fifteenth episode, "Ice Age", should have been the twenty-first episode of the series and aired after "Points of Danger". In "Ice Age", when Action Man was underwater, he hit his head when trying to resurface, not realising the water had been frozen. After this happened, he started to experience a whole series of flashbacks of memories that had been unlocked previously, including the following:
  • The memory of Action Man falling down without a parachute from an aircraft in the sky that is on fire was unlocked in "The Most Dangerous Prey".
  • The memory of Action Man with Ursula on the Eiffel Tower in Paris was unlocked in "Points of Danger".

• In each of the first live action segments of each episodes, they always start off with a cold opening followed by Action Man in the midst of an operation that takes place somewhere in the world and is unrelated to the main storyline of the episode. And as usual, he is tussling with Skullmen and foiling a plot of Dr. X.

• Action Man and Doctor X are the only two characters of the series to have been seen onscreen in the live action segments. Both of them were portrayed by their respective voice actors: Action Man was portrayed by Mark Griffin and Dr. X was portrayed by Rolf Leenders.

• Unlike Action Man, who appeared in all of the live action segments of each episode, Doctor X only had an onscreen appearance in six episodes: "Fountain of Youth", "Hands Down", "R.A.I.D.", "Deja Vu", "Points of Danger" and "Crack of Doom".

• All of the first live action segments that take place before the main story of each episode are considered cheesy, goofy and campy when compared to the traditional animated storylines.

• In the second live action segments that take place after the end of the storyline of each episode, Action Man is wearing the virtual reality suit and headset while standing inside the chamber of the machine at Base Paradise and commands Vira to activate the virtual memory scan so he can analyse an unlocked memory. Action Man is next seen inside the virtual simulated mindscape from a third person point of view, still wearing the suit and headset, and would display facial expressions depending on how he reacts to the memories. This segment was all stock footage and Action Man spoke in voiceover.

• In the live action segment of the episode "Fountain of Youth", after fighting a Skullman, Action Man used a special move of his to instantly knock out the Skullman and leaving him unconscious. The technique used by Action Man is to render a foe unconscious by pinching a pressure point at the base of their neck with just two fingers. This move is called the "Akesh grip". Action Man couldn't remember who taught it to him until an unlocked memory in the episode "The Outside Egde" revealed to him who it was and where he learnt it. A Tibetan monk at a monastery in the Himalayas. It was later revealed in "Satellite Down", that the Akesh grip is a secret move of something called "the mystical Akesh Arts". Since the name for this type of marital arts wasn't revealed in an unlocked memory, it can be assumed that the Akesh Arts is well known within the fictional world of Action Man but can't be learnt without a teacher who knows of it and therefore the Monk and those who live in the Monastery are the only ones who can teach it. How Action Man figured out the name of the technique was never revealed. Akesh Arts was never explored further but had the series continued the Tibetan Monk, who taught Action Man, would have been revealed to belong to a cult called the "Akesh Maharishis" that only live in the Monastery.

• In the episode "The Red Plague", when the Action Team are talking about Dr. X's threat to unleash the Red plague on the world unless he is given a trillion in gold, they talked about the fact that should he released the virus from one of his aircraft he can only infect one or two cities before being detected and shot down and those cities can easily be isolated by the UN, as mentioned by Knuck, to stop the spread of the plague to the rest of the world. The fact that Knuck mentioned the UN was likely a mistake in the script written for the episode since the United Nations is replaced by the World Security Council within the fictional world of Action Man and would have the responsibility to isolate any city had the virus been unleashed there.

• Throughout the series in some episodes, the Action Team is sometimes referred to as "Team Extreme" for some reason. In the episode "Peril at Perigee" Doctor X called the Action Team "Team Extreme" but later in the episode he referred to them as the "Action Team". In "Rogue Moons" and "Skynap", Secretary Norris had addressed the Action Team as "Team Extreme" in both episodes.

• Before it was edited in 2024, this Wikipedia page had incorrectly stated the following things of the TV series:
  • In the original premise section, the Action Team was incorrectly referred to as "Action Force" instead. Action Force was the name of a brand of European action figures released in the 1980s that was based on the Action Man toy-line. It was also used to introduce G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toys to European markets. The brand also had a series of British comic strip stories published in the weekly anthology Battle Picture Weekly from 4 June 1983 to 29 November 1986 by IPC Magazines. From the 8th October 1983 edition, the comic was retitled Battle Action Force. The stories portrayed Action Force, which is the name of a multinational Europe-based anti-terrorist military organisation, as the protagonists that thwart the ambitions of the Red Shadows, the antagonists. The series ended when the toy-line's new owners, Hasbro, discontinued the license.
  • Another error made in the original premise section, was that the terrorist organisation led by Dr. X was called "Council of Doom". The name belonged to that of a group that was introduced in the 2000 TV series of Action Man led by its version of Dr. X and consisted of various villains: mad scientists and assassins. In the 1995 TV series, the terrorist organisation of Dr. X doesn't official have a name other than the fact that the soldiers of his army are simply called "Skullmen".
  • There is an Action Man Fandom website called "Action Man Wiki". A community site that anyone can contribute to. Some of the information it provides regarding the TV series is also incorrect and in common with the previous Wikipedia page of Action Man (1995 TV series). The incorrect information is also repeated in Youtube videos by Youtubers who talk about the TV series.

The show introduced several new teammates for Action Man which were then made into toys. The action figures of Natalie Poole and Knuck have become very rare collectors items. At Joecon 2010, a convention exclusive Q-Force action figure of Natalie Poole was released.

In November 2001, Lions Gate Home Entertainment and Trimark Home Video released two VHS tapes titled "Secret of Action Man" and "Action Man in Space", containing two episodes each. A DVD also titled Action Man in Space was also released, containing the same four episodes as the VHS's. None of these DVDs contain the live-action segments.

In 2003, Sterling Entertainment released a DVD called "Space Wars". It was re-released by NCircle Entertainment in 2007. As with the Lions Gate releases, this DVD doesn't feature the live-action segments either.

In February 2015, Mill Creek Entertainment released Action Man - The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 as part of their "Retro TV Toons" series.^[4] This marked the first time all episodes of the show had received a DVD release.

In the United Kingdom, the series was released on VHS by Abbey Home Entertainment/PolyGram and later Just Entertainment and Abbey Home Media.

The episodes were also released on DVD by Abbey Home Media, with two releases from Prism Leisure, but the episodes on the DVDs are in a random order, and many episodes have been released numerous times while several have not been released at all. This has caused confusion amongst many fans.

In France, Spain and The Netherlands, VHS tapes of the series were released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment, once again usually containing two episodes.

• Action Man (1995) at IMDb
• IMDB: Episode list for "Action Man" (1995)
• TV.com: Action Man (1995) Episode Guide