Wasn't there a board game or something similar to this?

Well there is Bloodbowl from GW that is similar in board game form. It even has its own video game adaption.

You might be thinking of Blood Bowl. It's like Warhammer crossed with football, and is pretty rad, though apparently the videogame wasn't too great.

edit: ninja'd

I love these. This bring back some many memories. Also i loved "DAH Monsters" joke

how did slapping the head off a guy with torn flesh and green ooze pass for a kid show?

o and congratz on your golden episode

Because one thing was missing from the cartoon show that they had in the games:

Killing.

As you could see, they could be impaled, eviscerated, decapitated, the works, but it would all be okay because they just needed some time in the "tank" to regrow or reattach any or all needed body parts.

Which I have to say is a REALLY clever way to pull the "Crap Under The Radar" trope. Especially given how much they were able to put in.

In the EA games, I'm pretty sure most of that stuff, like the whole decapitation thing, would be considered a kill. But apparently even if the head has a baseball run through it, some "tank time" is all it would take to make things right again.

Compared to the games, this show definitely does not live up to it, or anyone's, standards. And a 70 minute clip show? With the whole "Movie" tacked on? And I thought making a movie that's milking a cartoon series that's milking a video game franchise was bad enough. Or making a cartoon series that's milking a movie that's milking a video game franchise, but nobody could possibly be that stu...

*notices the Mortal Kombat cartoon series*

FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

I remember this series. Lasted all of 2 seasons and half the characters from the games were either on the wrong teams, wrong creature, or wrong name. I definitely remember one episode where Bones was unable to walk so he had to use some sort of hover wheelchair to compete in a basketball game, only for the commissioner to sanction him beyond the 3 pt arc in order to play, which of course backfired.

As for a revival of the game, Midway kinda came close to it a few years back with Blitz the League and Blitz II. You had the juicing aspect, the training modifiers in between games, and the o so glorious bone busting, muscle tearing, season ending injuries. First season game I played had two opponents leave the game with a fractured skull and a spinal contusion, which both had sick x-ray/CAT-scan looks to the players being decimated. Sadly the games never got great reviews, was banned in Australia (over the juicing) and Midway was bought out by Warner.

Maybe a Virtual Console release of the Mutant League games if EA were to step up to it.

That was a great video. I remember being so hooked on both Mutant League games when I was a kid, I'm pretty sure that was a big reason why I got a Sega Genesis. I also used to watch the cartoon every Saturday morning and at the time I really loved it because it was based on a videogame. I just remember one day turning on the tv and waiting for Mutant League to come on and instead it's "Bananas In Pajamas," I was mad as hell that morning.

I also remember some magazine, maybe EGM where they contacted someone from EA at request of fan letter and the official response from the EA guy was that the Mutant League games didn't sell as well as they hoped so they didn't make ML Basketball and there are no plans to make a current gen version. Screw you EA. One other thing that's kind of weird is that the ML show never was released on DVD, I mean there have been some really awful shows that got the whole series on DVD, maybe it's something like EA not giving the holder of the tv series the right to release it or some other legal crap.

Oh dear God. Another victim of the "Bananas In Pajamas" syndication time swap. It's rather comforting to know that I'm not the only person out there who was waiting anxiously for a syndicated show to come on that magical cartoon block hour(s) reserved time slot, only to be painfully disappointed when that pre-school crap came on.

Although, in MY area. "Bananas In Pajamas" replaced...

...and this is one that I think will piss off more than one anime fan...

..."Sailor Moon".

Nerd Rage in 3... 2...

As a kid, if that replaced SM with no warning, I would have thrown my breakfast cereal at the TV.

ah ...were the hell was i when this played on tv damnit! lol it looks great and from what you said now rare balls

awsome 'bears' tribue, CR

Amongst us gamers from the 16-bit era (and there are quite a few of us), the Mutant League games were tons of fun precisely because they were over the top disgusting, violent, brutal sports games where you didn't so much care about winning as you were seeing what kind of cool stuff you could do. Exploding ball? No problem. Rip a player's leg off? Sure! Kill the other team's star quarterback in a brutal mutilation with a sawblade arm? Why not?!

I see it every now and then when people talk about EA; people asking for new Mutant League games. They have fond nostalgic memories of hooking up with friends for 2-player games where they'd just play the hell out of it for a weekend afternoon of kicking back with some ML football or hockey. They were fun, memorable, and made sports games HIGHLY entertaining with the humor, atmosphere, and premise. It was right up there with NBA Jam in terms of exaggerated, over the top, and ridiculously fun sports games, but with 100% more blood and guts.

The only thing close now-a-days are the Mario Sports titles, and only because the Mario Sports games exaggerate the sport in question with various power ups, humor, and unique Mario themed levels filled with traps, obstacles, and mini-games galore.

So why not bring back the Mutant League games? Imagine a Mutant League game with the gore of the Dead Space franchise?! Eviscerating running backs from their limbs with chainsaws and other explosives would be so satisfying and sweet.

Maybe you can make the next episode about Bolbi Stroganovsky from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius

I loved the Mutant League games way back in the day myself. I gravitated toward Hockey, but that's just me.

Sadly, Mutant League is not likely to see the light of day ever again, as the owner of the license, EA, also publishes another violent fantasy sports game called Blood Bowl.

A little history: Blood Bowl started as a Warhammer spin-off wherein the two original teams of Orcs and Humans played football. Many additional races/teams were added with time, and it was/is awesome. For several years previously, there was a program called FUMBBL where people could play Blood Bowl online with each other.
In 2004, a company called Cyanide released a modern real-time version of this idea called Chaos League. Sadly, they went beyond likeness and even included a Bloody Sun Boyz banner in some of their artwork. Games Workshop, instead of suing their pants into another dimension, instead struck a deal with them to bring their board game Blood Bowl into a full PC game version, which was released in 2009.

TL;DR: EA is currently not likely to dust off Mutant League, because violent fantasy football is a small enough (despite being awesome) niche that a challenger in the marketplace would not do terribly well, especially considering Blood Bowl is an established license that's been around for years.

Yes I remmember that episode about the coach that couldn't heal all the way. He started off as a coach/mentor who was retired from being a player. Basically he had been torn apart so much in the past that he just didn't stay together that well anymore. In one episode he comes out of retirement just like Michael Jordan, but quickly remembers why he retired in the first place when he takes a beating. It was actually a pretty deep episode considering the goofy context of the show.

p.s. You need to do a familiar faces on the fembot Silica from Ralf Bakshis "Star Chaser: the legend of Orion".

I wonder if they would ever make a new Mutant League HD game for DLC...that would be interesting.

I think that announcer is an impression of Dick Vitale... who does college basketball games and is just as annoying as the impression.

I never heard of any of this, but it seems kind of fun. Not the movie, of course, but the rest.

So do you think the Mutant League ever did a face off against the Human League? ...man that joke makes me feel old...Great job as always CR!

I never played this Mutant League but there was a game very similar to this with Baseball and robots on the NES. Base Wars.

You played base ball with 4 types of robots each with a different lower body. Legs, Motorcycle wheel, Tank Treads, and a Hover platform. Basically you played the game as normal except tagouts would result in a one on one battle between the opposing teams member. Each robot had 2 ways to attack between a locomotive attack based on which ever lowerbody they had, or their weapon they were equiped with.

As you played through the pennant you could upgrade your bots with new parts and weapons to improve their skills in the game or in fights. If a robot is completely knocked down to 0 HP it exploded. It was possible to win a game by exploding 3 robots from the opposing team, my personal favorite way to win. It sounds a lot like ML here but sadly I think the NES release was all it ever had.

Fun stuff, CR.

And congratulations to the Green Bay Packers, for breaking their drought. Let's hope it's the start of something big for them...

I loved this show when I was kid, thanks for bringing it back.

Aah, one of the strong suits of your show, CR, is that you keep introducing people to things about which they had no idea that they existed. I was always interested in the games, but never got to play them - And I would never, ever have thought that they'd turned it into a show. Ultra-violence on Saturday mornings? That's not Sparta!

Also, a special thank you for the last two seconds of the video. *throws horns*

Mutant League has to be the one EA franchise that I really want EA to bring back. With so many other, boring sports games out there, it would be awesome to get a real video game where I could have mutants slamming into each other, ripping each other apart on the field.

Oh sure, Blood Bowl is similar, but not quite. Either way, maybe we'll see the franchise come back some day, or at least get a DVD set of the cartoons.

This is the only sports game Ive ever played. And one of the many classics that make my Sega worth playing. You could win just by killing the other team, no scoring required!

Mutant League was one of those franchises my cousin got me into back in the day when, if I wanted to play a Genesis game, I'd look him up.

I barely remembered the cartoon until now and....yeah how did this manage to get on TV again? Something tells me the whole "magic regeneration chamber" still wouldn't have been enough for it to fly.

watching this the one mutant that looks like a lizard is voiced by jeff nimoy the guy that did nicolas d wolfwood in trigun

Awww. No mention of the comic strip?

I liked that cartoon when I was kid, but I had no idea it was based on a game. I think you could have made a joke with the bodybuilding skeleton from Beetlejuice though, I mean, Bones Justice is supposed to be a skeleton, yet he still looks buff, what's up with that?

my friend,Luke and i use to love this show as kids even if we're not into sports like other kids

The Blood Bowl video game is awesome. Rock Paper Shotgun has said often they loved the game in it's old edition and the Legendary Edition of Blood Bowl on PC is nigh perfect, fixing all the issues and adding all but one standard team.

As far as Blood Bowl to mutant league football, they're similar in theme (I think Blood Bowl came first.) but completely different in gameplay. Mutant League football plays similar to your standard sports game. Blood Bowl is a straight-up strategy game. If you don't have the PC version of Blood Bowl Legendary Edition, get it, once you learn the rules the game is simply awesome.

This show is like the Elfen Lied of Satderday Morning Cartoons...oh and great review CR:)

"You're tearing me apart Mutant league!!"

Man, that show looks like a real stinker.

Awesome! I thought I was the only person who remembered the show's existence. I loved watching it when I was a kid. It irked me so much when no one else remembered it. I thought I was going to lose my mind or at least had made up the whole thing in my mind. You, CR, have rekindled my faith in humanity.
I never played the video games, because at that point in my life I just wasn't in to games. But I have a huge nostalgic place in my heart for the cartoon. I don't remember the "movie" and perhaps that's for the better, but I would love to find the show somewhere I can watch it.
Great vid. I'm a big fan; can't wait to see what's next.