Once upon a time in the ought-90’s animation studios took a somewhat different approach to your typical cartoon production.  Slowly the more common line-art form of standard animation was pushed aside and the BRAND NEW WORLD of computerized animation was brought to the forefront.  Mainframe was by far the leader in this clubhouse, producing the fantastic Reboot and Beast Wars animated series that garnered strong fan support and critical acclaim.

A Mainframe production that gets woefully overlooked, however was the fantastic Max Steele.  Starting off as a 12″ figure line produced by Mattel in response to Action Man coming over to the states (as an Extreme Sports star/super hero) Max Steele featured a lead character who was…err…  an Extreme Sports star/super hero.  The blatantly obvious copyright infringement aside, however, Max was the beneficiery of some fantastic cartoons.  I’ve scoured the dark corners of the internet, but have had no luck really tracking down the series, just to see if it stands the test of time (I hadn’t seen an episode in several years).  But once again, Youtube to the rescue!  While doing some research on G.I. Joe Extreme, I stumbled on an entire wealth of Max Steele cartoons.  I don’t think they’re all there, but there’s definitely a nice selection!

Episode 1 starts with the clip below:

There are some surprisingly more adult scenes, some great action, though, yes, there is a fair share of corny typical children’s TV fare.  Regardless, folks should at least give it a shot, you might be entertained.

A full “Max Steele” search brings up over 28,000 hits.  Woah.