Today marks the 24th anniversary of the first airing of X-MEN:TAS on the Fox Television Network on October 31st, 1992. (It is also Halloween, and would have been my late father’s 90th birthday, but let’s stick to X-MEN today.) As most of you know, Fox had hoped to get us on the air at the beginning of the 1992/93 TV season in early September. But a late start getting the project authorized (February, ’92) and creative and production challenges meant that not enough episodes were in good enough shape to show audiences by September. Fox Kids president Margaret Loesch had a tough decision to make: show substandard episodes on schedule, and probably have to repeat them while waiting for others to complete, or delay the entire series until January for a “mid-season” start. Delay meant showing repeats of low-rated old series in the X-MEN time slot for 17 weeks — angering televison station owners and their supporting advertisers, all of whom would lose money for those four months along with Fox. Well, Margaret stood by her guns and insisted that X-MEN:TAS wouldn’t be shown until it was right. History has proved her decision wise, but at the time it could have cost her her job. As we anxiously waited for January, Margaret had the brilliant idea of a “sneak preview” of the show, to be shown in the early evening on Halloween. This airing of the now-better-animated (still not final) series pilot (“Night of the Sentinels”) got people excited. Ten weeks later, when “Sentinels” was right and we had enough episodes properly completed and polished, X-MEN:TAS had its official January premiere. The impatient audiences, their expectations built up by weeks of waiting, were huge. We started at the top and never looked back. Out of adversity — and a brave decision — came success.
FOX KIDS PRESIDENT MARGARET LOESCH
HER NUMBER ONE SHOW
