Category Archives: cartoon

Voltron: Legendary Defender

In 2016 Netflix collaborated with Dreamworks to bring us Volton: Legendary Defender, a reboot of the Voltron series which first debuted back in 1984.

It’s true what they say, classics never die, especially in the day and age of reboots, and Netflix.

The history of the whole show is too much to go into here, especially as we’re all only really here to talk about Virginia Madsen, and the part she plays in the Voltrons history is only about 10 minutes of actual screen time. And, honestly I’m not the best person to talk to about Voltron at the best of times.

Technically, not even screen time, it’s voice time….

Virginia’s sultry tones can be heard in the third season of Voltron: Legendary Defender episode “Hole in the Sky”. She voices Commander Hira.Commander Hira comes from an alternate reality in which the roles of the heroes and villains of the regular Voltron universe have been reversed. It takes the regular heroes a few minutes to catch up with what exactly is going on, but when they do they aren’t at all impressed.

Virginia Madsen does her cartoon villain thing here, she seems to have a thing for doing these kinds of roles on cartoons looking back at her work in the DC Universe with Justice League (and Unlimited) and Stuart Little 3. I get a very real sense she revels in this kind of thing. It’s a very calm, collected and even calculated presence she gives Hira, quite unnerving when the truth about what they are doing is revealed with the mind control stuff.
It’s a subtle, and chilling performance for sure. It’s all effortless, like she’s taking a Sunday stroll through the park with her dog.

Availability:

Well, it’s on Netflix for sure – How long is anyone’s guess, it was supposed to be retiring this year in 2024, but as of the time of writing (October) it’s still on no warnings that it’s leaving anytime soon.

Unlike other Netflix shows you can purchase the DVDs for the series, although I could only find them on Reigon 1 DVDs which means you’ll have to be in the US or have a multi-region DVD player to watch them.

Trailer:

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Justice League Unlimited

Justice League Unlimited (JLU) is Virginia Madsen’s third dip of the toe into the DC Animated Universe, and her second in the realm of the Justice League specifically having previously played Dr Sarah Corwin in the Justice Leagues The Brave and The Bold episode a few years previously.

JLU is of course a part of the same animated universe, it’s a continuation of it – And it’s one that over its run managed to keep the high standards as the rest of the shows that came before it. Blending a good mix of action, character development and damn good storytelling JLU widens the scope and the mix of the heroes and brings even the most secondary character into the limelight.
Virginia Madsen would this time lend her voice to Roulette AKA Veronica Sinclair, a cunning and manipulative villain who runs an underground fighting ring called Meta-Brawl. She pits super-powered villains and heroes against each other for entertainment, capitalising on their abilities to attract Gotham’s elite. Roulette’s lack of actual superpowers is offset by her ability to manipulate others and organise elaborate and more often than not, dangerous events.

Roulette appears twice in the Justice League Unlimited, the first time is in the second or fourth season episode, depending on which version you have – Either way, the episode is called “The Cat and The Canary”.

Roulette has managed to snag Wildcat to fight in her Meta-Brawl event, he’s feeling a bit redundant these days as he doesn’t actually have any superpowers to speak of and feels he can’t keep up with the other “Supers”.
His former protege, Black Canary, finds out about all of this and gets naturally concerned. She drags Green Arrow with her to convince Wildcat that he doesn’t need to do this, or anything, to prove himself. But, before anyone can get a grasp on it all Roulette has set up a fight between Wildcat and Green Arrow.

Obviously, this was never going to end well for Roulette. But, it’s fun to see it play out anyway.

The next time we see Roulette is in the third season (or fifth season) episode, “Grudge Match”.

In Virginia Madsen’s second episode Roulette is back (obviously) with a new, and what she thinks is an improved version of her Meta-Brawl. This time she’s calling it Glamour Slam and just has women doing the fighting. She takes her idea to Lex Luthor and he agrees to let her use some of his mind control technology he’s acquired from Grodd to get some of the Justice League heroines into the ring against their will. Black Canary, Vixen and even Wonder Woman herself all get thrown into the brutal battles for others’ entertainment.It eventually comes down to Huntress to notice something isn’t right with Black Canary and sets about rescuing her from the clutches of Roulette’s mind control.

And, well – Yeah – This goes about as well for Roulette as the first time we saw her.

These pesky villains, do they never learn?Virginia Madsen plays Roulette with an obvious relish. You can tell how much she enjoys these kinds of roles and just has fun with them. For some reason I always imagine her sat in her recording booth with a huge grin on her face as she hams it up.

Availabilty:

Good, no probelm at all finding it on DVD or Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray I bought from America was Reigon Free as well, so – Bonus.

Trailer:

Not an official one, but…

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Stuart Little 3: Call of The Wild

Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Stuart Little 3, the raggedy little scamp of a mouse. Now. I won’t lie, before all of this Virginia Madsen site stuff I hadn’t seen the movie, and, honestly, had no real desire to either.

I saw the first one a looooooooooooooooong time ago, it was amusing, but not for me. The third film always seemed a bit odd to me. The third movie see It change to a fully animated affair compared to the previous two mix ups of live action and CGI. It also skipped the cinema entirely and went straight to DVD.

We still have Michael J Fox doing the mouse thing, Geena Davis doing the Mom thing and Hugh Laurie doing the Dad thing though, all is not lost.

In Stuart Little 3 we find Stuart and family heading off on a camping trip to Lake Garland. The whole family, including the cat, Snowbell Which, I guess is a bit odd, but we’re talking about a film about a talking mouse here.

Not long into their trip Stuart meets a skunk named Reeko (Wayne Brady) who isn’t the most favourite animal in the forest due to his association with “The Beast”, a female Cougar who is the leader of the forest around Lake Garland. The Beast is the character who sounds remarkably like Virginia Madsen.

I’m pretty sure there’s a joke to be had somewhere around here but I shall refrain from attempting any…

Stuart and Reeko end up making friends, with Reeko even being invited to the family dinner. But, it’s not long before Reeko Is showing everyone just why he’s not the most popular animal in the forest and after deciding that the food he got from the Little family wasn’t enough he hatches a plan to lure Snowbell into the forest for The Beast.

Stuart is obviously having none of this and sets off to save Snowbell, and cartoon based shenanigans ensue.

Virginia Madsen seemed to have a lot of fun making this movie. I guess it’s kind of a different role for her to be the out and out villain in a story. Well, not including her early femme fetale roles anyway. The Beasts character comes from a dark place, snarling, commanding and power hungry. Quite the contrast to most of her other roles around the same time period, and those both before and after. I’d quite like to see her play this kind of ‘evil’ role in live action at some point. I mean, this is a kids film and she manages to pull off evil in a family friendly way, imagine her let loose.
I mean, it’s not the first time she’s taken the role of the villan in something animated, look at her Silver Sable in Spider-man, or Roulette in Justice League Unlimited. Let her have some proper live action over the top villany I say!

The movie itself, well. I’m a grown up and don’t mind the odd “kids” film when there is something in there for the adults as well. But this isn’t one of those films.

And, I have to say it was disappointing on a few levels, I don’t think that even as a kid I’d enjoy this film as much as the other ones. I don’t quite know what it was missing, but, something.

One for the collectors of Virignia Madsen to put on their shelves and possibly never watch, heh – One for most people to put on their shelves and never watch I’d imagine.

Availability:

You can trip over copies on eBay, Amazon and wherever else you normally shop if you aren’t careful.

Trailer:

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Pickle and Peanut

Pickle and Peanut is a Disney XD cartoon from 2016, which seems to have a bit of a strange legacy.

It’s all a bit, strange, if you ask me… Virginia Madsen, for whatever reason, agreed to give her talents to the show. For reasons I’ll probably never know, or understand.

Her character, Jackson, is in one episode, Night Shift.

The episode, the best I can work out has Pickle and Peanut working the night shift stacking shelves at a supermarket. Jackson is one of the workers they are assigned to work with.

Mistakes are made, hi jinks happen and none of it will appeal to you if you’re of an age, or mindset where you can truly comprehend how nonsensical any of it is.

It’s a cartoon that I’m not sure is meant to make a lot of sense, I’ve got zero tolerance for this kind of thing and I actually spent more time than I care to think about hunting this down.

I can’t find a copy to buy legitimately, there are some sites you can order this from on DVD but I sincerely doubt they’ll be anything but pirate copies put on disc by someone at home.

And, if you live outside of the US you can expect to pay dearly for them, if not the discs then the postage.

As far as I can tell it’s not available on any streaming channels either.

Me? Where was I lurking when I came across it? – Usenet.

Usenet isn’t terribly complicated to workout, but it’s more effort than I’m willing to go to here. You can find all kinds of stuff on there that isn’t stupid cartoons if you do want to put in any effort though.

But. You can find some clips on the Tube of Yous and not being able to find the full episodes might just save your sanity. Or, mine at least.

As far as I can tell, it’s terrible. It’s definitely not something I could sit and enjoy – One of those shows that is just weird for being weird.

Not entirely sure why she’d associate herself with this kind of show, but I can only assume they offered her a boat load of money, or she really needed some money.

Maybe her kid likes the show – That’d make the most sense.

Anyways. There you go. That’s about all I have to say on this.

Availability:

As mentioned, you won’t find this legitimately. You can find people who’ll sell you this on DVD if you look hard enough. The postage rates to the UK are obscene, and after viewing clips online I just wasn’t prepared to pay that much to say that I owned them.

If you’re desperate to get hold of this, and I mean, I wasn’t, but I still managed to find it on Usenet which is probably your best option if you’ve an idea how to use it. And, if not – There are plenty of places that can show you.

Trailer:

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Teen Titans (The Prophecy)

Having wandered over to the dark side in her last comic book inspired voice over (Spider-Man), Virginia Madsen returned to the DC Universe to voice the character of Arella in the Teen Titans fourth season episode “The Prophecy”. The episode was aired in 2005 and is the 7th episode.

The episode is pretty deep onto a multi episode event so it’s pretty hard to try and give a brief summary without getting myself lost in details you won’t care about.

Virginia Madsens Arella is the mother of the one of the regular line ups of the cartoons Teen Titans, Raven.
Raven is suffering a crisis of conscience in the episode and seeks out her Mother for guidance.

Although I am a fan of the DC Universe, The Titans cartoon show isn’t something I’m overly familiar with, it’s a bit too much for the kids for me – I’ve seen the odd episode here and there and I believe it’s very good, but the art style and the tone puts me off just sitting down and watching it. Which , is a bit odd considering I’m a huge fan of the other animated series. Perhaps it’s all the bright colours or something, I don’t know.

Virginia’s role is short and sweet in this one, Arella has very little actual screen time and it’s the only episode to feature the character at all. As such, it kind of makes it hard to give any real commentary on it other than she brings her best to the role. Once again you probably wouldn’t know it has her just from watching, she brings the right amount of gravitas to it the situation and all in all fits right in.
Availability:

Not bad, you can find copies easy enough on DVD. I believe it’s a region free DVD, but you might want to check you can play it before you order.

Trailer:

Not for this one.

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Wonder Woman

Sticking within the DC Universe Virginia Madsen would lend her voice to Hippolyta in the 2009 animated version of Wonder Woman.

The film is loosely based upon the 1987 reinvention of the character in the comics universe by George Perez in the arc known as Gods and Mortals.

As I’ve stated before, I’m a fan of DC Comics, but Wonder Woman isn’t a character I’ve particularly read up on. Not for any particular reason and I’ve always enjoyed her as a character when she’s made guest appearances in other comics I do read.

The film serves as an Origin Story for Wonder Woman really, and in this version it’s not a million miles away from what we’ve seen on the big screen with Zack Snyder’s attempt at a DC Universe and the films starring Gal Gadot.

In short the film deals with Hippolyta and the eternal battles of the Gods. The film begins in times long gone with a battle between Hippolyta fighting alongside the rest of the Amazons against Ares and his army.
Hippolyta is about to deal a devastating final blow to Ares when Zeus stops her. Zeus promises Hippolyta and the Amazons an island they can call their own where they can live in peace and serenity if Ares life is spared.
They agree and begin to their lives on an island paradise away from all the troubles in the world. As part of the deal Hippolyta is granted a daughter from which she crafts from the sands of the island and names Diana (Keri Russell).

Diana eventually grows bored with the island and seeks out new adventures, when Steve Trevor (Nathan Fillion) is shot down in a plane over their island she takes the chance to return with him to the world of Man.

In the background Ares has been plotting his own return and it just happens to be all kicking off for him at the same time Diana makes her way to the same place.

Ares attacks Washington…. And, yeah. You know the rest. Fisticuffs, ancient battles reignited, yadda yadda.
I’ve got to say, I was impressed with Virginia Madsen again here. Each voice she does in her voice over work is significantly different from the other which shows some real talent. The voice she gives Hippolyta is perfect, it’s commanding when it needs to be and gentle as a Mother.

Speaking of her role with comicbookmovie.com she commented on this herself;

“Hippolyta has a really wide range – I use a lot of notes when I play her. She has a larger, more regal voice. I liked the range we use to create her vocally, and the way that she was written. It’s not that she’s over the top, but she’s just a very, very big character. And I don’t usually get to do that on onscreen. ”

If you’re a fan of Wonder Woman, or even just the whole DC Universe thing then you’re not going to want to miss this one. I persoanlly think it’s one of the better and more grown up versions of the story.

Availability:

Good. Not hard to get hold of on DVD or Blu Ray. Or, both at the same time if you pick up the combo pack..

Trailer:

Scooby-Doo in Where’s My Mummy?

Scooby Doo in Where’s my Mummy? Is a 2005 animated film based on the American Saturday morning cartoons found on the Cartoon Network.

Scooby Doo should need no introduction.First introduced in 1969 the show follows the adventures of Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and of course Scooby Doo. The gang drive around in a van named The Mystery Machine solving all kinds of, well – Mysteries calling themselves Mystery Inc as they do. The show has bounced around networks since it was first broadcast and has been with the Cartoon Network since 2010.

Where’s My Mummy? Is the ninth movie from this version of the show. It had a small run at the cinema before being shown on TV and then released on home video. It has the distinction of being the last Scooby Doo movie to be released on VHS. Well, damn.

The film begins in Ancient Egypt, we see Cleopatra (an animated Virginia) running for her life, making her escape to the Great Sphinx of Giza. She makes her way into a secret tomb and hides her treasures before issuing a curse on history.Back to the present day and we hook up with Velma who is helping to restore the Sphinx, who accidentally stumbles across a necklace once owned by Cleopatra. She shows it to a colleague and it start’s shining a light on the entrance to the hidden tomb Cleopatra used.

Meanwhile the rest of Mystery Inc are on their way to meet Velma but they break down along the way, they meet a nomad. Amahl Ali Akbar who gets them going again (Triple-A, geddit? geddit?). Amahl drops them outside of the Sphinx, just in time for them to meet the host of a Supernatural TV show who is trying to get some credibility by filming the curse that may have been released by finding Cleopatra s tomb.

The gang meet up and adventures ensue, YOINKS!The adventure seemed fun enough, for it’s intended audience. But it’s not for me this kind of thing. Even when I was a kid I was never a fan of the Scooby Gang, really.

Going back to what I’ve said before about Virginia and her voice acting, it really is on point. She narrates the opening sequence with some proper gravitas about it. Unlike her turn as Silver Sable (which I watched at around the same time) you could better tell it was her this time, it’s a similar tone to her “Mother that will do anything to protect her kids” voice that she has. It suits the role though, no complaints. She does her thing here and does it well.

Availability:
Good, no problems finding it on DVD and seems to be on TV with some regularity.

Trailer:

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Spider-Man: The Animated Series

After lending her sultry, uh, sounds to the DC Animated Universe in the Justice League, in 2003 Virginia dipped over to the other side to spend some time with the Marvel gang over in Spiderman: The New Animated Series.

This time she takes on the role of Silver Sable in three episodes in the first season, “Spider-man Dis-Abled” and “Mind Games (Part 1 & 2)”.
I’m not the biggest Marvel fan, when it comes to comics at least – I’m a DC guy through and through and so I’ve never really gotten deep into the lore of any of the characters unless they’re named Wolverine.

Silver Sable was first introduced in 1985, she’s a mercenary character who sometimes works with Spider-Man, and sometimes against. In these cartoons, she’s against.

In “Spider-Man Dis-Abled”, Spider-Man accidentally videos Silver Sable doing her Mercenary thing, not wanting the tape to incriminate in her anyway she goes on the hunt for Spider-Man to retrieve the tape causing all the usual comic book type carnage as she does.Got to say, I was impressed with Virginia in this series, primarily because if I hadn’t known she was doing the voice work I probably wouldn’t have been able to guess from just casual watching. She adds a gruffness to her voice I’ve not heard before, it’s not that she’s unrecognisable once you know it’s her but I probably wouldn’t have put two and two together on it without a clue. She does as well as you’d expect, it’s not that easy to get into any detail about it given her limited screen time.

Availability:
Good, easily available on DVD for cheap. And, the Tube of Yous…

Trailer:
Not for the episode.

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Justice League – The Brave and The Bold

And with that Virginia Madsen embarked on the path of providing voices. 2002 would see her lend her dulcet tones to the DC Animated Universe in Dr Sarah Corwin. She’s a new character never before seen in either the mainline DC Comics Universe or the Animated one.

Sarah would debut in the Justice League cartoon episodes The Brave and The Bold which made up the 12th and 13th episodes of the first season.

In the episodes The Green Lantern and The Flash uncover a plot by Grodd to destroy the hidden Gorilla City.

The story starts when The Flash is chases down a truck that is wreaking havoc in Central City, he stops the truck with help from The Green Lantern. Once the chase is over they find it been driven by two scientists, but both men don’t really seem to have any clue what they’ve done. In the back of the truck they find some isotopes, but no explanation.

Flash and Green Lantern visit the Laboratory where they work and speak to Sarah Corwin. She’s unable to help them, or so she says…
While there they get a call about a Gorilla raising hell downtown, they take off to find the Gorilla trying to escape the Police. Once again they stop the car but while talking to the Gorilla Flash is shot by a ray beam by none other than, Sarah Corwin.

This sends The Flash into a hallucinatory fit and when he wakes up he’s in Jail. The police show him video footage of him stealing the isotopes from the Police compound. Unable to explain his actions he enlists the help of The Green Lantern again to track down the Gorilla they stopped earlier.

When they eventually do find him they find out he’s actually the Security Chief of a Gorilla City in Africa where a species of super intelligent Gorillas have hidden themselves away. He introduces himself as Solovar and goes onto explain that a rogue Scientist named Grodd has invented a way to control all the other Gorillas in the City and has nefarious ideas about his new found power. Grodd was able to be stopped by the other Gorillas but now he’s seeking his revenge.

Solovar has tracked down Grodd to Central City by finding emails between him and, Sarah Corwin.

This is all The Flash needs to hear as he tears off to confront Sarah, but before he can do he’s caught by Grodd.It’s a typical story from the DC Animated Universe, I won’t ruin any more of it in case you want to watch it for yourself – And, I recommend you do.

I’m a BIG fan of the DC Animated Universe, I’ve watched it for years and while I won’t claim to have seen all it has to offer I do own more than a couple of the Blu-Rays etc.

Virginia does her thing here. She doesn’t have a massive amount of lines to say but when she does, well – Unless you knew it was her then you wouldn’t be able to tell. She uses her voice to good effect here and actually acts with it, unlike others that show up in the DCAU in guest roles.

Availability:
Good. You can pick up the episodes as part of the bigger box set, or it got a stand alone disc release known as Justice League: The Brave and The Bold with two other episodes from the show included.

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