First broadcast in 1989, the Pryde of the X-Men served as a pilot episode for a new X-Men cartoon series. It failed.

The awesome Toei Animation took the helm for the visuals, and it looked damn good (they also did the animation for Digimon, Yu-Hi-Oh, The Real Ghostbusters, G.I. Joe, The Transformers, and more). Unfortunately, visuals alone isn't good enough to get a series green-lit.

The story revolved around Kitty Pryde coming to the Xavier mansion and meeting the X-men for the first time. The plot ultimately took the X-Men to a space station where the X-Men battled the Brotherhood of Mutants. It was a classic tale that worked very well in my opinion. The episode moved at a brisk pace, but it wasn't a bad thing by any means.

The problem, as usual, were the fanboys who didn't think it was comic-book-y enough. Wolverine's voice was truly terrible in Pryde of the X-Men (Australian accent), but the other character voices were just perfect, and the story itself was very interesting. However, it seems fanboys would rather complain about the "White Queen as a member of the Brotherhood" rather than just enjoying the first real X-Men cartoon as-is. Sheesh.

Fanboy (noun): A passionate fan of various elements of geek culture (e.g. sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, video games, anime, hobbits, Magic: the Gathering, etc.), but who lets his passion override social graces, and manages to kill a great cartoon for small nuances because he has nothing better to do with himself on a Saturday night.

Unfortunately an X-Men cartoon would eventually succeed on the small screen three years later with 1992's X-Men The Animated Series, which featured Wolverine and a voice even scratchier than Christian Bale's Batman. While the stories of that series was very interesting, the actual animation was just horrible. The anatomy was way off, the movement was stiff and problematic at best, and the voices were questionable... yet everyone loved it. You win this time, Saban Entertainment.

Regardless, Pryde of the X-Men was an excellent intro to the series, and it's a shame it wasn't picked up for a longer run. I have to admit though -- the intro song is pretty cheesy.

I hope you call all get a chance to see the whole thing someday. And if you can't, you can always watch the first 10 minutes on YouTube: