Superman on Television
Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews
Season 2 - Episode 8: "Mxyzpixilated"
Original Air Date: September 20, 1997Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor
"McGURK!"
A quick pronunciation primer:
His name is difficult to pronounce (Mix-yez-pit-a-lik), but there's only one way Superman can get rid of him. Mr. Mxyzptlk must say or spell his own name backwards, Kltpzyxm (Kel-tipz-yex-im). Those are the original pronunciations although the Superfriends series bastardized it with [Mix-ul-plik] or there's Smallville's [Mix-ul-pit-lik]. Consequently, some really obsessed fans actually debate the pronunciation almost as much as Ra's (Rashe or Rahs) al Ghul in Batman.
Mr. Mxyzptlk first appeared in Superman #30 in 1944. He was described as an imp from the Fifth Dimension capable of accomplishing amazing feats with a blink of an eye. The first appearance mirrored easily with the opening minutes of this episode where Mr. Mxyzptlk loudly sought out his friend, McGurk, and was struck by a car.
Sometimes his powers have been described as magical, but often writers have offered a pseudoscientific explanation to do with Mxy's fifth dimensional home. Even then, the appearance of his feats are clearly synonymous with magic. An antagonist with those kinds of powers came in handy during the Golden and Silver Ages, especially when writers crafted stories that were outlandish even for those eras. He is so powerful he even broke out of the confines of comics into the publishing offices at DC Comics in Adventures of Superman #634.
Mxy has the ability to create whatever he can imagine, so if he imagines a skyscraper and decides it should get up on two legs off its foundation and walk into the river, it will happen. That makes him a formidable adversary for the Man of Steel. Mxy's playful demeanor makes him easy to like and he's rarely out to do any damage. He just wants to play a game, and the rules are simple:
The only way Superman can rid himself of Mr. Mxyzptlk is for Superman to trick him into saying or spelling his own name backwards. Once he does, Mxy is forced to retreat to the fifth dimension and cannot return for 90 days.
Mr. Mxyzptlk is the perfect comic book character since his dreams become reality and that allows any artists working on his stories to draw whatever they want. He also possesses a unique childishness that young readers could enjoy and laugh along with. The rule of 90 days allows writers to either bring the character back within three months, or wait as long as they wished for the days to pass in "comic book time."
The character seemed to go out of favor among comic writers for most of the late 80's and early 90's. He was absent for nearly a decade, so episodes like this certainly aided his reinvigoration among fans.
Rating - 5 (out of 5): This is as good as Superman: The Animated Series ever got. There were still a number of great episodes after this, but the entire 20 minutes of this one was fast paced and never missed a beat.
This show technically took place over the course of a year because Mxyzptlk arrived then returned a total of 5 times every 90 days. Once Mxy told Superman how to get rid of him, Supes had little difficulty getting him to say his name backwards, much to the frustration of Mxyzptlk, who just wanted to play around and became increasingly angry each time. Superman simply thought of him as a pest to be dealt with quickly.
The opening several minutes of the episode closely followed Mxy's first appearance back in 1940s, which is a nice nod to fans, especially since the bulk of the intended audience were children who had most likely never heard of the character.
Some of the occurrences in this episode would not have made sense without Mxy's powers. Watch the scene in the Kent's house where Ma and Pa begin acting like chickens. Was it pricelessly funny or just oddly silly? I leave if up to the reader.
Even the explanation of Mxy's intentions came out in funny ways when spoken through Ma Kent, played by Shelley Fabares, "It's obvious that a brilliant god-like life form from a dimension twice removed from ours is testing your powers."
Once Superman learned that Mxyzptlk would return every 90 days, he had time to dream up ways to quickly make him say his name backwards. The briefness of his visits made Mxy angrier and angrier while simultaneously becoming funnier and funnier. He became so angry that he decided to simply kill Superman and spent his 90 days in the Fifth Dimension crafting a grant robot suit (with a zipper) to destroy the Man of Steel. The robot building sequence lasted a full minute and a half, but off screen Superman clearly tricked him into saying his name backwards within five seconds. No description I could offer is nearly as funny as watching the sequence personally, so see it for yourself.
Back in the Fifth Dimension, Mxy had a girlfriend/wife named Gsptlsnz (Gis-pit-lis-nez) who looked much like Mxy in the pages of the comics, but appeared much more like Jessica Rabbit in the episode. The irony was that Mxy was so bent on Superman's destruction that he ignored his stunningly beautiful mate who spent much of the 90 day hiatus in the Fifth Dimension trying and failing to entice Mxy.
When Mr. Mxyzptlk arrived in Metropolis for the fifth time (a year after the start of the episode), he explained to Superman how he had changed the rules. This time, Superman had to get Mxy to say or spell his name backwards twice in a row. He transformed himself into a Kryptonite missile and chased Superman around Metropolis where he left an exhaust trail that spelled out Kltpzyxm twice.
There were a series of comic-book references throughout the episode. Some were obvious and some less so. Early on, Mr. Mxyzptlk appeared out of a newspaper that Jimmy showed to Clark. The comic strips page was shown up close briefly, so it's helpful to be able to pause the image.
Comic strips:
"Dini the Meany" by Bill Wemissu.
"Dini" referred to Paul Dini who was one of the creators of the show and the image in the strip looks a lot like him. It's clearly a take on Calvin & Hobbes. Dini also directed this episode.
2: "Gleen" by Broken English
A send-up of Charlie Brown
3: "Dan Danger" by Harry Thatcher
A Dick Tracy style comic with a joke author. Harry Thatcher is a play on the name Teri Hatcher who played Lois Lane on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
4: Mr. Mxyzptlk by Siegel and Shuster
This was the strip that Mxy appeared out of. The authors Siegel and Shuster refer to the creators of Superman.
5: "Zub Street" by Dewey Logan
A cute joke about comics.
If any of you, the readers, notice any additional references in the comic strips, please mention them on the comments pages.
There were more nods to older Superman comics later on in the episode as well when Mxyzptlk transformed Lois Lane into a horse and Jimmy Olsen into a Turtle. The turtle reference was to various issues of Superman's Pal: Jimmy Olsen where Jimmy became a giant "Turtleboy." The horse was a reference to an issue of Superman's Girlfriend: Lois Lane where Lois turned into a horse and ran off to live with Superman's equine counterpart, Comet the Super-horse.
Yes, you read that right. Moving on...
Beings from the Fifth Dimension can create whatever they can imagine, often accentuating their own actions. When Superman told Mr. Mxyzptlk he was tired of dealing with him and flew off during his final appearance, a "¡*%#!" appeared over Mxy's head. Also, if you watch closely during the montage when Mxy built his giant robot, Gsptlsnz attempted to get his attention by transforming her appearance in various alluring ways. Each transformation was accompanied by a snap of her fingers and each time she snapped, the word "SNAP!" appeared over her hand, just as it would in a comic book.
The only moment in the episode that just didn't work was at the end when Superman called Mr. Mxyzptlk a "loser" after defeating him the final time. It's unbefitting of Superman to call someone a name like that, even someone as annoying as Mxy.
This episode also answered the unsurprisingly common question: How does Superman shave. While the answer was rather difficult to explain in the comics, Superman: The Animated Series followed the simple explanation that he used heat vision and mirror, much like Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
The redesign on Mr. Mxyzptlk for Superman: The Animated Series was drastic, yet oddly fitting. In the comics, he was most commonly seen wearing a yellow jumpsuit. His body, despite being smaller than average for humans, was otherwise proportional. He was bald with tufts of hair sticking out of the back and sides and a bowler hat covering his baldness. For The Animated Series, Mxy was much smaller and less proportional in that his head was approximately normal size for a human while his body was only about two feet high. Instead of a yellow and purple jumpsuit, he appeared in a completely purple business-like suit. His eyes were incredibly small dots on his face, which helped make him endearing despite being generally bothersome.
While the redesign on the character worked beautifully, the voice of Gilbert Gottfried (Disney's Aladdin, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Problem Child 3 - yes, I went there - and two episodes of Superboy in 1990) made the character click in a way that few if any other actors could have. Mr. Mxyzptlk is supposed to be an annoyance to Superman, so it's only fitting that Gottfried voiced him.
Sandra Bernhard (TV's Roseanne and The L Word) voiced Mxy's girlfriend from the Fifth Dimension, Gsptlsnz. She added a sensuality to the character that can only be compared to Jessica Rabbit. While the character could have used more screen-time, her place within the episode was held in check and not overused.
Tress MacNeille (a regular on The Simpsons and Futurama) played the curator and Frank Welker, who voiced various creatures in "The Main Man - Part 2" and "The Prometheon," returned as several of the evil creatures.
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