GARGOYLES Creator Greg Weisman Blames OJ Simpson and the POWER RANGERS for the Show's Demise
Let’s just get it out in the open that former NFL star and wife killer OJ Simpson is a real piece of crap, and he’s been blamed for many things over the years, rightfully so, but this was the first I heard of him being at fault for the demise of the classic 90s animated series Gargoyles. But oddly enough, he inadvertently played a part.
In a recent interview with Polygon, series creator Greg Weisman said that when the series became a Saturday morning cartoon at ABC, he was already up against incredible odds. He was asked to create 52 episodes for the fall of 1995. He told the network that was impossible, but went to work. He said:
We managed to do 31, so from my point of view, I was a hero. But from their point of view — they had forgotten that I told them it was impossible, and they were mad.
He went on to say:
Then we had a couple of other problems. The OJ Simpson trial meant we were constantly being preempted for trial coverage, because we were on syndicated stations, and syndicated stations still primarily lived off local news in the 1990s. Every day it ran, we were being preempted, and in any given city, people were missing episodes of Gargoyles, and falling out of the habit of watching it.
They also faced a new series that posed a competitive threat against their viewership. He explained:
The second big problem was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers coming to the United States. That show was a blockbuster. So in season 1, we were the number 1 show in our afternoon slot, and in season 2, we were consistently number 2. We weren’t a failure, but we’d gone from being a home run to being a double. Power Rangers was the big news and the home run. Our toys fell off. So there wasn’t much thought of doing a season 3. The viewership was fractured. It sounds bizarre that OJ Simpson helped destroy Gargoyles, but it’s true.
So unfortunately, it was a perfect storm for this great little show. Weisman said he had heard talks of the series maybe making a comeback, but they were pretty much quashed when Disney bought Lucasfilm and Marvel. There was just too much that was made available for Disney to work on for them to want to work on Gargoyles right then. Hopefully it can be revisited in the future. For now, watch the original episodes on Disney+.
Are you a big fan of Gargoyles?