# M.A.S.K. (TV series)

M.A.S.K. is a 1985 animated television series produced by DIC and ICC TV Productions, Ltd. The series was based on the M.A.S.K. action figures produced by Kenner Products. It was animated in Japan by Ashi Productions, Studio World and K.K. DiC Asia (later known as K.K. C&D Asia).

## Overview

M.A.S.K. (an acronym for "Mobile Armored Strike Kommand") is a special task force led by Matt Trakker, who operate transforming armored vehicles in their ongoing battle against the terrorist organization V.E.N.O.M. (an acronym for Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem) with an emphasis on superpowered helmets (called "masks") worn by the characters of both factions.
V.E.N.O.M.'s primary goal is obtaining money through either robbery, extortion, counterfeiting, kidnapping, or attempting to steal historical artifacts, but M.A.S.K. always finds a way to foil their plans.

## Cast

* Doug Stone – Matt Trakker, Hondo MacLean, Dusty Hayes, Bruce Sato, Nash Gorey, Bruno Sheppard, Boris Bushkin, Maximus Mayhem
* Brendan McKane – Miles Mayhem, Alex Sector, Floyd Malloy, Jacques LaFleur, Nevada Rushmore
* Graeme McKenna – T-Bob, Brad Turner, Julio Lopez, Calhoun Burns
* Mark Halloran – Sly Rax, Buddy Hawks, Cliff Dagger, Ace Riker, Duane Kennedy
* Sharon Noble – M.A.S.K. Computer, Gloria Baker, Vanessa Warfield
* Brian George – Lester Sludge, Ali Bombay
* Brennan Thicke – Scott Trakker

## Crew
### Season 1 (1985)

* Story editors: Terrence McDonnell and Gary Warne
* Writers: Jina Bacarr, Rod Baker, Creighton Barnes, Patrick Barry, Jack Bornoff, Del Bruckman, Barbara Chain, Kerry Ehrin, Herb Engelhardt, Mel Gilden, Ralph Goodman, David Gottlieb, Barbara Hambly, Trevor Meldal-Johnson, Fred Ladd, Chuck Lorre, Ali Matheson, R. Patrick Neary, Dianne Nezgoda, Jack Olesker, Glen Olson, Alfred A. Pegal, Jessica Radcliff, Ginger Roth, Jeffrey Scott, Chris Weber & Karen Willson, S. S. Wilson, Erica Byrne
* Directors: Bruno Bianchi and Bernard Deyries

### Season 2 (1986)

* Story editor: Jack Olesker
* Writers: Ray Dryden, Jack Olesker
* Director: Michael Maliani
* Animation production: Ashi Production (credited as Ashi Pro.), Studio World (only the season two end credits gave credit to these studios on screen)

## Episodes

A total of 75 syndicated episodes over two seasons were broadcast from September 1985 to November 1986. The first season consisted of 65 episodes. The second season, whose theme deemphasized crimefighting in favor of auto racing, lasted only ten episodes.

### Season 1 (1985)

| No. | Title | Original release date |
| 1 | "The Deathstone" | 30 September 1985 (1985-9-30) |
| VENOM steals a strange meteorite with healing powers using Switchblade disguised as a UFO. |||
| 2 | "The Star Chariot" | 1 October 1985 (1985-10-1) |
| VENOM steals a mystical arrowhead rumored to point the way to an alien spacecraft buried in the desert. |||
| 3 | "The Book of Power" | 2 October 1985 (1985-10-2) |
| VENOM steals an ancient book which holds the secrets of a mythological city of riches. |||
| 4 | "Highway to Terror" | 3 October 1985 (1985-10-3) |
| MASK tries to retrieve a stash of military plutonium that VENOM plans to use to power an earthquake machine. |||
| 5 | "Video VENOM" | 4 October 1985 (1985-10-4) |
| VENOM hypnotizes innocent people through their television sets to hijack a powerful laser cannon and threatens to use it to attack a Texas oil refinery if not paid a hefty ransom. |||
| 6 | "Dinosaur Boy" | 7 October 1985 (1985-10-7) |
| VENOM abducts a strange lizard creature whose antibodies can prolong human life. |||
| 7 | "The Ultimate Weapon" | 8 October 1985 (1985-10-8) |
| VENOM obtains a device that jams the control systems of MASK's vehicles rendering their opposition immobile. |||
| 8 | "The Roteks" | 9 October 1985 (1985-10-9) |
| VENOM steals a swarm of metal-eating bugs secretly developed by the military. |||
| 9 | "The Oz Effect" | 10 October 1985 (1985-10-10) |
| VENOM uses a strange vortex machine to abduct a village of Australian aborigines and forces them as slaves to mine valuable crystal. |||
| 10 | "Death from the Sky" | 11 October 1985 (1985-10-11) |
| VENOM uses a tractor beam to steer a meteor to Earth which threatens to destroy a major city. |||
| 11 | "The Magma Mole" | 14 October 1985 (1985-10-14) |
| VENOM uses a mole machine to drill into the Earth which threatens Tokyo with devastating floods and an eruption of Mount Fuji. |||
| 12 | "Solaria Park" | 15 October 1985 (1985-10-15) |
| VENOM hides a heat ray weapon in an amusement park. |||
| 13 | "The Creeping Terror" | 16 October 1985 (1985-10-16) |
| VENOM unleashes a horde of giant caterpillars to destroy a South American jungle in hopes of finding a lost Mayan temple. |||
| 14 | "Assault on Liberty" | 17 October 1985 (1985-10-17) |
| VENOM steals the Statue of Liberty during a magic show and holds it for ransom. |||
| 15 | "The Sceptre of Rajim" | 18 October 1985 (1985-10-18) |
| VENOM steals a mystical scepter from an Indian city whose inhabitants hold the MASK team hostage until its return. Matt Trakker must work alone to get it back. |||
| 16 | "The Golden Goddess" | 21 October 1985 (1985-10-21) |
| VENOM steals golden relics from ancient temples in Singapore, using a special gas that liquefies gold and smuggling it by pumping it secretly through a pipeline. |||
| 17 | "Mystery of the Rings" | 22 October 1985 (1985-10-22) |
| VENOM goes to Sunhenge with three mystic rings that will point the way to a wealth of ancient treasure. |||
| 18 | "Bad Vibrations" | 23 October 1985 (1985-10-23) |
| VENOM threatens to destroys buildings in Hong Kong with a sonic weapon. |||
| 19 | "Ghost Bomb" | 24 October 1985 (1985-10-24) |
| VENOM plots to destroy the Panama Canal with a captured nuclear submarine. |||
| 20 | "Cold Fever" | 25 October 1985 (1985-10-25) |
| During a trip to Alaska, Bruce Sato falls ill from a terrible virus and MASK finds that VENOM has the only cure. |||
| 21 | "Mardi Gras Mystery" | 28 October 1985 (1985-10-28) |
| The MASK team enjoys Mardi Gras but finds VENOM there trying to steal the formula to a superfuel. |||
| 22 | "The Secret of Life" | 29 October 1985 (1985-10-29) |
| VENOM steals an Ancient Egyptian tablet from King Tut's tomb which may contain "the secret of life". |||
| 23 | "Vanishing Point" | 30 October 1985 (1985-10-30) |
| VENOM hijacks planes by setting up a fake airport, jamming radars and confusing pilots to land there, in order to capture an experimental supersonic jet. |||
| 24 | "Counter-Clockwise Caper" | 31 October 1985 (1985-10-31) |
| VENOM conducts heists of Las Vegas casinos. |||
| 25 | "The Plant Show" | 1 November 1985 (1985-11-1) |
| VENOM threatens to cover Los Angeles with mutated kudzu vines unless California pays a hefty ransom. |||
| 26 | "Secret of the Andes" | 4 November 1985 (1985-11-4) |
| MASK must protect a revived Incan priest, who has been frozen in ice found in the Andes Mountains, from VENOM, who may know the secret location of El Dorado. |||
| 27 | "Panda Power" | 5 November 1985 (1985-11-5) |
| VENOM abducts endangered panda bears from China and MASK must rescue them. |||
| 28 | "Blackout" | 6 November 1985 (1985-11-6) |
| VENOM has a new vehicle called Blackout, which is capable of draining power supplies. |||
| 29 | "A Matter of Gravity" | 7 November 1985 (1985-11-7) |
| "Firecracker" is destroyed in a battle with VENOM, and Hondo gets a new replacement vehicle, "Hurricane", which was called "Nightstalker" in this episode. |||
| 30 | "The Lost Riches of Rio" | 8 November 1985 (1985-11-8) |
| VENOM steals a worthless painting but MASK learns it really contains a secret map to lost Nazi treasure. |||
| 31 | "Deadly Blue Slime" | 11 November 1985 (1985-11-11) |
| MASK goes to Africa to stop a botched experiment that has created a deadly blue slime that consumes everything in its path. |||
| 32 | "The Currency Conspiracy" | 12 November 1985 (1985-11-12) |
| In the Swiss Alps, MASK must stop VENOM from using an organism that eats the ink off printed money rendering the bills worthless at the behest of a corrupt finance minister. |||
| 33 | "Caesar's Sword" | 13 November 1985 (1985-11-13) |
| VENOM agent Sly Rax poses as the ghost of Julius Caesar to scare off a team of archaeologists who have uncovered Caesar's Sword of Victory. |||
| 34 | "Peril in Paris" | 14 November 1985 (1985-11-14) |
| Buddie Hawks disguises himself as VENOM agent Dagger in order to infiltrate VENOM's secret base in Paris. There he uncovers VENOM's plan to find a Nazi doomsday machine. On the Region 2 DVDs, this episode is titled "Peril Under Paris". |||
| 35 | "In Dutch" | 15 November 1985 (1985-11-15) |
| A madman hires VENOM to destroy the flood dikes in the Netherlands if their parliament doesn't allow him a political position. |||
| 36 | "The Lippizaner Mystery" | 18 November 1985 (1985-11-18) |
| VENOM steals the famous Lipizzaner Stallions where an Arab purchases them for $4 million, but MASK team member Dusty Hayes foils their heist. |||
| 37 | "The Sacred Rock" | 19 November 1985 (1985-11-19) |
| VENOM frightens a tribe of Australian aborigines who believe their god "Mimi" is angry with them. When T-Bob makes an appearance, the tribe thinks he is their deity. |||
| 38 | "Curse of Solomon's Gorge" | 20 November 1985 (1985-11-20) |
| MASK goes to Africa to stop VENOM who has discovered King Solomon's treasures. |||
| 39 | "Green Nightmare" | 21 November 1985 (1985-11-21) |
| VENOM agent Vanessa Warfield sabotages Matt Trakker's private jet which crashes in the jungles of New Guinea, while returning a priceless gem his father was entrusted with. The rest of the MASK team goes to rescue them. |||
| 40 | "Eyes of the Skull" | 22 November 1985 (1985-11-22) |
| VENOM leader, Miles Mayhem, uses an ancient "crystal skull" that allows x-ray like vision to see through Matt Trakker's mask and discover his identity. Mayhem then kidnaps Scott Trakker for ransom. |||
| 41 | "Stop Motion" | 25 November 1985 (1985-11-25) |
| VENOM obtains an EMP bomb and threatens to loot bank vaults across the country by knocking out all electronics for miles around. |||
| 42 | "The Artemis Enigma" | 26 November 1985 (1985-11-26) |
| VENOM plans to steal a sacred horn from a group of monks that is rumored to detect gold. |||
| 43 | "The Chinese Scorpion" | 27 November 1985 (1985-11-27) |
| VENOM agent Bruno Sheppard disguises "Stinger" as a giant iron scorpion and kidnaps an archaeologist who knows the location of buried treasure inside the Great Wall of China. |||
| 44 | "Riddle of the Raven Master" | 28 November 1985 (1985-11-28) |
| VENOM agent Vanessa Warfield uses trained ravens to steal London's crown jewels. As a diversion, Sly Rax plants a bomb inside Big Ben. Scott and T-Bob meet the Ravens of the Tower of London. |||
| 45 | "The Spectre of Captain Kidd" | 29 November 1985 (1985-11-29) |
| MASK must foil a plot by VENOM to get their hands on the lost booty of the pirate Captain Kidd. |||
| 46 | "The Secret of the Stones" | 2 December 1985 (1985-12-2) |
| VENOM steals a strange stone that makes objects weightless. |||
| 47 | "The Lost Fleet" | 3 December 1985 (1985-12-3) |
| MASK tries to stop VENOM who goes to Iceland in search of a legendary "golden" fleet. |||
| 48 | "Quest of the Canyon" | 4 December 1985 (1985-12-4) |
| MASK goes to Carlsbad Caverns where VENOM plans to steal the lost treasure of legendary gunman Jesse James. |||
| 49 | "Follow the Rainbow" | 5 December 1985 (1985-12-5) |
| VENOM goes to Ireland to find the treasure of Brian Boru at the end of the rainbow. |||
| 50 | "The Everglades Oddity" | 6 December 1985 (1985-12-6) |
| Matt Trakker is bitten by a venomous snake, and while he recovers, Alex Sector must lead the MASK team to stop VENOM's plan of stealing the Space Shuttle. |||
| 51 | "Dragonfire" | 9 December 1985 (1985-12-9) |
| VENOM goes to Borneo to seek a lost temple. When they find it, they unleash the temple's lizard guardians against MASK. |||
| 52 | "The Royal Cape Caper" | 10 December 1985 (1985-12-10) |
| VENOM steals Kamehameha's cape and helmet, then mass produce replicas selling them as expensive fakes. |||
| 53 | "Patchwork Puzzle" | 11 December 1985 (1985-12-11) |
| VENOM steals a Civil War-era quilt that contains a secret message to finding buried treasure near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. |||
| 54 | "Fog on Boulder Hill" | 12 December 1985 (1985-12-12) |
| VENOM kidnaps an old woman who is unknowingly hiding $20 bill printing plates. VENOM wants the plates so they can make counterfeit money. |||
| 55 | "Plunder of Glowworm Grotto" | 13 December 1985 (1985-12-13) |
| MASK member Julio Lopez goes to New Zealand to help a local tribe preserve their land. There he discovers a VENOM plot to steal pearls from giant clams that live in the ocean. |||
| 56 | "Stone Trees" | 16 December 1985 (1985-12-16) |
| MASK member Jacques LaFleur finds a stone tree inscribed with strange symbols. VENOM later steals the tree hoping it will lead them to a golden Indian totem. |||
| 57 | "Incident in Istanbul" | 17 December 1985 (1985-12-17) |
| VENOM hijacks an armored car in Istanbul stealing Constantine's chess set, which contains secrets to finding his golden crown. |||
| 58 | "The Creeping Desert" | 18 December 1985 (1985-12-18) |
| A corrupt landowner hires VENOM to destroy land in Acapulco, Mexico, rendering them worthless patches of desert so he can buy it up real cheap and restore the land later with an advanced hydration machine. |||
| 59 | "The Scarlet Empress" | 19 December 1985 (1985-12-19) |
| MASK member Calhoun Burns accidentally shrinks a priceless statue VENOM is trying to steal. A curious bird makes off with the statue. |||
| 60 | "Venice Menace" | 20 December 1985 (1985-12-20) |
| VENOM has a special chemical that turns the waters around Venice to jelly, allowing Stinger to drive on the surface and dig up Cleopatra's sunken barge. |||
| 61 | "Treasure of the Nazca Plain" | 23 December 1985 (1985-12-23) |
| MASK foils a plot by VENOM to steal a prehistoric South American treasure. |||
| 62 | "Disappearing Act" | 24 December 1985 (1985-12-24) |
| VENOM steals priceless automobiles by shrinking them with a shrink ray. |||
| 63 | "Gate of Darkness" | 25 December 1985 (1985-12-25) |
| VENOM abducts a cobra whose hood shows the way through a maze that leads to treasure in the Himalayas. |||
| 64 | "The Manakara Giant" | 26 December 1985 (1985-12-26) |
| VENOM uses a magnetic weapon to crash ships into rocky beaches. Local natives believe it is caused by an ancient curse until MASK discovers otherwise. |||
| 65 | "Raiders of the Orient Express" | 27 December 1985 (1985-12-27) |
| VENOM infiltrates the Orient Express looking for clues to "Mad" King Ludwig's treasures. |||

### Season 2 (1986)

| No. | Title | Original release date |
| R1 | "Demolition Duel to the Death" | 6 September 1986 (1986-9-6) |
| During a harrowing demolition derby, VENOM agents discover that one of their own, a new VENOM recruit named Boris Bushkin, is actually a MASK double agent who foils their plans to eliminate MASK member Buddie Hawks. |||
| R2 | "Where Eagles Dare" | 1 October 1986 (1986-10-1) |
| Matt Trakker takes on the Mayhem brothers in a race that will win the victor a profitable transportation licence. |||
| R3 | "Homeward Bound" | 8 October 1986 (1986-10-8) |
| MASK member Ali Bombay returns to his homelands in India but finds that VENOM is using villagers as slaves to mine a valuable meteorite. |||
| R4 | "The Battle of the Giants" | 12 October 1986 (1986-10-12) |
| Matt Trakker and the Mayhem brothers race to win a trophy that contains a secret formula, but the Mayhem twins, of course, play dirty in order to win the prize. |||
| R5 | "Race Against Time" | 22 October 1986 (1986-10-22) |
| Brad Turner undertakes a mission to retrieve a rare plant needed to fight a spreading virus, but he soon finds VENOM is after the plant as well. |||
| R6 | "Challenge of the Masters" | 29 October 1986 (1986-10-29) |
| MASK and VENOM battle in a race to win a trophy containing a microfilm that has secret access codes to any computer in the world. |||
| R7 | "For One Shining Moment" | 5 November 1986 (1986-11-5) |
| VENOM surprisingly shows kindness by organizing a race for "charity", luring MASK to participate, but the race is really a VENOM trap to eliminate MASK once and for all. |||
| R8 | "High Noon" | 12 November 1986 (1986-11-12) |
| MASK and VENOM enter a land, air and sea race to show off their vehicle capabilities. VENOM uses the race as a diversion to steal plans for a top secret jet. |||
| R9 | "The Battle For Baja" | 19 November 1986 (1986-11-19) |
| MASK enters a Baja race where the Mexican President's son, Raul Vega, is also a competitor and offered to drive Goliath I by Matt Trakker. VENOM uses the opportunity to kidnap Vega for ransom. |||
| R10 | "Cliff Hanger" | 26 November 1986 (1986-11-26) |
| VENOM gets their hands on dangerous seeds that can cause a plague and MASK races to stop them. |||

## Production

One of many cartoons produced during the 1980s as a vehicle for toy merchandising, M.A.S.K. was a hybrid of popular era cartoons G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and The Transformers. When originally broadcast, M.A.S.K. was the first closed-captioned series to air in first-run syndication.

## Home video

Several episodes of the series were released under Karl-Lorimar's "Kideo Video" branding on VHS in the 1980s, with two episodes per tape. The "racing" second season was distributed by Tempest Video.
In the United Kingdom, two releases titled M.A.S.K The Movie, and M.A.S.K The Movie II were released by Tempo Video, featuring episodes edited into a feature-length format. Several episodes of season one were distributed by The Video Collection in association with Karl Lorimar's Kideo Video, then a lot of these episodes would be distributed on later VHS tapes by Castle Vision. The episodes from season two were distributed by Golden Book Video.
M.A.S.K. episodes have been released on DVD in three different regions:
* USA: Shout! Factory acquired the Region 1 DVD rights and released a "Complete Series" set on 9 August 2011 containing only the episodes from the first season of the original series (65 episodes), as well as a separate 2-disc collection of the first 11 episodes, called "Volume 1" and released the same day. The second season, which consists of 10 episodes, are owned by WildBrain and are not part of the acquisition.
* UK: A single DVD set containing the first 5 episodes was released by Maximum Entertainment (under license from Jetix Europe) in August 2004. In November 2007, Maximum released Collection 1, containing the same number of episodes as the Australian set. Collection 1 was re-released on 31 August 2009, and Collection 2 was finally released on 28 September the same year. Both sets (the re-issue Collection 1 and Collection 2) are distributed through Lace DVD, replacing Maximum Entertainment, and both sets are in Region 2 PAL format. All 75 episodes were released across both sets.
* Australia and New Zealand: Madman Entertainment released the complete series over two DVD collections for the first time in Australia and New Zealand. Collection 1 was released in November 2006 and contains episodes 1–38, while Collection 2 was released in March 2007 and contains episodes 39–75 which includes the season 2 episodes.

## Reception

While certain critics criticized the show for showing the weaponry and vehicles "at the expense of anything deeper in terms of plotting and characterization", the show was quite successful. IGN voted M.A.S.K. the 99th-best animated series in 2009, calling it one of the most popular cartoon/toy marketing franchises of the 1980s, stating that it took many of the strengths of G.I. Joe and Transformers while taking few of their flaws.

## In other media

In 2015, Hasbro and Paramount were planning a cinematic universe combining M.A.S.K. with G.I. Joe, Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, Micronauts, and Rom. In April 2016, a writers' room was formed consisting of Michael Chabon, Brian K. Vaughan, Nicole Perlman, Cheo Coker, John Francis Daley, and others to develop storylines, but it disbanded in July 2017. The next year, F. Gary Gray was attached as the director for a live-action M.A.S.K. adaptation, with Chris Bremner hired in 2020 to write the script. The project has since remained in development.