Creepy Crawlers (TV series)
Creepy Crawlers is an animated television series from 1994, produced by Saban Entertainment, that aired in syndication in the United States. Premise. The show is about Chris Carter, a self-described "normal kid" who is interested in magic. While working at the Magic Shop of bitter discredited stage illusionist Professor Googengrime, Chris designed and built a device he called "The Magic Maker", ostensibly for use in some unspecified magic trick. A particular once-every-thousand-years planetary alignment, the Magical Millennium Moment, rained down cosmic energies on the shop one fateful night, which somehow made the  Magic Maker capable of creating strange, man-sized bug/magic trick composite mutant creatures. The three creatures formed that night, Hocus Locust, Volt Jolt and T-3 (dubbed "Goop-Mandos" by Googengrime), despite looking bizarre, turned out to be friendly, and joined forces with Chris, but Googengrime kept the Magic Maker when Chris and the Goop-Mandos escaped from the shop. Each episode thereafter concerned Googengrime's latest attempt to gain power and conquer the world with a Magic Maker-created "Crime Grime" monster, and Chris and The Goop-Mandos' efforts to stop him, and retrieve the Magic Maker from his  evil clutches. As the series went on, more Goop-Mandos were created. In addition, a young girl named "Sammy" Reynolds became a close ally of the group. Some sitcom style humor was derived by the concept that the Goop-Mandos were required to recharge after missions by hanging upside-down in the large closet in Chris' room. This concept was derived from a small oozing hourglass-like device housed in the lower torso of each Goop-Mando Action Figure. Although the Carter parents never made an appearance on the show (their voices were heard off-screen in a few episodes ), Chris' older brother Todd, a vain and surly "valley dude", was constantly suspicious of the extracurricular goings-on around the house. And blonde kid named Max who is the bearer of the Cap who becomes a friend of Chris Furthermore, when the Goop-Mandos needed transportation to a battle site, they would often confiscate Todd's custom dune buggy, using doses of "Goop" to transform it temporarily into the Goozooka "Crawler Cruiser" assault Vehicle. The villains used a similar vehicle called the Bug-Eyed Bomber. At the Opening of Season Two, Professor Googengrime created a formula, Super Goop, to try  destroy the Goop-Mandos, but it backfired, furthering their mutations. The Goop-Mandos changed colors, gained new abilities and became much stronger. Origin and development. The Creepy Crawlers TV Show was based on ToyMax's Creepy Crawlers Activity toy. A line of 12 action figures were made by ToyMax in conjunction with the show, as well as the Goozooka Assault vehicle. A "Creepy Crawlers Action Figure Playset" was depicted in the 1994 ToyMax toy booklet, but was apparently not produced. Each figure came with a metal mold for use with the Creepy Crawlers toy oven, to make custom accessories for  the figure using Plasti-Goop. The Creepy Crawlers TV show debuted in first-run syndication in the Fall of 1994. The show was produced by Saban Entertainment, known for their Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and other live-action adventure programs. Creepy Crawlers was sponsored heavily by several ToyMax products, including Incredible Edibles and DollyMaker, and other Saban programs such as VR Troopers. The show aired sporadically on weekends through the spring of 1996, airing a total of 23 episodes during its two-year run.