It wasn’t such a big leap to turn Jim Carrey’s hit movie The Mask into a Saturday morning cartoon. Between Carrey’s physically animated face and all the digitally animated scenes, the progression was quite natural.

Even without Carrey’s voice, the animated series fared well with its wacky humor and absurd sight gags. As in the movie, the main character was hapless Stanley Ipkiss who possessed an ancient wooden mask that possessed him right back. When Stanley donned the mask, he transformed into a mischievous, unstoppable whirlwind of a devil able to do anything. He used this power to combat evil but not in a stalwart, consciously heroic way; you could say that Stanley had graduated from the Loony Tunes school of crime fighting.  

Stanley’s friends Peggy and Charlie were also on hand to help out whenever needed and super villains abounded in Edge City. The main nasty critter was Dr. Pretorius, a scientist who had separated his head from his body and was able to place it on various robotic torsos. Dr. Amelia Chronos often showed up to manipulate time for her own personal gain. Other villains were parodies of comic book bad guy stereotypes or just completely off-the-wall personas, like Gorgonzola the Cheese Witch.

The series aired successfully on CBS for two seasons with plenty of rerun time after its cancellation. The young—and the young at heart—couldn’t get enough of the Mask and his special brand of cartoon insanity.