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Cast | History | Notes | Pictures | Summary - Official | My Summary | My Review | Together Before
| Character | Actor |
| Mad Mod | Malcolm McDowell |
| Robin | Scott Menville |
| Beast Boy | Greg Cipes |
| Cyborg | Khary Payton |
| Starfire | Hynden Walch |
| Raven | Tara Strong |
Directed by Ciro Nieli
Writing by Adam Beechen
The Mad Mod was one of the earliest adversaries of the Teen Titans. He was a fashion designer who lived on Carnaby Street in London, England where Mod clothes were the rage. Mod used his fashion label as a front to conceal contraband items in the clothes he made.
Originally titled "Detention" and was changed to reflect the villain.
Mod's real name is Neil Richards.
Mod's first comic book appearance was in Teen Titans #7 in 1967.
His second was in Teen Titans #17 - The Return of the Mad Mod in 1968.
He disappeared for almost 30 years and returned as a good guy in Teen Titans #2 11/96 and Teen Titans #12-15 1997.
In 8/04 he appeared in Teen Titans Go! #8 that ties in with the show.
The song during the music video chase is "K2G" written by Andy Strumer and Puffy Amiyumi.
The complete First Season was released on DVD on 2/20/06
The Titans awake to find themselves captured as prisoners of Mad Mod, a madcap bad guy in a psychedelic suit. Mad Mod has decided to teach the teens a lesson, creating a massive mind-bending school full of optical illusions and brain-washing hypno-screens. Will the Titans be "re-educated" and lose their minds in the process?
The Titans awake to find themselves strapped into school
chairs as prisoners of Mad Mod, a throwback to the mid 1960s Carnaby St days. He
has blue sunglasses that ride low on his nose, red hair, a British flag jacket,
white pants and a black cane with a red jewel tip. The jewel is his true power
as he is able to use it to control all the powers and pitfalls in his world. He
tells them he hates crimefighters and that since they are bad children it is
time to go back to school.
They are then separated into rooms in the school in attempts
to be hypnotized. The story centers on Robin and his escape. He is locked into a
chair and forced to watch massive hypno-screens as his head is held back. The
screens consists of spiraling black and white patterns. Before it does any
damage though he is able to pick the lock with a concealed tool in his wrist. He
topples the chair and this makes Mad Mod even more Mad. Mod has now changed into
a black suit as he unleashes Mad Mod attack busts at him. The have lasers in the
eyes and saw blades on this sides. He is able to avoid them and let them destroy
each other. He sees Mad Mod and chases after him, but every time he does he
winds back in the same spot. Mod tires to teach him about gravity and such by
pulling optical illusion tricks on him. Every time Robin things he is close he
fails until he finds Starfire trapped in the library. Mad Mod has a giant stamp
that reads "Overdue" that he is smashing all the desk in the room
with, heading towards her. She is strapped into her chair like Alex in A
Clockwork Orange with her eyes held open. At the last second Robin is able to
rescue her and they climb on to the tops of the shelves of books and it is like
a maze. More statues and pitfalls follow them and they wind up in the science
lab. Here they find Beast Boy strapped into a chair, but it is too late. He has
been hypnotized and is now a drooling fool. Starfire tries to destroy the
screen, but Robin warns her that he initiated an attack on himself when he
destroyed his chair. They pull him out and head back down the stairs and wound
up where they started.
Right after Cyborg and Raven show up. Starfire was in the gym
and is still wearing a Mad Mod uniform. Nothing can snap Beast Boy out of it
including Starfire screaming at him until Cyborg burps loudly in his ear. This
makes him laugh and wakes him up. He remembers nothing of what happened. He
promises it won't happen again and a screen pops out and rehypnotizes him. Mad
Mad is back and now they pursue him as a team.
A massive music video style slapstick chase ensues with the
teens chasing Mad Mod back and forth through a series of 10 doors. Every time
they due Mad Mod is on a different vehicle and the doors perspective changes.
Sometime they are huge when opened and sometimes small. After the Titans open
all doors at once they are sure they have him when they open the last door.
Instead a giant T-Rex head comes out. Another chase leads through holes in the
floor and the ceiling which are sometimes real holes and some times are not. A
long chase of the Mad Mod up a spiral staircase leads to trouble when they reach
the top and Mod makes the stairs go flat. They all slide down toward a chomping
mouth and Beast Boy changes to an octopus to catch Cyborg and Robin. Starfire
and Raven can fly so they pull the octopus arms.
The teens see an opening of the outdoors and head for it, but
it was a fake. So they reach the final showdown and Robin theorizes that if they
can get his cane which controls everything, then they can get out. An arms of
Mod statues come out to fight and the teens are separated one by one and
recaptured. Beast Boy is hypnotized again and Cyborg has to stick his finger in
Raven's ear to snap him out of it. There are statues on pillars, spider statues,
chainsaw statues and more. The walls open and close, the floor rises and sets
which cuts everyone off and causes them to crash. Robin is the only one to make
it to the top where Mod is. Mod points out he's already lost since all his
friends are captured. This is true, but Robin lunges for the cane and passes
right through it. He realizes that if the cane if fake, then Mod must be fake
too. We see that Mod is just an old man pulling all the controls behind the
walls to make everything happen. Robin goes through a cut in the wall and finds
him. The real Mod is too old to stop him and everything falls apart and we see
the entire place was just an elaborate special effects set.
They climb out back into the daylight and Robin comments
about not liking school except for the graduation. Mod is tied up, yet Beat Boy
has been hypnotized again and they can't snap him out of it with any of the
previous tricks to make him laugh. The figure his brain is gone and Raven says,
"if he ever had a brain." This snaps Beast Boy out of it and they head
off.
I had never seen or heard of this show before and have
never been a fan of superheroes. It's always the same. A villain attacks them,
starts to win for a while and then loses. Nothing exciting there. This show
still followed that pattern pretty much, but it didn't take itself seriously. It
is like a combination of the Superman Animated series and the 1960s Batman TV
series. Good looking, but still campy.
It plays on Saturday morning which on TV could be renamed
Japanese assault day. Every show and commercial is to sell Japanese related toys
and products. It is unbelievable at how much they have advanced on our culture.
While they show had an Anime style to it with a Japanese sung theme song and
music video in the episode it is loaded with American Pop Culture references.
Young kids would have no idea about any of these things which leads me to
believe it is geared toward an older crowd than those who normally would be
watching this show on Saturday morning. There were references to the 60s
throughout with a short of techno version of The Doors "Hello I Love
You" playing, Beatles Yellow Submarine, Monkees, Andy Warhol paintings, MC
Escher and other famous pieces of art. It seemed like another little ACO nod,
besides the obvious Ludovico scene with Starfire, when Mad Mod scratched his
butt like Alex did right before he met Mr. Deltoid. Otherwise I can see no
reason they did that little scene
Rating: 9/10
Written by John Esposito
Directed by Michael Chang
The Titans are at their HQ waiting for the 4th of July
fireworks to start. The group tries to explain to Starfire the significance of
the holiday. Robin says you could call it America's birthday. Beast launches into
a convoluted history of America that gives him a reprimand from Raven. Before
the explanation can go any further it is 5 seconds until the fireworks are to
start. When the countdown gets down to one there is an interruption on the video
screens. It is Mad Mod.
He declares the American Revolution a hoax and launches
hypnoscreens in times square. The people soon become under his spell and he
fills the sky with union jack British flags and puts up British street facades
in front of all the buildings. He then launches his robot Bobby army on the
streets heading a parade in his honor. The Titans quickly disperse to stop him
with a frontal assault. It turns out the robots are nearly unstoppable and are
able to slow them down. Robin gets on Mod's barge and Mod turns the tables with
his magic cane and steals his youth, making him young again and Robin old. Not
only that he captures him in his weakened state and leaves.
The other Titans are lost without their leader and each has
their own idea on how to rescue him. The only problem is that no one agrees
until Beast changes his mind and casts his vote in with Starfire. She spots
Robin high up on a building and flies up to him but it is a rap, so her plan
fails. So they try Cyborg's plan. He tries to gun down the robots, but they are
too strong and there are too many. There are also tanks on the scene and his
plan also falls. Raven's plan involves sneaking to rescue Robin and that fails.
Beast gets hypnotized and picks up a British accent because of it.
They realize the only way they hope to win is with a frontal
assault. They only problem is this failed before and Mad Mod tells him so. Once
again they fail and all are captured by overwhelming numbers. Then Mod notices
Beast isn't there. He then flies in from the sky and attacks Mad Mod sending his
cane flying. This gets Beast nowhere until Robin is able to catch the cane and
reverse the spell making Mad Mod old again. He is now too weak to fight back and
is defeated.
Malcolm returns to play Mod a little over a year later.
There is no indication how Mod escaped or where he had gone all this time. He
just suddenly resurfaces with a nearly invincible army.
2003 - Malcolm McDowell and Greg Cipes were both in Inhabited.
This page © 2003-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net