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These days, comic book adaptations are a pretty safe bet for studios looking to make money. But you have to remember that there was a time that that wasn't necessarily the case. Take, for instance, Fox's gamble on X-Men: The Animated Series, which no one knew could revolutionize not just superhero entertainment but Marvel's place in the pop culture zeitgeist. However, it's a good thing Fox did take that gamble, and not only for the reasons already listed.

Because according to Haim Saban, X-Men: The Animated Series is the reason we have the Power Rangers franchise today.

Saban spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 for X-Men's 25th anniversary, and as founder of Saban Entertainment (which produced both the aniated X-Men and original power Rangers), we can't blame him for bragging a bit about the series' success.

"After I was able to deliver the network this hit series," recounts Saban, "My relationship with the president of Fox Children’s Network, Margaret Loesch, was very good. I basically had an open door to pitch Margaret any projects in our development pipeline. One project that I was eager to pitch her was the Power Rangers."

Saban goes on to explain that he had been trying to pitch an Americanized Power Rangers show ever since seeing the original in Japan almost a full decade before the American series was even considered. Saban was hard at work trying to get some network on board with the idea, but as he puts it, "There were just no takers."

But with a bullseye hit like X-Men:TAS under his belt, suddenly all of Saban's ideas looked a little more sparky to those who had previously doubted.

"I presented [Loesch] with a very rough pilot," says the producer, "And she replied: 'Hmm, this could be interesting.' She eventually committed to putting it on air even though her bosses, (including Rupert Murdoch), all told her that she was playing with her career and that she should just cancel the series before it even premiered. Loesch stuck to her gut instinct and during the summer of 1993, The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers premiered on Fox for an eight-week run." 

"School was out and kids were still on summer vacation," Saban continues, "So ratings expectations were very low. All of the industry figured that nobody would ever watch some crazy, campy kid’s show. Instead, my Power Rangers became a runaway hit from day one! In fact, the series became such a giant success that Rupert Murdoch even extended an offer to partner with me in a joint venture with News Corp. So in some way, my involvement in the animated X-Men series did help open the door for me at Fox."

Hold on, Rupert Murdoch? As in, the Succession guy? Well this story took a turn I didn't expect. Kind of wild that X-Men: The Animated Series inspired a guy that's pretty darn close to a real-life Senator Robert Kelly. Ah well. Now that it's at Disney+, there's absolutely no way that the animated X-Men saga will have deeply problematic people at its helm - hang on, I'm getting a message from my editors.

Oh.

Along with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the X-Men animated series inspired... well, a lot more X-Men animated series. Get the lowdown on all of them with Popverse's animated X-Men watch order.