Mike Tyson Comes to [adult swim] by Jerry Whitworth
In the world of professional boxing, few hold the prestige of Mike Tyson. The youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA, and IBF heavyweight titles and the first heavyweight boxer to hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles at the same time (the only heavyweight to also unify those titles), Tyson’s career was marred by scandals like being found guilty of rape and later biting the ear of fellow boxer Evander Holyfield during a match. Tyson saw his career and wealth crumble until it underwent a Renaissance largely born from a memorable role in the film The Hangover. Since then, he went on to tour with a one-man show and became known famously to raise and care for hundreds of pigeons (his love of the metropolitan bird going back to his youth). In May 2014, [adult swim] would announce development of an animated series starring Tyson solving mysteries.
No stranger to geek culture, Mike Tyson licensed his likeness for three years to Nintendo in 1987 with Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! In a strange twist, Tyson was not the player character but the final boss of the game which instead featured the tiny boxer Little Mac (a character undergoing his own revival of late in the games Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U). However, in the upcoming series Mike Tyson Mysteries, Tyson takes center stage as lending his services to those in need who contact him with a mystery via carrier pigeon. In his adventures, Tyson is joined by his adopted Korean daughter Yung Hee (played by Rachel Ramras of Mad), the ghost of the Marquess of Queensberry (played by Jim Rash of Community), and a man turned into a pigeon named… Pigeon (played by Norm Macdonald of Saturday Night Live). In the same vein as [adult swim] animated action-comedies like Venture Bros. and Black Dynamite, the show is an insane mash-up of concepts borrowing elements from Scooby-Doo, Ruby-Spears’ Mister T, Funky Phantom, Captain Caveman, and Inspector Gadget with an adult flair as a preview shown at the San Diego Comic-Con showed death, intense violence, and dark humor (Pigeon an alcoholic in the practice of hiring prostitutes as an example). Mike Tyson Mysteries is scheduled to come to [adult swim] in Fall 2014.
