Gargoyles (also known as Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles for season 3) is an animated television series co-produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and Buena Vista Television, Walt Disney Animation Japan for its first two seasons and Nelvana Limited for its final, and originally aired from October 24, 1994, to February 15, 1997. The series features a species of nocturnal creatures known as gargoyles that turn to stone during the day. After spending a thousand years in an enchanted petrified state, the gargoyles (who have been transported from medieval Scotland) are reawakened in modern-day New York City, and take on roles as the city's secret night-time protectors.
Gargoyles was noted for its relatively dark tone, complex story arcs, and melodrama; character arcs were heavily employed throughout the series, as were Shakespearean themes. The series also received favorable comparisons to Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series. A video game adaptation and a spin-off comic series were released in 1995. The show's storyline continued from 2006 to 2009 in a comic book series of the same title, produced by Slave Labor Graphics, and was again revived by Dynamite Entertainment in 2022. In 2026, a potential animated revival was hinted to be in development.
Premise
The series features a species of nocturnal creatures known as gargoyles that turn to stone during the day, focusing on a clan led by Goliath. In 994, the clan lives in a castle in Scotland. Most are betrayed and killed by humans while petrified and the remainder are magically cursed to sleep—i.e., be frozen in stone form until the castle "rises above the clouds." A thousand years later in 1994, billionaire David Xanatos purchases the gargoyles' castle and has it reconstructed atop his New York skyscraper, the Eyrie Building, thus awakening Goliath and the remainder of his clan. While trying to adjust to their new world, they are aided by a sympathetic police officer named Elisa Maza and quickly come into conflict with the plotting Xanatos. In addition to dealing with the gargoyles' attempts to adjust to modern New York City, the series also incorporated various supernatural threats to their safety and to the world at large.
Episodes
A total of 78 half-hour episodes were produced.
The first two seasons aired in the Disney Afternoon programming block. The first season consisted of 13 episodes, including a five-part opening story. This season's episodes were almost entirely written by Michael Reaves and Brynne Chandler Reaves. The second season featured 52 episodes, and a long mid-season story arc dubbed by fans as "The Gargoyles World Tour" in which four of the main characters travel the world, encountering other Gargoyles and confronting various mystical and science-fictional dangers. The writing staff was greatly expanded for season two.
Following Disney's purchase of ABC in 1996, the third and final season aired during Saturday mornings on ABC as Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles.
Voice cast
Thom Adcox-Hernandez, Ed Asner, Jeff Bennett, Keith David, Bill Fagerbakke, and Salli Richardson voiced the main characters, and appeared in a majority of episodes.
The voice cast featured many alumni of the Star Trek franchise, including Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes, who were featured regularly as principal cast members. Many other Star Trek actors had recurring roles or made guest appearances.
Development The series bears no creator credit, though there were several people who are responsible for the show's format. Michael Reaves, who wrote the first six episodes and was the primary writer/story editor of the show's first two seasons has described himself with respect to Gargoyles as "in on the ground floor [of] creating something iconic". Greg Weisman also describes himself as one of the creators of Gargoyles having included much of the folkloric, mythological, and historical elements.
The series' first season was almost entirely written by the husband-and-wife team of Michael Reaves and Brynne Chandler Reaves, who wrote 12 of the 13 episodes; the remaining episode was written by Steve Perry. All three writers were just coming off having written extensively for Batman: The Animated Series (for which Reaves won an Emmy, and Chandler Reaves an Emmy nomination). Weisman officially joined the series as a co-producer with episode 6 (though he also oversaw earlier episodes in his capacity as a Disney executive), and did not have any writing credits on the show until the third season.
The first season was developed on a sliding schedule; each phase of developing the thirteen episodes, such as writing, storyboarding, and animating, was given a ten-month period, with significant overlap. After they had delivered the first thirteen episodes, the production team asked Buena Vista Television to pick up a second season with another thirteen; the show had not yet aired, but Buena Vista agreed for them to start work on six more episodes. Once the show started its weekly syndication run in 1994, it was quickly seen as successful both as a television program and for promoting toy sales, and Buena Vista pushed the show's team to make the second season 52 episodes so that they could run it daily starting in the 1995 television season. Weisman stated they were not prepared for this given their production methods and the lack of timing to get those episodes ready for a fall 1995 premiere, despite telling Buena Vista this several times. When Disney refused to back down from the 52-episode order, the team decided to expand fourfold to handle the additional episodes. The writing staff grew to include Reaves, Chandler Reaves, and Perry, as well as newcomers Lydia Marano, Cary Bates, Gary Sperling, Adam Gilad, Diane Duane and Peter Morwood, amongst others. For this season, story editing duties were handled on a rotating basis by Reaves, Chandler Reaves, Bates, and Sperling. Storylines expanded beyond the Manhattan setting and more characters were added to help create stories to fill the episode count. Weisman said that he had discussions with Michael Eisner of using Gargoyles as a starting point for an action-oriented universe within Disney, comparing this to how Warner Bros. owned DC Comics, and some second-season episodes were used to set up potential hooks for these.
The second season finished with a definitive wrap-up story told over a series of final episodes. However, a third season was unexpectedly ordered—although the series order was reduced to thirteen episodes and moved to a Saturday morning slot. Around this point, Reaves, Chandler Reaves, Perry, and Sperling all left the show. Meanwhile, the reduced episode order was a result of two factors according to Weisman. The first was changes within Disney itself. The fallout from the death of Disney president Frank Wells led to the divide between Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Katzenberg left to form DreamWorks. Weisman's bosses, Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston, who had been supportive of Gargoyles, also left with Katzenberg for DreamWorks. Further, internal pressure on Eisner from Roy E. Disney forced him to treat Gargoyles as part of the studio's older works, thus dropping the larger action universe plans, and leaving the show without any support. Secondly, as the second season aired, the highly publicized trial of O. J. Simpson drew audiences away from Gargoyles often due to preemption from the trial's coverage. By the time the trial was over, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had become more powerful as a brand.
At this point, the show staff did not think they were likely to get a third season (which is one reason why much of the writing staff moved on), but as Disney had just bought Capital Cities, the owners of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network, they needed programming for its Saturday morning block. They therefore had the mostly new Gargoyles team develop thirteen more episodes for it, now calling the series The Goliath Chronicles. Returning writers included Marano, Bates, and Gilad; Weisman also made his debut as a writer with the season opener. Because the series was on broadcast stations rather than syndication, the show had to meet different Broadcast Standards and Practices which Weisman stated drastically limited his creativity. While he wrote the first episode and spoke of his concerns to Disney, Weisman has contended Disney had removed him from the team and assigned the rest of the show's run to Nelvana leaving The Goliath Chronicles to be classified as being non-canon.
In May 2020, Weisman said in an interview, "Gargoyles is still my baby. I don't own it. I don't get a dime off of it being on Disney Plus. And yet I'm so thrilled that it is, I'm thrilled that it represents a chance — even if it's a slim chance — to bring it back. I've always wanted to do more. I've got a timeline for the show that's 315 pages long. I've got notebooks and comp books full of ideas for it. Spin-off notions and all sorts of things. Literally, nothing would make me happier than to go back and do more Gargoyles."
Influences Many Shakespearean characters and stories found their way into the show's storylines, particularly those from Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The series was also influenced by medieval Scottish history, as well as television shows ranging from Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, to Hill Street Blues as well as Bonkers (in which Weisman himself co-produced).Final page, Gargoyles #1 The latter in particular inspired the ensemble format of the series and the 30-second "Previously, on Gargoyles..." recap found at the beginning of later episodes. The former was an influence on the original comedy development of the show, which was subsequently made darker and more serious by first season writers Reaves, Chandler Reaves and Perry.
Lawsuit New York artist Joe Tomasini brought a suit against Disney, claiming that his copyrighted screenplay and character designs had been copied during the development and production of Gargoyles. The case was ultimately thrown out, after it was proven that Disney did not have access to Tomasini's creations.
Broadcast history The first two seasons of Gargoyles aired in the Republic of Ireland on RTE Two on weekday afternoons from January 6 to April 1997.
In the United States, the series first reran on the USA Network, as part of their morning Action Extreme Team block. It later moved to Toon Disney (and later onto Jetix's lineup) and its successor Disney XD where it aired until 2012. ABC Family also aired the show for a brief time in 2004 as part of its weekday morning Jetix block.
Home media VHS and Laserdisc The five-episode pilot "Awakening", edited into a single movie under the title Gargoyles the Movie: The Heroes Awaken, was released on VHS and Laserdisc on January 31, 1995, by Buena Vista Home Video.
VHS name Episode titles Release date Stock number The Hunted "The Thrill of the Hunt" & "Temptation" October 11, 1995 5968 The Force of Goliath "Deadly Force" & "Enter Macbeth" October 11, 1995 5969 Deeds of Deception "The Edge" & "Long Way to Morning" April 9, 1996 6713 Brothers Betrayed "Her Brother's Keeper" & "Reawakening" April 9, 1996 6714
DVD releases Season Product Episodes DVD release date 1 The Complete First Season 13 2 Season Two, Volume 1 26 Season Two, Volume 2 26 3 The Goliath Chronicles 13
Streaming On October 14, 2019, it was confirmed that all 3 seasons of Gargoyles would be available for streaming on the Disney+ streaming service, in which the entire series has been available on there ever since its November 12, 2019 launch.
Reception