Former boxing heavyweight champion “Iron” Mike Tyson is headed to Adult Swim in Mike Tyson Mysteries. Armed with a magical tattoo and a pigeon, Tyson will be featured in weekly 15-minute episodes later this year. Here’s the official description from the press release:
Mike Tyson Mysteries — In the new animated comedy series Mike Tyson Mysteries, Mike Tyson is taking the fight from the boxing ring to the streets…by solving mysteries! Armed with a magical tattoo on his face and a trusty associate by his side — a talking pigeon — if you have a problem that needs solving, Iron Mike is in your corner. The series incorporates live-action appearances featuring Mighty Mike himself, and the gloves come off as the former heavyweight champ and his fowl-mouthed partner gear up for weekly adventures as they put unsolved mysteries — like how to defeat a super computer at chess or why a famous author/werewolf can’t finish his novel — down for the count. Animated quarter-hour from Warner Bros Animation.
This show sounds like all kinds of awesome. It places one of the biggest sports icons of the ’80s and ’90s in an animated adventure that pays homage to his trademark tattoo, love of pigeons, and Batman-like detective skills. While I’ve had some fun debates with RPadholics over Tyson’s place in boxing history, there’s no denying that he’s one of the most fascinating and interesting athletes the world has seen in the last 30 years. Mike Tyson Mysteries adds to his cult of personality and amazing reinvention.
Tyson started out as a fierce young heavyweight, went onto become a controversial boxer known for biting off ear pieces and making threats to eat opponents’ babies, and later cracked people up in The Hangover movies. And here he is in 2013, as a lovable mystery-solving cartoon character with a pigeon sidekick. Remarkable.