Looking Back on ‘Mummies Alive!’ — a Truly Bizarre, San Francisco-Set Cartoon

A lot of regrettable things happened to pop culture in the ’90s: The Macarena. JNCO jeans. Puck from The Real World. Johnny Mnemonic. Hell, the decade started with Vanilla Ice and ended with a world-destroying computer glitch that never actually materialized. Nice work, everyone.

Despite Gen Z’s ongoing embrace of the decade, there are plenty of things from the era that have been so thoroughly buried, people have mostly forgotten they happened at all. One of these is San Francisco-based cartoon Mummies Alive!, which ran for a single, 42-episode season in 1997.

Let us now listen to the theme tune: a song drenched in exposition, vague nods to the drum ‘n’ bass trend of the day, but almost entirely impossible to understand because of its frenetic composition.

The premise is this: A 12-year-old San Francisco boy named Presley Carnovan is the reincarnation of an ancient pharaoh named Prince Rapses XII. (It’s better if you don’t try and make sense of this.) Scarab, the maniacal dude who originally murdered the prince in order to become immortal, wants to steal Rapses’ life force once again, so is always in hot pursuit of Presley. Scarab also carries around a talking snake that doubles as a gold staff. (Try and keep up!) In order to protect Presley, four mummies come to his aid, follow him around all day and fight on his behalf without anyone ever questioning it. (A bit of an indictment of Presley’s single mom, but that’s kind of what the ’90s were all about. Yay!)

Of the mummies, Ja-Kal, can fly, attack things with his claws and shoot flaming arrows at stuff. Rath casts spells, conjures snakes and is generally an annoying smarty pants. Armon is the token big, strong dummy with eons of fighting experience. Nefertina (*groan*) carries a whip for a weapon and is an excellent (*checks notes*) driver. Because God forbid the girl mummy get a real superpower.

One of the executive producers on the show was none other than Ivan Reitman — a guy you may have heard of because of his work on beloved movies like Ghostbusters, Stripes and Up in the Air. Still, Mummies Alive! didn’t last.

Maybe it was the show’s dedication to non-stop punning — episode titles include “Ghoul’s Gold,” “Tree O’Clock Rock” and “Show Me the Mummy.” (Ugh.) Maybe it was hard to root for a kid who constantly questions the wisdom of his ancient friends. Maybe the mummies could have had better personalities and not so many British accents. It’s hard to know what precisely killed this thing, but to say that some of these episodes err on the side of clunky would be an understatement.

Twenty-seven years later, the saving grace of Mummies Alive! is just how faithfully parts of San Francisco and the Bay are reproduced in the animations. The show goes out of its way to highlight the San Francisco skyline and landmarks, including Fisherman’s Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street and Golden Gate Park. Even UC Berkeley and the ACME Bakery get nods. (A visit to San Jose’s Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum would have been amazing, but you can’t have everything I guess…)

The first and only season of Mummies Alive! is currently streaming on Prime Video. But if you need an immediate sample of how weird this thing was, please enjoy Episode 33: “The Bird Mummy of Alcatraz.”