The Legend of Calamity Jane

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The Legend of Calamity Jane was a 1997 cartoon on the Kids WB, made by the French animation studio Contre Allée that depicted the adventures of the historical Calamity Jane. The series was gritty in tone, and had a animation style similar to that of Superman: The Animated Series or its fellow piece of French animated genius, Night Hood.

This cartoon aired exactly three times before it was unexpectedly pulled off the air by KidsWB, though an entire season aired in other countries. No explanation has ever been given as to why the show was suddenly cancelled, but some have suspected that Moral Guardians got on the show's case for its gun violence. Either way, for the dozen or so people that still remember this show, it was Too Good to Last.

It seems that someone has uploaded most of the episodes on YouTube. And the Fandom Rejoiced.

Tropes used in The Legend of Calamity Jane include:

• Abnormal Ammo: Not too abnormal, but Joe keeps his shotgun regularly primed with rock salt instead of lead.
• Action Girl: Guess...
• Amplified Animal Aptitude: Dakota, Jane's horse, has been trained to stomp on cue.
• Art Shift: The Comanche "spirit walks."
• A-Team Firing: No matter how many shots are fired (and no matter how easy the shot is), the number of times someone is actually shot throughout the series can probably be counted on one hand, almost all in the last episode.
• Beat Them At Their Own Game: Chena, chief of the Comanche, is well-read on US law in general and the treaty between his people and Washington in particular. When a government representative is sent to move them to a new territory, he is able to explain how there is no legal cause for the action.
• Becoming the Mask: Liam Canary, Jane's father, spent so much time talking about his family that a Con Man acquaintance of his decides to do his best to live that life.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: When Jane is working with a bow and arrow, she shoots the guns out of the hands of a pair of assailants (Launching two arrows at the same time) and later knocks the canon-lighting-torch out of the hands of another assailant.
• Bloodless Carnage
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Happens a lot, as Jane is captured by the enemy in almost every episode, but they always decide on a slow Death Trap death. One episode even had a criminal ask why they do not just shoot Jane after he and his brothers subdue her.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. All characters (Hero and villain) are shown reloading their firearms, and the animation is accurately detailed.
• Bowdlerization: Jane's past is both toned down from her historical counterpart (who was both a heavy drinker and a whore, among other things), but was still plenty unusual for the medium (young cabaret singer, though Sue says she was thankfully handled with "kid gloves").
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Joe is purely perplexed at Jane and Wild Bill Hickock calmly talking about playing cards when they are under seige by twenty outlaws.
• The Cavalry: The US Cavalry provides a recurring cast of supporting characters, and the Ninth Buffalo Soldiers serve as The Cavalry in "The Way of the Buffalo."
• Con Man: Liam Canary from "Like Father, Like Daughter". He pretended to be Jane's long lost father to keep her distracted while his possé tried to rob Deadwood's bank. Later he decided that, even if it was not the truth, he wanted it to be.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Jane's father has been missing since her early childhood, and the implication from "Like Father, Like Daughter" is that her mother died after he disappeared.
• Crazy Prepared: Jane has a knife hidden in the handle of her whip, which she uses to cut herself free after she has ben tied up with her own whip.
• Daddy's Girl
• Death Trap: The villains almost always decide on a slow, torturous death instead of just shooting Jane.
• Die Hard on an X: "I'd Rather Be In Philadelphia," where a group of Confederate soldiers still fighting the Civil War take a fair hostage as part of their plot assassinate President Grant.
• Dodge the Bullet: Jane pulls off a Matrix move in "Like Father, Like Daughter".
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Episode 13. ALL OF IT!
• Dressing as the Enemy: A group of Confederate soldiers still fighting the Civil War hijack a US Cavalry train to steal their uniforms to infiltrate a fair to assassinate President Grant.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The triplets of "Easy as One, Two, Three..." keep speaking of their mother and her sage advice. However, there is the (very slight) implication that Conrad was the one who killed her.
• Famed in Story: Jane herself.
• Friendly Enemy: Sam Bass, a thief and hired gun, brought Jane a friendly glass of milk when he learned she was in the same saloon as he, and sat down with her at a table to give her all the information on the fugitive she was chasing, including the backgrounds on the gunmen with him, warning her of the danger she would be in if she still tried to capture him. At the end of their conversation, he explains that he is with the gang and again tries to get her to just leave the situation alone.
• Gatling Good: One bad guy acquires a Gatling gun and assumes this makes him unstoppable. He is wrong, of course.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: The saloon that Jane lives in is also a brothel; the serving women are seen leading men up to the rooms on more than one occasion, but are never explicitly referred to as prostitutes.
• Green Eyed Red Head
• Gun Porn: The animation is extremely detailed when it comes to the operation of firearms. Rifles are levered after each shot, revolvers are loaded one round at a time while rotating the chamber, and shotguns are broken to remove spent shells.
• The Gunslinger: Wild Bill Hickock, Real Life lawman, is a recurring character.
• Heroic Albino: Calamity herself, as a stylistic choice to depict the fair-skinned nature of redheads.
• Historical Domain Character: One episode has Jane telling a young girl about her first kill. Said young girl is revealed in the end to be Eleanor Roosevelt.
• Honor Before Reason: Jane would rather die than let a bunch of thieves escape with stolen gold, but she would also rather save a friends life than hold on to her principals.
• Hot Amazon: Jane gets quite a few admirers after she kicks some ass.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Chena shot an arrow down the barrel of a rifle. Everybody who saw it was suitably amazed.
• Improvised Weapon: When party-goers are held hostage by Southern troops and Jane is without her usual arsenal, she fashions a bow and arrows out of tree branches and makes a whip using her own dress. Joe, without his trusty shotgun, makes a small explosive and knocks out a soldier by pilfering a buffet table of an ear of corn and a banana.
• Last Second Chance: Sam Bass, a thief and hired gun, and Jane are friends who would prefer not to have to fight one another. When Jane is chasing a fugitive wanted for bank robbery and murder, only to learn that Bass is now part of his gang, each tries to get the other to leave and not get involved. At the end of the episode, after Jane has managed to disable most of the gang, she tells Sam to give up and drop his gun since he is "not a killer." Bass, however, sees this as an opportunity to finally get a Big Score and leave his life of petty thievery behind, and keeps trying to load one more shell into his rifle right up until Jane knocks him out.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Episode 13. In the span of five minutes Jane had her hands tied, was repeatedly punched in the gut, smashed in the face, thrown into a crate, tossed through a wall and left to die in a desert where vultures tried to eat her. And still there wasn't a single drop of blood. No wonder she's so white.
• Mugged for Disguise: A US Cavalry train is hijacked by Confederate soldiers still fighting the Civil War who will use their uniforms to infiltrate a fair to assassinate President Grant.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Captain O'Rourke of the US Cavalry explains even his unconscionable orders with "I have my orders." Chena of the Comanche says not to hold it against him, since if one does not stick to his principals (In O'Rourke's case, the principal of serving his country) then there is nothing left.
• One Last Job: Sam Bass joins up with Wooden Leg Gibson to rob a US Cavalry fort of weapons and ammunition for the Big Score to be able to leave his life of petty thievery behind. Jane interrupts the theft and gives Bass the chance to walk away. He does not take that chance.
• Only a Flesh Wound: When Wild Bill Hickock is shot in the leg he dismisses it as a flesh wound, but the bloodloss soons makes it impossible for him to ride a horse, and he and Jane begin to talk about amputating the leg if it gets infected.
• Pocket Protector: It is a good thing Chena always carries around a copy of the works of Henry David Thoreau.
• Politically-Incorrect Villain
• Pragmatic Villainy: When a group of Confederate soldiers still fighting the Civil War hijacks a US Cavalry train, the commanding officers keeps his subordinates from executing the captured soldiers. However, it is not because he has any sympathy for the soldiers, it is just that they need to keep the uniforms clean.
• Red Headed Heroine
• The Remnant: A group of Confederate soldiers still fighting the Civil War plan to assassinate President Grant and re-start the conflict.
• Self-Made Orphan: The (very slight) implication in "Easy as One, Two, Three..." is that Conrad killed the mother of the triplets.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Wild Bill Hickock explains that on his tenth birthday, his dad gave him a colt pistol and dictionary and told him to learn both.
• Sheathe Your Sword: When the US Cavalry comes to move the Comanche, whether the Comanche want to be moved or not, Chena has all the warriors arm themselves and prepare for battle, only to toss his bow and arrows on the ground before the cavalry captain. As he explains, the treaty between the Comanche and the US allows them to live on this land for as long as they keep the peace; by refusing to fight, the Comanche force the US government to break its own laws in order to relocate them.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Said almost verbatim.
• Shoot the Rope
• Spotting the Thread: Jane realizes that the troop of cavalry guarding a fair are imposters after she notices all the mnor discrepencies, starting when the guard at the gate does not quite seem to understand just how to close the gate.
• Stating the Simple Solution: When the triplets have captured Jane they are planning to run her down with horses and beat her to death, and Conrad asks why they do not just shoot her. Unfortunately for all of them, his brothers do not heed his advice.
• Taking The Spear: The Buffalo Soldiers in "The Way of the Buffalo".
• Timm Style
• A Very Special Episode: "The Way of the Buffalo," offering commentary on sexism and racism.
• Whip It Good: Calamity's Weapon of Choice.
• The Wild West