Marvel Action Hour was a syndicated television block from Marvel Productions featuring animated adaptions of Marvel Comic Book heroes the Fantastic Four and Iron Man. The Marvel Action Hour debuted in 1994. The first half of the hour was an episode of Iron Man; the second half an episode of Fantastic Four (many episodes of which were direct recreations of episodes from the original 1960s series). During the first season, Stan Lee was featured speaking before each show about characters in the following episode and what had inspired him to create them. Both the Fantastic Four and Iron Man were radically retooled for the second seasons, sporting new opening sequences, improved animation, and more mature writing, though noticeably missing the introductions by Stan Lee. The Marvel Action Hour lasted two seasons before being cancelled. In the United Kingdom The Marvel Action Hour was broadcast on BBC1, without the Stan Lee introductions. Due to the lack of adverts this left only forty minutes material and reruns of the early 1980s cartoon of The Incredible Hulk were inserted between the Iron Man and Fantastic Four segments. In some markets, the series was also called Marvel Action Universe.