Posted by tom on September 4, 2012 in Uncategorized with 2 Comments
Hey party people, I’ve been trolling around the internet of late, visiting animation websites and such, and I see a lot of bad mouthing of Filmation. The so called ‘crappy animation studio’- well listen up butt munch, that is not Filmation’s legacy! If Filmation had one fatal flaw, it’s that they never had a successful original character. All their big hits: The New Adventures of Superman, The Archies, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Shazam!, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, and He-Man are all owned by someone else. So they can’t go down in history like Hanna-Barbera for The Flintstones, Yogi Bear or Scooby-Doo, because they never had a true original hit. I suppose Isis would be the closest one, but it was a live action show. It’s a real shame that they had all those hours of great cartoons, that they could never fully call their own.
Getting back to the concept of them having crappy cartoons, face facts, in that time period, everyone made ‘crappy’ cartoons for TV! We were a long way away from The Simpsons, Duck Tales and Batman: The Animated Series! Back in 1976 HB’s Jabber jaw and Clue Club were just as crappy as Filmation’s Batman and Fat Albert. Now, this is not to take away the crazy fun of these shows. I’m talking about weak scripts and cheap animation. So saying Filmation made crappy cartoons is like saying a fast food restaurant makes crappy food- all fast food restaurants make crappy food.
Now let me tell you about Filmation kicking @$$ in animation. Have you ever seen their Flash Gordon TV movie? I’m not talking about the TV series they ripped up from the movie, I’m talking the actually movie! It was made for a primetime audience and has more violence and sex appeal than anything HB ever put out. They even got Nazis in it; something Marvel could barely do in the latest Captain America movie! The animation is great, especially for the time period- the spaceships look like computer animation, being rotoscoped off models. This movie is clearly Filmation’s best work, showing what they could do with the more money and less restrains from Standards and Practices.
As for Filmations stock footage, yes they over used it, but they were making Saturday morning cartoons for very little, while keeping production in the USA- no other studio can say that! And while the animation was over used, most of it still looked frick’n great: from Fat Albert and the gang walking down the street to Tarzan diving into a river, no one had anything else that looked that good. A lot of it was rotoscoped, to be fair, but I’m sure Ralph Bakshi wishes he had rotoscop animators as good as the ones Filmation had. Fully animated scenes from He-man and Tarzan look better than the one’s in Bakshi’s, Fire and Ice (a feature film from the same time period). And what about Filmation character designs? They easily had the best designs in the industry. The Star Trek characters are all spot on. Their Batman looked completely ripped compared the one in the SuperFriends (sorry Toth). Tarzan, the Lone Range, Zorro- they all looked great! Even their comedies, like the Groovie Goolies and Fat Albert had great designs. So while the animation was limited, the designs looked great.
Filmation did go overboard with their educational messages in their shows- that’s true. Though again, it wasn’t completely their fault since the Networks dictated this to them. They did embrace it as a way of life way more than Hanna-Barbera or anyone else, who wasn’t on PBS. I remember being a kid yelling at the TV, just punch him Batman! Heck, I’d seen Adam West do it all the time! And for advice on making friends, leave that to Mr. Rogers, not He-man. Not that I’m totally against the education messages- Zorro and the Lone Ranges had history trivia which I think is far more interesting than a lesson about lying (which should have been frick’n obvious from the show!).
So in closing Filmation did not make crappy cartoons. They made cartoons that reflected their time period, and nearly all of them were above average.
Tags: animation, batman, filmation, hanna-barera, tom fremgen
You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response here or a trackback.
« previous post
More GoldStar!I’ll tell ya people, things get busy when you’re running your own website! So my blogs don’t come out as often as I’d like them to. Well as you know from my last entry, I’ve broken ground on my next big comic. But since that’s not ready here’s another GoldStar adventure for ya! Iss...
next post »
What about He-man?
Hey party people, well last week I was talking about Filmation, and that made me think of their most popular show- He-man and the Masters of the Universe! Did you know there is some confusion about who the Masters of the Universe are? Early episodes state that the bad guys are the Masters of t...
2 Responses to “Filmation: Not so Crappy”
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
No trackbacks yet.
Posts with similar tags
- Top 10 DC Forgotten Minority Heroes
Hey Party People, With my new video I tackle a subject near and dear to us superhero fans: Under used characters! We all have fan characters, who are not included the main pantheon of a publisher's superheroes. So we lie and wait for the time when they decide to use them again- and...
- What the Hell Happened to: WONDER WOMAN!?
Hey party people, welcome to my latest video! For this one I dive deep into Wonder Woman (stop it). As DC Comics has proven over the past 70 years that they have no idea what to do with her. I mean, when she came out, she was selling like three comics (Sensation,...
- Animator on Animation: Gargoyles!
Hey animation fans, got a another Animator on Animation for ya. This time I talk about the one of the craziest shows Disney TV ever made: Gargoyles! Seriously, whoever thought Disney would ever make such a show! It's just so hardcore action- basically Disney's answer to Warner Bros. Batman: The Animated Series....
- Top 5 Classic Monster Movie Quotes
Hey party people, in a mad dash to get this video up before the Halloween. So I don't have too much to say about it other than, I love classic monster movies- ever since my youth of watching the Son of Svengoolie in Chicago. Funny to think that Chicago gave the USA, Oprah...
- Marvel’s Top Ten from 1980
Hey party people, confession time, I'm more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan. So putting this list together was kinda tough. I hit up a lot of Marvel fans for notes- but they were all over the place! Marvel was such a powerhouse in the 1980's, basically all their books...
- Animator on Animation: X-Men
Hey Party People, Here's my latest video, and can you believe it's not a Superhero Pow!? Yes, it's a new series called Animator on Animation. Where I, you're host animator, will look at some animation clips, and talk about what's good about them and what's bad about them. Along the way I'll tell...
- Which Superheroes are The Most…
Hey party people, here is my latest video, The Most- as in which superhero is the most- pick a category. I'm sure you know how much us superhero fans enjoy arguing about superheroes. Who's the strongest, who's the fastest, etc. Well this (possible) series will help answer those questions (inspire heated debate,...
- DC’s Top Ten from the 1980’s
Wowie, wow, wow, wow! Creating videos is hard work! This one took longer than I hoped, and it was aided by the fact that I started to do a little bit more writing for Anititcool.com. You can swing by there and read some of my, “This Week in Comics” articles. That,...
- FACT: Wonder Woman Never Wore a Skirt
So this just a fun short one talking about Wonder Woman wardrobe. To steal a joke from Svengoolie: “You'd like to see more of Wonder Woman on TV? So would I, but that's as small as the censor's will allow her costume to be.” But seriously, this was something I found /...
- Shazam Lightning… Does it hurt??
Hey party people. I'll be honesty with ya. Sometimes it takes a loooong time to finish one of these video ones. So I thought I'd do myself a favor by making some shorter ones. So ta-da, under six minutes! Next month's video will be too, as I tackle some fun...
Posts in similar categories
- What was George Lucas Thinking
So just what the hell was George Lucas thinking!? No, not when he sold out to Disney- because we all know he wasn't! But what was he thinking about, when it came to the final Star Wars sequel trilogy. What was the actual story meant to be? Well that's what I...
- Top 10 DC Forgotten Minority Heroes
Hey Party People, With my new video I tackle a subject near and dear to us superhero fans: Under used characters! We all have fan characters, who are not included the main pantheon of a publisher's superheroes. So we lie and wait for the time when they decide to use them again- and...
- Superfriends Season 1: Why it’s Great!
Hey Party People, Seems you all enjoy the Superfriends as much as I do, so I thought I'd make another video of them! At the same time, I came up with a new concept for videos: Why it's Great! Where I will list a few reasons why something is great. Preferably something not...
- What the Hell Happened to: WONDER WOMAN!?
Hey party people, welcome to my latest video! For this one I dive deep into Wonder Woman (stop it). As DC Comics has proven over the past 70 years that they have no idea what to do with her. I mean, when she came out, she was selling like three comics (Sensation,...
- Animator on Animation: Gargoyles!
Hey animation fans, got a another Animator on Animation for ya. This time I talk about the one of the craziest shows Disney TV ever made: Gargoyles! Seriously, whoever thought Disney would ever make such a show! It's just so hardcore action- basically Disney's answer to Warner Bros. Batman: The Animated Series....
- Top 5 Classic Monster Movie Quotes
Hey party people, in a mad dash to get this video up before the Halloween. So I don't have too much to say about it other than, I love classic monster movies- ever since my youth of watching the Son of Svengoolie in Chicago. Funny to think that Chicago gave the USA, Oprah...
- Marvel’s Top Ten from 1980
Hey party people, confession time, I'm more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan. So putting this list together was kinda tough. I hit up a lot of Marvel fans for notes- but they were all over the place! Marvel was such a powerhouse in the 1980's, basically all their books...
- Animator on Animation: X-Men
Hey Party People, Here's my latest video, and can you believe it's not a Superhero Pow!? Yes, it's a new series called Animator on Animation. Where I, you're host animator, will look at some animation clips, and talk about what's good about them and what's bad about them. Along the way I'll tell...
- Which Superheroes are The Most…
Hey party people, here is my latest video, The Most- as in which superhero is the most- pick a category. I'm sure you know how much us superhero fans enjoy arguing about superheroes. Who's the strongest, who's the fastest, etc. Well this (possible) series will help answer those questions (inspire heated debate,...
- DC’s Top Ten from the 1980’s
Wowie, wow, wow, wow! Creating videos is hard work! This one took longer than I hoped, and it was aided by the fact that I started to do a little bit more writing for Anititcool.com. You can swing by there and read some of my, “This Week in Comics” articles. That,...
The Offical blog of Toonocity
http://www.toonocity.com/
Pages
Archives
- March 2022
(1 posts)
- February 2022
(1 posts)
- February 2021
(1 posts)
- January 2021
(1 posts)
- November 2020
(1 posts)
- October 2020
(2 posts)
- September 2020
(1 posts)
- August 2020
(1 posts)
- July 2020
(1 posts)
- April 2020
(2 posts)
- March 2020
(1 posts)
- February 2020
(1 posts)
- January 2020
(1 posts)
- November 2019
(1 posts)
- October 2019
(2 posts)
- September 2019
(1 posts)
- August 2019
(1 posts)
- July 2019
(1 posts)
- June 2019
(1 posts)
- April 2019
(2 posts)
- March 2019
(1 posts)
- February 2019
(1 posts)
- December 2018
(2 posts)
- May 2018
(2 posts)
- April 2018
(1 posts)
- March 2018
(3 posts)
- February 2018
(2 posts)
- January 2018
(1 posts)
- December 2017
(1 posts)
- March 2016
(2 posts)
- January 2016
(3 posts)
- December 2015
(1 posts)
- October 2015
(1 posts)
- April 2015
(1 posts)
- March 2015
(1 posts)
- February 2015
(3 posts)
- January 2015
(1 posts)
- December 2014
(1 posts)
- November 2014
(2 posts)
- October 2014
(2 posts)
- September 2014
(2 posts)
- February 2014
(1 posts)
- September 2013
(2 posts)
- June 2013
(1 posts)
- May 2013
(2 posts)
- February 2013
(1 posts)
- November 2012
(2 posts)
- October 2012
(1 posts)
- September 2012
(2 posts)
- July 2012
(1 posts)
- June 2012
(3 posts)
- May 2012
(2 posts)
- March 2012
(3 posts)
- February 2012
(2 posts)
- January 2012
(2 posts)
- December 2011
(2 posts)
- November 2011
(1 posts)
- July 2011
(3 posts)
- June 2011
(2 posts)
Categories
- Uncategorized
(91 posts)
juepucta
November 17, 2012 - 9:53 amI loved the Filmation Batman. I liked it much much much more than the Super Friends Batman (which seemed to be in his forties but acting like he was in his mid sixties).
Loved teh funky music, loved the animation (repetitive as it may have been).
Having said that, i hate Batmite with a passion. Also, because of the weird way villains were divvied up (with Hanna Barbera, as both shows were on air concurrently), they lost people like the Riddler (he shows up in the credits in an off colour costume) and made up some weird ass lame rogues. There was this bad dude called Candy something or Sweet Tooth that i hate almost as much as Batmite.
-G.
tom
November 18, 2012 - 7:24 pmYeah Batmite was an odd choice, never cared for him when I was a kid. But Riddler did appear in the original 60’s cartoon, hopefully Warner Bros will relase those on DVD too