Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live-action programming for television from 1963 until 1989. Located in
Reseda, California
Reseda is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1912, and its central business district started developing in 1915. The neighborhood was devoted to agriculture for many years. Earthquak ...
, the animation studio was founded in 1962. Filmation's founders and principal producers were Lou Scheimer,
Hal Sutherland
Harold H. "Hal" Sutherland (July 1, 1929 – January 16, 2014) was an American animator and painter who began his career as a Disney animator in 1954 working on ''Sleeping Beauty'', ''Lady and the Tramp'', ''Peter Pan'' and the last theatrical sh ...
, and
Norm Prescott
Norman Prescott (January 31, 1927 – July 2, 2005) was co-founder and executive producer at Filmation Associates, an animation studio he created with veteran animator Lou Scheimer.
Life and career
Born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Bosto ...
.
Background
Lou Scheimer and Filmation's main director Hal Sutherland met in 1957 while working at
Larry Harmon Pictures
Larry Harmon Pictures was the production company of Larry Harmon, the owner of the characters ''Bozo the Clown'' and '' Laurel & Hardy''.
Lou Scheimer was an art director for Larry Harmon Pictures during its brief foray into animated television. ...
on the made-for-TV '' Bozo'' and '' Popeye'' cartoons. Eventually Larry Harmon closed the studio by 1961. Scheimer and Sutherland went to work at a small company called True Line, one of whose owners was Marcus Lipsky, who then owned
Reddi-wip
Reddi-Wip is an American brand of sweetened whipped cream propelled from its container by nitrous oxide. It is produced by Conagra Brands and is sold in varieties such as Original, Extra Creamy, Fat Free, Zero Sugar, and Barista. In 2019, two n ...
whipped cream. SIB Productions, a Japanese firm with U.S. offices in Chicago, approached them about producing a cartoon called ''
Rod Rocket
''Rod Rocket'' is the first animated cartoon with production credited to Filmation, debuting in syndication in 1963. The show was produced in five-minute cliffhanger segments, with five segments making a full story. Television stations could broad ...
''. The two agreed to take on the work and also took on a project for Family Films, owned by the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, for ten short animated films based on the life of
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
. Paramount Pictures soon purchased SIB Productions, and True Line's staff increased, including the arrival of former radio
disc jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobil ...
Norm Prescott, who became a partner in the firm. He had already been working on the animated feature ''
Pinocchio in Outer Space
''Pinocchio in Outer Space'' is a 1965 Belgian-American animated science-fantasy film which sets Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio character on a rocketship adventure. Peter Lazer performs the voice of Pinocchio. It was produced by Ray Goossens at Belvis ...
They eventually left True Line, and Scheimer began working on commercials, including for Gillette and others, which began what became Filmation. He met lawyer Ira Epstein, who had worked for Harmon but had left the firm, and now put together the new
corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...
with Scheimer and Sutherland. It officially became Filmation Associates as of September 1962, so named because "We were working on film, but doing animation"; so putting them together yielded the
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words
Both ''Rod Rocket'' and the ''Life of Christ'' series credited "Filmation Associates" with "Production Design" in addition to Scheimer and Sutherland as directors. (SIB Productions, whose logo bore a resemblance to the original Filmation logo designed by Ted Littlefield, would soon go on to become "Sib-Tower 12 Productions" and produce the first few of Chuck Jones' ''
Tom and Jerry
''Tom and Jerry'' is an American animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the ...
'' films for MGM, until becoming MGM Animation/Visual Arts for the remainder of the films).
Norm Prescott brought in Filmation's first major project, '' Journey Back to Oz'', an animated sequel to the MGM film '' The Wizard of Oz'' (1939). Begun in 1962, storyboarding, voice recording, and most of the music scoring and animation had been completed when financial challenges caused the project to be put on hold for nearly eight years.
In the meantime, the new Filmation studio turned their attention to a more successful medium, network television. For the next few years they made television commercials and some other projects for other companies and made an unsuccessful pilot film for a Marx Brothers cartoon series. They also tried to develop an original series named ''The Adventures of Stanley Stoutheart'' (later renamed ''Yank and Doodle'') about a boy and a dog, but they were never able to sell it and almost closed down; until approached by
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. ( doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with the ...
editor Mort Weisinger to do a '' Superman'' cartoon. This premiered on September 10, 1966, and was followed by several of the other DC superheroes, and then, in 1968, the first '' Archie Show''. Both series greatly helped Filmation's popularity to increase into the 1970s, when it scored big with several of its series.
The Filmation studio was purchased by the TelePrompTer Corporation in 1969. Westinghouse Electric Corporation, through its Group W Productions division, acquired Filmation along with its purchase of TelePrompTer's cable and entertainment properties in 1981."Group W sells Filmation." ''Broadcasting'', February 13, 1989, pg. 94 /ref> In 1971, Filmation and Warner Bros. signed an agreement to distribute cartoons for film and television.
Filmation's last production was the feature film '' Happily Ever After'' (a sequel to the story of Snow White), released to theaters five years later in 1993. Also, at the time of the closing, two new animated series, ''Bugzburg'' (a spin-off of ''Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night'', concerning insect characters who had shown up in that movie) and ''Bravo'' (a spin-off of ''BraveStarr''), were beginning production.
In 1989, Westinghouse sold Filmation to Paravision International, an investment consortium led by the French cosmetics company L'Oréal. Before that sale was complete, Westinghouse shuttered the film studio on February 3, 1989, which left L'Oréal with only the Filmation library. This happened a day before the WARN Act went into effect requiring companies to give employees 60 days' notice before a mass layoff.
Film library ownership
The studio's
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...
assets have changed hands on a number of occasions. The in-house productions (''Archie'', ''Fat Albert'', etc.), which form a majority of the Filmation back catalog, were sold to Hallmark Cards in 1995, and were managed by its Hallmark Entertainment subsidiary. However, since the rest of Filmation's output was based on characters licensed from other companies, such titles are under the control of other studios (such as
CBS Media Ventures
CBS Media Ventures, Inc. (formerly CBS Television Distribution, Inc. and CBS Paramount Domestic Television, Inc.) is an American television distribution company owned by CBS Studios, part of CBS Entertainment Group, a division of Paramount Glob ...
and Warner Bros., via DC Comics and Turner Entertainment Co.).
In March 2004, ownership of the Filmation in-house library, which was under the ownership of Hallmark, was sold to Entertainment Rights. Entertainment Rights has since made the revelation that when Hallmark converted all of its Filmation series to digital format in the 1990s, only PAL-format copies were made, with the original film negatives and print rolls apparently discarded, as well as the original sound masters and other archival material belonging to Filmation. This was due to Hallmark's previously unstated (but long-suspected) short-sighted policy of only distributing Filmation's in-house shows outside of the United States. As a result, many of Entertainment Rights' DVD releases (distributed by BCI Eclipse LLC in the United States prior to the latter company's folding) were based on the international versions (which have PAL prints).
Because they were taken from PAL-based transfers, without correction, these releases exhibit the so-called 576i speedup effect in which the soundtrack plays 4% too fast, which results in the pitch being a half-step higher than it was originally (see PAL and Telecine for more information). PAL-
NTSC
The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...
conversion artifacts also include softness and ghosting. The exception appears to be at least three titles from ER's library: ''Groovie Goolies'', '' Ark II'', and the animated ''Ghostbusters'' series. These series appear to have been sourced from original NTSC transfers for their U.S. release by BCI. The live-action series was, unlike most Filmation shows, shot on NTSC format tape (rather than film), so even if those did come from PAL masters, they would not have exhibited 576i speedup, as that only applies to material sourced from film masters. Other exceptions included the shows which were licensed properties, such as '' Star Trek: The Animated Series'', which was owned by Paramount Television (now CBS Studios, which is now part of Paramount Global since 2019), and ''Shazam!'' (owned by Warner Bros./DC Comics), because the master elements for those shows were turned over to the owners of those licensed properties years before the sale to Hallmark.
On April 1, 2009, it was announced that Entertainment Rights would be acquired by Boomerang Media and on May 11, 2009, it was announced that the subsidiaries and offices of Entertainment Rights would be absorbed under the name Classic Media.
In 2012, it was announced that Classic Media, owner of the Filmation library, would be acquired by DreamWorks Animation. DreamWorks Animation and its programming library, including those of Filmation (not including shows whose rights are owned by other companies, such as '' The New Adventures of Gilligan'' and ''Star Trek: The Animated Series''), would later be acquired on August 22, 2016, by Universal Studios for $3.8 billion.
Filmation cartoons have been widely syndicated, and many are available from video streaming services. Four Filmation programs from 1983 to 1988 were also rebroadcast on Qubo's "Night Owl" programming block.
Animation style
As with other producers of Saturday-morning cartoons, Filmation was more concerned with quantity rather than quality; however, it did make a number of attempts to rise above the standard animated fare and produce reasonably well-written cartoons. The best-known example of this is its animated adaptation '' Star Trek: The Animated Series'', which included scripts contributed by well-known
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in mor ...
toys, opened up a new North American market for first-run television syndication for animation in the 1980s. The animated adaptations of the Archie Comics characters were also noteworthy for the original
pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former descri ...
produced for it, particularly the song " Sugar, Sugar", which was a No. 1 hit single.
In addition, certain episodes of ''He-Man'' and '' BraveStarr'', in substance, and often animation, were pioneers in children's animated series of their time and paved the way for broader storytelling. Examples include He-Man's "The Problem with Power" which dealt with He-Man believing he had killed an innocent bystander. Another is "Teela's Quest" which introduced a now-famous mythology on the Sorceress being Teela's mother, who is thus the heir to the mantle of safeguarding Grayskull, the versed continuity shared between He-Man and She-Ra, among others. Other notable examples include the ''BraveStarr'' episode "The Price", which includes the death of a character due to drug addiction. The 1985 ''Fat Albert'' episode "Busted" was a direct homage to the primetime '' Scared Straight!'' specials. A first for American children's cartoons, the original airing of this episode included mild profanity that has, however, been edited out of re-airings and home video versions. Likewise, the scripts for ''Star Trek'', which were often written by the same people who had written for the live-action version of the series, tended to be quite sophisticated, and garnered the first Emmy Award for the franchise.
Quality
Filmation had a reputation for exploiting the technique of limited animation to produce a number of animated series with a distinct look. It made heavy use of rotoscoping in later years (beginning with its ''
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...
'' and '' Flash Gordon'' series). It also re-used the same animated sequences over and over, many times, to the point where the Filmation style was instantly recognizable. One example of this can be seen in She-Ra's and He-Man's transformation sequences.
Filmation's animation often had a poor quality look, due to the limiting of the number of frames per second (fps) to fewer than the standard 24 fps seen on film or 25/30 fps seen on video. Frames would be repeated to compensate for the deficiency, resulting in a jerky and cheap look.
This frequent use of stock footage saved production money, but often resulted in sacrifice of continuity. This was countered by cutting from one stock shot to another after only a second or two, long enough to set the scene but before the eye could notice all of the unexplained errors. This became part of the Filmation style during a period when most television and motion picture productions tended to run minimum shots of 4–5 seconds.
In contrast to the rapid
jump cut
A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which a single continuous sequential shot of a subject is broken into two parts, with a piece of footage being removed in order to render the effect of jumping forward in time. Camera positions of the subj ...
s during action sequences, another Filmation trademark was the recurring use of long establishing shots in which the camera would pan slowly across a very wide background painting, thus filling up screen time with sequences requiring little or no animation. Filmation also pioneered other animation technologies, particularly in ''Flash Gordon'', which included backlighting effects for the first time in American animation (they were already in use in Japan), including moire effects to represent energy fields (a technique that was later used in ''He-Man'' and in ''She-Ra''). It also pioneered a unique method of generating 3-D vehicle animation by filming white-outlined black miniatures against black backgrounds using a computerized motion-control camera and high-contrast film, then printing the negatives onto acetate frame-by-frame, to create animation cels which were then hand-painted. This produced a three-dimensional effect that had been used by Disney in films such as '' One Hundred and One Dalmatians'' previously. It predated the modern use of 3-D computer animation for vehicles in 2-D animated productions. However, it had a distinctive "flicker" to it, because some of the painted lines went in and out of visibility as the miniatures moved.
Unlike many American studios, Filmation never relied on animation studios outside the United States for the bulk of its production; '' Ghostbusters'' and ''BraveStarr'' both state in the ending credits that they were "made entirely in the U.S.A." This occurred during a time when rival studio Hanna-Barbera shifted from saying in the final production credits (immediately before the production logo appearances) "A Hanna-Barbera Production" to "Produced in Association with:
Wang Film Productions
Wang Film Productions Co., Ltd. (also known as Hong Guang Animation (宏廣) and Cuckoos' Nest Studio) is one of the oldest and most prolific Taiwanese-American animation studios since 1978. The company, based in Xindian, Taipei and Los Angele ...
/ Cuckoo's Nest Studios" which is located in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
(along with H-B's own
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
-based Fil-Cartoons). The quality of Filmation's "Made Entirely in the U.S.A." strategy was comparable to the outsourced animation. Filmation did, however, rely on outsourcing once, when the company created its animated '' Zorro'' series. It was animated by
Tokyo Movie Shinsha
, formerly known as the , also known as or , is a Japanese animation studio established on October 22, 1946.
TMS is one of the oldest and most famous anime studios in Japan, best known for numerous anime franchises such as '' Lupin the Third'' ...
of Japan; however, the storyboards and graphics were made by Filmation itself.
Filmation is also noteworthy for its background paintings under the direction of long-time department head Erv Kaplan, such as the purple-colored "night sky" backgrounds used in ''He-Man'' and ''She-Ra''.
Characters, as well as plots, were typically run-of-the-mill for the time. For example, most episodes of ''Ghostbusters'' had the same scheme (bad guys develop an evil plan, the heroes are needed but always absent, Ghost Buggy the talking car complains about their dangerous position, Tracy the Gorilla pulls out of his back pack exactly the miscellaneous item the Ghostbuster needs in a moment of despair, Eddie doing a number of clumsy/stupid things, etc.); although as previously mentioned, Filmation made various attempts to rise above the norm. Many of the sound effects used in its cartoons are also very familiar, the majority of them being recycled from Hanna-Barbera (this was, and still is, a common trait among animation companies, though Filmation's copies of the Hanna-Barbera sound effects were of a distinctively lower quality), though the company's
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. ( doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with the ...
cartoons of 1966–67 used more realistic sound effects.
Filmation received particular criticism for ''
Lassie's Rescue Rangers
''Lassie's Rescue Rangers'' is an animated TV show produced by Filmation and featuring Lassie, running from 1972 to 1973. The hour-long pilot, ''Lassie and the Spirit of Thunder Mountain'', was part of ''The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie''.
Summary ...
'', an animated continuation of the long-running live-action series '' Lassie''. Lassie's co-creator and trainer, Rudd Weatherwax, said of the show: "That's not Lassie. That's trash." It drew a rare denunciation from the National Association of Broadcasters, which accused Filmation of corrupting the ''Lassie'' franchise with "violence, crime and stupidity."
Trademarks
A trademark of the company's productions, beginning in 1969, was a rotating, circular "Produced by" (and on some series, "Executive Producers") credit seen in the ending credits (and in later productions, the opening sequences) of Filmation programs, as a device that was supposedly created to allow Prescott and Scheimer to share equal billing. Previously, Scheimer's name had been placed above Prescott's. However, the later Filmation productions credited only Scheimer, in the form of his signature ("Lou Scheimer, (Executive) Producer"), starting with '' Gilligan's Planet'' (1982).
Many of its series—particularly the productions of the late 1970s and 1980s—are notable for imparting a simple moral or life-lesson (explained by a key character, in a child-friendly manner) in the epilogue.
Original characters
The studio created very few original animated characters. Two examples were Fraidy Cat, a timid feline who has lost eight of his nine lives, which come back to haunt him; and Wacky and Packy, a caveman and his pet mammoth (Packy refers to the latter character being a "pachyderm") who enter the modern age through a time warp. Both of these originally aired as segments of the ''
Uncle Croc's Block
''Uncle Croc's Block'' is an hour-long live-action/animated television series. It was produced by Filmation, and broadcast on ABC in 1975–76.
The show was a spoof of live kids' shows but with (as MeTV would later describe it) a "bitter edge". Ch ...
'' series on ABC (hosted by Charles Nelson Reilly). In a period where comedy in cartoons was heavily scrutinized for violence and many shows duplicated the popular '' Scooby-Doo'' format, Filmation's strong point was its adaptations of popular television series, movies, and other works, although at least one series, ''M*U*S*H'' (the third animated segment on ''Uncle Croc's Block''), while not a direct adaptation, was inspired by the film (and later TV series) ''
M*A*S*H
''M*A*S*H'' (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richard Hooker.
T ...
''. ''M*U*S*H'' is an acronym for Mangy Unwanted Shabby Heroes since all the character were dogs stationed in the arctic area.
Live-action shows
Filmation incorporated live-action into some of its animated series. Series like ''The Hardy Boys'' and ''Archie's Funhouse'' featured live-action footage of an audience watching the bands perform and ''Fat Albert'' had segments featuring series creator Bill Cosby. ''
The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!
''The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!'' is an NBC Saturday-morning cartoon produced by Filmation Studios in 1981. The half-hour show included two cartoon stories, with a variety of live-action wraparound segments.
''Hero High'' featured a gro ...
'', was more of a hybrid—a live-action variety show with animated segments. Actors appeared as characters from the '' Hero High'' portion of the series, singing songs, and telling jokes.
Filmation made six fully live-action series, including ''
Space Academy
''Space Academy'' is an American science fiction television series produced by Filmation that originally aired Saturday mornings on the CBS television network, from September 10 to December 17, 1977. (Repeats ran on and off until September 1, 1979 ...
'', its spin-off ''
Jason of Star Command
''Jason of Star Command'' is a 1978-1979 live action television series by Filmation. The series revolves around the exploits of space adventurer Jason (Craig Littler) and his colleagues, including Professor E.J. Parsafoot (Charlie Dell) and the ...
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. ( doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with the ...
The Ghost Busters
''The Ghost Busters'' is a live-action children's sitcom that ran on CBS in 1975, about a team of bumbling detectives who investigate ghostly occurrences. Fifteen episodes were produced. The show reunited Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch in roles ...
'', and ''
The Secrets of Isis
''The Secrets of Isis'', originally broadcast as ''Isis'', is an American live-action superhero television series produced by Filmation from 1975 to 1976 for CBS's Saturday morning lineup. The series was renamed ''The Secrets of Isis'' in syndic ...
''.
''The Ghost Busters''
Filmation produced a live-action series called ''
The Ghost Busters
''The Ghost Busters'' is a live-action children's sitcom that ran on CBS in 1975, about a team of bumbling detectives who investigate ghostly occurrences. Fifteen episodes were produced. The show reunited Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch in roles ...
'' (1975) starring former '' F Troop'' stars Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker, with noted science-fiction fan and collector Bob Burns as "Tracy the Gorilla". The characters worked as paranormal investigators, working for an unseen "Chief" named "Zero" who delivered their "Ghost Busting Assignments" in whimsical disguised recording devices as in '' Mission: Impossible''.
Nine years later,
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
, who produced an unrelated 1984 movie of almost the same name, had to obtain the rights to the title from the company. Filmation capitalized on the popularity of the film by producing a new cartoon based on their earlier series. Like its other shows, it used stock footage heavily; in one episode, character designs and animation sequences were recycled from the ''
Groovie Goolies
''Groovie Goolies'' is an American animated television show that had its original run Saturday mornings on CBS between 1970 and 1971. It was rebroadcast the following season on Sunday mornings. Set at a decrepit castle, the show focused on its mo ...
'' series of nearly 15 years earlier.
To avoid confusion, the animated series based on the film was called '' The Real Ghostbusters''. As a dig on the Filmation series, an episode was written about a group of fraudulent ghost fighters, trying to steal the "Real" Ghostbusters' business and thunder.
Looney Tunes/Groovie Goolies crossover
Also of note is ''
Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies
''Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies'' is a 1972 animated one-hour TV-movie (with a live-action segment near the end) that was aired on December 16 as an episode of the anthology series '' The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie''. In this ...
'', a special featuring several of Warner Bros.' '' Looney Tunes'' stars (paired with Filmation's own ''
Groovie Goolies
''Groovie Goolies'' is an American animated television show that had its original run Saturday mornings on CBS between 1970 and 1971. It was rebroadcast the following season on Sunday mornings. Set at a decrepit castle, the show focused on its mo ...
'', a group of classic monsters). Written by
Len Janson
Len Janson is an American writer and director whose career in animated cartoons and live-action motion pictures spanned several decades beginning in the 1960s. He began work as an in-betweener at the Walt Disney cartoon studio. By 1965 he had becom ...
and Chuck Menville, it aired on '' The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie'' in 1972. While most of the Warner Bros. characters were drawn well (veteran Warners animator Virgil Ross was working there at the time, along with other animators that had worked for Warner Bros. Animation in the late 1960s, such as
Laverne Harding
Emily Laverne Harding (October 10, 1905 – September 25, 1984) was an American animator and cartoonist.
Early life
Harding was born on October 10th, 1905 to Christians John B. Harding and Pearle W. Harding in Shreveport, Louisiana. Her family ...
and Ed Solomon), and were voiced by veteran voice actor Mel Blanc, the special is not liked by many fans of classic Warner Bros. animation because of its limited animation, as well as a weak storyline.
This was not Filmation's last dalliance with classic cartoon characters; in the late 1970s the company produced new series based on the characters from the Terrytoons archive ( Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle, titled '' The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle'') and a new ''
Tom and Jerry
''Tom and Jerry'' is an American animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the ...
'' series as well.
Feature films
Filmation also ventured into the feature film business. With their success in television firmly established by 1970, the company became profitable enough to return to the shelved ''Journey Back to Oz'' project, completing the animation and some minor voiceover work begun in 1962, and finished the film in 1971. It would take another year for ''Journey'' to be released theatrically in the United Kingdom, two more years before its 1974 U.S. release, and yet another two (1976) before it finally found its audience in network television, the very medium in which Filmation became successful. There, the film was expanded with live-action segments featuring Bill Cosby, who was in the midst of his success with the studio's '' Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids''.
A deal with Warner Bros. yielded '' Treasure Island'' and '' Oliver Twist'', but left several others unproduced.
In its final years, Filmation produced feature films of its ''He-Man'' and ''She-Ra'' franchises (''
The Secret of the Sword
''The Secret of the Sword'', also known as ''He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword'', is a 1985 American animated superhero film produced by Filmation. Although released before the series '' She-Ra: Princess of Power'' began, the film was a ...
''), as well as continuations to established stories, such as '' Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night'' (1987) and '' Happily Ever After'' (1989; unreleased until 1993). In 1986, Omega Entertainment inked a worldwide television pact with Filmation in order to distribute the company's non-animated products, such as theatrical feature films, for worldwide TV distribution. Also that year, on October 22, Filmation is beginning to serve as representative for three animated films at the MIFED, in order to cleaning up unsold territories on various Filmation productions, which accordingly hit by a lawsuit from
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on Octobe ...
back in 1985 in order to prevent making films that the company claims to be based on Disney classics.
Voice talent
Like other animation studios, Filmation had its stock company of voiceover actors. Some of the most famous included Larry Storch, Dallas McKennon (best known as the voice of Archie in the Archie cartoon and as Cincinnatus, in the Daniel Boone TV series), Bud Collyer, the original radio voice of Superman, reprised the role for Filmation for their late 1960s version of the Man of Steel; Adam West and Burt Ward (who recreated their roles as " Batman and
Robin
Robin may refer to:
Animals
* Australasian robins, red-breasted songbirds of the family Petroicidae
* Many members of the subfamily Saxicolinae (Old World chats), including:
**European robin (''Erithacus rubecula'')
** Bush-robin
**Forest r ...
Hordak
Hordak is a fictional character in the ''Masters of the Universe'' franchise who opposes She-Ra and He-Man, as well as the franchise's main villain, Skeletor, to whom he was once a mentor, and the cause of the latter's ambition and pursuits of evi ...
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...
of "Erik (sometimes "Eric") Gunden").
Background musical talent
For the company's 1960s superhero efforts, composer John Gart (under the stage name John Marion) and music supervisor Gordon Zahler created strong themes and backing cues using a large orchestra, until the '' Batman'' entry in 1968, which used sparser production and jazzier themes.
The company's 1960s adventure series '' Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (1967) and '' Fantastic Voyage'' (1968) likewise used sparser music production. ''Journey'' made heavier emphasis on
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...
than the company's previous series, while ''Voyage'' made use of deliberately haunting woodwinds to create a science fiction flavor.
According to the
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...
lets accompanying some of the DVDs of Filmation's shows, composer Ray Ellis (who was assisted by his son Marc Ellis) had produced the background music for most Filmation series under the pseudonyms "Yvette Blais and Jeff Michael". Yvette Blais was Ellis's wife, while "Jeff" and "Michael" were the names of producer Norm Prescott's two sons (exactly what role Prescott played in the music, other than hiring the composers and musicians, is unclear). The full-length features ''Treasure Island'' and ''Oliver Twist'' credit "George Blais". Ellis's name does appear in ''Archie''Ray Ellis – IMDb /ref> and ''
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
''Sabrina the Teenage Witch'' is a comic book series published by Archie Comics about the adventures of a fictional American teenager named Sabrina Spellman. Sabrina was created by writer George Gladir and artist Dan DeCarlo, and first appeare ...
'' credits and both "Ray Ellis", and "Jeff Michaels" appear side by side on ''Groovie Goolies'' credits, where "Ellis" is credited for "Sabrina background music", and "Michaels" is credited for "Groovie Goolies background music".
Much of Ellis's background music in the late 1960s had a distinct, richly orchestrated sound not found on many other made-for-TV cartoon series of that period; though as time went on, it became more contemporary and often synthesized. Ellis's work at the studio lasted from 1968 to 1982. Haim Saban and Shuki Levy composed and produced the studio's music for ''He-Man'' and ''She-Ra'' (during 1983–1986), along with the other studios for which they produced music scores. Frank W. Becker provided the music for Filmation's final animated series ''BraveStarr''.
In 1977, Dean Andre (Wallschlaeger), a 24-year-old composer/recording artist/producer, began writing theme and featured music for Filmation. His first series ''Archie's Bang-Shang Lalapalooza Show'' featured the voice of Daws Butler. He went on to compose themes for '' The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle'' and ''
Fabulous Funnies
''Fabulous Funnies'' is a 1978–1979 American animated children's show produced for Saturday morning television by Filmation. The show aired for one season from September 9, 1978, to December 1, 1978, on NBC, airing 13 episodes.
The show was ...
'' (featuring the voices of June Foray and Alan Oppenheimer). Dean also lent his vocal talents to Filmation for thematic and featured music that he composed and produced for ''A Snow White Christmas'', ''Sport Billy'' and ''The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!'' In 1981, Dean also took on the position of musical director for ''The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!''.
Filmation routinely included a plug for its music publisher, Shermley Music ( ASCAP), in the closing credits of most of its series. This has never been common practice on American television.