This is “Analog Agent Benjamin” coming at you this week with…. Filmation

Back in the 80’s there were 5 companies that made cartoon shows for TV, one of the best known in my opinion was Filmation.

Every time I saw that logo at the start of cartoons like He-Man, She-Ra, and many others, I knew I was in for a good show. What set Filmation apart from the other companies that made cartoons in the 80’s was that they made all of their cartoons in the U.S.A, while everyone else was having their cartoons made in Canada or overseas. To them, if the cartoon was going to be aired on U.S. TV, it should be made in the U.S. as well.

So, what was your favorite Filmation cartoon as a kid?

6 thoughts on “Icons of the Analog Age: Filmation

  1. Lamar the Revenger says:

    He-man, Bravestarr, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, & of course Star Trek! I would LOVE a documentary or book about Filmation’s history. The MOTU piece somewhat will help, but I’d love to here about other things, including the Ghostbusters lawsuit.

    1. benjamin says:

      They did make a documentary about Filmation’s history, but it was only on the DC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures DVD that came out back in 2008. But they did not say anything about the Ghostbusters lawsuit in that documentary.

  2. fluffy says:

    The Filmation archive is currently the best thing about Qubo Channel. Most of it is also on Hulu.

    Of course, them doing their production in the US meant they had to cheap-out wherever they could to save money, but that just gives it even more of a “certain charm.” I love how much footage they reused, and in He-Man and She-Ra they did a LOT of rotoscoping and often used the same film stock as a basis for who knows how many rotoscoped animations.

    Somewhere I saw a clip of their rotoscoping process (which was a bit different than just “film some random dude and trace the lines” – they used grid lines to make it easier to track non-human facial features, I think) but unfortunately it seems to have been lost to the sands of the Internet. Anyone have any idea where this can be seen again? Or am I just on crack?

  3. Chris Sobieniak says:

    Like most my age, I suppose I got indoctrinated into the Filmation paradigm through Saturday morning with Fat Albert on CBS, as well as watching He-Man weekday afternoons on ch. 24. Over the years I would see other fine examples of their work through reruns, videos and whatever else I could pick up along the way. I don’t really have a favorite Filmation cartoon per say, but there are a few choice titles I like including the first season of the Archie cartoons (yeah, those are pretty bad voices to get through) and this obscure TV special that was narrated by Bill Cosby called “Aesop’s Fables”.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2LtbbL34-g

    And while the same could be said for the quality alone, there were attempts at trying to do funny stuff now and then. A good example is this scene from a Mighty Mouse cartoon that was boarded by Eddie Fitzgerald and animated by Kent Butterworth. John Kricfalusi also did some time at Filmation too during that era on shows like this as well as a Tom & Jerry series…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hkPVAbmkns

    Here’s something I only just saw recently, one of the last little things Filmation did before closure, a Bravestarr spin-off pilot called “Bravo”.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcH8Aj5RzuM

    I suppose the best you could say for the studio itself was in how they did kept many jobs local and in-house when all the other studios were going to Australia, The Philippines and elsewhere in Asia. Though there was at least one series that they could not get out in time due to having a lot of shows in production back in 1981, The New Adventures of Zorro, which had to be sent to TMS in Japan. Filmation would learn to never do that again, though at the same time (and from someone I know who was familiar with the studio) they often had help from those overseas that worked on their productions in the US anyway (though that could be a rumor anyway, I don’t want to drag that further).

  4. Manny says:

    My favorite FILMATION story is when they had prospective clients coming in for a review of their facility and they hired a roomful of people to pretend to be animators and production assistants. Among the cast of extras was Ted Knight, who was so eager to repeat his memorized lines to Maggin that he chased the clients down to do his spiel when he was passed by. What an amazing story.

    1. Chris Sobieniak says:

      Hell just giving jobs to anyone with the least experience in animating impressed me from a career standpoint as I wouldn’t mind getting a start for Lou’s company that way.

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