Comments on: The Book Nobody’s Been Waiting For

By: Joe American

Joe American — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 04:44:02 +0000

“A number of people in the comments here have made the curious (and prevalent) argument about why Filmation is worthy of our respect: Scheimer didn’t outsource overseas and kept all the work in the US. It’s an argument that reeks of misplaced nationalistic pride. Why should this matter to anybody but the American artists of that era who benefitted from the work? Are Americans inherently entitled to animation jobs over their Asian counterparts?”

Amid, let’s get a few things straight.

Who are you to decide the motives of people? Those that believe Mr. Scheimer’s keeping jobs in the US for US CREATED cartoons, is not “misplaced” to them.

Furthermore, you do not speak for all Americans. You speak for yourself. Though at times,it must be hard speaking with your foot in your mouth.

Finally, yes, Americans are entitled to animation, or any other job with a company that originated here. Just as someone in a company in Asia or another country has the right to keep their job. Many times outsourcing causes problems on both sides. Including lost jobs, inferior quality, lower pay, and bad working conditions.

You need to get over yourself and learn to respect other people’s views and lives.

First and last time I read your “crap”.

By: FCA

FCA — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:03:02 +0000

I am interested in the book if you still have it.

By: Clint H.

Clint H. — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:21:26 +0000

Man, all the male human characters look EXACTLY THE SAME!!! I’m glad I didn’t grow up on that stuff.

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By: Al Marsh

Al Marsh — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:30:38 +0000

The first five episodes of “Tarzan” marked the highest quality level of Filmation’s rotoscoped TV output. Every Filmation action adventure series after that traced off of roto tracings of roto tracings until it all became wonky.

By: Rooniman

Rooniman — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:50:47 +0000

The devil himself releasing his demons to torture the world. That’s Lou Scheimer for you!

By: marbpl

marbpl — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:37:35 +0000

The film JOURNEY BACK TO OZ wasn’t bad, either.

By: Garrett

Garrett — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:21:17 +0000

It’s attitudes like these why the bulk of the Filmation library exists only in time-compressed, DVNR-heavy PAL-format form.

When they could get afford to, Filmation shows were better than anything short of the Golden Age shorts they shared the airwaves with. Flash Gordon (before NBC tinkered with it) was absolutely sublime, and I still refuse to watch Disney’s take on Tarzan because it simply can’t compete with Filmation’s show. The Lone Ranger and Zorro were cut from the same cloth, to their benefit. The best of He-Man and She-Ra (“The Problem With Power”, “Teela’s Quest”, “The Arena”, “The Price of Freedom”, “Sweet Bee’s Home”, and “My Friend, My Enemy” are all excellent places to start) rise far above the ranks of a simple toy commercial. And Filmation’s Star Trek was closer to the “too cerebral” feel of “The Cage” than the rest of the original series, with most of the original cast and many of the writers contributing.

Mark Evanier mentions the follies of dealing with foreign studios, and he’s right, especially in comparison to the outsourced work of the ’70s and ’80s. The DVDs of G.I. Joe, Jem, and The Transformers are all terrible because Rhino and Shout! Factory went to incomplete 35mm masters as opposed to the completed 1″ broadcast masters (although the digital tinkering and censorship didn’t hurt), an issue rooted in the goads of faulty animation that Sunbow ordered re-takes for (and many more scenes begged for corrections that never came). Other than Toei and TMS, NONE of the Asian outsourcing studios created backgrounds as lush as Filmation’s on a consistent basis.

Oh, and Lou, for someone who had to work alongside giants like Alan Oppenheimer and the late, great Linda Gary, was a pretty damn fine voice actor.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:20:04 +0000

As a kid watching TV, I grew up on the MICKEY MOUSE CLUB and other Disney cartoons, the Fleischer Popeyes, the MGM TOM AND JERRYs, and the early 1930s WB Harman-Ising cartoons. At age nine I first saw this Filmation stuff on network TV. It was obvious to me that it was really inferior to the older animation. And it really stunk when the JERRY LEWIS series was broadcast.