Interview with founder of Filmation

[Great Rao]

A lot of cool behind-the-scenes info about Superman, Star Trek, and Ghost Busters:

http://www.the-trades.com/article.php?id=5561

[Permanus]

I'm rather surprised at this statement:

Filmation needed to impress Elliot S. Maggin into giving them the work.

Maggin, a mere writer, had that kind of clout?

I also like the fact that one of the extras they hired was called Ted Knight.

[nightwing]

Yes, but not the cosmic rod-weilding Ted Knight.  Rather the Mary Tyler Moore Show/Too Close for Comfort Ted Knight, narrator of the SuperFriends and inventor of Cosmic Cow.

I also spotted him in an unexpected place a few years ago.  At the end of Psycho, when they've locked Norman away in a rubber room, Ted Knight is the guard outside his cell.

[Michel Weisnor]

Good stuff, the Ghost Busters origin always flummoxed me, now I know. Filmation's Adventures of Superman DVDs are almost here, hooray! I hope sales are strong enough for DC hero followups and eventually, fingers crossed, Superboy. According to internet rumours, one of July's new Boomerang additions will be Filmation's Archie. Besides DVDs, maybe we'll see more of Filmation's work this year on tv.   

SHAZAM! and Isis were they the live action shows? I just watched a SHAZAM! cartoon show with classic Captain Marvel and was wondering on the production company. Funny, current Detective Comics writer Paul Dini wrote on this SHAZAM! cartoon.     

Saturday morning needs a Second Coming of guys like you and Fred Silverman.

Yeah, but it ain't gonna happen.

I caught the tail end of the Saturday morning years and it really was a cool time, simple and fun. There are, today, Saturday morning cartoons but not on every network channel. Plus with the plethora of cartoon devoted channels running shows 24-7, I'm sure it's not as needed as we think. Still, there was a certain anxious birthday quality about getting up at 6:30am Saturday morning and catching your favorite show while eating a bowl of cereal, good times.


Before I forget, Loooouuu Loooouuuu Ted Knight always killed me. 

[JulianPerez]

They talk an awful lot about the DC liscenced properties, though they don't mention TARZAN AND THE SUPER-7.

The Filmation TARZAN cartoon was surprisingly close to the novels: one of the more spectacular versions of La seen yet, with the gorillas with spears and helmets and whatnot.

I always assumed the filmation Ghost-Busters was somehow a copy, or that there was something not "kosher" about it legally...interesting it should set me straight there. Then again, the Ivan Reitman film isn't a copy either: it had such a unique, idiosyncratic vision.

The last one. (Laughs) Not really. I'll tell you, the one that I thought would do tremendously well was disappointing, and that was BraveStarr.

It's funny...everyone about my age, of my generation, remembers BraveStarr fondly. It's surprising to hear it wasn't all that successful, because it seemed to be everywhere.

You know the frustrating thing about these interviews? They never ask the questions you want to ask.

If I was in a room with Steve Englehart, I'd ask point blank which issues of DOCTOR STRANGE he did on acid.

Here are the three things he never got to answer:

Blackstar. What was the relationship between it and He-Man? I'm sure there's a story there; Blackstar was the first black hero on Saturday Morning and had so many qualities in common with He-Man (magic sword, Dark Lord sorceror enemy, etc.) that I wonder what the relationship between the two programs was (Blackstar, incidentally, came first).

I am curious about Space Sentinels, however...and the incorporation of Hercules into other programs.

I wonder too, if there is a big female audience for these sort of thing, or if he ever gets comments from women. After all, BraveStarr may have been the best looking guy in Saturday Morning.

I can't even think of how many girls have told me they had a crush on one of the male Thundercats. It's gotten to be a pretty reliable test:

Lion-O = Relax, she's okay
Panthro = Father Complex
Tigra = "Fag Hag"

[Permanus]

Still don't get that Maggin had a say in the matter.

[Criadoman]

I wondered what happened to Filmation.  Their animation (Zorro, Lone Ranger, Batman the new adventures, He-Man) was always the best.  How could I forget Flash Gordon?

We need a decent new Flash Gordon 'toon.  It'd be neat to see a Timm-verse version of it.  Wow.