 Final logo, used from 1983 to 1989. | |
| Founded | 1962; 63 years ago (1962) |
|---|---|
| Founders | Norm Prescott[1] Lou Scheimer[2] Hal Sutherland |
| Defunct | February 3, 1989; 36 years ago (1989-02-03) |
| Fate | Studio closed byGroup W and library sold toL'Oréal |
| Successor | DreamWorks Animation (throughDreamWorks Classics) (except third-party licensed properties) |
| Headquarters | Woodland Hills, Los Angeles,California, United States[3] |
| Products | Television shows Television shorts Television specials Television movies Theatrical films |
| Parent | TelePrompTer Corporation(1969–1981) Westinghouse Broadcasting Company(1981–1989) |
Filmation Associates was an Americanproduction company founded byLou Scheimer,Hal Sutherland andNorm Prescott in 1962.[4] Filmation producedanimated andlive-action productions and was last located inWoodland Hills, California.
In 1989, Filmation was closed by parent companyGroup W Productions and its intellectual properties were acquired by French cosmetic firmL'Oréal. Since then, the rights to Filmation's productions have changed hands several times and are today owned primarily byDreamWorks Animation.
Notable series that Filmation produced include theDC Comics andArchie Comics animated adaptations,Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,the animated version ofStar Trek, its version ofGhostbusters and the two adaptations of theMattel toylineMasters of the Universe (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe andShe-Ra: Princess of Power).
Lou Scheimer and Filmation's maindirector Hal Sutherland met in 1957 while working atLarry Harmon Pictures on the made-for-TVBozo andPopeye 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 ownedReddi-wip whipped cream.[5] SIB Productions, a Japanese firm with U.S. offices in Chicago, approached them about producing a cartoon calledRod Rocket. The two agreed to take on the work and also took on a project for Family Films, owned by theLutheran Church–Missouri Synod, for ten short animated films based on the life ofChrist.Paramount Pictures soon purchased SIB Productions, and True Line's staff increased, including the arrival of former radiodisc jockey Norm Prescott, who became a partner in the firm. He had already been working on the animated featurePinocchio in Outer Space which was primarily produced byBelvision Studios.
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 newcorporation 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 theportmanteau "Filmation".[5]
BothRod Rocket and theLife 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,[5] would soon go on to become "Sib-Tower 12 Productions" and produce the first few ofChuck Jones'Tom and Jerry films forMGM, until becomingMGM Animation/Visual Arts for the remainder of the films).[4]
Norm Prescott brought in Filmation's first major project,Journey Back to Oz, an animated sequel to the MGM filmThe 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 madetelevision commercials and some other projects for other companies and made an unsuccessful pilot film for aMarx Brothers cartoon series. They also tried to develop an original series namedThe Adventures of Stanley Stoutheart (later renamedYank and Doodle) about a boy and a dog, but they were never able to sell it and almost closed down;[5] until approached byDC Comics editorMort Weisinger to do aSuperman cartoon that premiered onCBS on September 10, 1966. This was followed by several of the other DC superheroes, and then, in 1968, the firstArchie Show. Both series greatly helped Filmation's popularity to increase into the 1970s, when it scored big with several of its series.[6][7]
The Filmation studio was purchased by theTelePrompTer Corporation in 1969. Two years later, in 1971, Filmation andWarner Bros. signed an agreement to distribute cartoons for film and television.[8]
In 1981, while Prescott left the company,Westinghouse Electric Corporation, through itsGroup W Productions division, acquired Filmation along with its purchase of TelePrompTer's cable and entertainment properties.[9]
The last shows produced by Filmation wereGhostbusters andBraveStarr, and the company's last production was the feature filmHappily Ever After (a sequel to the story ofSnow White); this film was produced from 1986 to 1988, and was theatrically released in theUnited States five years later, in 1993. Also, at the time of the closing, two new animated series,Bugzburg (a spin-off ofPinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, concerning insect characters who had shown up in that movie) andBravo (a spin-off ofBraveStarr), were beginning production.
In 1989, Westinghouse sold Filmation to Paravision International, an investment consortium led by the French cosmetics companyL'Oréal. Before that sale was complete, Westinghouse shuttered the film studio on February 3, 1989, which left L'Oréal with only the Filmation library.[9] This happened a day before theWARN Act went into effect requiring companies to give employees 60 days' notice before a mass layoff.[10]
Like other producers ofSaturday-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 adaptationStar Trek: The Animated Series, which included scripts contributed by well-knownscience fiction writers and starred most of the original cast.[11] Other favorably remembered Filmation series included a 16-part animatedserial ofFlash Gordon, originally intended as a movie for theatrical release,Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All. The original film edit was only aired three times onNBC, years after the series was cancelled.Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was another hailed series created by and starringBill Cosby with an explicit educational focus.[7]He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, based on the popular line ofMattel toys, opened up a new North American market for first-runtelevision syndication for animation in the 1980s. The animated adaptations of theArchie Comics characters were also noteworthy for the originalpop music produced for it, particularly the song "Sugar, Sugar", which was a No. 1 hit single.[12]
In addition, certain episodes ofHe-Man andBraveStarr, 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 theBraveStarr episode "The Price", which includes the death of a character due to drug addiction. The 1985Fat Albert episode "Busted" was a direct homage to the primetimeScared 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 forStar 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 firstEmmy Award for the franchise.[13]
Filmation had a reputation for exploiting the technique oflimited animation to produce a number ofanimated series with a distinct look. This technique involved limiting of the number offrames 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" motion. Filmation also made heavy use ofrotoscoping in later years (beginning with itsTarzan andFlash 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.
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 rapidjump cuts 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 upscreen time with sequences requiring little or no animation. Filmation also pioneered other animation technologies, particularly inFlash Gordon, which included backlighting effects for the first time in American animation (they were already in use in Japan), includingmoire effects to represent energy fields (a technique that was later used inHe-Man and inShe-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 asOne Hundred and One Dalmatians previously. It predated the modern use of 3-Dcomputer animation for vehicles in 2-D animated productions. However, it had a distinctive "flicker" to it, because some of the painted lines went out and in 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 andBraveStarr 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 / Cuckoo's Nest Studios" which is located inTaiwan (along with H-B's ownPhilippines-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 animatedZorro series. It was animated byTokyo Movie Shinsha 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 inHe-Man andShe-Ra.[14][15]
Characters, as well as plots, were typically run-of-the-mill for the time. For example, most episodes ofGhostbusters 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'sDC Comics cartoons of 1966–67 used more realistic sound effects.
Filmation received particular criticism forLassie's Rescue Rangers, an animated continuation of the long-running live-action seriesLassie. 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 theNational Association of Broadcasters, which accused Filmation of corrupting theLassie franchise with "violence, crime and stupidity."[16]
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 withGilligan'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.
The studio created very few original animated characters. Two examples wereFraidy 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 theUncle Croc's Block series onABC (hosted byCharles Nelson Reilly). In a period where comedy in cartoons was heavily scrutinized for violence[17][18] and many shows duplicated the popularScooby-Doo format,[19] 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 first animated segment onUncle Croc's Block), while not a direct adaptation, was inspired by the film (and laterTV series)M*A*S*H.M*U*S*H is an acronym for Mangy Unwanted Shabby Heroes since all the character were dogs stationed in theArctic.
The studio'sintellectual property assets have changed hands on a number of occasions. The in-house productions (The Archie Show,Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, etc.), which form a majority of the Filmation back catalog, were sold toHallmark Cards in 1995,[20] and were managed by its Hallmark Entertainment subsidiary. (Hallmark used what was left of Filmation's resources to launch their own animation studio that year, but they only produced two series-those beingMonster Mania andCaptain Simian and the Space Monkeys-before closing in 1996.) 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 asCBS Media Ventures andWarner Bros. viaTurner Entertainment Co. andDC Entertainment).
In March 2004, ownership of the Filmation in-house library, which was under the ownership of Hallmark, was sold to UK-basedEntertainment Rights. Entertainment Rights has since made the revelation that when Hallmark converted all of its Filmation series todigital 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.[21] 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-called576i speedup effect in which the soundtrack plays 4% too fast, which results in the pitch being a half-step higher than it was originally (seePAL andTelecine for more information). PAL-NTSC conversion artifacts also include softness and ghosting. The exception appears to be at least two titles from ER's library:Groovie Goolies, and theanimatedGhostbusters series. These series appear to have been sourced from original NTSC transfers for their U.S. release by BCI. The Ghost Busterslive-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 asStar Trek: The Animated Series, which was owned byParamount Television (nowCBS Studios, which is now part ofParamount Skydance since 2025), andShazam! (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 byBoomerang Media[22][23] and on May 11, 2009, it was announced that the subsidiaries and offices of Entertainment Rights would be absorbed under the nameClassic Media.[24][25]
In 2012, it was announced that Classic Media, owner of the Filmation library, would be acquired byDreamWorks Animation. DreamWorks Animation and its programming library, including those of Filmation (not including shows whose rights are owned by other companies, such asThe New Adventures of Gilligan andStar Trek: The Animated Series), would later be acquired on August 22, 2016, byUniversal Studios for $3.8 billion.[26]
Filmation incorporated live-action into some of its animated series. Series likeThe Hardy Boys andArchie's Funhouse featured live-action footage of an audience watching the bands perform andFat Albert had segments featuring series creatorBill Cosby.The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!, was more of a hybrid—a live-action variety show with animated segments. Actors appeared as characters from theHero High portion of the series, singing songs and telling jokes.
Filmation made six fullylive-action series, includingSpace Academy, its spin-offJason of Star Command,Ark II,Shazam! (based on theDC Comics characterCaptain Marvel),The Ghost Busters andThe Secrets of Isis.
Filmation produced a live-action series calledThe Ghost Busters (1975), starring formerF Troop starsLarry Storch andForrest Tucker, with noted science-fiction fan and collectorBob Burns as "Tracy the Gorilla".[7] 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 inMission: Impossible.
Nine years later,Columbia Pictures, who produced an unrelated 1984 movie ofalmost the same name, had to obtain the rights to the title from the company. Filmation capitalized on the popularity of the film by producinga 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 theGroovie Goolies series of nearly 15 years earlier.
To avoid confusion, the animated series based on the film was calledThe 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.[27]
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 shelvedJourney 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 forJourney 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 featuringBill Cosby, who was in the midst of his success with the studio'sFat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
A deal with Warner Bros. yieldedTreasure Island andOliver Twist, but left several others unproduced.[28]
In its final years, Filmation produced feature films of itsHe-Man andShe-Ra franchises (The Secret of the Sword), as well as continuations to established stories, such asPinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) andHappily Ever After (1989; unreleased until 1993).[29] 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.[30] 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 fromThe Walt Disney Company back in 1985 in order to prevent making films that the company claims to be based on Disney classics.[31]
Like other animation studios, Filmation had its stock company of voiceover actors. Some of the most famous includedLarry 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 ofSuperman, reprised the role for Filmation for their late 1960s version of the Man of Steel;Adam West andBurt Ward (who recreated their roles as "Batman andRobin" from their1960s live-action series for Filmation's 1977 animated incarnation),Jane Webb, and good friends and colleaguesEdward Asner andLinda Gary (Gary voiced a majority of Filmation's work in the 1980s), along withJohn Erwin (voice of Reggie Mantle, and later the voice ofHe-Man),Alan Oppenheimer (character actor in TV and film),Ted Knight,George DiCenzo (JohnBlackstar,Hordak, Bow onShe-Ra),Bill Cosby (voice of Fat Albert and himself),Melendy Britt,Howard Morris,Pat Fraley,Charlie Adler,Ed Gilbert,Susan Blu,Peter Cullen,Frank Welker, and Lou Scheimer (either uncredited, or under thepseudonym of "Erik (sometimes "Eric") Gunden").
For the company's 1960s superhero efforts, composerJohn Gart (under the stage name John Marion) and music supervisorGordon Zahler created strong themes and backing cues using a large orchestra, until theBatman entry in 1968, which used sparser production and jazzier themes.
The company's 1960s adventure seriesJourney to the Center of the Earth (1967) andFantastic Voyage (1968) likewise used sparser music production.Journey made heavier emphasis onguitar than the company's previous series, whileVoyage made use of deliberately haunting woodwinds to create a science fiction flavor.
According to thebooklets accompanying some of the DVDs of Filmation's shows, composerRay Ellis (who was assisted by his son Marc Ellis)[32] had produced the background music for most Filmation series under the pseudonyms "Yvette Blais and Jeff Michael".[33] 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 featuresTreasure Island andOliver Twist credit "George Blais". Ellis's name does appear inArchie[34] andSabrina the Teenage Witch credits and both "Ray Ellis", and "Jeff Michaels" appear side by side onGroovie 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, richlyorchestrated sound not found on many other made-for-TV cartoon series of that period; though as time went on, it became more contemporary and oftensynthesized. Ellis's work at the studio lasted from 1968 to 1982.Haim Saban andShuki Levy composed and produced the studio's music forHe-Man andShe-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 seriesBraveStarr.
In 1977, Dean Andre (Wallschlaeger), a 24-year-old composer/recording artist/producer, began writing theme and featured music for Filmation. His first seriesArchie's Bang-Shang Lalapalooza Show featured the voice of Daws Butler. He went on to compose themes forThe New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle andFabulous Funnies (featuring the voices ofJune Foray andAlan Oppenheimer). Dean also lent his vocal talents to Filmation for thematic and featured music that he composed and produced forA Snow White Christmas,Sport Billy andThe Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam! In 1981, Dean also took on the position of musical director forThe 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.
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