Remember that one day when you could wake up without an alarm? When you would get your favorite bowl of cereal and sit between the hours of 8 and 12? This is a blog dedicated to the greatest time of our childhood: Saturday mornings. The television programs you watched, the memories attached to them, and maybe introducing you to something you didn't realize existed. Updated every weekend.
After a tenure as Jack Kirby’s assistant and an editor at DC Comics, he
went on to work for Filmation and Sid & Marty Krofft Productions before
forming his own puppet studio with Gregory Williams. They provided the O.G.
Readmore puppet for ABC Weekend Specials, several of the puppets for Pee-wee’s
Playhouse, and the penguin puppets for Beakman’s World, one of which
he operated.
Alan Oppenheimer – Carpo,
Overlord, Vizier, Shaldemar, Nihilis, Kadray, Neptul, Typhot, Ciros, various
Producer Lou Scheimer wanted to inject a
little fantasy into Filmation’s
slate, and CBS wanted something to compete
with ABC’s hit series Thundarr
the Barbarian. Those things ultimately led to the creation and
acquisition of Blackstar.
Mara, Klone, Blackstar and the Trobbits.
Blackstar centered
on astronaut John Blackstar (George DiCenzo), who on a routine space mission
was sucked into a black hole and emerged on the alien world of Sagar. He was
rescued and cared for by a clan of Trobbits (a combination of “troll” and
“hobbit”); pink-skinned inhabitants of the Sgar Tree. They were comprised of
Balkar (Patrick Pinney, in his first work for Filmation), the king and
elemental mage; Rif (Frank Welker), a grumpy chef; Terra (Pinney), a gardener
that talked to plants; Burble (Welker), a babbler who liked swimming; Carpo
(Alan Oppenheimer), a carpenter who worked with his beaver-like teeth;
Gossamear (Welker), a flying scout with huge ears; and Poulo, the youngest of
the clan and a mute who communicated by whistling.
Overlord and the Power Sword.
The planet was under constant
tyranny by the evil Overlord (Oppenheimer) and his minions, who wanted to acquire the PowerStar
to make him the absolute ruler. The PowerStar was broken in half into two
swords: the Power Sword, which Overlord possessed, and the Star Sword, which
ended up in Blackstar’s hands. The swords imbued their wielders with enhanced
physical attributes and the ability to absorb, store, reflect or blast energy.
Blackstar pledged to aid in the battle against Overlord with the aid of Mara
(Linda Gary), a centuries-old enchantress, Klone (Pinney), a quick-witted shape
shifter, and Warlock, a dragon that served as Blackstar’s mount.
Blackstar ultimate only
lasted a single season, but the story didn’t end there. The series ended up
being a bigger hit overseas, spawning a standard
and 3-D
board game in France, as well as two comic adaptations: a 3-episode series in
the magazine Pif-Gadgetfrom Editions
Vaillant,and a one-shot by Editions LUG. The
episodic story departed from the show a bit by introducing original villains, a
new Earth girlfriend for Blackstar, and the fact Blackstar had some amnesia
from his landing allowing him to forget said girlfriend and become romantically
involved with Mara. In 1983, in order to compete with Mattel’s Masters of the
Universe toyline (which Filmation would also make the cartoon for utilizing some concepts from Blackstar), Galoob licensed the Blackstar
characters to make a series of standard and sparking (dubbed “laser light”) action figures, vehicles
and Overlord’s Ice Castle. The toys weren’t as successful as Galoob hoped and
were discontinued in 1985.
Blackstar complete series DVD.
In keeping with its international
popularity, the series saw several VHS releases in
various countries, primarily by Select
Video. Entertainment
Rights, the then-owners of the Filmation library, licensed BCI Eclipse to
release the complete
series onto DVD in 2006. In 2008, several of the episodes were included on
the compilation DVD set Heroes
and Heroines. In 2007, Boulevard
Entertainment released 3
DVDs containing two episodes each in the United Kingdom. The remaining
episodes were never released as Boulevard went into bankruptcy.
EPISODE
GUIDE:
“Search
for the Starsword” (9/12/81) – The Lava Locs steal the Starsword and bring it
to Overlord.
“City
of the Ancient Ones” (9/19/81) – Overlord frees a sorceress and hypnotizes her
to bring him to the lost scroll of the ancient ones.
“The
Lord of Time” (9/26/81) – A timelord turns the Sagar Tree into an acorn he
hopes to use to reactivated the Fountain of Fire.
“The
Mermaid of Serpent Sea” (10/3/81) – Captain Typhod and the Phantom Sailor
attack the Merminites and steal their food.
“The
Quest” (10/10/81) – Blackstar seeks a healing stone to cure a Trobbit who
ingested poison.
“Spacewrecked”
(10/17/81) – Blackstar’s lover arrives with an interdimensional ship to bring
him home, but Overlord takes her hostage.
“Lightning
City of the Clouds” (10/24/81) – Overlord has Crios the Ice-King steal
Leelana’s key to springtime to keep Sagar in eternal winter.
“Kingdom
of Neptul” (10/31/81) – Blackstar and his friends end up in the undersea
kingdom of Aquaria where one of Overlord’s minions have captured the Flame
People.
“Tree
of Evil” (11/7/81) – Blackstar and Klone are trapped by an evil duplicate of the
Sagar Tree.
“The
Air Whales of Anchar” (11/14/81) – Unbalanced after a fight, Blackstar has to
get the Starsword repaired before it explodes and takes out the planet with it.
“The
Overlord’s Big Spell” (11/21/81) – Overlord creates a monster infused with all
of Sagar’s magic only to have it turn on him and force him to work with
Blackstar to stop it.
“The
Crown of the Sorceress” (11/28/81) – Blackstar offers to escort a princess back
to her kingdom--one Mara and Balkar have never heard of.
“The
Zombie Masters” (12/5/81) – The city of Zombies attacks and the Zombie Master
enslaves Princess Luwena, Mara and Poulo.
THE
ABC SATURDAY SUPERSTAR MOVIE / THE NEW SATURDAY SUPERSTAR MOVIE
(ABC, September 9, 1972-November 17, 1973)
Various
MAIN CAST:
Various
With movie studios still viewing
television networks as a threat to their business, they often charged high fees
for the broadcasting of their films. The networks decided to experiment with
producing films specifically for television as a way to significantly lower
expenses. NBC
was the first, creating the weekly World
Premiere Movie in 1966. ABC,
who was running last place in the ratings, came up with their own in 1969
called the ABC Movie of the Week.
That, combined with Monday Night Football, significantly
improved ABC’s ratings and raised it up as competition for the other networks.
Ad for the first episode of Saturday Superstar.
In 1972, ABC brought the concept to
Saturday mornings as The ABC Saturday
Superstar Movie. It was the first
Saturday morning anthology series presented inmuch the same way
as the regular Movie of the Week.,
Saturday Superstar would feature one-hour predominantly animated (although
some contained live-action) specials by the various animation studios at the
time. The selection of specials were typically pilots for shows the studios
wanted to do and used Saturday Superstar as
a proving ground; although some of them were sequels of previously established
properties or just a showcase for a one-off production.
Dr. Smith, Robon and Link from Hanna-Barbera's Lost in Space.
Hanna-Barbera’s
only successful pilot offering was “Yogi’s Ark Lark”, which would become the
slightly reworked Yogi’s Gang. For one of their failed pilots, they once
again partnered with Screen
Gems
to make “Tabitha and Adam and the Clown Family”, which centered on the
adventures of the now-teenaged children from the sitcom Bewitched(which
they made the animated opening titles for); who both naturally inherited
their mother’s supernatural powers. The other was a reboot of Lost in Space,
which
only featured the returning characters of Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris),
this time an actual passenger on the Jupiter 2, and the robot (now named
Robon, voiced by Don
Messick). The new characters included Space Academy graduate
Craig Robinson (Michael
Bell);
his little brother, Link (Vincent
Van Patten); and geologist Diana Carmichael (Sherry Alberoni).
They took off on a routine mission from Earth to Saturn and ended up thrown
wildly off course by a sudden meteor shower. Hanna-Barbera also released a
follow-up to The Banana Splits Adventure Hour with “The Banana Splits in
Hocus Pocus Park”, an animated entry in the Gidgetbook/film/television
franchise with “Gidget Makes the Wrong Connection”, an interpretation of the
legend of Robin
Hood
with animals in “The Adventures of Robin Hoodnik” (a year before Disney’s),
and a sequel to the novel Oliver
Twistwith “Oliver and the
Artful Dodger” (which happened to be the series’ only two-part episode).
Animation cel featuring The Groovie Goolies and some of the Looney Tunes.
Filmation
found a bit more success with their pilots, as both of their offerings led into
a show. “The Brady Kids on Mysterious Island” was later broken up into the
first two episodes of The
Brady Kids, as was “Lassie and the
Spirit of Thunder Mountain” for Lassie’s
Rescue Rangers. “Daffy Duck and Porky Pig
Meet the Groovie Goolies” presented a rare instance in which Warner Bros.
loaned out their characters for use by another studio (normally, those studios
would be making the cartoons for Warner Bros., who at this time didn’t
have their own animation department). The special was a follow-up to The
Groovie Goolieswhich had
Filmation’s characters interact with most of the Looney
Tunes (save Bugs Bunny
and Speedy
Gonzales). This was the only time the legendary Mel Blanc
worked on a Filmation project; which he not only hated doing but came to regret
doing as an error in the sound mixing ended up making most of his characters
sound off.
Herman Munster driving around his son Eddie's band.
Fred
Calvert Productions attempted to translate two sitcoms into
animated shows. The first was the 20th
Century Fox Television production The Nanny and the
Professor; a sitcom featuring a magical British
nanny (Juliet
Mills) inspired by Mary
Poppins. She took care of a family comprised of
college professor Harold Everett (Richard Long),
his sons Harold (David
Doremus) and Bently (Trent Lehman),
and daughter Prudence (Kim
Richards). Calvert made two specials based on the show, “Nanny
and the Professor” and “Nanny and the Professor and the Phantom of the Circus”,
with the cast all reprising their roles. The second series was Universal
Television’s The Munsters;
the
sitcom about a family based on the classic Universal
Monsters who were blissfully ignorant of their differences compared
to other people. The special, “The Mini-Munsters”, only saw Al Lewis
reprise his role of Grandpa from the original series. Neither show was picked
up. Calvert would have better luck on NBC with Emergency +4, an animated
spin-off of the medical drama, Emergency!
Marlo Thomas in animated form.
Rankin/Bass Productions
took the opportunity to introduce an animated prequel to their 1967 stop-motion
film, Mad
Monster Party. “Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters”
followed Baron Henry von Frankenstein (Bob McFadden)
creating a bride (Rhoda
Mann)
for his monster (Allen
Swift), but his assistant, Igor (Swift), got jealous and
wanted the bride for himself. While the special was praised for its visuals,
the story was found lacking by critics. Rankin/Bass also made a special
centering around baseball legend Willie
Mays
in “Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid”. It was basically about a guardian angel
named Casey (after Casey
Stengel, voiced by Paul Frees)
tasking Mays with looking after an orphan in exchange for help winning the
National League Pennant. An odd one was their take on “The Red Baron”, which
recast the infamous WWI
fighter pilot as a heroic anthropomorphic dog (Swift) who sets out to rescue
the “kidnapped” princess of Pretzelstein (Mann) from a rival kingdom. Their
final offering for the series was a spin-off to the Marlo Thomas-led
sitcom, That
Girl. “That Girl in Wonderland”
saw the show’s characters in the stories of Alice in Wonderland,
Goldilocks
and the Three Bears, The
Wizard of Ozand Cinderella.
Only
Thomas reprised her role of Anne Marie.
Promo image for "Luv-cast U.S.A."
Depatie-Freleng
Enterprises’ only offering for the series was “Luv-cast U.S.A.” It was a
mini-anthology, loosely based on Love, American
Style. The special was centered around a radio station, where DJ Ranton
Rave (actual DJ “Sweet” Dick
Whittington) would receive calls from people with various romantic
problems, and their answers would be seen in a series of vignettes. All the
while, the DJ would play rock and roll classics music. The special landed Depatie-Freleng
an opportunity to do further work on ABC’s other anthology series, The ABC Afterschool Specials.
The comedy comic strip characters board for their free cruise.
The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie debuted
on ABC on September 9, 1972. It returned the following year as The New
Saturday Superstar Movie for a brief 3-episode second season. After that,
ABC decided to abandon the experiment with the 1974 season; however, that
hiatus didn’t last too long. In 1977 they brought back the anthology concept
with ABC Weekend Special, this time with a more focused message of
encouraging children to read.
Some of the foreign VHS covers for "Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies".
“Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie
Goolies” has seen numerous VHS releases under various titles, predominantly in
the United Kingdom and Germany by Select Video between 1983-86 with its
live-action segment removed. It also saw rebroadcasts on Sky One, Cartoon Network
as part of Mr. Spim’s Cartoon Theater and USA Network before they
stopped airing cartoons. A restored two-part version of the film began making
the rounds in Germany in 2002 and aired as late as 2013.
EPISODE GUIDE:
Season 1:
“The
Brady Kids on Mysterious Island” (9/9/72) – A balloon race lands the Brady kids
on a mysterious island where they meet and befriend some special animals.
“Yogi’s
Ark Lark” (9/16/72) – Yogi and his animal friends gather on an ark on a mission
to find a place to live that’s devoid of pollution and the destruction caused by mankind.
“Mad,
Mad, Mad Monsters” (9/23/72) – Baron Henry von Frankenstein creates a bride for
his monster, but his assistant Igor becomes jealous and wants the Bride for himself.
“Nanny
and the Professor” (9/30/72) – Nanny and the Everetts get caught up in a
mystery involving a microdot.
“Popeye
Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter” (10/7/72) – Prof. Morbid Grimsby plans to
cinch this year’s prestigious “Meanie” award by eliminating all laughter from
the world.
“Willie
Mays and the Say-Hey Kid” (10/14/72) – An angel promises to help Willie Mays
win the Pennant if he looks after an orphaned girl.
“Oliver
and the Artful Dodger: Part 1 & 2” (10/21/72, 10/28/72) – Mr. Brownlow adopts
Oliver, but upon his death his will goes missing and his sinister nephew tries
to take his fortune.
“The
Adventures of Robin Hoodnik” (11/4/72) – A retelling of the legend of Robin
Hood starring a cast of anthropomorphic animals.
“Lassie
and the Spirit of Thunder Mountain” (11/11/72) – Lassie tries to figure out
who’s scaring the Native American people away from Thunder Mountain.
“Gidget
Makes the Wrong Connection (a.k.a. The Odd Squad)” (11/18/72) – Teenager Gidget
and her friends run into gold smugglers.
“The
Banana Splits in Hocus Pocus Park” (11/25/72) – The Banana Splits give a little
girl a tour of an amusement park, only to have her kidnapped by a witch.
“Tabitha
and Adam and the Clown Family” (12/2/72) – Tabitha and Adam Stevens use their magical
powers to try and save a circus.
“The
Red Baron” (12/9/72) – The Red Baron and his fellow dogs do battle with the
sinister army of cats.
“Daffy
Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies” (12/16/72) – The Groovie Goolies
help the Looney Tunes solve a mystery.
“Luvcast
U.S.A.” (1/6/73) – A wacky deejay plays some romantic hits while various
characters engage in romance-themed escapades.
“That
Girl in Wonderland” (1/13/73) – Ann Marie imagines herself in a variety of
fairy tales.
Season 2:
“Lost
in Space” (9/8/73) – A meteor field sends the Jupiter II far off course.
“The
Mini-Munsters” (10/27/73) – When Grandpa fixes Eddie’s car so that it runs on
music, gangster who took over the fuel company want his invention destroyed at
any cost.
“Nanny
and the Professor and the Phantom of the Circus” (11/17/73) – Nanny and the
Everetts end up involved in a mystery about a traveling circus.
Filmation's founders: Lou Scheimer, Norm Prescott and Hal Sutherland (rear).
Lou Scheimer and Hal
Sutherland met while working for Larry Harmon
Pictures. When Harmon closed his studio in 1961, they went to work for True Line
where they took on a job to produce a cartoon called Rod Rocket. It was the first place where they credited
themselves as Filmation, since they were “working on FILM, but doing animation”. In
time, the pair met and were joined by former disc jockey Norm Prescott. They
retained Harmon’s former lawyer, Ira Epstein, who incorporated the trio as
Filmation Associates in 1962. They began work on their first major project, an
animated sequel to MGM’s The Wizard of Ozcalled Journey Back to Ozwhich would take a decade to complete due to
financing issues, while also working on commercials and unsuccessfully developing
an original series called The Adventures of Stanley Stoutheart. On
the verge of shutting down, Filmation got its big break when they were able to
bluff DC Comics into letting them do a new Superman cartoon by filling
their otherwise empty offices with friends and colleagues from other studios to
make it seem like Filmation was a booming studio. The
New Adventures of Supermanbecame
a major hit, ingratiating them to CBS executive Fred Silverman and allowing the studio to follow up with additional DC
cartoons and shows based on popular movies. Like other studios, Filmation
utilized limited animation and had a major reliance on stock footage that they
would reuse even across various shows. To compensate for that, they tried to
ensure the writing was as high-quality as possible; such as with Star
Trek: The Animated Series, which
utilized writers from the original Star
Trekand won an Emmy. They
also utilized new techniques such as backlighting effects in The
New Adventures of Flash Gordonand
generating faux 3D vehicle animation using white-outlined black miniatures with
a computerized motion control camera for shows like He-Man and the Masters of
the Universe. Filmation also had
the proud distinction of being the only studio to not send animation jobs
overseas, with the exception of The New Adventures of Zorro due to their
workload at the time. When concerns arose over violence in children’s
television in the late 60s, Filmation shifted focus to gentler comedic
fare most successfully with The
Archie Show, based on the Archie Comics
characters, and Fat
Albert and the Cosby Kids, based
on the stand-up routines of Bill Cosby. Filmation had always strove to have a pro-social
message in their productions, but drove the point home when they began
including PSAs at the end of their episodes. 1969 saw them introduce the first
African-American character on Saturday mornings with The
Hardy Boys. In the 1970s, Filmation expanded
into live-action, making 6 fully live-action shows: Space
Academy, Ark II, Jason of Star Command, Shazam!,The
Ghost Bustersand The
Secrets of Isis. While the studio
had a generally good track record, 1976’s Uncle Croc’s Block proved
such a spectacular failure that it ended their relationship with Silverman in
favor of rival Hanna-Barbera. With increasing competition on network television from
new studios that offered cheaper, outsourced animation, Filmation turned to the
syndication market for its remaining years. In 1969, Filmation was purchased by
TelePrompTer
Corporation, which was then purchased by Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s Group W
Productions in 1981. Prescott, who had poor
dealings with Westinghouse in the past, took that opportunity to retire from
the company. Sutherland had left in 1973 when his TelePrompTer contract ran
out, wanting to focus on fine-art painting; although, he would come on as a
temporary employee to help Filmation out of any jams. Finding himself embroiled
in constant battles with Group W after management changes, Scheimer helped
to encourage the sale of Filmation to L’Oreal. However, L’Oreal wasn’t interested in producing anything
new and shut the studio down in 1989. Hallmark
Cards would acquire all of Filmation’s non-licensed
projects in 1995. When the library was sold again in 2004 to Entertainment Rights, it was discovered that Hallmark discarded all of the
original material after converting the library to digital and PAL-region
formats. This meant the soundtrack on future Filmation releases ran 4% too fast.
In 2009, Boomerang Media acquired Entertainment Rights and absorbed it into Classic
Media. In 2012, Classic Media was acquired by DreamWorks Animation, which in turn would be bought out by Universal Studios
in 2016.
Lou Scheimer among his various characters on the cover of his memoir.
Saturday Credits:
The New Adventures of
Superman
Journey to the Center of
the Earth
The Superman/Aquaman Hour
of Adventure
Fantastic Voyage
Aquaman
The Archie Show
The Batman/Superman Hour
The Adventures of Batman
The Archie Comedy Hour
The Hardy Boys (1969)
Archie’s Funhouse
Will the Real Jerry Lewis
Please Sit Down
Sabrina and the Groovie
Goolies
Archie’s TV Funnies
Fat Albert and the Cosby
Kids
The ABC Saturday
Superstar Movie (episodes)
The Brady Kids
Lassie’s Rescue Rangers
Everything’s Archie
Star Trek: The Animated
Series
My Favorite Matians
Mission: Magic!
The U.S. of Archie
The New Adventures of
Gilligan
Shazam! (1974)
The Secret Lives of Waldo
Kitty
The Secrets of Isis
The Ghost Busters
Uncle Croc’s Block
Tarzan, Lord of The
Jungle
Ark II
The New Adventures of
Batman
Space Sentinels
Jason of Star Command
The Batman/Tarzan
Adventure Hour
The New Archie and
Sabrina Hour
The Groovie Goolies and
Friends
Tarzan and the Super 7
Fabulous Funnies
The New Adventures of
Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle
