Opinions on Nelvana animation

S

seprough

New member
So what do you think of the animation of Nelvana cartoons? I think they are pretty excellent.

They remind a little bit of Hanna Barbara with its animation quality, and probably surpases H-B on some occassions.

The Nelvana world is very color ful and bright. Which is a reason why when already created characters want to make the jump into cartoons, Nelvana is one of the premere choices. They hold their own with the big american companies like Disney and Warner Brothers.

I know the animation style from the 70's and 80's is different from today, but as a whole, I thought Nelvana animation is very good.
 
Well, I know of THREE things they've done, aside from Care Bears and Donkey Kong Country, as well as Beetlejuice - Sam & Max: Freelance Police, Maggie and the Ferocious Beast, and the Backyardigans.

I like DKC, Beetlejuice, and Sam & Max, personally. They're my all-time favorites, coming from Nelvana.
 
I grew up watching a lot of Nelvana cartoons. My favourite thing from Nelvana is probably Rock and Rule. I know it's got flaws, but I really enjoy it anyway.

I would've loved to see what they were able to do if that film hadn't bankrupt them, and forced them to do the "safer" projects like the Care Bears, which they then became known for. Apparently their original plan was to become a sort of edgier 'Disney North'.

EDIT:
Ack, I forgot all about Clone High! Which is odd, because I was just watching it for the first time in months last night. More accurately, I forgot that Nelvana made it. That's one of my favourite shows ever. I also used to like their Babar series a lot as a kid.
 
My first exposure to Nelvana was the late 70's specials like A Cosmic Christmas, The Devil and Daniel Mouse, Easter Fever, Take Me Up to the Ball Game, etc. I liked how their cartoons were so artsy and different from Hanna-Barbera and Charles Schulz. Nelvana actually helped me to grow as an artist; up to that point, everything I drew looked like Peanuts. After seeing Nelvanamation, I was determined to take my drawing style to the next level, so that was my inspiration to improve my craft.
 
They did have a rivalory with DiC for having the rights to American Greeting Card Company characters. Mainly Strawberry Shortcake and the Care Bears.

But back in the 80's, if it came down to animation quality (I know there are other factors including writing and money), if I was AGCC, it is no contest, I would go with Nelvana easily.
 
Nelvana even made the Canadian Bert and Gert "Stay Alert, Stay Safe" PSA's in the 1990's that still air during commercial breaks of Canadian TV kid shows and the PSA's can even be seen on YouTube.
 
Nelvana did good work. I remember their trademark, which was a character running offscreen in a blur followed by that little speedy sound effect.
 
Another trademark, maybe just the programming I am familar with, is characters with rainbow type hair color. Never I have seen so many human characters with pink, blue, green, purple colored hair color than in the Nelvana world. One of their current shows Wayside really takes that to the extreme.

But the Nelvana was animated so beautifully, I wish I could vacation in the Nelvana world.

I would loved if they have done some crossovers, and do specials when they use charcters from different cartoons like Disney, Warner Brothers, and Hanna Barbara have done. But since a lot of their cartoons are not original Nelvana characters, it probably legally couldn't happen. Would have been nice for a Nelvana anniversery special in 2001 (30th Anniversery) or 2006 (35th Anniversery)
 
They're....the...ones behind Backyardigans?!?!?!?!? That really lowers my opinion of them.

Anyway, I remember their hold on Tv in the 80's and 90's. I really loved a lot of their stuff. Sam and Max, Ned's Newt, all that stuff. And those stock actors of theirs that included Harvey Atkin and John Stocker (who also did work on SMB SS for DIC). And they had those crazy funny sound effects, like the "Gritting teeth" piano cord, or the dizzy sound effect. I loved that sort of thing.

I guess my favorite, no surprise would be Dog City. Too bad that wasn't on that long in the states. I know in Canada they reran it on Teletoon for a while.

BTW, did they do any work on Fairly Oddparents? I see the Nelvana Logo at the beginning of the later FOP DVD's....
 
No they don't have anything to do with the production of Fairly Oddparents. They distribute it to Canada. I also heard they are the canadian distrbutors of Danny Phantom and My Gym Parnter Is A Monkey.

I don't know why there logo would be on a FOP U.S. DVD release. Maybe your DVDs are canadian imports, or they do a joint release with their region 1 DVDs for the U.S. and Canada.

Earlier I mentioned, they had a rivalory with DiC over obtaining rights to characters from comic books, books, greeting cards, and toys. Well it wasn't always a rivalory, Nelvana and DiC had a partnership in making the first season of Inspector Gadget.
 
I also remember their very good job for the adaptation into animation series of Franco-Belgian comic books, the Adventures of Tintin (althought I also like the 1960s version) and Babar.
 
As one could gather from my avatar, I like Nelvana's "Cyberchase" series on PBS. I also enjoyed "Beetlejuice" (Nelvana seems to have a thing for weirdly-animated characters) plus the short-lived-in-the-US (but apparently a TV staple in Canada) "6Teen" (I bought several of the DVDs while I was in Toronto last month---since the show's DVDs aren't sold in the US).

-B.
 
Great... and I spent on three of them... :-p

EDIT: Upon further thought, being available in the discount bin at one (out of many) Marshalls' store doesn't equal being able to find the DVDs in any Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc. that sells DVDs. Especially since Marshalls/TJ Maxx/etc.'s selection varies from store to store and week to week (I used to work at TJ Maxx...).

So buying them from Canada still is probably the only way for me to have gotten them for certain (vs. hoping I find a disc at random in a TJ Maxx store...).

-B.
 
Plus, Nelvana also dubbed Cardcaptors and Medabots! I'm looking forward to getting Medabots, in January, when Shout Factory releases it.
 
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