Looking back again at Filmation, I notice that the majority of their series output was for CBS. ABC & NBC combined didn't have as many, and lacked the staying power as well. Let's take a closer look, starting with NBC.
The Peacock Network's association with Filmation started on the right track with Star Trek (1973-75), co-produced and later distributed by Paramount (naturally). Most of the core cast of the original series returned for the cartoon, with Walter Koenig, IIRC, the only holdout. After Trek departed, it went downhill from there. Here's the rest of the NBC Filmation series:
2. Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty (1975-76). As the title implies, it was a feline adaptation of the Danny Kaye movie, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". Nice idea, but it just didn't resonate with young viewers who might not have seen "Walter Mitty", even though it was readily available in syndication at the time.
3. Space/Young Sentinels (1977-78). The series suffered from a sort of identity crisis very early, as evidenced by the change in title, which if memory serves happened about a month or two into the season for no apparent reason.
4. The New Archie/Sabrina Hour (Sept.-Nov. 1977). Archie and pals moved from CBS, where they'd been a fixture from 1968-76, to NBC, after pausing for a live-action pilot produced by James Komack (Welcome Back, Kotter) for ABC the previous season. A new character, Carlos, was introduced, but IIRC he never appeared in the comics. 2 months into the season, the show was split into 2 component parts--Super Witch (Sabrina, natch) and the Bang Shang Lallapalooza Show (Archie), with the segments already aired repackaged. Didn't work, as the two series were gone by April 1978.
5. Fabulous Funnies (1979-80). Some of the segments, like Broom Hilda, for example, had previously been used on Archie's TV Funnies (1971-73), while others, like Alley Oop, were making their TV debuts. As memory serves, NBC buried Funnies at lunch hour, ensuring its demise.
In 1980, CBS cancelled "Tarzan & the Super 7", yet retained Tarzan and Jason of Star Command. For some reason, the title was changed to Batman & the Super 7 when it moved to NBC, even though there were now just 5 features (Batman, Manta & Moray, Freedom Force, Web Woman, and Superstretch & Micro Woman). It was slotted at 12 or 12:30, same as Fabulous Funnies, with the same result.
6. Flash Gordon (1980? '81?) The late Bob Ridgely (Tarzan, Thundarr) voiced the title character, but the series was also put in the lunchtime zone when it deserved an earlier time slot.
7. Kid Super Power Hour w/Shazam! (1981-82). This would be the last live-action project for the studio. The Hero High segments were more or less Archie taken to the nth extreme, right down to the would-be heroes forming a rock band. But they didn't come close to being either the Archies or Fat Albert's Junkyard Band in terms of sound or charisma. Shazam! deserved to be spun off and given another chance, but it didn't happen. I remember changing the channel every time the Heroes came on stage to sing.
8. Sport Billy (1982-84). This, too, ended up airing at noon, and like Flash, belonged at an earlier time. Had this been airing directly after Smurfs, for example, it might've lasted longer.
Hmmm. 9 series total, counting "Batman & the Super 7", over 11 years. Not so bad. But, then, over on ABC......
1. Journey to the Center of the Earth (1967-69). Last time I saw reruns of this was on Sci-Fi a few years back. 20th Century Fox owns this show now, and it needs to find a home for it somewhere. Great theme music.
2. Fantastic Voyage (1968-70). Based, after a fashion, on the 1966 Raquel Welch movie, except instead of going after microbes, the CMDF battled spies. Sci-Fi had this, too, for a time, and Fox also owns it. The opening is available on You Tube, but there are no other clips, and no one's put clips of Journey there that I can tell.
3. The Hardy Boys (1969-71). Frank & Joe fronting a rock band? Yep. After the Archies had hit big for Filmation & CBS a year earlier, some genius at ABC convinced Filmation that to get the Hardys on TV, they had to have a gimmick of sorts, thinking kids wouldn't get into a straight mystery series. I actually found a Hardy Boys LP at a convention once, but since I didn't have a turntable, I didn't buy it. I'd like to see this on DVD. Of course, we all know about the live-action Hardys that landed on ABC a few years later w/Shaun Cassidy....
4. Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down? (1970-71). Before he was Squiggy, David L. Lander was asked to be the voice for Toon Jerry and adapt some of Lewis' movie personas. Since it wasn't the real Lewis, his fans waved off this series, but if Entertainment Rights doesn't own this show, Lewis himself might.
5. The Brady Kids (1972-74). First of two series in collaboration with Paramount (Star Trek being the other), spun from "The Brady Bunch", of course, and capitalizing on the Kids' musical numbers on that series. Barry Williams, among others, left after the first season, and the show suffered. Last aired on Nickelodeon's Nick at Nite and a brief run on TV Land.
6. Mission: Magic (1973-74). Spun off from Brady Kids, this series stars Australian singer Rick Springfield, 7 years before he checked into "General Hospital". IIRC, though, Trek aired opposite Magic. 'Nuff said.
7. Lassie's Rescue Rangers (1973-75?): Like Brady Kids, it debuted first on the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. Unlike Brady Kids, however, Lassie had to wait a whole year before going to series. It would be Ted Knight's last job for Filmation, as in addition to co-starring on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show", which was entering its 4th season, Knight was also the narrator for another ABC frosh you might've heard of. Super Friends.
8. New Adventures of Gilligan (1974-76). As you know, not all of the original cast returned for this series (Tina Louise held out). The castaways would return, this time on CBS, a few years later in Gilligan's Planet.
9. Uncle Croc's Block (Sept.-Dec. 1975). Of the four freshman series Filmation debuted that year (Isis & Ghost Busters were on CBS), this got the hook first. Charles Nelson Reilly returned to SatAM (having previously starred in Lidsville) in the title role, a parody of Capt. Kangaroo and other like shows. The toon features, including Wacky & Packy and Fraidy Cat, would later be repackaged for syndication as part of the Groovie Goolies package. Uncle Croc was cancelled right after Thanksgiving, and Super Friends reruns would fill the slot during the 2nd half of the season.
9 series in 8 seasons, none lasting more than 2 seasons. Compare that to Archie lasting 8 years in half as many formats on CBS, and Fat Albert's 12 year run, also at CBS. Of course, Hanna-Barbera was the primary supplier for ABC at the time, and it was H-B & DePatie Freleng that fueled NBC for many years. Maybe it was the programmers who were to blame? IIRC, some of the NBC shows, like Waldo Kitty, weren't heavily promoted. How are kids going to know it's there if they don't read or hear about it ahead of time?
Discuss.
The Peacock Network's association with Filmation started on the right track with Star Trek (1973-75), co-produced and later distributed by Paramount (naturally). Most of the core cast of the original series returned for the cartoon, with Walter Koenig, IIRC, the only holdout. After Trek departed, it went downhill from there. Here's the rest of the NBC Filmation series:
2. Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty (1975-76). As the title implies, it was a feline adaptation of the Danny Kaye movie, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". Nice idea, but it just didn't resonate with young viewers who might not have seen "Walter Mitty", even though it was readily available in syndication at the time.
3. Space/Young Sentinels (1977-78). The series suffered from a sort of identity crisis very early, as evidenced by the change in title, which if memory serves happened about a month or two into the season for no apparent reason.
4. The New Archie/Sabrina Hour (Sept.-Nov. 1977). Archie and pals moved from CBS, where they'd been a fixture from 1968-76, to NBC, after pausing for a live-action pilot produced by James Komack (Welcome Back, Kotter) for ABC the previous season. A new character, Carlos, was introduced, but IIRC he never appeared in the comics. 2 months into the season, the show was split into 2 component parts--Super Witch (Sabrina, natch) and the Bang Shang Lallapalooza Show (Archie), with the segments already aired repackaged. Didn't work, as the two series were gone by April 1978.
5. Fabulous Funnies (1979-80). Some of the segments, like Broom Hilda, for example, had previously been used on Archie's TV Funnies (1971-73), while others, like Alley Oop, were making their TV debuts. As memory serves, NBC buried Funnies at lunch hour, ensuring its demise.
In 1980, CBS cancelled "Tarzan & the Super 7", yet retained Tarzan and Jason of Star Command. For some reason, the title was changed to Batman & the Super 7 when it moved to NBC, even though there were now just 5 features (Batman, Manta & Moray, Freedom Force, Web Woman, and Superstretch & Micro Woman). It was slotted at 12 or 12:30, same as Fabulous Funnies, with the same result.
6. Flash Gordon (1980? '81?) The late Bob Ridgely (Tarzan, Thundarr) voiced the title character, but the series was also put in the lunchtime zone when it deserved an earlier time slot.
7. Kid Super Power Hour w/Shazam! (1981-82). This would be the last live-action project for the studio. The Hero High segments were more or less Archie taken to the nth extreme, right down to the would-be heroes forming a rock band. But they didn't come close to being either the Archies or Fat Albert's Junkyard Band in terms of sound or charisma. Shazam! deserved to be spun off and given another chance, but it didn't happen. I remember changing the channel every time the Heroes came on stage to sing.
8. Sport Billy (1982-84). This, too, ended up airing at noon, and like Flash, belonged at an earlier time. Had this been airing directly after Smurfs, for example, it might've lasted longer.
Hmmm. 9 series total, counting "Batman & the Super 7", over 11 years. Not so bad. But, then, over on ABC......
1. Journey to the Center of the Earth (1967-69). Last time I saw reruns of this was on Sci-Fi a few years back. 20th Century Fox owns this show now, and it needs to find a home for it somewhere. Great theme music.
2. Fantastic Voyage (1968-70). Based, after a fashion, on the 1966 Raquel Welch movie, except instead of going after microbes, the CMDF battled spies. Sci-Fi had this, too, for a time, and Fox also owns it. The opening is available on You Tube, but there are no other clips, and no one's put clips of Journey there that I can tell.
3. The Hardy Boys (1969-71). Frank & Joe fronting a rock band? Yep. After the Archies had hit big for Filmation & CBS a year earlier, some genius at ABC convinced Filmation that to get the Hardys on TV, they had to have a gimmick of sorts, thinking kids wouldn't get into a straight mystery series. I actually found a Hardy Boys LP at a convention once, but since I didn't have a turntable, I didn't buy it. I'd like to see this on DVD. Of course, we all know about the live-action Hardys that landed on ABC a few years later w/Shaun Cassidy....
4. Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down? (1970-71). Before he was Squiggy, David L. Lander was asked to be the voice for Toon Jerry and adapt some of Lewis' movie personas. Since it wasn't the real Lewis, his fans waved off this series, but if Entertainment Rights doesn't own this show, Lewis himself might.
5. The Brady Kids (1972-74). First of two series in collaboration with Paramount (Star Trek being the other), spun from "The Brady Bunch", of course, and capitalizing on the Kids' musical numbers on that series. Barry Williams, among others, left after the first season, and the show suffered. Last aired on Nickelodeon's Nick at Nite and a brief run on TV Land.
6. Mission: Magic (1973-74). Spun off from Brady Kids, this series stars Australian singer Rick Springfield, 7 years before he checked into "General Hospital". IIRC, though, Trek aired opposite Magic. 'Nuff said.
7. Lassie's Rescue Rangers (1973-75?): Like Brady Kids, it debuted first on the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. Unlike Brady Kids, however, Lassie had to wait a whole year before going to series. It would be Ted Knight's last job for Filmation, as in addition to co-starring on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show", which was entering its 4th season, Knight was also the narrator for another ABC frosh you might've heard of. Super Friends.
8. New Adventures of Gilligan (1974-76). As you know, not all of the original cast returned for this series (Tina Louise held out). The castaways would return, this time on CBS, a few years later in Gilligan's Planet.
9. Uncle Croc's Block (Sept.-Dec. 1975). Of the four freshman series Filmation debuted that year (Isis & Ghost Busters were on CBS), this got the hook first. Charles Nelson Reilly returned to SatAM (having previously starred in Lidsville) in the title role, a parody of Capt. Kangaroo and other like shows. The toon features, including Wacky & Packy and Fraidy Cat, would later be repackaged for syndication as part of the Groovie Goolies package. Uncle Croc was cancelled right after Thanksgiving, and Super Friends reruns would fill the slot during the 2nd half of the season.
9 series in 8 seasons, none lasting more than 2 seasons. Compare that to Archie lasting 8 years in half as many formats on CBS, and Fat Albert's 12 year run, also at CBS. Of course, Hanna-Barbera was the primary supplier for ABC at the time, and it was H-B & DePatie Freleng that fueled NBC for many years. Maybe it was the programmers who were to blame? IIRC, some of the NBC shows, like Waldo Kitty, weren't heavily promoted. How are kids going to know it's there if they don't read or hear about it ahead of time?
Discuss.
