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{{creator}}{{Featured Article|}}
[[File:filmation.jpg|frame| [[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe|By the Power of Stock Footage!]]]]
'''Filmation''' was an [[Western Animation|American animation]] studio founded in 1963 by Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott that, along with [[Hanna-Barbera]], dominated the American Saturday morning cartoon market throughout the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, particularly in the genre of action-adventure cartoons.
The studio was run on a shoestring budget, so they had to limit costs wherever possible. This condition was aggravated by Filmation's "people before art" policies which forbade the company from outsourcing jobs to cheaper foreign animation studios.<ref>Although they did work with
Moreover, Lou Scheimer's social conscience led him to submit the studio's productions to the oversight of various [[Moral Guardians]], resulting in the avoidance of any controversial or challenging aspects in its series and in the various [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]] lectures appended to episodes in the 1970s and 80s. On the plus side, Filmation did employ many of the best animation writers of the 1970s and '80s, and its artwork (as opposed to animation) featured graceful and gutsy character designs and impressive, intricate backgrounds—though the company characteristically exploited the latter by interrupting many episodes with long slow background pans featuring no animation at all.
The studio's first success came in 1966 with ''[[The New Adventures of Superman]]''; this was soon eclipsed by the runaway popularity of ''[[The Archie Show]]'' in 1968. ''[[The Archie Show|Archie]]'' spun off Filmation's next hit, ''[[Sabrina and The Groovie Goolies]]'' in 1971. In 1972 a bizarre [[Crossover]] film was made for ''The ABC Saturday Superstar Movies'' featuring the Groovie Goolies meeting various [[Looney Tunes]] characters. The studio's first foray into socially conscious cartooning came in 1972 with ''[[Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids]]''; thereafter, didacticism would be common not only on cartoons like ''[[
Throughout the 1970s, Filmation produced some well-regarded [[Animated Adaptation
In 1981, Filmation sought to tap into the increasingly popular fantasy market with ''[[Blackstar]]'', its analogue to Ruby-Spears' ''[[Thundarr the Barbarian]]'' (characteristically, the studio had planned to make the hero a black astronaut, but [[Executive Meddling|CBS insisted on appealing to a different demographic]], so Blackstar became a deeply tanned white man). In 1983, Filmation achieved its greatest success with ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'', a daily syndicated series based on a wildly popular line of toys from Mattel. This was quickly followed by a [[Gender Flip|gender-flipped]] spin-off, ''[[She-Ra:
Filmation owned the rights to a 1975 live-action series called ''The Ghost Busters'' starring ''[[F Troop]]'' co-stars Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch (one of Filmation's favorite voice actors), and a [[Everything's Better with Monkeys|guy in a gorilla suit]]. [[Columbia Pictures]] had to apply for the rights to call its 1984 movie ''[[Ghostbusters]]'', and after its success, Filmation revived the series in animated format, now called simply ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters|Ghostbusters]]''. The [[Spin-Off]] animated show from the movie thus became ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'', while Filmation's version was for a while named ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters|The Original Ghostbusters]]''.
Filmation was owned first by TelePrompTer and later by Westinghouse, but was bought by the L'Oreal Corporation in 1987 and promptly shut down, probably for tax purposes. Its last production to be released was the theatrical feature ''[[Happily Ever After (film)|Happily Ever After]]'', an unofficial sequel to [[Disney]]'s ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]'' (featuring seven "dwarfelles" in place of dwarfs), six years after the studio was killed.<ref>Their last production to be released while the studio was still in business was ''[[Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night]]'' in 1987, a similar attempt by Filmation to ape Disney.</ref> Attempts by founder Lou Scheimer to [[A Worldwide Punomenon|re-animate]] the studio have so far proved unsuccessful.
{{creatorworks||animated}}
== Series ==
* ''[[The New Adventures of Superman]]'' (1966)
* ''The [[Superman]]/Aquaman Hour of Adventure'' (1967)
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* ''[[Star Trek: The Animated Series]]'' (1973)
* ''My Favorite Martians'' (1973)
* ''[[
* ''The U.S. of Archie'' (1974)
* ''The New Adventures of Gilligan'' (1974)
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* ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'' (1983)
* ''[[Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids|The Adventures of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids]]'' (1984)
* ''[[She-Ra:
* ''[[Filmation's
* ''[[Bravestarr]]'' (1987)
== Feature Films ==
* ''[[Journey Back to Oz]]'' (1974)
* ''[[Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night]]'' (1987)
* ''[[Happily Ever After (film)|Happily Ever After]]'' (made 1988,
{{creatortropes}}
* [[Action Girl]]: Isis; Teela on ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]''; [[She-Ra: Princess of Power|She-Ra]] and her companions on her eponymous show.
* [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]]: Particularly in the Eighties, very few shows ended without one of these, sometimes having very little to do with the actual plot of the episode.
* [[Animated Adaptation]]: Many, ''many'', '''many''' of Filmation's shows were adaptation of series from other media, from [[Comic Book]] to [[Film]] to [[Live Action Television]], perhaps the most famous being ''[[Star Trek: The Animated Series]]''.
* [[Audible Gleam]]: This was a recurring sound effect in many of [[Filmation]]'s productions. In fact, it's even featured in the first version of the company's Westinghouse-era (post-1983) logo.
* [[Black Magician Girl]]: Evil-Lyn on ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]''; Apparitia and Mysteria on ''[[Filmation's
* [[Bratty Half-Pint]]: Batso, Ratso, and Hauntleroy on ''[[Sabrina and The Groovie Goolies]]''; Brat-A-Rat on ''[[Filmation's
* [[By the Power of Grayskull]]: "O mighty Isis!"; "For the honor of Grayskull!"; and, of course, the [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Cool Horse|Cool Steed]]: Blackstar's dragon-horse, Warlock; He-Man's Battle-Cat (and Skeletor's Panthor); Bravestarr's transforming, shotgun-totin' Thirty-Thirty.
* [[Dem Bones]]: ''The Groovie Goolies'' featured a skeleton band called "The Bare Bones Band", A skeleton named "[[Napoleon Bonaparte|Bone-Apart]]",who was dressed in a Napoleonic hat and was constantly falling apart ([[Incredibly Lame Pun|Groan!]]) and later, "Scared Stiff" on ''[[Filmation's
* [[Everything's Better with Monkeys]]: Tracy on ''[[Filmation's
* [[Evil Overlord]]: ''[[Blackstar]]'''s [[Big Bad]] was actually called "The Overlord," but Skeletor, Hordak, Stampede, Tex Hex, and Prime Evil all clearly fall into this category.
* [[Fantasy Gun Control]]: Filmation's "Show No Guns" policy was so extreme that a Filmation artist once circulated a sketch of He-Man holding a pineapple pistol-wise and going "Bang! Bang!"
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* [[Heroic Build]]: Just about every male Filmation protagonist looks like He-Man. Blackstar, Bravestarr, Prince Adam (even when not as He-Man).
* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: Filmation had its own stable of voice actors, including John Erwin, [[Pat Fraley]], and Larry Storch -- and, notoriously, Lou Scheimer and his own children. [[Frank Welker]], Linda Gary, Melendy Britt and [[Lost in Space|Jonathan Harris]] were also recurring voices.
* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: Rick Springfield on ''[[
* [[Limited Animation]]: A common complaint about the company's works, with the exception of their Zorro cartoon (it was outsourced to [[TMS Entertainment]]).
* [[Magical Girl]]: Sabrina; Miss Tickle on ''Mission: Magic''; Mara on ''[[Blackstar]]''; The Sorceress on ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]''
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* [[Our Monsters Are Different]]: The Groovie Goolies were a fairly early example of the friendly, funny variation of the classic [[Universal]] movie monsters.
* [[Scenery Porn]]: Filmation's background paintings were very often beautiful and detailed -- as emphasized by the everlasting so-called "Filmation pan" that generally opened episodes of their cartoons.
* [[Small Annoying Creature]]: For some unholy reason a favorite character with Filmation, including Ping and Pong the Pandas in ''[[The Brady Kids]]'', Ptolemy and Tut-Tut on ''[[
* [[Stock Footage]]: Unfortunately, perhaps the single best-remembered characteristic of Filmation series.
* [[Surrounded by Idiots]]: The [[Evil Overlord
* [[Talking Animal]]: Largely [[Averted Trope|averted]] in Filmation series; though there were Jughead's Hot Dog (who didn't really "speak"; we just hear his thoughts) or He-Man's Cringer, and Belfry the Bat, this trope was nowhere nearly as popular with Filmation as with most other animation studios.
* [[Theme Music Power-Up]]: Hey, there's the chorus going "He-Man! He-Man!" (or "She-Ra! She-Ra!" or "Let's go, Ghostbusters! Let's go! Let's go!"). Must be time to kick some super-villain butt.
* [[Transformation Sequence]]: ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]''; ''[[She-Ra:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:TMS Entertainment]]
[[Category:
▲[[Category:Filmation]]
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