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{{creator}}{{Featured Article|}}
[[File:filmation.jpg|frame| [[He-Man and
'''Filmation''' was an [[Western Animation|American animation]] studio founded in 1963 by Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott that, along with [[Hanna
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
▲'''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 [[T Ms]] on Zorro. However, Zorro was even cheaper to produce than TMS's own domestic productions, and TMS paid their staff members more than Filmation did—to put ''that'' in perspective, a typical episode of an American cartoon usually has around 3 times ($300,000 dollars) the budget of a typical episode of an anime ($123,000 dollars)—showing just how cheap Filmation was. The only thing saving the American studio was the favourable yen-to-dollar exchange rate at the time; once that changed, they decided to just do the rest of their shows themselves.</ref> This resulted in Filmation's (in)famous cost-cutting techniques: [[Limited Animation|limited animation]] and considerable reliance on [[Stock Footage|re-used footage]].
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
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
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 [[
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 (
{{creatorworks||animated}}
== Series ==
* ''[[The New Adventures of Superman]]'' (1966)
* ''The [[Superman]]/Aquaman Hour of Adventure'' (1967)
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* ''Archie's Funhouse'' (1970)
* ''[[Sabrina and The Groovie Goolies|Sabrina The Teenage Witch]]'' (1971)
* ''[[
* ''[[Fat Albert and
* ''[[The Brady Kids]]'' (1972)
* ''Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies'' (1972)
* ''Lassie's Rescue Rangers'' (1973)
* ''[[
* ''My Favorite Martians'' (1973)
* ''[[
* ''The U.S. of Archie'' (1974)
* ''The New Adventures of Gilligan'' (1974)
* ''[[Shazam]]!'' (1974)
* ''The Secret Lives Of Waldo Kitty'' (1975)
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[Tarzan]], Lord of the Jungle'' (1976)
* ''Ark II'' (1976)
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* ''The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle'' (1979)
* ''Jason Of Star Command'' (1979)
* ''[[Flash Gordon (
* ''[[Sport Billy]]'' (1979-1980)
* ''The [[
* ''The [[Tarzan]]/[[Lone Ranger]] Adventure Hour'' (1980)
* ''[[Blackstar]]'' (1981)
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* ''The [[Tarzan]]/[[Lone Ranger]]/[[Zorro]] Adventure Hour}}'' (1981)
* ''Gilligan's Planet'' (1982)
* ''[[He-Man and
* ''[[Fat Albert and
* ''[[She
* ''[[
* ''[[
== Feature Films ==
* ''[[Journey Back to Oz]]'' (1974)
* ''[[
* ''[[
{{creatortropes}}
* [[Action Girl]]: Isis; Teela on ''[[He-Man and
* [[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:
* [[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
* [[Bratty Half
* [[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 ''[[
* [[
* [[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!"
* [[Funny Animal]]: Largely [[Averted Trope|averted]] in Filmation series; though there were Waldo Kitty, Thun the Lion-Man, Thirty-Thirty (sometimes), and Adam the [[Live Action TV|live-action]] talking chimp, this trope was nowhere nearly as popular with Filmation as with most other animation studios.
* [[Heroic Build]]: Just about every male Filmation protagonist looks like He-Man. Blackstar, Bravestarr, Prince Adam (even when not as He-Man).
* [[
* [[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
* [[Mecha
* [[Not Quite Starring]]: The entire basis for ''Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down?''
* [[Our Ghosts Are Different]]: The "ghosts" on the animated ''[[
* [[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
* [[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
* [[Transformation Sequence]]: ''[[He-Man and
{{reflist}}
[[Category:TMS Entertainment]]
[[Category:
▲[[Category:Filmation]]
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