Editing Filmation (section)

== History ==
=== Background ===
[[File:Norm Prescott, Hal Sutherland and Lou Scheimer.jpg|thumb|From left to right: [[Norm Prescott]], [[Hal Sutherland]] and [[Lou Scheimer]].]]
[[File:Filmation rotary logo.svg|thumb|Filmation rotary logo seen in the company’s shows and credits from 1969 till the departure of [[Norm Prescott]] from Filmation (in 1981-82).]]
Lou Scheimer and Filmation's main [[Animation director|director]] Hal Sutherland met in 1957 while working at [[Larry Harmon Pictures]] on the made-for-TV ''[[Bozo the Clown|Bozo]]'' and ''[[Popeye]]'' cartoons. Eventually Larry Harmon closed the studio by 1961. Scheimer and Sutherland went to work at a small company called True Line, one of whose owners was Marcus Lipsky, who then owned [[Reddi-wip]] whipped cream.<ref name="founding">{{Citation|last1=Scheimer |first1=Lou |last2=Mangels |first2=Andy |year=2012 |title=Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation |publisher=TwoMorrows Publishing |location=Raleigh, North Carolina |pages=37–48 |isbn= 978-1-60549-044-1}}</ref> SIB Productions, a Japanese firm with U.S. offices in Chicago, approached them about producing a cartoon called ''[[Rod Rocket]]''. The two agreed to take on the work and also took on a project for Family Films, owned by the [[Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod]], for ten short animated films based on the life of [[Christ]]. [[Paramount Pictures]] soon purchased SIB Productions, and True Line's staff increased, including the arrival of former radio [[disc jockey]] Norm Prescott, who became a partner in the firm. He had already been working on the animated feature ''[[Pinocchio in Outer Space]]'' which was primarily produced by [[Belvision Studios]].

=== Peak era ===
They eventually left True Line, and Scheimer began working on commercials, including for Gillette and others, which began what became Filmation. He met lawyer Ira Epstein, who had worked for Harmon but had left the firm, and now put together the new [[corporation]] with Scheimer and Sutherland. It officially became Filmation Associates as of September 1962, so named because "We were working on film, but doing animation"; so putting them together yielded the [[portmanteau]] "Filmation".<ref name="founding"/>

Both ''Rod Rocket'' and the ''Life of Christ'' series credited "Filmation Associates" with "Production Design" in addition to Scheimer and Sutherland as directors. (SIB Productions, whose logo bore a resemblance to the original Filmation logo designed by Ted Littlefield,<ref name="founding"/> would soon go on to become "Sib-Tower 12 Productions" and produce the first few of [[Chuck Jones]]' ''[[Tom and Jerry]]'' films for [[MGM]], until becoming [[MGM Animation/Visual Arts]] for the remainder of the films).<ref name="Bates"/>

Norm Prescott brought in Filmation's first major project, ''[[Journey Back to Oz]]'', an animated sequel to the MGM film ''[[The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'' (1939). Begun in 1962, storyboarding, voice recording, and most of the music scoring and animation had been completed when financial challenges caused the project to be put on hold for nearly eight years.

In the meantime, the new Filmation studio turned their attention to a more successful medium, [[network television]]. For the next few years they made [[television commercials]] and some other projects for other companies and made an unsuccessful pilot film for a [[Marx Brothers]] cartoon series. They also tried to develop an original series named ''The Adventures of Stanley Stoutheart'' (later renamed ''Yank and Doodle'') about a boy and a dog, but they were never able to sell it and almost closed down;<ref name="founding"/> until approached by [[DC Comics]] editor [[Mort Weisinger]] to do a [[The New Adventures of Superman (TV series)|''Superman'' cartoon]] that premiered on [[CBS]] on September 10, 1966. This was followed by several of the other DC superheroes, and then, in 1968, the first ''[[The Archie Show|Archie Show]]''. Both series greatly helped Filmation's popularity to increase into the 1970s, when it scored big with several of its series.<ref name="td700427"/><ref name="fls750512"/>

The Filmation studio was purchased by the [[TelePrompTer Corporation]] in 1969. Two years later, in 1971, Filmation and [[Warner Bros.]] signed an agreement to distribute cartoons for film and television.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1971-02-01 |title=Animator, Warner Bros. teams up for TV, movies |page=51 |work=[[Broadcasting & Cable|Broadcasting Magazine]] |url=https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/71-OCR/1971-02-01-BC-OCR-Page-0051.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221217051410/https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/71-OCR/1971-02-01-BC-OCR-Page-0051.pdf |archive-date=2022-12-17 |url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:Filmation 1967.svg|left|thumb|Logo used from 1975 to 1982.]]

=== Final years ===
In 1981, while Prescott left the company, [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation]], through its [[Westinghouse Broadcasting|Group W Productions]] division, acquired Filmation along with its purchase of TelePrompTer's cable and entertainment properties.<ref name=bc>[https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1989/BC-1989-02-13.pdf "Group W sells Filmation." ''Broadcasting'', February 13, 1989, pg. 94]</ref> 

The last shows produced by Filmation were ''[[Ghostbusters (1986 TV series)|Ghostbusters]]'' and ''[[BraveStarr]]'', and the company's last production was the feature film ''[[Happily Ever After (1989 film)|Happily Ever After]]'' (a sequel to the story of [[Snow White]]); this film was produced from 1986 to 1988, and was theatrically released in the [[United States]] five years later, in 1993. Also, at the time of the closing, two new animated series, ''Bugzburg'' (a spin-off of ''[[Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night]]'', concerning insect characters who had shown up in that movie) and ''Bravo'' (a spin-off of ''BraveStarr''), were beginning production.

In 1989, Westinghouse sold Filmation to Paravision International, an investment consortium led by the French cosmetics company [[L'Oréal]]. Before that sale was complete, Westinghouse shuttered the film studio on February 3, 1989, which left L'Oréal with only the Filmation library.<ref name=bc/> This happened a day before the [[Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988|WARN Act]] went into effect requiring companies to give employees 60 days' notice before a mass layoff.