Editing Filmation (section)

== Production ==
=== Animation style ===
Like other producers of [[Saturday-morning cartoon]]s, Filmation was more concerned with quantity rather than quality; however, it did make a number of attempts to rise above the standard animated fare and produce reasonably well-written cartoons. The best-known example of this is its animated adaptation ''[[Star Trek: The Animated Series]]'', which included scripts contributed by well-known [[science fiction]] writers and starred most of the original cast.<ref name="pt730614"/> Other favorably remembered Filmation series included a 16-part animated [[Serial (radio and television)|serial]] of ''[[Flash Gordon]]'', originally intended as a movie for theatrical release, ''[[Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All]]''. The original film edit was only aired three times on [[NBC]], years after the series was cancelled. ''[[Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids]]'' was another hailed series created by and starring [[Bill Cosby]] with an explicit educational focus.<ref name="fls750512"/> ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'', based on the popular line of [[Mattel]] toys, opened up a new North American market for first-run [[television syndication]] for animation in the 1980s. The animated adaptations of the [[Archie Comics]] characters were also noteworthy for the original [[pop music]] produced for it, particularly the song "[[Sugar, Sugar]]", which was a No. 1 hit single.<ref>{{cite news|title= Production Is Less Animated at Filmation Studio |newspaper= Los Angeles Times|date=January 1, 1988|url= https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-01-01-ca-8278-story.html|access-date=2010-08-24 | first=Charles | last=Solomon}}</ref>

In addition, certain episodes of ''He-Man'' and ''[[BraveStarr]]'', in substance, and often animation, were pioneers in children's animated series of their time and paved the way for broader storytelling. Examples include He-Man's "The Problem with Power" which dealt with He-Man believing he had killed an innocent bystander. Another is "Teela's Quest" which introduced a now-famous mythology on the Sorceress being Teela's mother, who is thus the heir to the mantle of safeguarding Grayskull, the versed continuity shared between He-Man and She-Ra, among others. Other notable examples include the ''BraveStarr'' episode "The Price", which includes the death of a character due to drug addiction. The 1985 ''Fat Albert'' episode "Busted" was a direct homage to the primetime ''[[Scared Straight!]]'' specials. A first for American children's cartoons, the original airing of this episode included mild profanity that has, however, been edited out of re-airings and home video versions. Likewise, the scripts for ''Star Trek'', which were often written by the same people who had written for the live-action version of the series, tended to be quite sophisticated, and garnered the first [[Emmy Award]] for the franchise.<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000206/1975/1 Daytime Emmy Awards (1975)] IMDb.</ref>

==== Quality ====
Filmation had a reputation for exploiting the technique of [[limited animation]] to produce a number of [[animated series]] with a distinct look. This technique involved limiting of the number of [[Frame rate|frames per second]] (fps) to fewer than the standard 24 fps seen on film or 25/30 fps seen on video. Frames would be repeated to compensate for the deficiency, resulting in a "jerky" motion. Filmation also made heavy use of [[rotoscoping]] in later years (beginning with its ''[[Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle|Tarzan]]'' and ''[[The New Adventures of Flash Gordon|Flash Gordon]]'' series). It also re-used the same animated sequences over and over, many times, to the point where the Filmation style was instantly recognizable. One example of this can be seen in She-Ra's and He-Man's transformation sequences.

This frequent use of stock footage saved production money, but often resulted in sacrifice of continuity. This was countered by cutting from one stock shot to another after only a second or two, long enough to set the scene but before the eye could notice all of the unexplained errors. This became part of the Filmation style during a period when most television and motion picture productions tended to run minimum shots of 4–5 seconds.

In contrast to the rapid [[jump cut]]s during action sequences, another Filmation trademark was the recurring use of long establishing shots in which the camera would pan slowly across a very wide background painting, thus filling up [[screen time]] with sequences requiring little or no animation. Filmation also pioneered other animation technologies, particularly in ''Flash Gordon'', which included backlighting effects for the first time in American animation (they were already in use in Japan), including [[moire]] effects to represent energy fields (a technique that was later used in ''He-Man'' and in ''She-Ra''). It also pioneered a unique method of generating 3-D vehicle animation by filming white-outlined black miniatures against black backgrounds using a computerized motion-control camera and high-contrast film, then printing the negatives onto acetate frame-by-frame, to create animation cels which were then hand-painted. This produced a three-dimensional effect that had been used by Disney in films such as ''[[One Hundred and One Dalmatians]]'' previously. It predated the modern use of 3-D [[computer animation]] for vehicles in 2-D animated productions. However, it had a distinctive "flicker" to it, because some of the painted lines went in and out of visibility as the miniatures moved.

Unlike many American studios, Filmation never relied on animation studios outside the United States for the bulk of its production; ''[[Ghostbusters (1986 TV series)|Ghostbusters]]'' and ''BraveStarr'' both state in the ending credits that they were "made entirely in the U.S.A." This occurred during a time when rival studio Hanna-Barbera shifted from saying in the final production credits (immediately before the production logo appearances) "A Hanna-Barbera Production" to "Produced in Association with: [[Wang Film Productions]] / Cuckoo's Nest Studios" which is located in [[Taiwan]] (along with H-B's own [[Philippines]]-based Fil-Cartoons). The quality of Filmation's "Made Entirely in the U.S.A." strategy was comparable to the outsourced animation. Filmation did, however, rely on outsourcing once, when the company created its animated ''[[The New Adventures of Zorro (1981 TV series)|Zorro]]'' series. It was animated by [[Tokyo Movie Shinsha]] of Japan; however, the storyboards and graphics were made by Filmation itself.

Filmation is also noteworthy for its background paintings under the direction of long-time department head Erv Kaplan, such as the purple-colored "night sky" backgrounds used in ''He-Man'' and ''She-Ra''.<ref>{{cite news|title=Cartoon factory Filmation is under orders to cut costs, and a plan to shift some of its production overseas has alienated workers. |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=August 25, 1987 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-08-25-fi-3946-story.html |access-date=2010-08-24 |first=James |last=Bates}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Color Cartoon Maker Blue Over Westinghouse Order to Cut Costs |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=August 25, 1987 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-08-25-fi-4050-story.html |access-date=2010-08-24 |first=James |last=Bates}}</ref>

Characters, as well as plots, were typically run-of-the-mill for the time. For example, most episodes of ''Ghostbusters'' had the same scheme (bad guys develop an evil plan, the heroes are needed but always absent, Ghost Buggy the talking car complains about their dangerous position, Tracy the Gorilla pulls out of his back pack exactly the miscellaneous item the Ghostbuster needs in a moment of despair, Eddie doing a number of clumsy/stupid things, etc.); although as previously mentioned, Filmation made various attempts to rise above the norm. Many of the sound effects used in its cartoons are also very familiar, the majority of them being recycled from Hanna-Barbera (this was, and still is, a common trait among animation companies, though Filmation's copies of the Hanna-Barbera sound effects were of a distinctively lower quality), though the company's [[DC Comics]] cartoons of 1966–67 used more realistic sound effects.

Filmation received particular criticism for ''[[Lassie's Rescue Rangers]]'', an animated continuation of the long-running live-action series ''[[Lassie (1954 TV series)|Lassie]]''. Lassie's co-creator and trainer, [[Rudd Weatherwax]], said of the show: "That's not Lassie. That's trash." It drew a rare denunciation from the [[National Association of Broadcasters]], which accused Filmation of corrupting the ''Lassie'' franchise with "violence, crime and stupidity."<ref name=Erickson>{{cite book |last1=Erickson |first1=Hal |title=Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 |date=2005 |edition=2nd |publisher=McFarland & Co |isbn=978-1476665993 |pages=487–488}}</ref>

=== Trademarks ===
A trademark of the company's productions, beginning in 1969, was a rotating, circular "Produced by" (and on some series, "Executive Producers") credit seen in the ending credits (and in later productions, the opening sequences) of Filmation programs, as a device that was supposedly created to allow Prescott and Scheimer to share equal billing. Previously, Scheimer's name had been placed above Prescott's. However, the later Filmation productions credited only Scheimer, in the form of his signature ("Lou Scheimer, (Executive) Producer"), starting with ''[[Gilligan's Planet]]'' (1982).

Many of its series—particularly the productions of the late 1970s and 1980s—are notable for imparting a simple moral or life-lesson (explained by a key character, in a child-friendly manner) in the epilogue.

=== Original characters ===
The studio created very few original animated characters. Two examples were [[Fraidy Cat (TV series)|Fraidy Cat]], a timid feline who has lost eight of his nine lives, which come back to haunt him; and Wacky and Packy, a caveman and his pet mammoth (Packy refers to the latter character being a "pachyderm") who enter the modern age through a time warp. Both of these originally aired as segments of the ''[[Uncle Croc's Block]]'' series on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] (hosted by [[Charles Nelson Reilly]]). In a period where comedy in cartoons was heavily scrutinized for violence<ref>{{cite web| first= William |last= Richter |title= Action for Children's Television|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20021016074041/http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/actionforch/actionforch.htm| archive-date= October 16, 2002| url= https://museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/actionforch/actionforch.htm| website= museum.tv| publisher= Museum of Broadcast Communications| access-date= June 9, 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Hollis|first1=Tim|title=Hi there, boys and girls! : America's local children's TV shows|date=2001|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|location=Jackson|isbn=1578063965|page=20}}</ref> and many shows duplicated the popular ''[[Scooby-Doo]]'' format,<ref name="Burke and Burke-p105-119">{{Cite book |title=Saturday Morning Fever |author=Burke, Timothy |date=1999 |publisher=St. Martin's Griffin |isbn=0312169965 |edition=1st St. Martin's Griffin |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/saturdaymorningf00burk/page/105 105–119] |oclc=38832996 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/saturdaymorningf00burk/page/105 }}</ref> Filmation's strong point was its adaptations of popular television series, movies and other works, although at least one series, ''M*U*S*H'' (the first animated segment on ''Uncle Croc's Block''), while not a direct adaptation, was inspired by the film (and later [[M*A*S*H (TV series)|TV series]]) ''[[M*A*S*H]]''. ''M*U*S*H'' is an acronym for Mangy Unwanted Shabby Heroes since all the character were dogs stationed in the [[Arctic]].