#marvel productions

[chernobog13]

The Defenders of the Earth - Lothar, Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon, and The Phantom - by Rafael Kayanan.

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[dorothydalmati1]

Obscure Animation Subject #159: Biker Mice from Mars

Here we have a cult series created by Rick Ungar, president of a company by the name of Marvel Productions, formerly known as DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, which was founded by former Warner Bros. Cartoons employees in May 1963. Marvel was renamed to New World Animation, and shuttered in 1996, folded by Saban Entertainment. Anyways, this is Biker Mice from Mars, an animated superhero comedy that was produced by Marvel and aired on syndication for three seasons and 65 episodes from September 19, 1993 to February 24, 1996. Frank Ward developed the series while animator Tom Tataranowicz served as chief director.

The series follows three anthropomorphic mice motorcyclists named Throttle, Modo, and Vinnie who escape a war on their home planet Mars before arriving to rebel on the Earth against the species that destroyed their homeland (the Plutarkians) and to one day return to Mars. The mice's signature weapons consist of a cestus and a laser pistol (Throttle), a bionic arm with built-in laser blaster (Modo), and flares (Vinnie). Despite the frequent battles, no blood is shown, and many villains are monsters, aliens, and robots.

Although the series was successful, the series didn’t get renewed as most animated series had to stick with a 65-episode rule, leaving the series to end on a cliffhanger. However, high demand resulted in the series to get revived in 2006 by Fox and 4Kids, which aired for 28 episodes from August 26, 2006 to September 26, 2009, now produced by Brentwood. Rick Ungar and Tom Tataranowicz returned for the revival. The revival gave a proper closure to the series.

Although the series was given the closure it needed, Ryan Reynolds had announced developing a reboot of the series in 2023, given that any popular IP can just get revived rather than have new original ideas nowadays. The original show and the revival is enough for this series but oh well.

I personally have never seen this show before, I had only heard about though various articles online. However, I can tell it was given cult status for one reason or another so hopefully I may check it out one day. Who knows…

[acmeoop]

Animated Muppets “Little Muppet Monsters” (1985)

[demifiendrsa]

The Transformers animated series first aired in the U.S on September 17, 1984. Happy 40th anniversary!

[chatretr0]

Transformers The Movie Deleted Scene

[kirbyfigure]

[serapiocalm]

🧡 Brutha! I thought the world of you. I thought we were going to fight side-by-side forever!

[shadowwingtronix]

Saturday Night Showcase> Pryde Of The X-Men

BW Media Spotlight's Saturday Night Showcase> Pryde Of The X-Men

While everyone’s talking about the revival of the 1997 Fox Kids X-Men cartoon, which isn’t doing well in the ratings after Disney+ and Marvel Studios chased off so many Marvel comic fans from the platform there aren’t enough left of the nostalgic to watch, it was not the first attempt at an X-Men cartoon. In the 1980s, Marvel Productions wanted to build off their success with Spider-Man and the…

[thecastingcircle]

Concept art from "The Making Of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves book."

Sheila the Thief

Hank the Ranger

Presto the Magician

Eric the Cavalier

Diana the Acrobat

[dalt20]

Tooning In 17 Douglas Booth part 2 of 7

DL:Yeah! So can you tell me a little bit about Glenn Leopard like you did with Jeffrey Scott?

DB:Leopard? Hahaha! Leopold! We had fun writing scripts together - I'd never worked with a writing partner before, but we would just tell each other stories and do our bad voice-actor impressions of the characters - and keep going - telling each other which ideas we liked and which we thought were terrible, trying to make each other laugh - and then writing it down - taking turns with that - and coming up with what we would usually feel was a brilliant script! Glenn had been a rock 'n roller prior to coming to H-B - his band was called "Gun Hill Road" (after a street in the Bronx) - and they had a nice run before he moved over to cartoons! He was very quick with ideas, jokes, and irrelevant asides, and we both got very good at throwing pushpins across the length of the office, to stick in our bulletin board - which may have been our most notable achievement!

DL:Leopard,I was thinking of Leopold! With his last name, who can't make a mistake like that?

DB:But of course! Leopold the Leopard - could have been an H-B cartoon!

DL:Haha! i know right! He was pure HB material as he stayed with the company until 2001! A true company man he was.

DB:Absolutely! His wife, as I remember, was the head of the ink and paint department, as well.

DL:Wow! Really?

DB:Yup! Nice lady!

DL:Any stories on the two?

DB:Not that I remember, though I'm sure there are many!

DL:Well after he left Hanna Barbera, he started to write for a German company called BKN, you probably worked with them right? P.S. they're also known by Bohbot Entertainment.

DB:Hmmm... not sure. I believe I worked on shows that Allen Bohbot, the founder, was involved with, maybe through DIC (?) - but, in terms of the European spin-off, when I just googled all that, none of the shows they produced looked familiar - though I would have loved to have worked on a new version of Zorro!

DL:Yeah Glenn worked on it, you could’ve too!

DB:All they had to do was ask!

DL:If you were around in 2006. Besides, Glenn was one of your friends.

DB:Who knows? There are probably thousands of shows that "slipped through my fingers" - but I certainly enjoyed working on the ones that didn't!

DL:Yeah well back to your career, The Flintstones Comedy Show for NBC. You were the story editor.

DB:As I remember, I story-edited episodes of "The Bedrock Cops", which was one element of that show.

DL:Explain to me the concept of the segment.

DB:Hahaha! Fred and Barney were cops - sort of "Car 54, Where Are You" goofy law enforcement officials, only in prehistoric Bedrock - with fun and silly adventures - nothing approaching "real crime", but lots of slapstick comedy and fun.

DL:oh, well when i think of Fred and Barney I don't really think cops but ok.

DB:No - but it was essentially the two buddies having the kind of funny adventures you'd imagine they'd have... that is, if they were, in fact, good-natured cops!

DL:Oh so why in 1980, did you Hanna Barbera the first time?

DB:? I think you missed a word or two…

DL:Why and left.

DB:At the end of 1980, I took my two week vacation and flew to Cusco, Peru - then took the train to "Kilometer 88" which was the jumping off point for a 5 day backpacking hike in the mountains, ending up at Mac. oops - Machu Picchu - which was really, really fun! However, when I got back to the U.S., I only then found out that Andy Heyward and I were both "budget cuts" in the writing department - and were thus free to pursue our diverse destinies! I guess things were slow and they decided they needed to economize!

DL:Wow! So they favor Glenn and Jeff over you two,huh?

DB:Can you imagine? No accounting for taste! 🙂

DL:I can, so how was finding work while Andy was on his own odyssey in 1981

DB:I got to broaden my horizons! I gained a lot of experience and knowledge from my time at HB and got to reach out to other studios, etc. As I remember, my next major gig was at Filmation, working on HeMan and the Masters of the Universe, as well as doing some development work for them that never quite made it to the air.

DL:well on IMDb after The Flintstones Comedy Show, you worked on Spider Man for Marvel Productions and NBC.

DB:Right - not sure of the timing for all this. I did write an episode of one of the versions of Spider-Man (and, years later, for another version of that show) - this first one was the version that Dennis Marks story-edited, and was, I think, my only professional encounter with Stan Lee. As well as the plate glass coffee table in their lobby that I always managed to bang into when I was walking past!

DL:Lol, that's awesome. Can you tell me about that encounter with the "business man" Lee?

DB:All I remember is that he was very friendly and nice - I think Dennis was mainly running the meeting, but I did think it was cool that Stan was sitting in on it, "supervising"!

DL:Lol! Wait Dennis is from Hanna Barbera too!

DB:Yes - that's where I knew him from.

DL:Any stories on him?

DB:Not that I can think of. At HB I knew him as a comedy writer, so it was a surprise to find him running the Spider-Man show - but I think he and Stan really hit it off and collaborated on a number of projects (none of which I know anything about - lol)!

DL:He stayed at Marvel, until 1986 when he returned to the studio.

DB:Ah!

DL:so, if you can remember, would you like to talk about an episode of the 1981 Spider man series?

DB:Well - not much that I remember. Believe I wrote one episode, called "The Vulture has Landed" - featuring a superhero named... you guessed it - "The Vulture". Apart from being happy to be working on Spider-Man, that's about all I can remember! That and the plate glass coffee table banging my shins every time I went into the studio!

(Actually the comic book character, The Vulture is a villain not a superhero.)

DL:That gotta hurt!

DB:That's why I remember it so well!

DL:Your return to Hanna Barbera in 1982?

DB:I worked as a freelancer on a few different shows - not on staff.

DL:Oh! understand. How did it feel sending scripts to your former co-workers?

DB:Fine! That's pretty much the same way it worked in-house - the only difference is that my office was off-premises (with better access to a refrigerator)! We're all pretty much co-workers, as writers, with people changing roles and studios, but, many times, working with a familiar array of "the usual suspects".

DL:Oh! Wow!

DB:Although, of course, a lot more time needs to be spent "hustling" when one is working freelance!

DL:So about Spider Man, how do you write the web crawler?

DB:Well, we all know what he's like and what he does - at that point, from the comics - so the idea would be to start imagining oneself as Spidey and working to craft an adventure that would work for him, and then see how he would respond!

DL:Yeah, I mean everyone knows Spider Man right? So, you wrote an episode of The Little Rascals animated series. Rascal’s Revenge, process for the episode?

DB:Hahaha! I know I did - and I did like the original Little Rascals, back when I was a "little rascal" myself - but I don't remember anything about that episode at the moment!

DL:Oh ok, so did you watch the original shorts on television?

DB:Yes!

DL:You wrote the episode with Tedd Anatsi and Patsy Cameron. Who are those two?

DB:Hmmm. They were a writing team - maybe husband and wife? And... maybe they were the story-editors?

DL:Ah ok, do you have any memory of writing with them?

DB:No, I don't believe we co-wrote it - but, er, who knows? If that's what it says on IMDB, well, I believe it's incorrect - unless, say, either they had written the story and I was asked to write the script - or vice versa?

DL:Yeah probably fixed your script as story editors. Yeah probably fixed your script as story editors.

DB:Makes sense - though "fixed" depends upon the eye of the beholder - hahahaha!

DL:Haha! How was trying to make old 30s comedy shorts to appeal to 80s kids?

DB:Well, they certainly appealed to "50's kids" - so not too hard! A fun gang comedy - and the new version would have come with a bible, which would have done most of the heavy lifting for the transposition from the 30's to the 80's - so that's where the foundation would come from - and, from there - it would be "just like any other show" - where you read the bible and any scripts that are available, as well as remembering the feeling of fun from the originals - all of which would then allow you to start to "think like a Little Rascal" and start brainstorming stories and character action, while hanging out with "the gang" in your imagination and seeing what popped up!

DL:Very interesting! So The Smurfs for NBC and SEPP International.

DB:I think IMDB gave me too much credit for that show - as I remember, I wrote an episode for Smurfs and several for Johann and Peewee - which featured the Smurfs. I think Len Janson and Chuck Menville were the story-editors for The Smurfs, and Glenn Leopold was story-editor for Johann and Peewee, which I think were based on illustrated books by Peyo, the original creator.

DL:IMDb said that you wrote 39 episodes of the show in 1982!

DB:Whoa! Yeah, simply not true! Gasp - you mean IMDB isn't infallible? Oh well - mostly they're pretty good!

DL:Yeah, I know! Okay! So Monchichis for ABC, what was that?

DB:Hmmm. Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins were the story-editors. Fun, woodland fantasy creatures - I suspect there was a major comedic villain who wanted to do terrible things to them - and they had to figure out fun and imaginative ways to foil these nefarious plots! I know I wrote two episodes - and enjoyed doing it. One was called "Sky City'' - I think - which seems self-explanatory - but which is also a sort of a nod to the Native American city of Acoma (in New Mexico) - which also goes by the nickname of "Sky City", and is a cool place I've visited on several occasions. Bryce had been the guy in the accounting department at HB who used to walk around and give us our checks, but he was also a writer, and, as he was writing spec scripts, I seem to remember that Glenn and I used to give him notes! And then, he partnered with Dick Robbins, who was a veteran writer - and they became a great team - and, of course, went on to become the story-editors of the first couple of seasons of Transformers! Apart from all that, sorry, I don't remember much more about Monchichis - just that it was a good-natured and light-hearted fantasy/action/comedy that was fun to write.

DL:Ok. Well time for He Man! and you are working for Filmation.

DB:Right!

DL:He Man for Filmation and Syndication/Group W

DB:I was on staff there for a bit - my office was actually the coffee room - so I got to see most of the people on the floor!

DL:How was Lou Scheimer? The head honcho?

DB:I didn't have much contact with him - just "hi, how are you?" - the person who was in charge of the writers was Arthur Nadel.

DL:Tell me about Arthur Nadel. Robby London said he was a great guy.

DB:Yes, he was! Deadpan, but funny. He had a series of initials he'd use, to make comments on your script - like NSG (not so good) - DB (do better) - not sure what other ones, but there were a good many! The best moment I had in his office was when he was raking me over the coals for an outline which he thought was terrible - not letting me get a word in edgewise - until he was finished, and I (grinning broadly) - told him that I was not the writer of that episode! He thought that was pretty funny, as well!

DL:Once I remember he gave Robby London an A, and Robby thought it was a grade and Arthur had to break it to him saying it was just his signature. That he wrote that A to show that he read it.

DBThat's hilarious - and sounds totally in character!

[acmeoop]

Extra Arms Production Art “Morbius” (1995)

[xipe-slayground]

This cartoon was pretty rad. I dig the aesthetic. 🤙

[acmeoop]

60s - 80s Saturday Morning Programs

Saturday Morning TV Comic Book Advertising

[shesnake]

Spider-Verse Artists Say Working on the Sequel Was ‘Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts’

Why don’t more animated movies look this good? According to people who worked on the sequel, Across the Spider-Verse, it’s because the working conditions required to produce such artistry are not sustainable.

Multiple Across the Spider-Verse crew members — ranging from artists to production executives who have worked anywhere from five to a dozen years in the animation business — describe the process of making the the $150 million Sony project as uniquely arduous, involving a relentless kind of revisionism that compelled approximately 100 artists to flee the movie before its completion.

While frequent major overhauls are standard operating procedure in animation (Pixar films can take between four and seven years to plot, animate, and render), those changes typically occur early on during development and storyboarding stages. But these Spider-Verse 2 crew members say they were asked to make alterations to already-approved animated sequences that created a backlog of work across multiple late-stage departments. Across the Spider-Verse was meant to debut in theaters in April of 2022, before it was postponed to October of that year and then June 2023 owing to what Entertainment Weekly reported as “pandemic-related delays.” However, the four crew members say animators who were hired in the spring of 2021 sat idle for anywhere from three to six months that year while Phil Lord tinkered with the movie in the layout stage, when the first 3-D representation of storyboards are created.

As a result, these individuals say, they were pushed to work more than 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for more than a year to make up for time lost and were forced back to the drawing board as many as five times to revise work during the final rendering stage.

"For animated movies, the majority of the trial-and-error process happens during writing and storyboarding. Not with fully completed animation. Phil’s mentality was, This change makes for a better movie, so why aren’t we doing it? It’s obviously been very expensive having to redo the same shot several times over and have every department touch it so many times. The changes in the writing would go through storyboarding. Then it gets to layout, then animation, then final layout, which is adjusting cameras and placements of things in the environment. Then there’s cloth and hair effects, which have to repeatedly be redone anytime there’s an animation change. The effects department also passes over the characters with ink lines and does all the crazy stuff like explosions, smoke, and water. And they work closely with lighting and compositing on all the color and visual treatments in this movie. Every pass is plugged into editing. Smaller changes tend to start with animation, and big story changes can involve more departments like visual development, modeling, rigging, and texture painting. These are a lot of artists affected by one change. Imagine an endless stream of them."

"Over 100 people left the project because they couldn’t take it anymore. But a lot stayed on just so they could make sure their work survived until the end — because if it gets changed, it’s no longer yours. I know people who were on the project for over a year who left, and now they have little to show for it because everything was changed. They went through the hell of the production and then got none of their work coming out the other side."

[shadowwingtronix]

BW's Daily Video> Spider-Man Vs Drugs

BW's Daily Video> Spider-Man Vs Drugs

This is a companion to a previous post from the same series of PSA videos for schools. I posted the other one that’s been found discussing child abuse. There are two others I hope I get to see.