Anyone Remember this Disney Afternoon Series

[Dingo]

The studio itself was deeply imitative and bereft of fresh ideas, but it made up for that by hiring some of the best people around to make their shows. So when they wanted to copy B:TAS, they went to the source and brought over some of B:TAS's own people, including writer/story editor Michael Reaves, director Frank Paur, and composer Carl Johnson. Plus they lucked out with showrunner Greg Weisman, the main person responsible for developing the show's rich mythos and storylines. They're the people who made the show work despite its origins.

No arguement there. Yes, Disney of the '80s and '90s tended to make shows that were effectively uncredited imitations of other productions, but I still thought they were entertaining productions.

BTW Greg Weisman was also on the production team for Bonkers, he wrote the 19 Miranda era episodes which survived to air. The reason more of them didn't was because of shoddy animation quality.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

The studio itself was deeply imitative and bereft of fresh ideas

I wouldn't call Kim Possible, Fillmore!, Recess, The Proud Family, or The Weekenders as well as American Dragon: Jake Long stale ideas; those were the best cartoons Disney did in the last few years.

 

[Christopher]

^That's why I said "was," not "is." The topic of the discussion is the Disney Afternoon era of the 1980s and 1990s.

 

[CaptainCanada]

TaleSpin certainly drew inspiration from the earlier show, but I wouldn't call it deeply imitative; they took the sketch places the original show could never have gone, even at the conceptual level (being animated of course was a huge factor there).

Actually, they did that with quite a lot of their shows (Gummi Bears constructed an elaborate mythology around a brand of bear-shaped candy).

 

[Christopher]

^Still, at least with Gummi Bears, they admitted they were using someone else's concept. If there'd been something in the TaleSpin credits saying that it was inspired by a Donald Bellisario series, then I'd have no problem with it exactly as it was. Borrowing is fine if you admit the thing you borrowed isn't actually ours. If you don't, it becomes stealing.

 

[CaptainCanada]

You don't need to explicitly say it's an homage for it to be one (certainly, they kept plenty of details they could have changed (name of the plane, name of the bar, etc.) if all they were doing was "stealing").

 

[Dingo]

^Still, at least with Gummi Bears, they admitted they were using someone else's concept. If there'd been something in the TaleSpin credits saying that it was inspired by a Donald Bellisario series, then I'd have no problem with it exactly as it was. Borrowing is fine if you admit the thing you borrowed isn't actually ours. If you don't, it becomes stealing.

I'm sure lawyers can debate that point for years and years.