Watching The Animated Series For The First Time

[TRON JA307020]

The TOS animated series was in rerun occasionally when I was a kid. Maybe once or twice. I saw bits and pieces and don't recall watching a full episode and never seen most of them. I started watching them this last week. I have to say I really Ike it. The first episode Beyond the Farthest Star is probably my favorite so far because of the unique alien space craft that was in it. A craft that could never have been seen in the live series for its size and complexity. Truly a very entertaining show. Anyone else decided to try the show out after not wanting to watch it initially and found they really liked it?

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I wasn’t keen on it as a concept, but when I actually settled down to watch it, I found it very rewarding. When it’s bad, it’s real bad, but when it’s good it’s real good… with a lot of ‘bleh’ between those two extremes.

So, it’s a typical Star Trek show in that regard at least. Surprised you’ve never watched it given how long you’ve been a fan!

 

[TRON JA307020]

I wasn’t keen on it as a concept, but when I actually settled down to watch it, I found it very rewarding. When it’s bad, it’s real bad, but when it’s good it’s real good… with a lot of ‘bleh’ between those two extremes.

So, it’s a typical Star Trek show in that regard at least. Surprised you’ve never watched it given how long you’ve been a fan!

I watched it a little but was so young I dont remember much and in my teen years rarely caught it. I should pribably have watched it all long ago. They also never ran them much back in the old days. One episide I remember seeing years ago when I was a teenager was the one when Spock turned into a giant. I think it was one of the few I saw fully. I didn't like it a whole lot. So I'm guessing it's one of the bad ones. Who knows when I see it with adult eyes I might like that episode this time around. There are more episodes than I thought. Not sure why I always thought it was only 1 season long. Lol

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I watched it a little but was so young I dont remember much and in my teen years rarely caught it. I should pribably have watched it all long ago. They also never ran them much back in the old days. One episide I remember seeing years ago when I was a teenager was the one when Spock turned into a giant. I think it was one of the few I saw fully. I didn't like it a whole lot. So I'm guessing it's one of the bad ones. Who knows when I see it with adult eyes I might like that episode this time around. There are more episodes than I thought. Not sure why I always thought it was only 1 season long. Lol

No spoilers, but I think the episode you are talking about will be a pleasant surprise for you.

Not telling you which one, but it’s a nice one.

 

[Warp Core Breach]

Hmm, because I'm old I saw these first run on Saturday mornings as a kid. Then I think in the 90s it was on Nickelodeon for awhile but I hadn't really seen it in full until recently. It's not bad for the most part, some interesting stories, some duds. But it's not much of a time investment so I fully recommend watching it.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Hmm, because I'm old I saw these first run on Saturday mornings as a kid. Then I think in the 90s it was on Nickelodeon for awhile but I hadn't really seen it in full until recently. It's not bad for the most part, some interesting stories, some duds. But it's not much of a time investment so I fully recommend watching it.

Ah yeah they did not rerun it much at all. It was so hard to find on tv after its original airing. I've only finished the first 3 episodes. Im taking my time with it since they seem new to me and have the original casts voices. I'm really starting to see this show as a underrated and under appreciated gem. I hope a lot of Trek fans who haven't seen it check it out. I even like the primitive animation. It's detailed enough to tell the story but not chaotic like a lot of animation today is.

 

[Warp Core Breach]

Ah yeah they did not rerun it much at all. It was so had to find on tv after its original airing. I've only finished the first 3 episodes. Im taking my time with it since they seem new to me and have the original casts voices. I'm really starting to see this show as a underrated and under appreciated gem. I hope a lot of Trek fans who haven't seen it check it out. I even like the primitive animation. It's detailed enough to tell the story but not chaotic like a lot of animation today is.

Heh, the animation is indeed clunky and it even seemed that way back in 1973! But it's pretty easy to overlook.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Heh, the animation is indeed clunky and it even seemed that way back in 1973! But it's pretty easy to overlook.

Lol. Exactly. I honestly focus more on the story since the animation is pretty static. Also the animation while primitive even for 1973 seems to work for it because some eps of TOS didn't have a of effects and took place mostly on the bridge and some of these remind me of that. I haven seen all the eps yet so maybe I'll change my mind later.

 

[The Wormhole]

I didn't get around to watching TAS until I was in my twenties mainly because I had no convenient way to watch it until the DVD set was released. I quite enjoyed it, though I don't have much opportunity to rewatch it often. I've watched scattered episodes here and there over the years but have only done two complete watches all the way through from beginning to finish.

 

[Christopher]

Heh, the animation is indeed clunky and it even seemed that way back in 1973!

As someone who was there at the time, I disagree. I always preferred Filmation's limited animation to Hanna-Barbera's. H-B had more movement and fewer recycled poses and shots, but the artwork was much sloppier and more error-laden. Filmation's art was more static, but that gave them the time to put more work into making it look good. Filmation shows had the best background paintings in the business.

That said, though, TAS's first season was not up to Filmation's best standards, since it was produced under a severe time crunch. They had more time for the final 6 episodes (i.e. season 2), so those are higher-quality overall.

 

[I am not Herbert]

I think one's enjoyment depends on managing expectations. Some commentators have stated that they find it to be of comparable quality to the original series and consider it effectively a fourth season. No one would like that to be true more than I, but I think if you go into it with that expectation, you will be disappointed. By contrast, I watched them for the first time last year (despite being a TOS fan for 35+ years) expecting little more than a talking star trek lunchbox and was pleasantly surprised. It is far more enjoyable, for an adult in 2024, than a low-budget saturday morning cartoon from 1973 has any right to be. But like I said, it is best enjoyed as its own thing, with its own inherent limitations and charming eccentricities.

 

[TRON JA307020]

I think one's enjoyment depends on managing expectations. Some commentators have stated that they find it to be of comparable quality to the original series and consider it effectively a fourth season. No one would like that to be true more than I, but I think if you go into it with that expectation, you will be disappointed. By contrast, I watched them for the first time last year (despite being a TOS fan for 35+ years) expecting little more than a talking star trek lunchbox and was pleasantly surprised. It is far more enjoyable, for an adult in 2024, than a low-budget saturday morning cartoon from 1973 has any right to be. But like I said, it is best enjoyed as its own thing, with its own inherent limitations and charming eccentricities.

It's so far definitely been enjoyable. They got good writers(i.e DC Fontana) for some of the episodes.

 

[BillJ]

Incredibly solid show, that doesn't get its due from fandom.

 

[Christopher]

It's so far definitely been enjoyable. They got good writers(i.e DC Fontana) for some of the episodes.

Fontana was the story editor, which in animation essentially means the showrunner. Roddenberry was given total creative control in his contract, more than he ever had on TOS or TNG, but he chose to leave the show in Fontana's hands. But then, a decade and a half later, he hypocritically started denouncing TAS as "not canon" because he didn't make it himself. Which I suspect was part of his strategy to devalue Fontana's work so that he could cheat her out of her rightful co-creator credit for TNG (since she wrote the bulk of the pilot script, which generally gets you a creator credit by default).

Anyway, if I'm not mistaken, TAS benefitted from the fact that there was a Writers' Guild of America strike at the time. Animation writing is under a different union that wasn't striking, so a lot of live-action writers needed work, and Fontana was able to bring in a number of TOS veterans to write for TAS.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Fontana was the story editor, which in animation essentially means the showrunner. Roddenberry was given total creative control in his contract, more than he ever had on TOS or TNG, but he chose to leave the show in Fontana's hands. But then, a decade and a half later, he hypocritically started denouncing TAS as "not canon" because he didn't make it himself. Which I suspect was part of his strategy to devalue Fontana's work so that he could cheat her out of her rightful co-creator credit for TNG (since she wrote the bulk of the pilot script, which generally gets you a creator credit by default).

Anyway, if I'm not mistaken, TAS benefitted from the fact that there was a Writers' Guild of America strike at the time. Animation writing is under a different union that wasn't striking, so a lot of live-action writers needed work, and Fontana was able to bring in a number of TOS veterans to write for TAS.

Yeah Roddenberry unfortunately was like thst with his writers. I did read somewhere about the writers strike and TAS getting a windfall of talent at the time. Glad it happened. If it didn't we might have got something along the lines of the animated Gilligan's planet. Lol

 

[Christopher]

If it didn't we might have got something along the lines of the animated Gilligan's planet. Lol

No, even without that windfall, Roddenberry and Filmation would still have been committed to making TAS an adult-oriented show and a legitimate continuation of TOS. That's why Roddenberry went with Filmation, because they were the only animation studio that wanted to do it authentically instead of kiddifying it with teen mascots and cute animal/robot/alien sidekicks. (There was an early Filmation proposal for a show focusing on teen cadets that the TOS cast mentored, but that was years earlier while TOS was still in production, so it would've been a complement to it instead of a revival/continuation.) Even without freelance writers like Samuel A. Peeples, Stephen Kandel, David P. Harmon, Paul Schneider, and David Gerrold, they still would've had Fontana, producers Lou Scheimer & Norm Prescott, and director Hal Sutherland as the core of the creative team. So it wouldn't have been that different.

After all, TAS did have a number of episodes written by animation writers as well, such as Len Janson & Chuck Menville, who wrote for many Filmation shows, and David Wise, who would go on to develop the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series in the '80s. They adjusted their writing style to fit the tone and approach of TAS, as writers normally do.

And if you look at Filmation's overall body of work, their adaptations were often quite faithful. Sure, they did go the route of kiddified stories and cute animal sidekicks with their sitcom adaptations like The Brady Kids and My Favorite Martians, but their action-adventure adaptations tended to be pretty authentic. Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle, for instance, was one of the very few Tarzan screen productions up to that point that was faithful to the original novels, portrayed Tarzan as an educated, well-spoken man instead of a grunting primitive, and used Burroughs's characters and mythology, with the only real change being the toned-down violence (and possibly an update to the modern era, though I don't quite recall if that was the case). The first season of their Flash Gordon was extremely faithful to the original Alex Raymond comics and was made in the format of the '30s movie serials, although the second season was dumbed down and made more kid-friendly under network pressure.

 

[mb22]

No, even without that windfall, Roddenberry and Filmation would still have been committed to making TAS an adult-oriented show and a legitimate continuation of TOS. That's why Roddenberry went with Filmation, because they were the only animation studio that wanted to do it authentically instead of kiddifying it with teen mascots and cute animal/robot/alien sidekicks. (There was an early Filmation proposal for a show focusing on teen cadets that the TOS cast mentored, but that was years earlier while TOS was still in production, so it would've been a complement to it instead of a revival/continuation.) Even without freelance writers like Samuel A. Peeples, Stephen Kandel, David P. Harmon, Paul Schneider, and David Gerrold, they still would've had Fontana, producers Lou Scheimer & Norm Prescott, and director Hal Sutherland as the core of the creative team. So it wouldn't have been that different.

After all, TAS did have a number of episodes written by animation writers as well, such as Len Janson & Chuck Menville, who wrote for many Filmation shows, and David Wise, who would go on to develop the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series in the '80s. They adjusted their writing style to fit the tone and approach of TAS, as writers normally do.

And if you look at Filmation's overall body of work, their adaptations were often quite faithful. Sure, they did go the route of kiddified stories and cute animal sidekicks with their sitcom adaptations like The Brady Kids and My Favorite Martians, but their action-adventure adaptations tended to be pretty authentic. Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle, for instance, was one of the very few Tarzan screen productions up to that point that was faithful to the original novels, portrayed Tarzan as an educated, well-spoken man instead of a grunting primitive, and used Burroughs's characters and mythology, with the only real change being the toned-down violence (and possibly an update to the modern era, though I don't quite recall if that was the case). The first season of their Flash Gordon was extremely faithful to the original Alex Raymond comics and was made in the format of the '30s movie serials, although the second season was dumbed down and made more kid-friendly under network pressure.

"Teen mascots and cute animal/robot/alien sidekicks". Wouldn't teen sidekicks and cute animal/robot/alien mascots be more likely?

 

[TRON JA307020]

No, even without that windfall, Roddenberry and Filmation would still have been committed to making TAS an adult-oriented show and a legitimate continuation of TOS. That's why Roddenberry went with Filmation, because they were the only animation studio that wanted to do it authentically instead of kiddifying it with teen mascots and cute animal/robot/alien sidekicks. (There was an early Filmation proposal for a show focusing on teen cadets that the TOS cast mentored, but that was years earlier while TOS was still in production, so it would've been a complement to it instead of a revival/continuation.) Even without freelance writers like Samuel A. Peeples, Stephen Kandel, David P. Harmon, Paul Schneider, and David Gerrold, they still would've had Fontana, producers Lou Scheimer & Norm Prescott, and director Hal Sutherland as the core of the creative team. So it wouldn't have been that different.

After all, TAS did have a number of episodes written by animation writers as well, such as Len Janson & Chuck Menville, who wrote for many Filmation shows, and David Wise, who would go on to develop the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series in the '80s. They adjusted their writing style to fit the tone and approach of TAS, as writers normally do.

And if you look at Filmation's overall body of work, their adaptations were often quite faithful. Sure, they did go the route of kiddified stories and cute animal sidekicks with their sitcom adaptations like The Brady Kids and My Favorite Martians, but their action-adventure adaptations tended to be pretty authentic. Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle, for instance, was one of the very few Tarzan screen productions up to that point that was faithful to the original novels, portrayed Tarzan as an educated, well-spoken man instead of a grunting primitive, and used Burroughs's characters and mythology, with the only real change being the toned-down violence (and possibly an update to the modern era, though I don't quite recall if that was the case). The first season of their Flash Gordon was extremely faithful to the original Alex Raymond comics and was made in the format of the '30s movie serials, although the second season was dumbed down and made more kid-friendly under network pressure.

Oh their quality was good even the stuff more for kids. You're right about their action shows..most I've never seen but I know of them I did see sine of the flash episodes in rerun as a kid and you're right the first season was very good.

 

[Christopher]

I did see sine of the flash episodes in rerun as a kid and you're right the first season was very good.

The episodes of Flash Gordon season 1 were recut from an even better, older-skewing TV movie, with some striking stuff that wasn't used in the show, like an opening set in WWII during a bombing raid and a subplot that Ming the Merciless was colluding with Hitler. For the show, they cut out the more mature stuff, opened in medias res, and expanded the storyline of the movie with a series of episodic adventures in the middle, as well as recasting most of the voices and reanimating the main characters in standardized costumes rather than the changing and occasionally rather skimpy costumes of the movie (since movie sequences were rearranged and reused at times, so consistent costumes helped maintain continuity). The fact that so much of its animation was made with a movie budget is why the show looks so good compared to Filmation's usual work.

The tragedy is that, because Dino DeLaurentiis held the movie rights to Flash Gordon, Filmation was only allowed to air their movie once in 1982, three years after it was made, and it was never released on home video domestically. So it was hardly ever seen, even though it was a vastly better Flash Gordon movie than DeLaurentiis's was. Fortunately there were overseas releases, including a Japanese one that's available on YouTube (with the original English soundtrack).

 

[Relayer1]

I loved Alan Dean Foster did with the novelisations. I've never watched all of the show.