TV's Saturday Morning Cartoon Legacy: The Archie Show & Filmation Studios

As we continue our tribute to 1960's television cartoon programming, pop music related cartoons had begun to take hold... The Beatles from 1965 to 1967 (with reruns after), and then The Archie Show debuted September 14, 1968 on CBS.

Filmation Studios was the team behind the production of The Archie Show, and one of its producers Lou Scheimer, is interviewed in this video clip from the outstanding DVD set of The Archie TV series (available on Amazon).

Filmation studios began in 1962, with Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland and Norm Prescott as founders. Scheimer and Sutherland had met earlier at a smaller studio called True Line, and was doing work for a larger Japanese company called SIB. Paramount Studios purchased SIB, and Schmeimer and Sutherland were teamed with Norm Preston, and Filmation was founded soon after.

As with any start-up company, the early days of Filmation were often touch-n-go... projects being started but never quite getting the full studio support that had been anticipated, so higher end projects were put on indefinite hold. However, these setbacks also helped guide Filmation more towards smaller television work, and it was with television that Filmation would become a giant in children's programming.

The big break for the tiny Filmation studio came in 1966, when DC Comics approached the Filmation team to produce an animated version of Superman. Batman soon followed, and then Aquaman and Filmation was on their way to big time success.

"If it flew around and had a cape, we had done some version of it."

In fact, as we'll learn more in the following video clip interviews with Mr. Scheimer, Filmation became a key and critical animation studio in the transition of children's Saturday morning television of the mid 1960s towards a 'kinder-and-gentler' Saturday morning of the 1970s.

More later today and this weekend on Filmation, and The Archie Show in particular. We'll also get a chance to hear Lou Scheimer's view of what was happening to children's programing in the late 1960s and how Filmation tried to react and transition to the changes the FCC and ACT were trying to implement.

Enjoy !

This video clip is presented here on YouTube for the entertainment and informational value of the viewer, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Видео TV's Saturday Morning Cartoon Legacy: The Archie Show & Filmation Studios канала TelevisionVanguard