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I understand that they wanted Shattner to read lines for a few of the episodes, and as a result, they sent an audio tape and scripts to him on the road... he recorded the lines for a few of the shows while sitting in an unused gasstation bathroom stall, just to get some privacy and to control the ambient noise... and he claims that if you listen to some of the cartoon, you can hear the reverb on his voice from the tile walls!
Talk about being produced on the cheap!
ClarkKent_DC said:
The Baron said:
Maybe they had trouble getting the rights to the music - I was listening to one of the commentary tracks for the McGann Doctor Who telemovie last night and they said they had to pay extra to use the Grainer theme.
Maybe they had no trouble getting the rights to the music, but didn't want to spend what it cost to get those rights. This is a Saturday morning animated TV show we're talking about; everything about those things was done on the cheap.
Fred and Daphnie weren't quite right because NOBODY could have hair that perfect!
By the way, I had heard that the original character designs for Scobby-Doo were done by Jack Kirby. Can anyone confirm this?
I dunno... it seems to me for most of the 60's, 70's & 80's, ALEX TOTH was the king of Hanna-Barbera character designs.
Which made it quite a surprise when I found out Toth designed Thundarr The Barbarian, Ookla The Mok, and Princess Ariel. (On THUNDARR, Jack Kirby designed EVERYTHING ELSE!!!) Did Toth have a falling-out with H-B that week?
I keep trying to picture how SPACE GHOST might have been if Jack Kirby had worked on it instead of Toth...! (But then try imagining Kirby on LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES instead of John Forte.)
Shatner delivering his lines in a rest-stop toilet supplied my laugh of the day.
Cheers. :-)
THUNDARR was Ruby-Spears, not Hanna-Barbera.
That's what I mean. Toth worked for HB. What was he doing designing characters for RS ??? (That's why I asked, did he have a falling-out with them for a week or so?)
Ruby and Spears had previously worked at H-B.
I've sung the praises of ST:TAS before. I even took a poll on Ye Olde Boarde concerning whether or not it was deemed in continuity. (It was.) As far as it being the best Saturday morning cartoon on the air at the time, believe me, it was. I was there. At least it didn't preach at kids the way virtually all other cartoons of the era did. Kids hate to be preached at. Then the show was supposedly deemed "too cerebral." The show itself and the Alan Dean Foster Star Trek Log adaptations complement each other nicely.
Regarding the voicing, a big problem is that the actors were gernerally not in the same studio at the same time. Their respective lines were recorded separately, then spliced together later, which is why the performances are so stilted. The parents of the kid who voiced young Spock in "Yesteryear" got ahold of the script, recorded their son reading the lines, and sent it in as an audition tape. He was hired, but instead of re-recording the lines in a professional sound studio, they simply used the audition tape.
Regarding the limited animation style, note how often, for example, one or another character holds the comunicator directly in front of his mouth while using it. That was a trick so they didn't have to animate the mouth and synch it up to the actors' delivery of the lines.
"Ruby and Spears had previously worked at H-B."
I guess Alex Toth was moonlighting when he did that job.
Where can I go to watch these annimated series adventures/voyages?
I was in college at this time or certainly in High School and not watching saturday morning cartoons.
I read they're on DVD now.
Yes, Star Trek the Animated Series is on DVD. I know because I have it! :-)