18 Facts About Filmation

Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live-action programming for television from 1963 until 1989.

Filmation had already been working on the animated feature Pinocchio in Outer Space which was primarily produced by Belvision Studios.

Filmation met lawyer Ira Epstein, who had worked for Harmon but had left the firm, and now put together the new corporation with Scheimer and Sutherland.

Filmation studio was purchased by the TelePrompTer Corporation in 1969.

The live-action series was, unlike most Filmation shows, shot on NTSC format tape, so even if those did come from PAL masters, they would not have exhibited 576i speedup, as that only applies to material sourced from film masters.

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Filmation cartoons have been widely syndicated, and many are available from video streaming services.

Filmation had a reputation for exploiting the technique of limited animation to produce a number of animated series with a distinct look.

In contrast to the rapid jump cuts during action sequences, another Filmation trademark was the recurring use of long establishing shots in which the camera would pan slowly across a very wide background painting, thus filling up screen time with sequences requiring little or no animation.

Filmation pioneered other animation technologies, particularly in Flash Gordon, which included backlighting effects for the first time in American animation, including moire effects to represent energy fields.

The quality of Filmation's "Made Entirely in the USA " strategy was comparable to the outsourced animation.

Filmation did rely on outsourcing once, when the company created its animated Zorro series.

Filmation is noteworthy for its background paintings under the direction of long-time department head Erv Kaplan, such as the purple-colored "night sky" backgrounds used in He-Man and She-Ra.

Filmation received particular criticism for Lassie's Rescue Rangers, an animated continuation of the long-running live-action series Lassie.

However, the later Filmation productions credited only Scheimer, in the form of his signature, starting with Gilligan's Planet.

Filmation produced a live-action series called The Ghost Busters starring former F Troop stars Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker, with noted science-fiction fan and collector Bob Burns as "Tracy the Gorilla".

Filmation capitalized on the popularity of the film by producing a new cartoon based on their earlier series.

Also that year, on October 22, Filmation is beginning to serve as representative for three animated films at the MIFED, in order to cleaning up unsold territories on various Filmation productions, which accordingly hit by a lawsuit from The Walt Disney Company back in 1985 in order to prevent making films that the company claims to be based on Disney classics.

Filmation routinely included a plug for its music publisher, Shermley Music, in the closing credits of most of its series.