American animation company, 1957-1987. The company was founded by animators
Lou Scheimer, and
Hal Sutherland. Later
Norm Prescott became a partner.
In the 1970's or 1980's, if you turned on the television Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, you probably saw a Filmation series. Two reasons: one was volume. They usually had three or more series running each season, and the second reason: they had the shows you wanted to watch. Filmation had cornered the market on live action series crossovers: Star Trek, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island.
If you paid attention, you noticed that the series were similar in many ways. Incidental music would be the same across series. (When Tarzan, in 1976, got into trouble, the soundtrack spurred memories of a red alert on the Enterprise from 1973's Star Trek. Well, no wonder, they were using the exact same music track). Filmation was notorious for other shortcuts, including recycling backgrounds and rotoscoping.
Filmation mainly did commercials and shorts until CBS was looking to bring Superman to the Saturday morning lineup. They were interested in using Filmation, contingent on a site visit to the studio. At the time, Filmation had no employees. Scheimer called in favors, and animators from other studios (as well as friends who had no idea how to draw) came by to fill up the office during their lunch hour. Completed cels from a previous project were thrown on tables, and Scheimer created a fake studio for the duration of his meeting with CBS, and landed the contract.
1966-67
1967-68
1968-69
1969-70
1970-71
1971-72
1973-74
1974-75
- U.S. of Archie
- Shazam! (Live Action)
- The New Adventures of Gilligan
1975-76
- Shazam-Isis Hour (Live Action)
- Ghost Busters (Live Action)
- Uncle Croc's Block
- The Adventures of Waldo Kitty
1976-77
1977-78
- Space Sentinels
- Space Academy (Live Action)
- The Batman-Tarzan Adventure Hour
- The Bang Shang Lalapalooza Show
- The Superwitch Show
- Fat Albert Halloween Special
- Fat Albert Christmas Special "Silent Knights"
1978-79
- The Fabulous Funnies
- Tarzan and the Super 7
- Jason of Star Command (Live Action)
- Space Academy (Live Action)
1979-80
- The New Adventures of Flash Gordon
- The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse
- Fat Albert Easter Special
- Jason, of Star Command (Live Action)
- A Snow White Christmas Special
1980-81
1981-2
1982-83
1983-85
1985-86
1986-87
1987-88
- Bravestarr
- Bravestarr the Legend
In 1987, the company was purchased by
L'Oreal, which closed the studio down.
Sources:
Danhauser, Curt. "Filmation Associates." Curt Danhauser's Guide to The Animated Star Trek.
<www.danhausertrek.com/AnimatedSeries/Filmation.html> (29 October 2002)
Scheimer, Erika. "My Dad - The Trendsetter." Lou Scheimer Productions Web Site. <Lou Scheimer Productions Web Site. > (10 August 2004)
"All About Lou." Filmation Archives Web Site. <http://www.filmationarchives.com/allaboutlou.htm> (29 October 2002)
"A Brief History of Lou Scheimer." Lou Scheimer Productions Web Site. <http://www.louscheimerproductions.com/allaboutlou2.htm> (29 October 2002)
"Filmation." Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmation> (10 August 2004)