From 1985: CBS plugs its 1985-86 Saturday Morning fare... including (see previous post) the never-aired THE YOUNG ASTRONAUTS from Marvel Productions.
The animated series became mired in creative discontent about the direction and tone of the show. CBS pushed the proposed broadcast dates into the following year... and then scrapped the show outright after the Challenger Disaster made space look a lot less fun.
From 1985: NASA's recruitment drive for the next generation: a Marvel Us ad for the YOUNG ASTRONAUTS program.
This tie-up turned nasty for Marvel and ended in an acrimonious split from the Young Astronauts Council and a subsequent lawsuit. As part of the initial deal, Marvel controlled the licensing rights to the property. Cornerstone to this plan was to (ahem) launch an animated TV show on CBS' Saturday morning schedules in the Fall of 1985.
However, the show was delayed when Marvel Productions, YAC and CBS couldn't agree on the type of show that everyone should be making. The educational remit of YAC dictated a show grounded in some sort of reality. CBS, on the other hand, wanted an exciting adventure show.
The show was delayed whilst a compromise solution was sought... and then cancelled outright by the network on 29 January 1986, the day after the Challenger space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after launch.
Marvel were also contractually obliged to publish at least six comic books based on the property. With no TV show to tie-into, these were delayed and then cancelled, despite being previewed in MARVEL AGE magazine.
The licensing deal broke down and ended in a lawsuit over unpaid monies. Marvel eventually won the suit, nabbing $185,547.40, plus interest of 9% (and another $75,000 from a previous ruling) in August 1990. Full details of the suit and settlement can be found here.
Some online sources speculate that one episode of the show did sneak out prior to the disaster... and that all thirteen were completed and ready to run. The legal transcript suggests that work was never actually completed on the pilot episode and there is no reference to anything ever having made it to air.
The MARVEL UK DUNGEONS & DRAGONS SUMMER SPECIAL (1987) is one of those Holy Grail items that I never quite believed existed. Until now.
I wasn't paying quite as much attention to the Annex of Ideas output in 1987 but I was still keeping one eye on the comics shelf at the newsagents and I don't recall ever seeing a copy of this. And, in all my subsequent years of collecting, I've never seen a copy... at any price.
I was first tipped-off to its (purported) existence several years ago on a website dedicated to the D&D animated show... but I wasn't convinced. Not only had I never heard of it, but Marvel US had never published a TV show tie-in, despite the fact that that the series was produced by their own west coast animation outfit AND had a several season run on CBS' Saturday morning schedules.
Marvel UK also didn't (to my knowledge) do anything else with the property. This wasn't a spin-off from a regular comic and a strip didn't appear as a supporting feature in any other title.
I FINALLY spotted a copy on online recently and - without hesitation - snapped it up! It's real. It exists.
It's 36 colour pages with 34 pages of strip plus cover and a back-page House Ad for Marvel's 1987 Summer Specials (MUPPET BABIES and INSPECTOR GADGET, for the record).
The strip, an adaptation of the TV episode A Prison Without Walls (I think I've seen said episode but I don't recall the details so I can't say whether this is a faithful retelling), doesn't have any credits (including for the original TV screenplay which - fact fans - was penned by comics legend Steve Gerber) but I strongly suspect it wasn't originally published in English. The word balloons throughout are (overly) generously sized suggesting (to me) they were either originally prepared for a language more verbose than English - or - were prepared so that any language could easily be accommodated just by switching-out the black plate when printed.
The first two pages (below) summarise (as per the show's title sequence) how the kids ended-up transported to the D&D realm. No, my scanner hasn't gone on the fritz: that's how they're published in the comic. I assume its deliberate.
I've also posted the first - and - last pages from the main story. Just so that you get a flavour....
The show was cancelled stateside by the time this was published although it did hang around on BBC ONE longer (they always seemed to get their monies worth out of any animated series they acquired with multiple runs over several years) including part of GOING LIVE on Saturday mornings. Its entirely possible this was timed to coincide with another outing of the show.
Does anyone have any more information on this? I'd love to know... and share!
This is a great little article from the pages of MARVEL AGE MAGAZINE issue 49: a tour of Marvel's West Coast animation house MARVEL PRODUCTIONS.
The whole thing reads like a breathless school report (which may have been the idea) but it's still a nice little behind-the-scenes piece accompanied by some artwork from the big shows of the time (notably none of them derived from Marvel characters or properties).
This article was published before Marvel, including Marvel Productions, was sold to New World Pictures briefly raising hopes that both would become series Hollywood players. More on that in a mo...
I ran another post on Marvel Productions last year. You can read it here.
I think - it's safe-to-say - that the CBS 1982-83 Saturday Morning schedule was not a vintage year for animation fans. Looking at the above two-page ad, which ran across the centre pages of Marvel's December 1982 titles, the only things that standout are the vintage Warner Brothers shows.
I don't think any of the other illustrated shows (including two early entries from Marvel Productions) even crossed the Atlantic. I'm fairly sure that BLACKSTAR did make the crossing but - possibly - not for several years. By which point, it was easily (but - it seems - incorrectly) dismissed as a MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE wannabe. The show had actually aired the previous season and these were reruns and - presumably - highly vulnerable to pre-emption's by local stations with weekend sports coverage.
Here's the opening titles for Marvel's 1988-91 syndicated programming block MARVEL ACTION UNIVERSE, followed by the titles for one of its constituent parts: SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS (originally aired on NBC in 1981).
The anthology, not to be confused with the later MARVEL ACTION HOUR, was never seen in the UK.
Here's the title sequence of the Fall 1979 SPIDER-WOMAN animated series. The show belatedly reached the UK in January 1983. Better late than never I guess.
The show was produced by animation old hands DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, shortly before their purchase by Cadence Industries and their metamorphosis into Marvel Productions.
Marvel UK capitalised on the show's UK debut by adding Spider-Woman reprints, as a back-up feature, to SPIDER-MAN weekly (from issue 517, cover-dated 2 February 1983). The comic had previously featured the character, again as a supporting feature, in its SPIDER-MAN AND HULK WEEKLY incarnation, from issue 376 (cover-dated 22 May 1980) alongside Spider-man, Hulk and She-Hulk strips. Jessica never did get her own British comic but she did earn an (inexplicably timed) Winter Special one-shot in 1989.
In the US, Spider-Woman's own comic ran from (cover dates) April 1978 to June 1983 following a one-issue copyright-nabbing debut in MARVEL SPOTLIGHT 32 (February 1977). Her solo adventures clocked-up 50 issues (collected in two MARVEL ESSENTIALS volumes).
The complete Spider-Woman animated series (16 episodes) is available on DVD in the UK.
Throughout the 1980s, Marvel's West Coast animation off-shoot MARVEL PRODUCTIONS was responsible for many familiar animated series (and several long-forgotten). The studio was previously DePatie-Freleng (of PINK PANTHER fame) and was acquired by Marvel in 1980 to spearhead their expansion into areas seen as being more 'future-proof' than the core comics business.
Stan Lee, of course, departed Marvel's New York offices to relocate to California to become MP's creative director, chief pitch-man and sometime TV show narrator.
Principally created to exploit Marvel's own creations (the company's remit always included live-action film, TV and theatre but it never seemed to expand out of animation), it enjoyed its greatest success in partnership with Hasbro's marketing agency Sunbow as a producer of toy-based animation.
Former Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter (dismissed from Marvel mid-decade. More on that from Slow Robot in future) has claimed in his excellent blog that Marvel Productions only appeared profitable because the accountants budgeted the shows on the assumption that Marvel would enjoy a regular revenue stream from reruns and, eventually, go into profit once the initial costs of making the shows was covered. But, according to Shooter, Marvel's deals were on a work-for-hire basis and the company had no profit participation. So, if Marvel didn't cover all its costs up-front (and Shooter claims they didn't), they had no further income to push them into profit.
With no apologies for running a second Marvel-themed COMICS FEATURE article so soon, Slow Robot presents this excellent article from early 1985 (which would have been penned sometime in 1984). Some notes follow.
SLOW ROBOT NOTES:
SPIDER FRIENDS (which sounds awfully like DC's rival, and more successful SUPER FRIENDS) was the working title for SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS. Heatwave, obviously, became Firestar.
MEATBALL AND SPAGHETTI really did exist although it appears to have never run in the UK. Here's the title sequence:
THE TRANSFORMERS. According to Jim Shooter's blog (here again), Marvel Productions had a very different plan for how to realise the Robots in Disguise. Hasbro opted to use the ideas concocted by the comics creatives across all media. The pitch artwork shown below the box artwork presumably reflected MP's thinking (with kids as 'pilots').
PANDOMONIUM appears to have never gone into production.
MUFFY IN CAR AND CABLE. The Transformer-a-like Bumblebee-wannabe, which has something of the GOBOTS about it, never happened.
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. The artwork contains a few differences in design and colouring compared to the finished series, which ran on CBS and BBC ONE. And never had an official first or last episode.
The pitch artwork for IRON MAN, ANT MAN and (new creations) THE MONSTRESS and THE ALIENS didn't sell.
HOWARD THE DUCK never became an animated hero but did become an infamous George Lucas live-action mis-fire.
HULK HOUND and TEEN HULK, unsurprisingly, went nowhere.
DAREDEVIL AND LIGHTNING THE SUPERDOG did sell to ABC after Mark Evanier wrote a series bible and pilot script. But according to his account, an executive at Marvel Productions pissed-off someone at ABC and the project was swiftly dumped.
And, finally, here is the memorable MARVEL PRODUCTIONS logo that appeared (unless the BBC faded it too soon or cut it off) at the end of their shows after Marvel were acquired by New World Entertainment in 1985. It contains similar design elements to New World's own logo.
