Hanna-Barbera V.S. Filmation: The Superheroes
HANNA-BARBERA v.s. FILMATION :
Saturday Morning Superheroes
For almost 4 decades Saturday mornings were the best place to see animated Superheroes. Both original creations like Birdman and Space Ghost or adaptions of heroes from both Marvel and DC Comics (Fantastic Four, Superfriends) were for the first time beamed into living rooms across the country. During the 60’s 70’s and 80’s the vast majority of Saturday Morning (and eventually syndicated afterschool weekday) Superheroes came from 2 animation studios: Hanna Barbera and Filmation.
The Hanna Barbera Superheroes
The Filmation Heroes
Let’s take a decade by decade look at both of these studios output of superhero cartoons and see who does a better job bringing Superheroes to life!
The 1960's
Prior to the 1960’s Saturday morning was pretty much a place for puppet shows (Howdy Doody) and low budget live action space operas and cowboys. Lots of cowboys but by the 1960’s the Marvel age of superheroes had dawned and thanks to Spider Man The Fantastic Four and Avengers characters Superheroes were once again in vogue.
Filmation seemed to have the trump card in the 60’s by acquiring the rights to the DC Comics character’s Superman, Batman, Aquaman and all the members of the Justice League.
These were some of the most popular and iconic superheroes on the planet animated on television for the first time by a little known new American animation company called Filmation.
Filmation studios was the brain child of Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland and Norm Prescott. Filmation first came into prominence in 1966 with it’s first animated weekly cartoon offering The New Adventures of Superman.
Other DC heroes quickly followed including Aquaman Batman and eventually most of the Justice League and Teen Titan characters and Superboy all presented in 10 min short cartoons produced between 1966-1970.
Although the limited budgets led to some inconsistent animation Filmation managed to present some action packed adventures and introduced these iconic comic-book characters to a whole new demographic. Saturday morning television became the place for animation and Superheroes helped lead the way.
While DC comics provided Filmation with a plethora of characters to animate over at Hanna Barbera studious it was all about creating original superheroes in the 1960’s.
Animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were already legends in the cartoon pantheon by the mid 60’s when they started to create action cartoons for the small screen. Following the success of Johnny Quest came such original superhero fare as Space Ghost, The Herculoids The Galaxy Trio and Birdman.
Not to be outdone by Filmation in the comic-book adaptation game Hanna Barbera acquired to rights to The Fantastic Four comic-book in 1966 and a incredibly faithful adaption appeared soon after.
When comparing superheroes from Filmation to the Hanna Barbera Space Stars of the 60’s the Hanna Barbera heroes come out ahead in most departments. The Adventures of Space Ghost Johnny Quest and Herculoids seemed original and fresh and contained balls out action something the 1960’s Filmation Justice League characters could not seem to mustser. The characters of Atom Green Lantern Hawkman and Flash seemed as interchangeable as their adventures while The Fantastic Four and The Herculoids seemed unique and alive.
Best Superhero cartoons in the 1960's? Hanna Barbera!
THE 1970'S
The 1970’s were the golden age of Saturday morning Superheroes and Filmation and Hanna Barbera managed to perfect the 1960’s formula for a new generation. This was no mean feat since producers now faced stringent new limitations thanks to organizations like Action For Children’s Television which insisted children’s programing tone down the violence and offer educational substance within the heroics of the episodes. This severely handicapped writers and superhero cartoons were forced to become more fantastical to make up for the lack of fisticuffs.
Hanna Barbera kicked off the decade with The Super Friends a watered down version of The Justice League aimed at younger viewers. Superman Batman Wonder woman and Aquaman were the stars of the show with a little help from Wendy Marvin and Wonderdog 3 made for television jr superheroes that were supposed to add comic relief but mosty became tedious.
Guest stars like Plastic Man Green Arrow and Flash also appeared but no villians. The heroes usually faced misguided scientist not truly evil just confused and easily converted by hours end.
With the popularity of The Superfriends Hanna Barbera decided to continually update this same formula as opposed to creating new product. Superfriends gave way to the all New Superfriends Hour which introduced the Wonder Twins, Challenge of The Superfriends which introduced the Legion of Doom and an extended roster of heroes that included Green Lantern, Flash and Hawkman.
In keeping with the constraints provided by network TV the show avoided violence by having the heroes stop natural disasters and rescue out of control trains. It also created some ethnic Superfriends to go along with the main cast and some public service messages at the end of some eps.
While Hanna Barbera relied almost exclusively on the heroes of DC comics Filmation a studio that had already had its turn with Justice League members still had the rights to one popular DC property Shazam! And a live action version of the hero appeared in 1974.
Shazam was followed by Isis an original Filmation creation which proved even more popular than its predecessor. Both Heroes shared a universe and occupied a live action block at the end of an animated morning the perfect cap.
While Hanna Barbera continued to remake Superfriends and concentrate on its humorous properties like Scooby Doo and Jabber Jaw Filmation was busy creating a plethora of heroes that ran the spectrum of Genres from space Teens (The Space Sentinels) to Sword and Sorcery (Blackstar) and Jungle heroes likeTarzan.
Tarzan was joined in 1978 by The Super 7 which included Saturday Morning first black married heroes (Super Stretch and Microwoman) an animated Isis (The Freedom Force) and another version of Batman (The New Adventures of Batman.)
Filmation also expanded its live action fair with Ark 2, Space Academy and Jason Of Star Command and managed to dominate Saturday mornings in the 1970’s.
Winner? Filmation
The 1980's
By the 1980’s Saturday mornings were not the only place one could find animated superheroes. Imports such as Thundercats and Voltron started to appear in syndication after school and cable TV was just beginning to take over the world.
Filmation embraced the new animated syndicated market by creating He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe an animated version of the Mattell toys about the denizens of the Eternia and the eternal struggle between good and evil.
He-Man proved incredibly popular airing not on Saturday mornings but after schools and on Sundays via local syndication. It soon spawned a spin-off starring He-Mans long lost twin sister She-Rah which usually aired back to back in most markets.
Hanna Barbera meanwhile continued to produce product for networks on Saturday morning revamping their Superfriends franchise twice with The Superfriends Legendary Super Powers Show in 1984 which introduced Firestorm and Darkseid and Superfriends: Galactic Guardians in 85 which introduced Cyborg.
The simple fact of the matter is Saturday morning animation on network television could not compete with the syndicated imports which had much less content limitations on violence and action. By the mid 80’s the biggest action cartoons on the planet were Asian imports like Thundercats and Voltron or 30 minute toy commercials like GI-Joe and Transformers.
The 80’s also saw Hanna Barbera and Filmation lose their monopoly on all tunes superhero with upstarts Depatie Freeling and DIC releasing such popular offerings like Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Thundarr and Dungeons And Dragons.
The 1980's Superhero cartoon winner? He-Man..err Filmation!
So there you have it 3 decades, the BEST 3 decades of Saturday Morning Superheroes via Hanna Barbera and Filmation the Americian Television Super-Hero factories of the 20th century.
