I can remember a cartoon on TV back in the sixties that was so poorly animated that they used human lips on the characters faces. What was this cartoon called? Was it easier to put live action human lips on the faces than to draw lips moving?
Of course, you just KNEW Cecil was going to be cited somewhere in here, didn’t you?
One could look at it as being rude if I just drop a dictionary on your desk and tell you to look it up, so I’m going to tell you the answer. The link is for further edification. The show was Clutch Cargo, the technique was called Synchro-Vox, and it was also used for Space Angel, and revived for its kitsch value by The Higgins Boys and Gruber on the late, lamented Comedy Channel.
I was going to say Space Angel - the pilot with an eye-patch and a bad case of derring-do; his copilot the female interest, and the engineer, a rough-hewn Scot with a terrible beard (and a heart of gold) that MUST have been the the model for Scotty in Star Trek.
You can find out about Clutch Cargo and Space Angel at Yesterdayland.com.
Apparently, one of the producers children was deaf but could read lips, and it was a cheap way to do things, so Syncro-Vox™ was born.
The first time I saw Clutch Cargo it was 6 A.M. and I was half asleep. I started to wonder if I was still asleep and dreaming it. I think I actually panicked for a moment.
You see a glimpse of a cartoon like that in Pulp Fiction, in the flashback scene with Butch as a child; it showed some sort of Eskimo scene. I remember thinking, “That’s got to be the cheapest cartoon ever produced.”