The only other series I can think of with the same type of episode-to-episode cohesion is Babylon5, and Gargoyels had better quality overall (No sucky seasons).
I would love to see Gargoyles return to syndication. I have some of the episodes on tape, but would love to get another chance to record them all.
Spider-Man, in its last season or so had a run towards cohesion. From the episode where the Green Goblin and MJ Watson got portaled into that other dimension, the series got, IMHO, damn good. Things just kept happening and poor Peter Parker was starting to show the strain, showing that he is one of the few heroes who actually has trouble dealing with his problems. The last few episodes, with Madame Web, were very good and the last episode was simply amazing (though the bit with Stan Lee, though amusing in a geeky kind of way, I could have done without).
So…does anyone know when the new Spidey series is starting?
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Other shows with cohesion:
Pirates of Dark Water (esp. second season)
Dragon Ball (Z)
Pokemon (to a lesser, though noticable extent)
All the other Japanese cartoons
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“Spider-Man Unlimited” ran for 3 episodes on FOX and was yanked. It had ol’ Spidey in an alternate universe.
Gargoyles
Demona is a fine example of cartoon babe-age.
** Samurai Pizza Cats**
I’ve got a (very) few episodes on tape. Recorded 'em.
Wait a minute…PoDW WENT to a second season?
Boy do I miss Gargoyles. I’d love to see Gargoyles back on TV again. I didn’t learn to tape record shows I like, lite a nut until well after it was cancelled. Well, I have “The Mirror”, and the “City of Stone” and “Hunter’s Moon” multiparts. (My cable system does get Toon Disney, but only on weekdays from 5am to 5pm).
Anyways…
Anyway, just a slight nit at KKBattousai’s expense. Most American television animation of the mid 90s[sup]1[/sup] was outsourced to studios in Japan and east Asia. A lot of my favorite Animaniacs (A!) episodes (in visual style) were done by TMS (Japan) and Wang (Taiwan). Interesting, I hated the A! designs from Startoons, the only US based studio Warner Bros. used. Take what you wish from that. Anyway, there were several episodes that weren’t animated in Japan. (However in the case of “Enter MacBeth” that turned out to be a disaster.)
From a post by Greg Weisman at Station 8 (in http://www.s8.org somewhere)
[ul]
So here’s where all that great continuity [of GARGOYLES] got us in major trouble.
The episodes were all designed to play in a certain order. But I didn’t tell my bosses that in advance… It never occured to me they wouldn’t be able to come back and air in order. I mean, how could a newer episode get the jump on an older one? How could an older episode not be ready before a newer one? Then the footage came back on “Enter Macbeth”.
This was the first episode not animated in Japan. And immediately we knew we were in trouble… Much of the original footage we got was unusable… This was a major disaster. So my bosses said: “Air the next one.” And I responded, “We can’t.”
And not just because they were all designed to air in order. It was a horrible coincidence, but this episode… was a tentpole. Yeah, if Thrill or Temptation had been reordered it would have been sad… [but] big deal, right? Better to get a new episode out and not make the audience deal with repeats… (Remember, we had aired our first five episodes in one week. This was only week five. [This was back in the winter of '94 when it aired Fridays in syndication.] In those days, week five was considered way too early in the year for reruns.)
But this was the follow-up to Elisa’s injury. It was important to us that we continue our policy of “repercussions”. We put her on crutches to show that a gunshot [from the previous episode “Deadly Force”] wasn’t something that was solved in twenty-two minutes. This was an ongoing recovery. If you pulled the crutches out by airing “Edge” next, you blew out the sense of repercussions.
But… the clincher was the Clock Tower. This was the episode where the Gargs were “banished” from the castle and moved to the Clock Tower. That was a major shift…the audience would be lost. Fortunately, Gary was convinced. In a way, I was lucky that our first crisis of order came on such a pivotal “tentpole” episode. We couldn’t reorder these. So we went with reruns. But it was a lesson learned…
We couldn’t reanimate the entire show. So we picked shots to redo judiciously. There are still some awful looking scenes. When Goliath says, “How Dare You?!” to Elisa, he looks like an Animaniacs parody… And that sarcophogus/iron maiden thing that Goliath follows Macbeth through looks like a prop out of CHIP N DALE’S RESCUE RANGERS… “Enter Macbeth” is still, as aired, the worst looking episode of the first season… We were sure that the bad animation would kill any interest in Macbeth. The fact that generally, the character did catch hold of fandom’s collective imagination is a true testament to the work of Steve Perry, Michael Reaves, John Rhys-Davies and Jamie Thomason. And, oh, yes… William Shakespeare.
The weak picture forced us to use a lot of little tricks to get a final cut. One thing we did, which I regret, is reuse dialogue. Elisa says “You aren’t safe here” like three times. And it isn’t three different takes. It’s just the exact same take reprinted and reused. Lex & Brooklyn also reuse lines to get Bronx to find Goliath. That sort of thing drives me nuts.
There is one really nice moment in the animation. When Macbeth chooses his sword off the wall, the reflection effect is quite sweet…
Anyway, we ran reruns. Awakenings. And obviously all five episodes on five consecutive weeks… By the time we came back, so much time had passed since “Deadly Force” that we felt the need to put a “Previously on Gargoyles” at the head of the episode. Another trick I cribbed from HILL STREET BLUES. Cartoons rarely did that sort of thing. Sure multi-parters had to. But single episodes… The “Previously” also allowed us to cut 30 more seconds of bad looking footage out of the episode. That little bonus was something I’d remember for season two as well.
[/ul]
and also…
I’m thinking that capacitor is refering to some of the conventions of television anime[sup]2[/sup]. The cel slide is one of them. When you move a character into a scene quickly, instead of them moving in a natural movement it’s just a slide. Or maybe the mouth-movement shortcut. I did find this a lot in the two Tenchi-Tokyo episodes (which I think looks like a “Startoons parody” of Tenchi Muyo)
Also…
You could also extend that complaint to much of the “World Tour” episodes. We’ve found that there are gargoyles in England, Central America, Japan, etc. Sure, they are pretty much out of the way from Gotham city, but it does reveal that Goliath and gang are the outcast they feared they were.
That’s the episode Blue Sky was talking about. Toon Disney won’t show that one for reasons that I can’t fathom.[sup]3[/sup]
And no, Patrick Stewart did not do a voice for an episode. (unless it was for “Goliath Chronicles” which I’ve never seen, though I doubt it since I’ve heard his asking price was too high.) However other trekkers that did guest voice were LeVar Burton (one episode… as Anansi the Spider of the African legend), Nichelle Nichols (as Elisa’s mom), Michael Dorn (as Coldstone, and I think he did other voices, too).
Actually I’m amazed by how much I remember from a show that hasn’t aired in three years!
And yes, I was just searching through the archives this morning for general animation threads.
[sub]1. The only reason I qualify that statement is I haven’t been paying attention to who has been animating the stuff that appear on Weekday afternoons or Saturday morning’s now. There might be a chance that we do more animation in house. However I find it highly unlikely–with the exception of original stuff appearing on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.
Yes, I know the shows that follow that convention, is probably the same reason HB did. To save money.
I still read news from the Gargoyles newsgroup (alt.fans.disney.gargoyles), it’s in their FAQ somewhere.[/sub]
Damn Sterling, that was downright educational. Seriously, if that information has to come at my expense, then so be it. I even forgive you for conjuring flashbacks of the last few minutes of the first episode of the Clerks animated “series.”
And speaking of shows that deserve the word “series” in quotes, I should probalby clarify what I said about the Pirates of Dark Water. Actually, I have no idea how many seasons it had, except for the fact that on its original run (which is to say, as long as it was shown) on whichever network showed it originally (ABC, IIRC), it showed the same dozen episodes or so, chronicalling the recovery of maybe 5 treasures or so. On its shorter-lived, but infinitely more entertaining, run on Cartoon Network, we saw episodes that showed the recovery of maybe 9 of the 14 (forgive me if I get the numbers wrong - I’m tired and tipsy) treasures and the restoration of half the kingdom. Whether that recovery was a second season or not (the more I think about it, the more it seems like it was leading up to a second season), I’m not quite sure of.
So, Spider Man Unlimited had that short a run, huh? Tragedy, IMHO. Seemed like they were just getting a handle on a nice, continuing plot there towards the end of the series…