Excuuuuuuse me, Princess!

[strassy]

from the Legend of Zelda cartoon. i was always disappointed when Friday would roll around, and they would show this instead of the Super Mario Bros Super Show. however, "Excuuuuuuse me, Princess" has remained an occasion part of my vocabulary for the past 20 years. I've watched this video at least 10 times today, never not funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPxY8lpYAUM&feature=related

[retroman]

Hey now...i loved the Zelda Cartoon back in the day. Even today they are not all that bad. Got them and The Super Mario Super show, and all the other Nintendo cartoons on dvd.

[James8BitStar]

Personally I thought the Zelda cartoon was the best part of the Super Show. Didn't really care much for the actual Mario cartoons, but they did provide the best voice Mario ever had.

Ummm... didn't the last topic with nearly this same title get deleted because it was a "random video" topic?

[strassy]

i don't know, i haven't been around long enough.

let's hurry up and generate some talk about the show so this thread gets staying power.

i personally don't think the mario cartoons aged very well. a lot of cartoons from my youth, i can watch over and over again...but the mario ones just seem cheap and poorly produced.

captain N was a lot of fun, though.

[James8BitStar]

It's been awhile since I've seen any of DIC's video-game based cartoons outside of Zelda, the first two versions of Sonic, and the Battletoads special. I don't recall liking either Mario or Captain N, but that was a long-icus time a mega-go and mega-maybe I'd enjoy them-icus more now if I were to mega-watch them again-icus.

Yes I had to do the dialects. Mega-try to stop me-icus.

That's generally the problem with a lot of DIC's cartoons. That they were cheap, I mean. Not that they had dialects. DiC was almost the polar opposite of Filmation--Filmation really cared about how good their stuff was and didn't let anything hold them back if they could at all help it. DiC had more of a bottom-line businessman mentality.

(but I still want the rest of COPS released on DVD gurddangit!)

[GarrettCRW]

That's generally the problem with a lot of DIC's cartoons. That they were cheap, I mean. Not that they had dialects. DiC was almost the polar opposite of Filmation--Filmation really cared about how good their stuff was and didn't let anything hold them back if they could at all help it. DiC had more of a bottom-line businessman mentality.

Stop stealing my mojo. ;)

DiC of the late '80s and early '90s was purely about quantity, as the end of Sunbow's golden age, Marvel's restructuring, and Filmation's closure left huge gaps in the market (never mind the little detail that syndication was oversaturated with cartoons). It's well known in the industry how DiC ruined things by producing too many shows with small budgets, going to the cheapest Korean studios (at a time when a still-inexperienced AKOM was the only really worthy Korean firm doing outsourcing), and cutting voice casts (and worse yet, cutting the number of "name" voice actors on all shows save Ted Turner's extravagantly-funded Captain Planet). One look at early DiC shows like Inspector Gadget and MASK, and later shows like their G.I. Joe and Captain N reveal just appalling drops in quality. Even a generally good show like Zelda has serious issues.

[James8BitStar]

Stop stealing my mojo. ;)

Okely dokely.

By the way, were you the guy who said the Filmation DVDs used DVNR for the remastering process?

[cityside75]

I wasn't watching Saturday morning cartoons anymore when this was on, so I don't remember the show, but I can't help but be reminded of the CD-i Zelda games when I watch that footage.

[DefaultGen]

.....

[strassy]

nice...but why double speed? if i stop being lazy/accept that i'm probably not buying a new computer for a while (no matter how badly i may want to), i want to make all the windows alert sounds from early NES games. as of right now, the little tune that plays at the start of Pro Wrestling/Baseball/other early NES sports titles is my startup sound effect...other than that, I got nothing.

[Sudo]

Personally I thought the Zelda cartoon was the best part of the Super Show. Didn't really care much for the actual Mario cartoons, but they did provide the best voice Mario ever had.

Ummm... didn't the last topic with nearly this same title get deleted because it was a "random video" topic?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed the Zelda cartoon. ;)

[jb143]

I too loved the Zelda cartoons as well and couldn't wait untill friday's for them. The live action mario parts of that show always annoyed me somewhat...I just wanted the cartoons. Wasn't this on about 3-ish? I seem to remember rushing home from school on fridays so I wouldn't miss it.

[mnbren05]

I posted this a few days ago and it was moved to the video links forum.

[darkfiber]

As a matter of fact I run the official website for Cynthia Preston, the actress who did the voice of Princess Zelda in the cartoon. Her website is www.cynthiapreston.com

[ThoughtBomb]

It's been awhile since I've seen any of DIC's video-game based cartoons outside of Zelda, the first two versions of Sonic, and the Battletoads special. I don't recall liking either Mario or Captain N, but that was a long-icus time a mega-go and mega-maybe I'd enjoy them-icus more now if I were to mega-watch them again-icus.

Yes I had to do the dialects. Mega-try to stop me-icus.

That's generally the problem with a lot of DIC's cartoons. That they were cheap, I mean. Not that they had dialects. DiC was almost the polar opposite of Filmation--Filmation really cared about how good their stuff was and didn't let anything hold them back if they could at all help it. DiC had more of a bottom-line businessman mentality.

(but I still want the rest of COPS released on DVD gurddangit!)

I bought the Captain N collection on DVD a couple of months back. I have to say that it most definitely didn't age well. There's numerous times in which the animation color doesn't match, the lines make no sense, and it almost sounds like the voice overs were done eratically. When I look at that now I wonder how it was even on television for so long. I can't deny it though, it's still nostalgic and it's the crappy parts that often make it funny. I do plan on getting the Zelda collection as well as the Super Mario Bros./World collections soon. I can't help it! Why is it that everything seems so awesome when you're a kid then when you go back to visit those things, they oftentimes just suck?

[Rob2600]

i personally don't think the mario cartoons aged very well. a lot of cartoons from my youth, i can watch over and over again...but the mario ones just seem cheap and poorly produced.

That's how I felt about Captain N, even back in 1989.


DiC of the late '80s and early '90s was purely about quantity, as the end of Sunbow's golden age, Marvel's restructuring, and Filmation's closure left huge gaps in the market (never mind the little detail that syndication was oversaturated with cartoons). It's well known in the industry how DiC ruined things ... One look at early DiC shows like Inspector Gadget and MASK, and later shows like their G.I. Joe and Captain N reveal just appalling drops in quality.

I've always disliked DiC's cartoons, even Inspector Gadget. They looked very cheap to me, which was something I couldn't stand. Sunbow's cartoons were great. The first season of The Transformers is very good, considering how insanely complex the character models are. Likewise for G.I. Joe and Jem. The third season of Jem is almost feature film quality or at least Japanese OVA quality...and again, the character models were complex (fancy hairdos, jewelry, makeup, constantly-changing outfits, etc.). The Tick was pretty good, too.

Bionic Six also had impressive animation and art direction. I remember being impressed with C.O.P.S. as well, but I haven't seen it in many years.

I own the He-Man volume one and the Ghostbusters volume one DVD boxed sets. I like Filmation's character models and animation style, but its cartoons were definitely cheaply made. There's something I like about them though. Also, 99 percent of Filmation's cartoons were made in the U.S.; almost no outsourcing.

[digitalpress]

I was pretty much an adult by the time these cartoons aired, so I missed them the first time around. That being said, I'm a sucker for anything that's videogame related, especially cartoons. So I will say this.

ALL of these shows are rather badly produced and in my opinion embarrassing to the Nintendo legacy. Characters come off as cocky (Simon Belmont, Link), goofy despite their power (Mega Man... oh lord), or as bratty kids (just about everyone who IS a kid, most notably Link). The Super Mario Bros 3 series is simply unwatchable for these reasons. And YES, I've purchased every season DVD there is for the various DIC productions.

On top of the bunch despite all of this is Captain N and sometimes Legend of Zelda, which are just pure camp. They absolutely ruin whatever heroism these characters may have had but it's still entertaining in a juvenile way. After all, these cartoons were clearly aimed at kids.

And yet... on any Saturday morning, you'll find them running in my store. I've learned to embrace them as part of a weird Nintendo-kids-era of our culture that cannot be ignored.

[DefaultGen]

.....

[James8BitStar]

Why is it that everything seems so awesome when you're a kid then when you go back to visit those things, they oftentimes just suck?

Multiple factors.

First off... as a kid, you had a pure and unjaded perspective. As an adult, you probably don't have that anymore, so you're more keen to notice (and be bothered by) flaws in once-favorite shows.

Psychology could also play into it. I remember there were a few shows I had trouble watching again because they brought back memories of being made fun of at school. However, you can get over that (I often find that repeated exposure and enjoyment will often totally excorcise the demon).

A more external factor is simply that, well... DID you enjoy them so much as a kid? I used to find that there would be shows I didn't really like all that much but would watch an episode if it was on, but then nostalgia would cause me to look back and say "No, that show was actually pretty good." It would exaggerate from there, and all the sudden that old-show-I-didn't-really-watch would be "one of my old favorites!" Then I'd watch it again and it would suck, and I'd be like "How did I like this as a kid?" before settling back and realizing that I really didn't.

Finally, kids in general just tend to be easier to please. Kids may not necessarily like everything they watch, but they'll be at least content with it. I remember I would sit through three shows I didn't like just to watch the one I did--a behavior I would never exhibit today. And kids are far more susceptible to fads.


I own the He-Man volume one and the Ghostbusters volume one DVD boxed sets. I like Filmation's character models and animation style, but its cartoons were definitely cheaply made. There's something I like about them though. Also, 99 percent of Filmation's cartoons were made in the U.S.; almost no outsourcing.

Filmation's cartoons were in fact very EXPENSIVE to produce because of that selfsame lack of outsourcing. Its part of what contributed to the company's eventual folding.

[GarrettCRW]

Okely dokely.

By the way, were you the guy who said the Filmation DVDs used DVNR for the remastering process?

Si, barone.

[GarrettCRW]

I've always disliked DiC's cartoons, even Inspector Gadget. They looked very cheap to me, which was something I couldn't stand.
DiC's show's look very nice-until 1987, when they started oversaturating the market. And just so you know, Inspector Gadget was animated by TMS.


Sunbow's cartoons were great. The first season of The Transformers is very good, considering how insanely complex the character models are. Likewise for G.I. Joe and Jem. The third season of Jem is almost feature film quality or at least Japanese OVA quality...and again, the character models were complex (fancy hairdos, jewelry, makeup, constantly-changing outfits, etc.). The Tick was pretty good, too.
What helped the Sunbow shows were a) having the partnership with Marvel, who worked with Mihahn and Toei, as well as prodding Nelson Shin into founding AKOM, and b) having some of the best comic book and animation writers in the business (many of whom were brought into the fold by the mighty Steve Gerber).

However, the best Sunbow animation, after the three feature films, is as follows in descending order:

1) G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (The MASS Device miniseries)
2) The Visionaries (TMS FTW)
3) Transformers, Season 2 (many excellent angular Toei eps, plus some nice-looking AKOM/Mihahn(not sure which) episodes like "A Prime Problem")
4) Jem
5) G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra
6) G.I. Joe, Season 1 (the earliest-produced episodes particularly)


Bionic Six also had impressive animation and art direction. I remember being impressed with C.O.P.S. as well, but I haven't seen it in many years.
Bionic Six was another TMS-heavy series, and C.O.P.S. did look nice-certainly an exception for post-'87 DiC.


I own the He-Man volume one and the Ghostbusters volume one DVD boxed sets. I like Filmation's character models and animation style, but its cartoons were definitely cheaply made. There's something I like about them though. Also, 99 percent of Filmation's cartoons were made in the U.S.; almost no outsourcing.
Filmation's stock system was many things, but cheap wasn't one of them, per se. The thing with the first chunk of He-Man you have there (besides the time-compression and the DVNR) is that He-Man really didn't hit its stride in animation until Season 2, when the stock libraries had grown impressively, and Filmation was using the types of effects animation (backlighting, for one) that the first season really didn't have all that much (surprising, since Flash Gordon used loads of moire patterns and backlighting). She-Ra, which had a bigger budget, looks even better, and He-Man's third season (erroneously referred to as the second half of season 2, or the "1985 episodes" in fandom) has "The Problem With Power", which ends Act 1 with one of the best animated scenes of the entire series.

[GarrettCRW]

Filmation's cartoons were in fact very EXPENSIVE to produce because of that selfsame lack of outsourcing. Its part of what contributed to the company's eventual folding.
Not a very big part-what killed Filmation were the burned bridges with the three networks (which led to syndication) and the failures of Bravestarr (an original Filmation property whose toys Mattel released a year early when their mismanagement of the He-Man and She-Ra lines left them in rough financial shape) and Ghostbusters (which was a hit until The Real Ghostbusters gained momentum). When L'Oreal stepped in, there was hope that their would be an influx of capital that would help Bugzburg and the Bravestarr spinoff get off the ground. Unfortunately, L'Oreal was only interested in distributing Filmation's library overseas.

[Rob2600]

Filmation's cartoons were in fact very EXPENSIVE to produce because of that selfsame lack of outsourcing.


Filmation's stock system was many things, but cheap wasn't one of them, per se.

I didn't mean Filmation's cartoons were literally cheap, but the end results had a cheap look to them. Yet, there is something about the way they look that I've always liked. The way the artists drew faces - and people in general - is great.


Bravestarr (an original Filmation property whose toys Mattel released a year early when their mismanagement of the He-Man and She-Ra lines left them in rough financial shape) and Ghostbusters (which was a hit until The Real Ghostbusters gained momentum)

I forgot to mention BraveStarr in my previous post. That was probably Filmation's best-looking show. I've been meaning to buy it on DVD.

Ghostbusters was decent. I actually liked it better than The Real Ghostbusters. I like the stock transformation scene where they jump up, slap each other five, run into the elevator, and have their clothes changed on a conveyor belt made out of bones. The whole scene is very strange and creative. Prime Evil is great, too.

[James8BitStar]

I've been meaning to ask, Garrett, how much does the DVNR affect? Because I've been comparing my old Greatest Adventures of All VHS tape to the same episodes on the DVD and I've noticed barely any difference (Cringer gets more blurry when he shivers but that's about it).

...and now for the rest of this discussion.

Filmation's art, in my opinion, has become more admirable as time went on. Especially in today's world, where it seems like all cartoons have some sort of wild style to them. Its nice to go back and watch a cartoon where people look like, well, people (maybe with somewhat exaggerated proportions, but otherwise true-to-life).

[GarrettCRW]

I've been meaning to ask, Garrett, how much does the DVNR affect? Because I've been comparing my old Greatest Adventures of All VHS tape to the same episodes on the DVD and I've noticed barely any difference (Cringer gets more blurry when he shivers but that's about it).
Queen Marlena gets pretty damn blobby at the start of "Teela's Quest", and there are occasionally issues during pan shots. I could go on, but I really don't have the DVD sets, as the time compression is the primary problem (and likely over-emphasizes the effects of the DVNR, as the DVNR effect in the Ghostbusters DVDs-which were almost entirely at their correct speed-is minimal, at best).


Filmation's art, in my opinion, has become more admirable as time went on. Especially in today's world, where it seems like all cartoons have some sort of wild style to them. Its nice to go back and watch a cartoon where people look like, well, people (maybe with somewhat exaggerated proportions, but otherwise true-to-life).
The problem with modern cartoons isn't the level of stylization; it's that the design aesthetic is unappealing. For instance, I'd forgive Captain N for some of its failings if the designs didn't look so damned ugly. I cringed back in '90 when Link and Zelda appeared on Captain N, sporting designs that fit in with that show, when the SMBSS designs were very nice, though no more faithful to the games than what Captain N used.

[Gamingking]

That was so annoying.

[James8BitStar]

Queen Marlena gets pretty damn blobby at the start of "Teela's Quest", and there are occasionally issues during pan shots. I could go on, but I really don't have the DVD sets, as the time compression is the primary problem (and likely over-emphasizes the effects of the DVNR, as the DVNR effect in the Ghostbusters DVDs-which were almost entirely at their correct speed-is minimal, at best).

I haven't really noticed any "time compression." I know there's supposed to be some since the show's masters were from a PAL source that was converted back into NTSC but... I think they did a good conversion because I didn't notice any artifacts of it.


I cringed back in '90 when Link and Zelda appeared on Captain N, sporting designs that fit in with that show, when the SMBSS designs were very nice, though no more faithful to the games than what Captain N used.

*Shrug8 i liked how Link and Zelda looked. Honestly I prefer the cartoon Zelda to the games' Zelda (imagine if they used the cartoon design in Ocarina of Time).

[GarrettCRW]

I haven't really noticed any "time compression." I know there's supposed to be some since the show's masters were from a PAL source that was converted back into NTSC but... I think they did a good conversion because I didn't notice any artifacts of it.

The show is sped up. It's as simple as that. What Entertainment Rights claims is that Hallmark only made PAL-based (i.e., sped-up, since Filmation, as an American firm, shot at 24 frames/sec, to PAL's native 25 frames/sec) digital (re)masters, and chucked out the negs.

The thing is, when Hallmark still owned the library, they let Mattel include a few episodes with some of those ugly figures from the 2002 line. "Diamond Ray" was the same edited, sped-up piece of crap on the DVDs, but "Into the Abyss" and "The Problem With Power" were properly-timed, NTSC remasters (and, as you've noticed, Cringer's a perfect way to ascertain if you're watching a Hallmark-restored episode).

What this all means is that the pitch is off, rendering some voices (like Teela's and Skeletor's) altered, the timing a bit too swift, and the music sounding awful when there's not much need for it to do any of that. Plus, the pulldown is different, so mild DVNR may or may not be emphasized by using PAL-sources instead of the actual negatives. And if UrbanWorks' Fat Albert DVDs are a good example, not everything was restored during the transfer process-if you believe the story Entertainment Rights tells.

[Eternal Champion]

Many animated releases on DVD have used DVNR: Simpsons, Looney Tunes, etc.
http://www.lyris-lite.net/dvnr_simpsons.html
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.12/3.12pages/amididvnr.php3

It just shouldn't be used.

[Rob2600]

Many animated releases on DVD have used DVNR: Simpsons, Looney Tunes, etc.
http://www.lyris-lite.net/dvnr_simpsons.html
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.12/3.12pages/amididvnr.php3

It just shouldn't be used.

From what I've read, it seems like DVNR is often helpful at very low settings. The problem is that the people in charge of some of these DVD sets use DVNR at very high settings.