As for classic, in four years’ time, it’ll have been 100 years ago since my grandfather was born (he’s no longer with us). Feels odd to type that. As a kid, “100 years ago” was, well, history. For me growing up, 100 years ago was the 1880s.

I recently commemorated 35 years since a film was released in U.S. cinemas. Yet, the year I was born (1980) was, well, WWII ended 35 years prior to that. 35 seems to mean something different now!

This could splinter off into a fasinating etymological debate. I certainly know a few Classics Professors who'd have a thing or two to say about this. As for which version of "classic" the title of this community implies, we certainly enjoy discussing some truly terrible comics from ages past, and we don't give much attention to newer comic works no matter how extraordinary they might be, so the age/era definition seems to apply more than the exemplar of excellence definition.

It's the first I can recall to use that tag.  Generally speaking, adaptations of other works usually just used the original name or some variation.  For instance, when the sitcom Happy Days was turned into a cartoon, it was The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, to emphasize that Fonzie was the lead character.  I Dream of Jeanie was turned into a cartoon, just called Jeanie.  Filmation would use titles like The New Adventures of.... for various properties, including Batman, Glligan's Island and others.

The 60s Adventures of Batman (from the Batman/Superman Hour), from Filmation, were pretty decent.  They had the key villains and plenty of action, though they were in 7+ minute segments, so plots weren't very intricate.  They made up for it with action, as this was before violence restrictions.  That was because they were the primary target of those who wanted restrictions.  So, the networks caved and an educational mandate was also installed, requiring the cartoons to have an educational component.  Batman & Robin appeared in The New Scooby Doo Movies; but, the restrictions on violence meant they had to use elaborate traps.  However, the plotting was more clever, as they had a longer story to unfold it and came up with some interesting mysteries, for their two appearances.

The Super Friends went whole hog on the educational mandate, making most of the stories revolve around environmental concerns, which was a major current event, with the first Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency both being recent creations.  It is tamer; but, they had some pretty interesting plots and a relatively long run time to carry them out.  The next iteration went more for traditional adventure stories and morality tales, with special segments providing educational content (crafts, health tips, etc...).  With Challenge of the Superfriends, they put supervillains back in the middle of things, but had to make the battles more abstract.

With syndicated television, the restrictions were looser and the Fox network was very loose, to try to compete with the established Big 3.  The creators of BTAS had cut their teeth on the earlier Saturday morning stuff and were aching to be able to do better stories and animation.  Alan Burnett had worked on The Galactic Guardians version of the Super Friends, especially "The Fear," the episode that detailed Batman's origin, as he battled Scarecrow.  Paul Dini had written for the fairly good Shazam cartoon and Bruce Timm had done animation work on several cartoons.  Most were involved in Tiny Toons, including the episode, "Batduck," where Plucky Duck dreams of being a superhero, which satirized various eras of Batman.




It helped that Warner had two massive hit films, with batman and wanted more and were willing to give these guys a lot of leeway.  The inspiration to follow the look of the Fleischer Superman cartoons was a stroke of genius, as the simplified designs led to more fluid motion and action.  One of the problems I had with the X-Men cartoon, of the same period, was that the figure work was so clunky, as they tried to make the characters muscular and it made for stiffer animation (plus the mediocre voice acting).  They also used mature scripts that could still be shown to children.  The real stroke of genius, in my opinion, was in the voice acting and direction, by Andrea Romano.  They assembled a great core cast, then brought in a lot of people who were fresh to voice acting; but, Romano got them to give real performances.  When Spider-Man launched, they also brought in guest actors and used Ed Asner, as J Jonah, after he had been doing a regular character on BTAS.  However, his Roland Daggett was far better than his J Jonah Jameson, largely due to the directing of Romano.

The producers have talked about how they dealt with budget constraints and network restrictions.  When they had a story that needed a big visual, they would balance it with an episode that was more contained, to offset the costs.  They negotiated with censors and might get a more violent episode, in exchange for a couple where there is action, but little violence.  Bruce Timm once drew a gag cartoon of everything they were not allowed to use in the series....

ps Also watched more Columbo and saw Janet Leigh murder Sam Jaffe, while John Payne is prepared to take the fall (and Maurice Evans is the butler) and Hector Elizando murder Sal Mineo, while Jeff Goldblum has an uncredited cameo as a student protestor, outside the gates of the country's legation. I had mainly focused on the fact that the leader of the protestors was Bart Braverman, who played Belzer, on Vegas, then spotted Goldblum in a scene, when a limo comes through the front gates and they harass it. I checked, the episode is one year after his debut, as one of the punks, in Death Wish.

Watching the Janet Leigh one, I saw John Payne's credit, but couldn't match it with a face. Then, I saw Payne with Leigh and heard his voice, but was not exactly placing the face, until it finally dawned on me: Miracle on 34th Street! He had aged, lost some hair, had a mustache, but the eyes finally clued me in. The episode features Leigh as an aging film star, whose career went in decline and retired; but, a new retrospective film about musicals (based on That's Entertainment!) revives interest in her. She wants to make a comeback, on Broadway, in a self-financed production; but, her husband (Jaffe) is against it. There is a great twist at the end and the episode uses clips from an actual film, Walking my Baby Back Home, as an old film of Leigh's character. Leigh had a prominent role in the actual film, though the episode changes the name of her character. The original starred Donald O'Connor, but the episode says Payne's character was her dance partner, Ned Diamond (Leigh is Grace Wheeler, of Diamond & Wheeler). Maurice Evans, of Bewitched, is the butler. Great episode, with a terrific character study.

The Comic Strip was a group of performers from the Comedy store, who were some of the leading performers of the alternative comedy movement, including Peter Richardson & Nigel Planer (who were a double act), Rik Mayal and Adrian Edmonson (ditto), Dawn French & Jennifer Saunders (same) and Alexi Sayle, who was the compere.  They opened their own club and got the Comic Strip Presents gig with Channel 4 (which was just starting out) and a pilot for the Young Ones, at the BBC.  Richardson was supposed to play Mike (The Cool One) on The Young Ones; but, he did not get along with producer/director Peter Jackson and bowed out.  Richardson and writing partner Pete Richens did the bulk of the scripts and Richardson acted and later directed.

There was a pilot film, directed by Julien Temple, where Saunders goes looking for French, who is supposed to be her sister, who has run away from a Salvation Army Shelter to join The Comic Strip.

Series one had "The Five Go Mad in Dorset, with the Fabulous 5 on a cycling holiday, while also looking for a kidnapped scientist uncle and constantly running into gangsters and foreigners.  Also features Robbie Coltrane.  "War" has a Communist invasion of the UK, where two people retreat to a country home, but get separated.  "The Beat Generation" features a group of Beat poets at a seaside villa, for a huge party.  "Bad News Tour," is a documentary about a metal band going on a tour, but they are total f-ups.  "Summer School has suburban students role playing an Iron Age village, in the middle of campus.

Later episodes include "AFistful of Traveler's Cheques," about a group of spaghetti western fans who go to Spain (with plenty of SW cliches), the Detective episode, "The Five Go Mad on Mescalin,"  "Eddie Monsoon..ALife?" where Edmonson plays an entertainer, featured in a documentary.  "Les Dogs" features a wedding reception, with rival gangs, where a gun battle breaks out, while they continue trying to carry on the reception activities.  There is one about the efforts to stop the Thatcher government from flooding London to make it a yacht club (inspired by the battles between the government and the Greater London Council), where the group plays actors, playing the various politicians and figures, including Robbie Coltrane as Charles bronson as Ken Livingstone and Dawn French as Cher as Joan Ruddock, etc.  Jennifer Saunders is Brigitte Nielsen as Margaret Thatcher, if you can wrap your head around that one.

This retrospective gives you a nice feel of everything....

I have watched more episodes and do have to mention, there is a certain surreal quality to many of the episodes; so, the comedy isn't always gag-oriented as conceptual.