Mayfair Marathon - Vol. 1 (Part 1) | Multi-Cartoon Review
“The Return of Anubis” - Space Sentinels (1977)
Space Sentinels was produced by the defunct but not-forgotten Filmation, the studio most famous for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and its spinoff She-Ra: Princess of Power. This show was made long before He-Man waltzed into the world, even being created by his own creator and the studio’s founder, the late Lou Scheimer.
“Creating The Filmation Generation” by Lou Scheimer and Andy Mangels, with a cover featuring Lou Scheimer among his studio’s creations.
Lou Scheimer and his studio led an extremely interesting life. Lou was the son of a German Jew who, according to family legend, had to leave Germany in the early 1920s after “punching a young Adolf Hitler in 1921, well before the Beer Hall Putsch.” Scheimer graduated in 1952 with a fine arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His career in animation and producing cartoons eventually blossomed from there. With former Disney animator Hal Sutherland and business partner Ira Epstein, Lou Scheimer formed Filmation Associates. The company's name was invented because according to Scheimer, “We were working on film, but doing animation.”
Filmation would gain a reputation for its corny and cheap animation, but was also known as a haven for LGBTQ+ people to find work without fear of discrimination. Lou Scheimer’s daughter, voice actress Erica C. Scheimer, detailed this in a 2007 interview with Terrance Griep.
Erica C. Scheimer: “I was a strong female voice myself, and- guess what?- I happened to be gay. Does that make any difference about anything? I'll tell you one thing, it didn't matter, because Filmation was one of the gayest places in town.”
But we’re not here for a history lesson, we’re here for Space Sentinels, an obscure sci-fi superhero show that only ran for 13 episodes. The premise is incredibly simple: three young heroes (inspired by Greek and Roman deities) are taken from Earth across time to another planet to be given eternal youth and superpowers in exchange for protecting the entire Earth, similar to the DC Universe’s Green Lantern Corps. The three heroes are Hercules, Mercury, and Astrea. Astrea (voiced by Dee Timberlake) is a black woman who can shapeshift into any Earth animal, acting as the team’s de facto leader. Mercury (voiced by Evan Kim) is a Chinese man who possesses super-speed, flight, and intense martial arts skills, acting as the team’s comic relief while also proving to be a very competent hero. And Hercules (voiced by George DiCenzo) is a white man who possesses superhuman strength and is comically obsessed with exercise and healthy eating. One thing I do like about this cartoon is the racial diversity is really impressive for 1977. Each hero is from a different ethnic background, and each one has a unique personality and set of powers. It highlights cooperation, unity, and diversity without coming across as preachy. And hey, the black woman is considered the leader of the team. That’s not even something a lot of modern cartoons do! Name a superhero team led by a black woman in any piece of media. It’s hard! It’s honestly pretty beautiful to see, and highlights the positivity and power that diversity in cartoons can bring.
So what is this specific episode about? Well, our adventure takes us to Egypt, where a group of scientists accidentally reawaken the godly Anubis, who was imprisoned in a pyramid by superstitious people in ancient Egypt. Now the dog-headed deity vows revenge on humans with his tool, the handheld Power Pyramid, after he is freed in modern times. Hercules, Mercury, and Astrea must go to Egypt at the command of their sentient spaceship and supercomputer Sentinel One (also voiced by George DiCenzo), who monitors all situations across the globe. The episode was written by writer, musician, and director Donald F. Glut, best known for writing the novelizations of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. And it definitely has the feeling of an action-adventure novel or comic book. The episode does have a good atmosphere. It’s not constantly talking or walking, as there are long shots of night-soaked pyramids and twisting corridors to build-up a dark and mysterious mood. But it also highlights the biggest problem with this show. It’s, well, Filimation’s “mation” part of their name. There’s a lot of choppy animation at work, especially in cases like the scenes or perspectives changing without the backgrounds changing. Character animation for talking scenes, and even action scenes, is very stiff- obviously still cells that just move their mouths. Yeah, it’s super cheap animation, but it’s not lazy animation. This is clearly people trying their hardest with a tight budget, and you can tell they try to make the most of the resources they have. There’s some shading, there’s interesting perspectives, and there's multiple cool set pieces. They put effort in with pennies and pencils, and that’s admirable.
What I like about this episode is Anubis himself. He’s a pretty cool antagonist even by modern cartoon standards. Not only is he the best designed and best animated character in the episode (drawing anthropomorphic canines can be very difficult), but he’s actually a threat. He’s not an incompetent idiot. For a time that was infamous for children’s television censorship, he does some pretty grizzly stuff. Trying to crush an entire crowd of innocent civilians with a toppling statue is bad enough, but turning the scientists who found him into living hieroglyphics with the intention of leaving them there forever is especially dark. (The scientists end up okay afterwards, of course.) This cartoon does have a bit of a bite, which I was not expecting for something this corny. He’s not a one-dimensional character, and balances being both genuinely dangerous and slightly sympathetic.
I love the unique backstory they give him. Instead of an Earthly god, Anubis is an extraterrestrial scientist whose experimentation with the Power Pyramid led to the destruction of his entire planet, and you actually see his guilt and regret as he flees to Earth. Yeah, his whole trying to enslave all of Egypt is kind of a corny motivation, but it’s established he’s getting revenge on humanity for imprisoning him when he tried to help them. I like that Earth actually ties in with his backstory. Anubis sought redemption after his planet’s destruction by trying to use the Power Pyramid to help Earth’s ancient peoples, only to be attacked and imprisoned due to the people fearing his power.
His ending also doesn’t feel as forced as could’ve been. Sentinel One simply uses his time-travelling abilities to send Anubis back home to before the destruction of his home. It’s established that Sentinel One can pluck things and people from time and space, so sending someone back to the past isn’t too outlandish a concept either. Heck, Anubis even uses rather cliché villain moments to his advantage: when he tells his backstory to Sentinel One, Anubis reveals he was also tracking down the spaceship’s location and broke off the ship’s contact with the heroes while distracting him with his tale of woe. With his backstory and presence, Anubis makes for a decent villain. For a one-off antagonist that’s never seen again in the series, they put a lot of effort into his characterization. I dare even say he’s more interesting than many main villains in modern cartoons. How come Anubis here is a better villain in just one episode than Emperor Belos was in all three seasons of The Owl House?
There’s also some genuinely funny moments, albeit they’re very cheesy jokes. But there’s a charm in the main cast. They feel like friends that commonly tease each other and make sassy remarks but ultimately love each other, which makes you care about them a lot more than if they were just walking catchphrases and snark machines like a lot of bad superhero teams. They joke around, but still know when to take things seriously. They trust each other to fight and explore on their own terms without the need for constant hand-holding or monitoring. They’re not always stone-faced, but never too ridiculous. The heroes do get captured and trapped a lot in this episode, but it’s harsh to call them incompetent. The characters use their brains as well as their brawn on their quest, and also their hearts, being able to do a kind gesture for Anubis when they learn of his troubled past.
They even point out to Anubis that his hatred towards humans might not apply to the present- again, the subtle anti-prejudice messages are strong with this cartoon.
Astrea, Mercury, and Hercules are very well-balanced. Hercules just punching the Power Pyramid out of the sky and it exploding is hysterically hammy, and is probably my favorite bit, but they’re all likable with a goofy-cool appeal to them. It’s like a dated but still stylish dress you find at a thrift store: clunky, yet charming. (Also, shoutouts for this 1970s cartoon for drawing the Egyptian people as normal human beings and not racist caricatures. Again, I like the anti-racism messages going on here. This cartoon would absolutely be called “woke” if it came out nowadays.)
Overall, if you like superhero cartoons, I can’t recommend something as delightfully-dated and genuinely heartfelt as Space Sentinels. There’s a ton to admire, even as archaic as it appears on the surface. The characters are charismatic with a good rapport with each other, and all are treated equally. Speaking of, the unity and diversity is subtle yet powerful, especially for the year it came out and even nowadays. The dialogue blends dramatic backstory, sci-fi concepts, and witty banter well. The villain is genuinely good, being sympathetic without scraping off his sinisterness or intelligence. The action is unfortunately choppy and the animation has aged pretty badly, but there’s clearly a lot of effort put into making the adventure interesting. It doesn’t overwhelm you with action: there’s various scenes of capture and escape, travel, suspense, mystery, and fighting. It’s not just one big boring battle for 22 minutes. There’s passion behind this piece of 1970s cheese, and it may smell a bit odd and look a bit stale, but it’s delicious when you bite into it. Overall, Space Sentinels is a forgotten retro gem that deserves its flowers, and I’m so happy it paved the way for other Filmation classics like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Bravestarr. Check it out if you like your ham with a side of corn, and a lot of heart.
“Jinx of the Sphinx” - The King Kong Show (1966)
Let’s go back a decade from Space Sentinels to the kind of cartoon I was expecting from anything made before the television animation renaissance. Uninspired, bland-as-bread, shoddily-made schlock with no effort put into the writing or art direction and made without any passion or imagination. Don’t try looking this show up either. It’s incredibly obscure and poorly-preserved. You can find the episodes on YouTube, but you’re also likely to get results for Kong: The Animated Series, a much more successful Fox Kids show from 2000.
The King Kong Show (also known as キングコング00+1⁄7親指トム, Kingu Kongu 00+1⁄7 Oyayubi Tomu), is an American/Japanese hybrid monster produced by Rankin/Bass and Toei Animation. If it’s known for anything, it’s known as the first traditionally-animated series produced in Japan for an American company. Rankin/Bass, founded in 1960 by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, made all those awkward stop-motion Christmas specials. Meanwhile Toei, founded in 1948 by Kenzō Masaoka and Sanae Yamamoto, was an overseas animation studio used by Rankin/Bass for many of their 2D animated projects. Toei survives to this day, unlike the defunct Rankin/Bass. And you know the company for being responsible for the anime One Piece, still ongoing from 1999 with over 1,138 episodes and based on the literal best-selling comic series of all time. (If you’re curious, One Piece has sold over 578 million books, meaning it has sold more comics than Peanuts, Asterix, and Dragon Ball.)
So the premise of this show is that a boy named Bobby, voiced by the late Billie Mae Richards (most famous as the voice of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Tenderheart Bear in The Care Bears Movie), is just friends with King Kong now and can summon him like a Pokémon whenever he wants to see someone get their face pounded-in. My dear friend, who is anonymous, is a huge fan of King Kong and helped me review this episode.
The episode begins in the Nile, with King Kong, Bobby, and his father. They’re investigating why trade routes from the lower regions of Africa through the Nile are running dry. You genuinely do not care, though. As a generic evil professor named Dr. Who (no relation) has put an electric brain inside the Sphinx and is using it to commit equally generic evil. I should also point out that the sci-fi classic Doctor Who began airing in 1963, and this aired three years later, so I have no idea why he’s named Dr. Who. My friend said the main villain’s goons talk like stereotypical mooks in a Batman Arkham game and he pointed out that Dr. Who looks like Dr. Finkelstein from The Nightmare Before Christmas if his head got bigger in every shot. And no, he nor his Sphinx are good antagonists. The Sphinx is doing mindless destruction for no reason. I think discount Megamind here, as my friend coined, just wants to destroy the canal and “destroy all the wonders of the world so his are all that remains”. But the episode is only five minutes long, so any motivations are an afterthought. Everything in this short is an afterthought. The heroes get captured off screen too. Literally walking in the desert normally in one scene, then we cut to the Sphinx destroying a few boats, then we immediately cut to Bobby and his father already captured by the bad guys. It's pathetic. (The way Kong rises from the ground with no animation as Bobby calls for him like godmother damn Pikachu is hysterical, though.)
The bad guys instantly flee with no pushback, and the fight between Kong and the Sphinx is as weightless as a supermodel and nothing exciting happens in the action- even in a corny way. It’s just dull, underdeveloped, and rushed beyond belief. There's no tension, every conflict is solved with simply a finger snap, and there’s nothing remotely fascinating to latch onto. My friend enjoyed it for a good laugh, but I couldn’t get into it. You’re here for some of the laziest movement you’ll see (even by 1960s standards), obnoxious sound effects, stiff voice acting even from people who have more talent than this, useless villains, even worse heroes, and the animation is the worst of all the Mayfair cartoons we’ll be watching today. The mouths don’t move naturally: instead of having in-betweens to transition from mouth shapes, they simply flip to the next mouth shape in the blink of an eye. There’s barely any in-betweens at all, making even the most basic of movements choppy and cold. There is little actual animation in this animation.
King Kong isn’t the type of monster to fight other monsters, my friend says. And he also points out there is nothing that makes the franchise special within this show: no violence, no mysteries, no commentary, no cool monster designs, nothing. There’s nothing to like, and nothing more to say. Avoid this show like a giant ape on the Empire State Building.
“Dinosaur” / “Dinosaurs!” (1980/1987)
I was in awe of what I watched. The passion, the atmosphere, the intensity… all in only 13 minutes. A genuinely surprising, spectacular short film that is as educational as it is inspiring. And it’s not a secret as to why this short is so good when you learn about the man behind it. Dinosaur/Dinosaurs! was written, directed, and animated by the late but legendary Will Vinton, a famous claymation animator and director whose life left a huge impact on both stop-motion and CGI animation, with his creation of characters across both mediums. From the California Raisins with clay to the M&M’s mascots with computers, Will was nominated for five Academy Awards and several Emmy and Clio Awards for his studio's work. He directed and produced several short films, television shows, and even movies throughout his life before passing away in 2018. He did the stop-motion animation on (and helped produce) Return to Oz, which he got nominated for an Academy Award, and directed The Adventures of Mark Twain, regarded as one of the darkest stop-motion films ever made and one of the creepiest children’s films of the 1980s- a decade already defined by children’s horror, such as the previously mentioned Return to Oz.
Will Vinton among his creations, including The California Raisins and The Noid.
Originally made in 1980, Dinosaur was repackaged and released on video in 1987 under the new title Dinosaurs! The new footage featured a classroom setting where an energetic and Autistic-coded student named Philip, played by child star Fred Savage, is giving a class report on dinosaurs with the help of an animated chalkboard. The mixed-media presentation makes this short a joy to experience on the big screen, and the opening chalkboard itself is vibrantly animated, even before we get to the main treat of the stop-motion. It’s fluid, but has a surreal yet childish immaturity to it that makes it really feel like a schoolboy’s doodles come to life without looking too unprofessional either. Philip’s passion for dinosaurs is engaging and realistic for a young boy, and the classmates chipping in with their own quips affecting the animation itself is very amusing (the rivalry between classmates Richard and Margaret is a fun running gag). While it can get annoying, the giggles and shouting help add to the chaos of the classroom and build the short’s atmosphere. Not only is the short endearing, but it’s genuinely educational. I did actually learn new information about dinosaurs while watching, making this an excellent piece of edutainment, where you want to learn more about the topic just with how well they sucker you into this chalk-and-clay world.
But the real star of the show is Will Vinton’s spectacular stop-motion prehistoric universe. While his stop-motion is sprinkled in small gags throughout the chalkboard segments, it’s when the chalkboard segment transitions into this realm of dinosaurs made entirely from clay that the film explodes in color and mood. The atmosphere is thick and rich, as ambient noise and the mighty roars of creatures long forgotten by time fill the air. The environments are lush and detailed, intensified with an aura of dust and wood and bone. The combat, for stop-motion, is powerful and heavy. The narration cuts here, only letting the action and music carry the emotions and struggles. There’s a sense of life and depth in the world Will Vinton has created, where I can feel the heat on my shoulders and feel the stone under my toes. The might of the T-Rex, and the thrill as it chases the camera with bold fangs and raw power, is incredible. Everything about this is incredible, especially knowing every beast, every plant, every rock was created with nothing but clay and shot one painful photo at a time.
Overall, Will Vinton’s Dinosaur/Dinosaurs! is a stop-motion majesty. It’s genuinely educational while sprinkling in endearing humor and chaos, it’s intense in atmosphere with its animated world and its musical accompaniment, and it’s unique with a flurry of amazing emotions that make you feel like you’ve been teleported back in time and back again right at the edge of death. Easily the most artistic and interesting of the animations I’ve seen for this Mayfair marathon. I cannot recommend it enough if you are a dinosaur lover, a stop-motion lover, or just want to learn something new. A prehistoric paradise that’s aged as gracefully as it could, and a hidden treasure waiting to be rediscovered like a stegosaurus’s spine.
“Darkrider’s Wolves of Doom” - Turbo Teen (1984)
…This was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
And I want more of it.
Turbo Teen is one of those shows you, and pardon the cliché, need to see to believe. We genuinely do not see cartoons like this anymore. The weird, tacky, and ludicrous shows from the 1980s. I call this genre “corny-cool”. These are shows so over-the-top in their fusions of stereotypical boyish things like cars and superheros that they wrap back around to being either so bad that they're good or just plain bad. Thankfully, Turbo Teen is the former. Created by the defunct Ruby-Spears Productions, the same studio whom I glanced over in my Rose Petal Place retrospective, and developed by Michael Maurer, Turbo Teen had famous comic book artist Jack Kirby on staff as a production designer, and according to Wikipedia: “It was broadcast during the growing popularity of the Knight Rider television series and mirrors much of it. The car that Brett turns into looks like an amalgam of a Third Generation Chevrolet Camaro and its sister car, the Pontiac Trans Am; the later model Knight Rider's KITT is based on.”
Turbo Teen is about a teenager named Brett Matthews (voiced by Michael Mish) who swerves off the road in his sports car during a thunderstorm and crashes into a secret government laboratory. There, he and his car are accidentally exposed to a molecular beam created by Dr. Chase (voiced by Pat Fraley). This causes Brett and his car to become fused together, giving Brett the ability to morph into his car. Alongside his friends Alex and Pattie, as well as his lovable dog Rusty, Brett dons the identity of Turbo Teen and goes on random superhero adventures and mysteries. Brett also battles the mysterious monster truck driver Dark Rider, played by the man of a million voices Frank Welker, best known for Fred from Scooby-Doo and Megatron from Transformers (and frequent fairies on this blog will remember as Horace Fly in my reviews of the animated specials of Rose Petal Place). Dark Rider seeks to capture Brett in order to find the secret behind his abilities, but through wacky adventures, our titular teen pulls through.
This episode has Dark Rider kidnap a scientist named Dr. Fabro in order to use his formula that reverts dogs back into their feral states of nature in a new Saturday morning scheme to capture Brett, who is going to Homecoming with the scientist’s cartoonishly-French daughter, Monique. The animation is rough, with a lot of body parts vanishing in between movements and obvious uses of moving still frames instead of drawing new ones. But it makes up for its cheap style with some decent racing scenes, cool transformations, and really well-drawn cars. As hoped for in a show about turning into a car, the vehicles in this show are nicely-designed and move as fluidly as they can for machines. The action is very campy, including a scene where we see Brett driving off of a crumbling construction elevator, leaping onto a crane hook, then swinging into a destroyed building with the off-handed comment that he can do all this because he does gymnastics. That is the type of action, comedy, and dialogue you get in Turbo Teen.
The episode attempts to have mystery and drama unfolding with Dark Rider getting the idea that Brett Matthews and his car could be one in the same, and his scheme of the week has him actively working on a way to prove his new theory. Dark Rider is not a terrible villain, though he’s as hammy as they come. A bit stereotypical with his gravely voice and dark trenchcoat, but he is shown to be using his brains every now and again. He stalks, he bribes, he kidnaps, he endlessly pursues and spies on Brett and his close friends: he's not a slouch. He even uses Monique as a double agent, forcing her to play with Brett’s heart to lure him into a booby trap in exchange for rescuing her father. (And let’s be honest, threatening a dog puts you on my personal hit list.) Frank Welker uses his Megatron voice for Dark Rider, and being a show about transforming cars, this show is essentially what happens when your sister’s Maxie dolls mix up with your Transformers during playtime. It’s kind of adorable in a way. This serious plot about Brett’s beloved dog Rusty being reverted to a savage wolf and being hunted by Dark Rider is tangled with drama about Pattie thinking Brett is cheating on her as Monique basically ropes him into taking her to Homecoming, so Pattie goes out with the “Hey toots!” bad boy Eddie (also voiced by Pat Fraley). It’s very silly, but if you grew up in the 1980s or enjoy media from this time period, you might find the high school shenanigans charming.
The characters are common for this era: very snarky, pretty preppy, totally cheesy, gnarly and tubular, and they make lots of puns and ironic wordplay. There’s a lot of dialogue about prom dates, picking up friends, and other typical teen drivel. Brett is your average teenage boy: thinking about sports and girls, trying to balance his school life with being a talking car, shooting the breeze and cracking jokes with his friends. He’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but the fact the character is such an archetype makes the cheese of the premise stink something hilarious. Part of the fun IS the characters being such high school cutouts, and it has the most standard of characters go through the most ridiculous of premises, making the show utterly camp in a very charming albeit clunky way. Pattie is your average girl next door, though she is notable for being voiced by Pamela Hayden (the voice of Millhouse on The Simpsons) in one of her earliest ever voice acting roles. And Alex (voiced by T. K. Carter) especially acts as the stereotypical black comic relief character you see in a lot of cartoon trios even nowadays. Speaking of, Alex is probably the worst character in the show. In a scene early on in the episode where they’re hiding from Dark Rider, Alex deliberately presses Brett’s car horn after Brett told him to quiet down. The writing probably intended for it to be an accident, but the animation makes it look deliberate. He’s not funny, he’s just a hindrance. And speaking of not being funny, rarely will the witty quips in this show make you laugh, but you WILL certainly be laughing at this show... just not at any of its jokes.
I don’t hate it, however. It’s cliché nowadays, but I fully expect and even embrace this from this kind of media. Remember how heavily teen culture dominated the 1980s and how many common archetypes found in sitcoms, magazines, and music videos were incorporated into animation made for them for the very first time. Before the 1980s, cartoons directly made for and marketed to teenagers didn’t exist. Cartoons were primarily for younger children on TVs and for adults in the cinemas. So the push towards teen-centric animation in the 1980s was a new and radical idea. Hence why a lot of the shows from this era can feel very pandering, pushy, and over-the-top in their portrayal of teen culture, especially American teen culture. It was a new thing, and people were excited to do it! Simple as that- and you know, there was also money to be made. It’s because of how new it was at the time that I won’t harp on this show for being drenched in teen trends too heavily. I will harp on it for being ridiculous, though.
This show will leave you gawking from theme song to credits. Is it good? No. Is it bad? Hell no! This crap was hysterically dated, and delightful to watch ironically. But it is very dated: from the premise, to the characters, to the writing. However, I only consider a cartoon downright bad when it’s especially obnoxious, offensive, or boring. Turbo Teen is charming enough to not be obnoxious, silly enough to not be offensive, and downright wacky enough to not be boring. With Brett’s breakdancing in his car form and the character genuinely helping Monique rescue her father even after she set them up, this cartoon is too adorably clumsy to hate. It is a lot of fun, even if the quality is laughable. And even with clunky animation and flat characters, is a show really all bad if it’s still fun to watch? This show might get its own full review one day, I have that much to talk about. And if it’s interesting and amusing, I don’t think there’s any harm in Turbo Teen. I dare even say that this one is worth remembering, even if we’re snickering behind its back.
“Scrambled Aches” - Looney Tunes (1957)
...Well, that was a blast! But we still have five more cartoons to go before we can rank them all in this Mayfair Marathon. Let me know if quick reviews of cartoon episodes and short films like this is something you want to see more of from my blog! I always appreciate your feedback, and as always, thanks for keeping my magic alive!
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Love reading your posts, you are so incredibly knowledable and articulate.
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