R.I.P Lou Scheimer

deadpool

sad news to wake up to, a lot of folks won't know the name but chances are if you watched cartoons in the 70's and 80's you have seen his work in some way with his animation company filmation (he-man, fat albert Star Trek animated). Known for being one of the greatest employers in TV and helped give starts to folks like Paul Dini and J Michael Straczynski. Always made sure his cartoons had a message (some times it was cheesey ) but sometimes it changed lives, like the many kids who got the courage speak out about being touched inappropriately because He-man and She-ra told them not to be ashamed and let others now what was happening ... Our tv sets shine a little less bright and cartoons are now a little less cheerful today . R.I.P Lou Scheimer and " Good Journey ".

nweathington

That sucks. I knew he was in bad health, but it still sucks. He was a really nice guy.

Torchsong

Gonna hafta watch some He-Man and She-Ra tonight in tribute...

rebis

Mr. Scheimer's work was my first exposure to the DCU. He's responsible for me waking up far to early on Saturday mornings.

A true pioneer.

playdohsrepublic

So sad! I love all that old filmation stuff. He-Man, filmations Ghostbusters, Star Trek... A huge part of my childhood.

It should be mentioned that in addition to running filmation he also did a great deal of voice work, including Orko from He-man.

Fade2Black

My latest tumblr. entry is a brief homage to his career.

Chuck_Melville

Yeah, I best remember the Superman-Aquaman Hour, the various Archie shows, Fat Albert, and even Star Trek -- I even remember that fondly, though I'm sure there's a good deal of nostalgia mixed in. But -- I'm sorry -- most of the adventure shows done later just made me cringe, the animation was so bad and so limited; more so than the earlier works. Still, I appreciate what was there; he left his own stamp on Sat AM shows for a long time.

nweathington

Chuck_Melville said:

Yeah, I best remember the Superman-Aquaman Hour, the various Archie shows, Fat Albert, and even Star Trek -- I even remember that fondly, though I'm sure there's a good deal of nostalgia mixed in. But -- I'm sorry -- most of the adventure shows done later just made me cringe, the animation was so bad and so limited; more so than the earlier works. Still, I appreciate what was there; he left his own stamp on Sat AM shows for a long time.

The animation of those later shows wasn’t great, I agree, but very few shows on the air at that time were noticeably better. Budgets were tight for everyone, but especially for Filmation because they were trying to keep all the animation work in the U.S. and not farm it out overseas like Hanna-Barbera and the rest were doing. Hence the more frequent use and reuse of stock footage (that would occasionally be flipped for “variety”).

Did you know that one year (I don’t remember which) Filmation produced every single show on CBS’s Saturday morning line-up?