Animated Theatre films based on shows!

[droosan]

Robotech: The Movie was primarily made from the first episode of Megazone 23, which was notable for being the first OVA -- Original Video Animation (basically, 'direct to video' title) released in Japan.

While Megazone 23 does feature a gorgeous idol singer designed by Haruhiku Mikimoto (as with Lynn Minmay in the Macross portion of Robotech), and motorcycles which transform into robots (similar to those in the Mospeada section of Robotech) .. the storyline had little common ground with the events Carl Macek had established in the Robotech TV series.

Since it didn't have to conform to broadcast standards in Japan, Megazone 23 featured quite a bit more sex & violence than the three anime shows Robotech had been cobbled from. It also ended on a rather dystopian 'downer' note .. so, Mr. Macek commissioned a newly-animated 'happier' ending scene!

[gaastra]

Movie clip of the robotech dub.






Next up--

[EricJ]

Which was actually not too darn bad --And, as Roger Corman cheap-acquisition 80's dubs go, more accurate to the source material than (ahem) "Warriors of the Wind", or his live-action-added "Angel's Egg".

It's as silly/naive as any of Leiji Matsumoto's 80's space epics, but has a wildly unrealistic kids'-POV "Space fairytale" quality that makes the entire series addictively watchable, and the Movie sums up the entire important series plot highlights in two hours--
Imagine a sort of 80's sci-fi version of Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy, and a lot truer to that spirit than, er, other versions we could name....

(And not sure if gaastra's post was intentional, but RIP Leiji Matsumoto, 1938-2023.)

[gaastra]

If you never saw galaxy express movie it's pretty good. Rip.



A few more--

Kind of a cheat as its live clips with cartoon shorts but i'll let it slide.

[Ben]

Bingo!

Was waiting for Powerpuff Girls (hence my previous 90s/TV comment).

But Bugs Bunny Superstar? Absolutely no deal! That’s theatrical through and through!

(Important film, too, for renewing interest in cartoons, and proving to WB there was still a market for Looney Tunes on the big screen).

[gaastra]

It led to the other looney tunes theatre films also.

[EricJ]

BBSS is worth rediscovering as Bob Clampett's "Hey, I INVENTED most of this!" overlooked-history documentary.

At the time, all we thought was "The afternoon cartoons on screen, cool..."

[gaastra]

VHS poster but same as theatre one.



The canon film disney forgot about. Disneys follow to to the pooh package film released as a double bill with the first Davey Crockett film.






The movie was released on vhs overseas however. It's never been released on dvd so far.

[Ben]

I have this on VHS. It’s not a canon film, though, forgotten or otherwise. It was always designed to play double feature and second run screens. It’s basically only a half hour or so featurette, with the second half just a run of cartoons one after the other, which themselves had different configurations and lengths in different countries and on video.

There we’re also *many* other similar compilation features released around the world, well before later video compilations, and they were all basically like the Oscars review "feature" from just before Snow White. Theatrical releases but never considered official features.

[gaastra]

It’s basically only a half hour or so featurette,

So 12min or so shorter than Saludos Amigos. Never really got to see it as it's hard to find in america if you missed its theatre showing.

Heard about the oscar one but was that a film or festival? Most say if it has new wraparounds, it's a "film" but if it has no wraparounds and just shorts back to back it's a "festival".


Speaking of clip movies--



and a full film.



Remember the pogo theatre movie? Released on vhs by disney no less!

[Randall]

I got that Pogo VHS from droosan a while ago... and have yet to watch it!

Gotta love Puppetoons. I actually just had a conversation with Armold Leibovit about Volume 3 a couple of nights ago. Coming later this year!

I've watched that Gumby movie. Sorry to say I didn't love it.

Batman: MotP, of course, is the best Batman film ever.

[EricJ]

I got that Pogo VHS from droosan a while ago... and have yet to watch it!

As someone who grew up with the same big book of Pogo cartoons as others who can quote classic strips from memory (we know who we are... ), I'd seen it on VHS in the old mom-and-pop-rental days, and...it's not great.

It's a dream-team voice cast, and they reproduce some of the classic strip jokes, but most of it is taken over by cartoon slapstick, that doesn't really seem to understand the vibe of the strip.
(And PT Bridgeport is a villain, with Jimmy Breslin's NY accent?? )

Between this and the Chuck Jones thing, we still haven't gotten that perfect Pogo adaptation. Heck, I'd even be willing to see what Illumination would do with it, if they had somebody who actually READ the darn things.

[Ben]

So 12min or so shorter than Saludos Amigos. Never really got to see it as it's hard to find in america if you missed its theatre showing.

Heard about the oscar one but was that a film or festival? Most say if it has new wraparounds, it's a "film" but if it has no wraparounds and just shorts back to back it's a "festival".

Mickey: yeah, 12 min shorter than Saludos, but that still doesn’t make it a feature. A feature, for whatever reason, is determined by the 40 minute mark. Saludos just counts at 42 mins!

Oscars: there were two versions: a pre-Snow White 1937 one (again just counting at 41 mins) that had the landmark Silly Symphonies to that point, and a later reissue (from the Package days of the 1940s?) that extended it to 1941's Lend A Paw, at around 80 mins, which is the one we had on tape. It’s possible, as with the Music Land compilation feature in 1955, that it came even later, but both had the same wraparounds and Fantasia style narration between the shorts. Here's a recreation of the opening:


I used to love this tape! And for a while it was the only way to see really good print versions of the best and most important early landmark Symphonies from 1932-1939: Flowers And Trees, Three Little Pigs, Tortoise And The Hare, Three Orphan Kittens, Country Cousin, The Old Mill, Ferdinand The Bull, The Ugly Duckling and Pluto cartoon Lend A Paw, from 1941, with Walt only missing out on the award in 1940 when MGM got it. He did win again in '42 for Der Fuehrer's Face, but we can understand that not being included right after the war. Walt wouldn’t win Best Animated Short again until Toot, Whistle, Plunk And Boom in 1953.

[gaastra]

Yes, they released this in theatres in limited release after the speed racer reruns took off on mtv in the 90s. Really. And yes, it's just episodes of the show edited into a movie!

[Ben]

Or Star Wars: The Cologne Wars, where every Jedi smells very manly…