ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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The Stooges made their comeback with sci-fi comedies, but the one I enjoy the most is Snow White and the Three Stooges.

Perhaps they should have done a musical in a Western setting, sort of like the one with Gordon MacRae and Shirley What's-her-name —





— you know, that lovely lady who was in the TV series about the family who formed a rock band.

What was the name of that band?

Oh yeah. . . The Pear Tree Family!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

The submarine-tank-helicopter is an impressive life-size vehicle. It is used in several scenes that have it landing on the ground, driving along an Air Force base, and on roads. The special effects crew do a marvelous job executing these sequences. It gives the movie a very realistic look, instead of relying only on a miniature.

The mansion's interior sets are awesome looking. They must have shown up in other movies and television shows. The exterior, which appears to be a real location, is also impressive.

Of the 6 Stooges feature films, 3 are in the science fiction genre.

Larry Fine suffered a serious stroke after the production of their movie, "The Outlaws Is Coming." Emil Sitka (Professor Danforth) was intended to replace Larry had the Stooges continued to make more films.

[Pow]

Moe apparently retains the ray gun he got away from one of the evil Martians who stole the submarine-tank-helicopter. It will provide further proof of the existence of the Martians, as well as allow our scientists to examine the pistol and learn its technology.

[Gord Green]

Yah know....Sometimes you want to watch a movie you can laugh through!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Pow]

Did some exploring on this animation process that was seen in this film with Professor Danforth's invention.

Animascope was invented by producer Norman Murer's brother Leon, it is related to what was called Colormation.

On Youtube there is a 5:19 film demonstrating & explaining this intriguing process called: Something Weird Animascope. There are also some other short films featuring this technology. The company was called Worldwide Artists.

Yellow Submarine (1968), and Ralph Bakshi's 1978 movie The Lord of the Rings both utilized Animascope.

It's ironic that we have a scene In Orbit, where the wealthy sponsor of the Three Stooges cartoon show demands something new for the show instead of the conventional cartoon animation. When the Stooges cartoons were first produced for television, they used exactly the simplistic kind of animation we see in the movie in the scene showing the Stooges regular cartoon show that the sponsor
points to and criticizes.

This scene may have been more than part of the plot for In Orbit. It may have been Norman Murer's attempt to interest Colombia Pictures, and any other movie studios or networks, in his Animascope technology. I'd have been curious to see it utilized more in feature films and television.

[Bud Brewster]

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Hot damn! This looks great!

I'm very impressed. This should have revolutionized animation for TV series during that period.

______________ Something Weird Animascope


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

I'm perplexed too as to why this innovative animation style developed by Leon Maurer never took off. The You Tube video explains how cost effective this amazing process would have been compared to conventional animation at that time, back in the 1960s.

Conventional animation requires hundreds of artists and thousands of drawings. 1-minute = 90 feet of film. Cost per foot is $100 to $250, cost per minute is $9,000 to $22,000.

Animascope only requires a small stage without sets, with a small and talented cast. Cost per foot: $20 to $40 dollars. Cost per minute: $1,800 to $3,600. Movies & TV productions are always on the hunt for discovering ways to shoot films and television shows cheaper; this certainly fits the bill.

This process was used in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated feature film adaptation of Lord of the Rings. It was also utilized for the Beatle's movie Yellow Submarine (1968).

One poster, after seeing the You Tube demo reel for Animascope. wrote that "The faces appear frozen, like plastic masks. In combining realistic human-motion with inexpressive faces, it creates an unappealing zombie-like effect." He is correct on that score. However, after viewing scenes from Bakshi's Lord of the Rings movie, I found the facial expressions for the characters just fine. So what happened that prevented this cost effective and revolutionary system from catching fire?

If it could have been utilized for television productions, I wonder what Star Trek: TAS might have looked like back in 1973 had it been done in Animascope, if it could be done. Could this fascinating system been adapted to weekly network TV series? Perhaps it worked best only as a feature film that has a longer shooting schedule and a larger budget. I hope to find some answers to this mystery some day.

[Pow]

Fire and Ice (1983) is another fine example of the rotoscoping process.

[Bud Brewster]

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The artwork and animation in the film are better than I remembered. It doesn't seem have the "rotoscoped" look I expected.

When it was first released, I had the unrealistic expectation that it would look like an animated Frazetta painting.

________ Fire and Ice (1983) ORIGINAL TRAILER


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_ Fire & Ice - Full Version Animated Movie {English}


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)