Get Get Animated!

In 2004 I was lucky enough to stumble upon the site of an animation pro named John Cawley. He was selling copies of his 80s animation fanzine "Get Animated!". I was drawn to it because issue #3 had an article on one of the greatest toy robots cartoons of all time-Mighty Orbots. I was blown away by that issue of "Get Animated!" so I bought a couple more issues and each was just as incredible.

John has been in the animation business for decades and "Get Animated!" is special because he produced it during the 80s. Reading it is like going back in time and re-experiencing happenings in the animation industry

but from an insider's perspective. I don't have my issue #3 with me but I remember the Orbots article was credited to Fred Patten and Darrell McNeil who are respected historians of animation. It included excerpts from an interview with Orbots writer Buzz Dixon done in 1985 during a meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization. Other issues of GA were full of awesome stuff like that-holy hell even Osamu Tezuka is listed as a contributor! I am amazed that John still hasn't sold out of these after 25 years.

I just found out John has a CD of the collected "Get Animated!" for sale. I cannot recommend this highly enough if you're into 80s animation like He-Man and/or The Mighty Orbots. Actually if you're a fan of animation in general I'd say go through John's site and buy everything.

Can someone put all the episodes of Mighty Orbots on veoh.com?

YOU BET THEY CAN!



Online Videos by Veoh.com

This one's for all my Boo

Last year I uploaded this to YouTube but under another name not nearly as great as Evil King Macrocranios. When I wanted to change the name of my account to EKM, YouTube wouldn't allow it. I had to delete the old account and establish a new one. It sucked! In all the changings I forgot to reupload this masterpiece. Now that Blogger has video upload functionality I thought I would put it here.

What I thought was funny was that after I took it down I started reading people posting on message boards saying they think an Orbots toy was made because they remember seeing a guy on YouTube with one. I made it pretty clear in the comments section of the YouTube page that I resin cast the figure myself. I guess I was close to starting an internet rumor of sorts.

Can I do a half assed update to the Space Toaster Palace?-YOU BET I CAN

I break form a little in this week's update to Vintage Space Toaster Palace by including content that isn't newspaper based for a toyline that never existed. I put in a section on Mighty Orbots consisting of two pages from Mattel's 1985 Toy Fair catalog. They show what I believe to be the prototype of the only official Mighty Orbots combiner toy. (A non combining bootleg figure of a different mold was released in South Korea but I don't know that it ever saw US release in any form.)

It's tough to say what definitively happened to Mighty Orbots and why (or if) the toy was never produced and why the show got cancelled. The internet is rife with speculation but I do know a lawsuit filed against Mattel by Tonka seeked to prevent distribution of the toy on the grounds that the Orbots line was too similar in name and appearance to Tonka's GoBots. I don't know much more beyond that. I'm rather positive that the show was cancelled after the first season not due to lawsuits but because it tanked opposite the Smurfs. The Smurfs ruled Saturday morning television and Mighty Orbots just had the misfortune to be in a time slot against them. I don't think much of anything could have beaten Smurfs. The Transformers would probably have suffered the same obscure fate the Orbots did if they were a Saturday morning network show up against Smurfs.

Misfortune aside, Orbots was a fantastic show that I loved. I wish it would get released on DVD like so many other TMS entertainment shows like Galaxy High and Galaxy Rangers have been lately. In the meantime I just keep going to these pages over and over again trying to relive the magic of the best robot show that couldn't use laser beams:

Orbots creator interviews and information



• Interview with animation writer Buzz Dixon-From Quick Kick's Theatre, this is a 1986 interview that was originally published in David Anthony Kraft's COMICS INTERVIEW magazine. Buzz wrote two episodes of Mighty Orbots and Orbots was one of his very first jobs (that actually got aired) in the animation industry. In the interview he talks about how Orbots had great ratings that were always within a few points of first place, and he reveals inside information on why it got canned.


• Interview with animation director Osamu Dezaki-In this interview Mr. Dezaki talks about his experiences in animation and briefly reflects on what it was like working on Mighty Orbots.


• Profiles of Osamu Dezaki and Akio Sugino-This page has comprehensive background information on the series director and character designer. There's a picture of Mr. Dezaki there for those wanting to see what he looks like.


• Michael Reaves, Orbots story editor-This is the personal site of Michael Reaves, the show's consultant and story bible writer. He also wrote or co-wrote more episodes of Mighty Orbots than any other person.


• John Cawley's GET ANIMATED!-GET ANIMATED! was a fanzine dedicated to animation published back in 1985. If you like Orbots you absolutely must have issue #3 of GET ANIMATED! It features a cover story chock full of Orbots information. At only $5 a copy (including shipping!) I guarentee you won't be dissapointed.

Orbots fan sites



• Orbots cel gallery-Here's a nice collection of Orbots cels from Stuck In the 80's, a webpage showcasing the cel collection of Kathleen and Maryann Robbins.


• Arioch's Mighty Orbots Page-Obligatory link to one of the most popular Orbots fan sites on the internet. Everyone who has ever googled Orbots ends up here.


• Dishonest John's Classic TV Toons-Dishonest John has a nice one page section devoted to Mighty Orbots with some really good screen caps.
  

Orbots Mailing list



• Mighty Orbots Fan Page-This is the only active (as of January 2005) Yahoogroup I know about dedicated to Mighty Orbots.
  

The speed of your fax machine determines how much of a toy robots fan you are OR: ORBOTCON or BOTCON?

Damn I am so tired of people complaining how expensive it is to preregister for Botcon. What all you whiny robot chickens don't understand is the concept of CONventional Reflectoral Allsparkory Perceptory Economics, or CONRAPE for short. CONRAPE is an economic force affecting official convention registration costs for fandoms of cartoon toy robots. It's in all the wikkias and googles but I will explain it to you here.

As a fanbase gets older it is very probable that their expendable income increases as well. Understandably, it is only fair that convention organizers who cater to people in a well established and large fandom be compensated proportionally to what those attendees can pay. For example, the exclusive toy at a convention for Mighty Orbots held in South Dakota this year was a $2 unpainted resin model kit some guy made in his garage. However, the exclusive convention toy at this year's Gundam convention in Antarctica is a $250,000 platinum plated Gundam figure with diamond eyes. Because Gundam is older than God (and more popular) and Mighty Orbots sucks Voltron balls.

In ten years it will cost $25,000 to preregister for Botcon but because at least 4 people can afford it, they'll keep doing the show. But don't think you don't get anything for 10 months of your entire yearly income. Those four lucky people will get blood transfusions from Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime. Peter will be providing voices in Michael Bay's Transformers the Movie PART X, which will be released that year. And each attendee of Botcon 2017 will get a box of 200 exclusive figures, 197 of which will be black repaints of that year's Optimus Prime. The three others will be new figures recolored in the paint schemes of obscure minicon characters from Transformers Armada to appease the 'old skool' fans. (Actually all characters from Transformers Armada are obscure even today because nobody watched Transformers Armada.) And Botcon 2017 will be on the moon.

Something else I can tell you about the future of this fandom is that Botcon will far outlast the retail Transformers toyline as long as hundreds of people keep paying over $300 in preregistration fees. Those more established well off fans will keep paying more and the convention organizers will keep charging it and giving them more of that addictive social interaction with other condescending fans, L33T feelings that come from owning exclusive Optimus Primes and other participatory toy robot event nirvana. What to do if you can't fully participate because you won't mortgage your house to go to Botcon? Well, the only alternative I see is to kill all Transformer fans over 30. They are the ones with high enough incomes to perpetuate the CONRAPE that the lesser fans are suffering. But if you come after me I will cut your head off and mail it to your mom via that cool new R2-D2 mailbox. I'm not going to Botcon this year anyways so back off!

Besides, you could always not pre-register for Botcon and just pay $9 at the door. Think of it this way-at least you're not going to Star Wars Celebration 4. They have to pay $110 just to get in, and that's without toys of any kind. You should be glad you're being let in to Botcon at all, you cheap bastard!