future king
Excuse me but can you please direct me to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles?
posted
My best memories as a child was looking forward to Saturday morning cartoons so I could see the next episode of Super Friends!
I was already into reading the JLA comic so this was a real treat for a kid with an overly active imagination.
From: ontario | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
Rocky, I thought that maybe, with your knowledge of Super Friends behind-the-scenes trivia, you could help answer something that's been confusing me:
I've read the story about how Shannon Farnon lost the role of Wonder Woman after several consecutive seasons of consistently excellent voice acting.
IIRC, voice director Wally Burr (who had been instrumental in getting Farnon cast as Wonder Woman in the first place) had a final falling-out with Joe Barbera and never worked for Hanna-Barbera again. Burr was replaced on Super Friends by Gordon Hunt, who had fallen in love with B.J. Ward and promised her the role of Wonder Woman.
But how does that explain the interim Wonder Woman voice actress, Constance Cawlfield, who played the role on the next-to-last season of Super Friends (and, IMO, was so bad she couldn't help but make Ward look good by comparison?)
posted
I really don't know. I agree that Cawlfield's voice was not appropriate for WW. She sounded too "cute", for want of a better word. Maybe BJ Ward wasn't available? I'll see if I can find out anything.
-------------------- The only character in all of literature who has been described as "badnass" while using the phrase "vile miscreant."
From: The Pyngwyn Colonies of Planet Hyustyn | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Fanfie, there's a nice interview with Shannon Farnon here that mentions the recast, though it was her recollection that BJ Ward took over the role immediately. There is a correction in the interview stating that it may have been a network decision regarding Cawlfield taking the role for the 1984 season. I'll see if I can find anything else.
-------------------- The only character in all of literature who has been described as "badnass" while using the phrase "vile miscreant."
From: The Pyngwyn Colonies of Planet Hyustyn | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I grew up loving Super Friends, but looking back, I'm not really a fan of the voice acting. Granted, it's been a while since I saw an episode, but my remembrance is that they were mostly corny and wooden portrayals. To be fair, this is my typical response to voice acting of the '70s and '80s and prior and especially to most Hanna-Barbera cartoons in general. Their human characters were often almost as exaggerated and goofy in their speech as their animal characters. Even as a kid, I always felt HB was more kitzchy and had a lower standard that Warner Brothers.
Of the major SF characters, I'd say the least wooden of them was whomever voiced Aquaman. Aquaman always sounded like a caring dad-type, and I think I subconsciously really dug that.
Wonder Woman, I always thought was more harsh and masculine-sounding than she needed to be. I can see the reasoning for that, her being an Amazon warrior and all. I guess Lynda Carter is more like the standard of how I'd prefer her to sound...not prissy at all but very feminine.
Batman, Superman and Robin were about as generic as you could get. Ironically, Zan and Jayna (especially Jayna) had very nice voices.
As critical as I am of H-B, I still really love Scooby Doo and all of its classic voices. Casey Casem as Shaggy was over-the-top, but he was consistent and enjoyable that way. Frank Welker as Fred is one of the most distinctive voices in cartoon annals. I love Velma's sound a lot, and Daphne's very normal sound just balances everything out. And Scoob, of course, is a masterpiece!
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
SF definitely is a product of its time. In retrospect, the writing is a cut above most of HB's output at the time(with a few exceptions, Drak Pack being a notable one), but the standard for kid's cartoons in the late '70s and early '80s was low.
Of actors portraying the five characters who appeared in all seasons, only Danny Dark (Superman) and Casey Kasem (Robin) were with he show from start to finish. As noted above, WW was voiced by three different actresses, with Shannon Farnon being the best remembered. Aquaman was voiced by Norman Alden the first two seasons (that's the voice you're probably referring to, Lardy) and Bill Callaway thereafter. Olan Soule voiced Batman for the first ten years, at which point Adam West took over the role.
-------------------- The only character in all of literature who has been described as "badnass" while using the phrase "vile miscreant."
From: The Pyngwyn Colonies of Planet Hyustyn | Registered: Aug 2005
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Lardy, I can appreciate what you're saying, but my taste in voice acting seems to be very different from yours. I like the old-fashioned style of voice acting because I think it made the characters seem larger than life, whereas the modern style of voice acting comes across to me as flat and lacking in verve.
posted
Fickles, I can certainly understand that. One thing I'm not crazy about is the tendency to cast big-name actors in animated features. It kinda takes you out of the movie, and in many cases you just know it would've been better with other voices. Pixar chooses their big names very well, I think, but Dreamworks and the others mostly feel like vanity projects for the actors.
I think there's a lot of quality voice acting across the board in today's television animation. I especially love the voices on Futurama. There's a fun, retro, over-the-top quality to many of the voices on Family Guy and its spin-offs and especially to Spongebob and the newer Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network stuff. I also love the voice work on many of the WB's high profile superhero stuff, like Brave and the Bold and especially the Batman Animated series of the '90s.
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Agreed on the big-name actors thing, although even casting cult actors throws me off most of the time. I love Michael Ironside, but I can't watch the 90s and 00s DC cartoons without thinking, "Oh, Darkseid sounds like Ham Tyler from 'V'." Then, too, I'm so biased in favor of Frank Welker's Darkseid voice from the last two seasons of Super Friends that I find it hard to accept anyone else in the role.
quote:Originally posted by Fanfic Lady: Agreed on the big-name actors thing, although even casting cult actors throws me off most of the time. I love Michael Ironside, but I can't watch the 90s and 00s DC cartoons without thinking, "Oh, Darkseid sounds like Ham Tyler from 'V'." Then, too, I'm so biased in favor of Frank Welker's Darkseid voice from the last two seasons of Super Friends that I find it hard to accept anyone else in the role.
My best friend LOVES the WB cartoons, including SUPERMAN, and will go on at length about them any chance he gets. And this includes Michael Ironside (a fave of mine), who I never realized was Darkseid (but mostly because I've only seen a handful of them, WB pissed me off early with their haphazard chaotic scheduling-- NEVER knew when they'd have new episodes or reruns, so it very quickly became impossible to tape the damned things).
But to me, the guy from SUPER POWERS was Darkseid. I never connected him as the voice of Fred from SCOOBY-DOO!!!
Registered: Aug 2003
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