Saturday Morning Cartoons!

Fantastic Voyage (1968)




Here's a little gem I just barely remember watching. The delightfully hammy and ham-fisted opening jogged a lot of memories. This was a late morning entry when channels were starting to shift to live action programing. Loosely based on the 1966 movie, this cartoon featured the Combined Miniature Detection Force (CMDF), who, after being shrunk to microscopic size, were sent on missions to stop mysterious threats to freedom. That's right, freedom! The Team consisted on Commander Jonathan Kidd, Physician Erica Lane, Guru, a mystic, and Busby Birdwell, the pilot and designer of their ship, the Voyager. The ship is very similar to the one in the film, but all the characters are different. Ted Knight (News Anchor Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show) provided many of the voices.

Here's the opening...



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writing advice for Ken

Ken Robertson

I’m an actor, improvisor, writer and occasional reluctant director in San Francisco.

The problem I’ve run into is that I’ve pretty much hit the wall for the level of teaching offered in out-of-town-intensives and over-the-internet classes, as well as the limit of sketch-writing instruction I can find in San Francisco. And relocation to Chicago ain’t likely anytime soon.

Perhaps just some simple illumination on how you approach your own work would help – things like:

• What sort of practice do you do on a daily \ weekly basis to keep yourself sharp and improve your writing? (I am going back and doing the robowriter assignments on your blog)

• What things do you aim for \ look for when you work to improve your pieces (or your writing in general)? More connection to the characters, more absurdity \ randomness to break predictability, clarifying what the piece is saying, etc)

What sorts of actions would you recommend to someone like myself (working solo or at least in an area without a group of accomplished sketch writers) who wants to improve their sketch and comedy writing?