Founded in the San Fernando Valley of California in 1963 by Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott, Filmation Associates produced both animated and live-action childrens shows. Filmation was the only real rival in Saturday morning cartoon fare produced across the valley at
.
Filmation's producer Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland met while working together at
Larry Harmon Studios. The two joined forces to produce
Rod Rocket, financed by the Japanese studio SIB Productions. Norm Prescott joined the pair soon thereafter; the trio began doing telkevision commercials for a few years until DC Comics editor Mort Weisinger puished them to produce their first Saturday morning cartoon,
Superman.
Soon, Filamtion produced a good portion of the Saturday morning cartoons. Because of the high volume of work produced, Filmation was forced to be more concerned with quantity rather than quality, and limited animation gave their series a very distict look. Filmation was the only cartoon producer that could boast that all their cartoon shows were produced in the United States (other than one season of
The New Adventures of Zorro).
Filmation Associates were a major player in children's entertainment for over twenty years. In 1988 Filmation was purchased by the L'Oréal cosmetics company. L'Oréal promptly closed the studio on February 3, 1989 and ended Filmation's legacy. As a result, most of the staff was terminated on that same day. Filmation's last production was the feature film
Happily Ever After (a sequel to the story of Snow White), which was finished in 1990, but not released to theaters until 1993. Also, at the time of the closing, two new animated TV shows,
Bugzburg and Bravo (a spinoff of
Bravestarr), were beginning production.
