Hi guys, I forwarded this off of the rec.arts.animation newsgroup for
those of us who can't (or don't wish to) access it, it's a response to
Matt_W's post, and I'm kind of hoping it'll annoy a few people from
Turner who I _know_ read that newsgroup.
Andy
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 21:01:25 -0700
From: Andy Hill <chance_at_unix.infoserve.net>
To: chance_at_unix.infoserve.net
Subject: (fwd) Re: SwatKats: More "Gaia" than Planet...
Path: news.infoserve.net!unix.infoserve.net!chance
From: chance_at_unix.infoserve.net (Andy Hill)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.animation
Subject: Re: SwatKats: More "Gaia" than Planet...
Date: 20 Jun 1995 03:29:44 GMT
Organization: Infoserve Technology Ltd.
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Message-ID: <3s5fb8$or_at_news.infoserve.net>
References: <3olb8r$ba3_at_news.infoserve.net> <pMy9zlM.matt_w_at_delphi.com> <3rhu1v$i3i_at_news.bu.edu> <3rs27d$cgh_at_news.infoserve.net> <he5-2kS.matt_w_at_delphi.com>
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Matt_W (matt_w_at_delphi.com) wrote:
: Hmmm.. Maybe a typo was made a couple of months ago, and "Planet" was
: supposed to be cancelled and a movie made for the 'Kats!
:
: Yeah, right, wishful thinking!
: If Turner Entertainment is so bent on sweeping the 'Kats under the carpet,
: I'm suprised they haven't put the series up for sale to another company
: like FOX or UPN. Well, it's only a matter of time before the SWAT Kats
: are flying the skies again! After all, my favorite computer was recently
: saved from oblivion (yay Amiga!), now it's time for my favorite animated
: series to rise from the "grave"!
This is what's really odd about the whole thing. I've been
watching cartoons for longer than I'd care to remember, and I can't think
of any instance (for afternoon/Sat AM stuff, anyway) where the creators,
people who worked on it, and the fans have made so much noise to such as
deaf an audience as Turner Entertainment. It's amazing that such a
disparate group could ever come together and agree on anything - but we
all do - cancellation was simply a dumb thing to do - even from a
dispassionate business perspective. Plucking the harp for a minute
here, what other Entertainment Entity would allow a whole raft of
licenesed products to hit the shelves next month, and not do a _single_
bit of advanced press in the trades and fan-rags? Here we are in late
June, and the SNES game and Home Videos are scheduled to hit stores in
the first week of next month - with the action figures following the
month after - and the only people who so far know about it are those
who've read it on the 'net, and those with "ins" at the various
organizations involved. So far the only public statement from a Turner
official was at that ABA convention, and "cancelled because merchandise
didn't sell" and "it's not a current property" is _hardly_ turning on the
spotlight in the aisle at Toys R Us, is it? What's the deal? If they
want to bury the program itself, that's their own personal cup of
Hemlock - but why pour it down the throats of the licensees in the bargain?
To be fair, TBS has improved the timeslot, and TCN is supposedly doing
some kind of SwatKats promotion - but they've already missed the boat to
have the stuff backed up in the various animation mags, and there have
been howls of dismay in the upper echelons of TPS to see the product info
appear in this newsgroup...why? I'm guessing that there _are_ Marketing
people at Turner trying hard to do their job, and I _think_ they're being
held back by something - I get conflicting information, and just like the
whole mess dating back to the lack of merchandising early on in the
program's run - nobody wants to go on record and explain what's
happening, or answer any direct questions about what appears to the rest
of us like a licensing kind of "Keystone Kops".
(I think I just buried myself by saying all that; please send donations
in lieu of flowers...)
_____________________________________________________________________________
"The problem we're facing is an MTV mentality where we may very well be
amusing ourselves to death because we have nothing in our heads."
- Ray Bradbury -
_____________________________________________________________________________
--
_____________________________________________________________________________
"The problem we're facing is an MTV mentality where we may very well be
amusing ourselves to death because we have nothing in our heads."
- Ray Bradbury -
_____________________________________________________________________________
Received on Tue Jun 20 1995 - 00:10:32 PDT