Hanna Barbera 1970s Scanimate test - Scooby Doo Meets the Harlem Globetrotters
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- Scanimate is the name for an analog computer animation (video synthesizer) system developed from the late 1960s to the 1980s by Computer Image Corporation of Denver, Colorado.
The 8 Scanimate systems were used to produce much of the video-based animation seen on television between most of the 1970s and early 1980s in commercials, promotions, and show openings. One of the major advantages the Scanimate system had over film-based animation and computer animation was the ability to create animations in real time. The speed with which animation could be produced on the system because of this, as well as its range of possible effects, helped it to supersede film-based animation techniques for television graphics. By the mid-1980s, it was superseded by digital computer animation, which produced sharper images and more sophisticated 3D imagery.
Animations created on Scanimate and similar analog computer animation systems have a number of characteristic features that distinguish them from film-based animation: The motion is extremely fluid, using all 60 fields per second (in NTSC format video) or 50 fields (in PAL format video) rather than the 24 frames per second that film uses; the colors are much brighter and more saturated; and the images have a very "electronic" look that results from the direct manipulation of video signals through which the Scanimate produces the images.
I've never seen Scanimate used quite like that to such a degree. It's basically tye precursor to Flash used like this.
It actually looks smoother than Johnny Test's later seasons.
@@ExtremeWreck Why you even bringing Johnny Test into this have you seen Peppa
its not scanimate
@@ViewpointProd look at the fucking title.
i guess this is kinda like flash, but flash also has frame by frame animation
Imagine every 80's and 90's Cartoon being animated like this. Really makes you appreciate Cels.
From the beginning computer animation was rubbish, I miss the good 80's where animation was traditional done with pencil and paper.
@@rock3824 haha bri ish
Fortunately the studio also started work on their own digital ink and paint system in 1979 and they were able to animate about a third of their animated productions with it starting from around 1984. I heard 2 Stupid Dogs used it instead of cells.
@@RyDawg96 It was first tested in one episode of Pac-Man.
you would be nostalgic for this look
It's extremely primitive by today's standards, but considering that the number of Scanimate machines _in the world_ could be counted on one hand and was only really used for corporate logos, this is pretty impressive.
Today they are overproducing with ultra "realism", which makes it look fake; not to mention total lack of deep understanding or sense of concept in storytelling.
Please. Which technique do you use that you can count to ten on one hand?
@@zperdek 10? No, there were only 4 Scanimate machines ever made, two in the US, one in the UK, and I'm not entirely sure where the fourth one went, but the point still stands.
Also, you could use Sakurai's binary counting strategy.
@@otaking3582 I was going to say. I literally bend my fingers so I can count to twenty on both hands.
Shoot, I've seen some people count on their knuckles so they can get to 28 with 8 fingers.
This looks like 2010's 2D animation done in the 70's
It's really quite impressive the amount of effort it must've taken to make this. Scanimate was by no means easy to operate; every movent would've been controlled by various workers twisting and turning dials on a giant machine. Shame it came out looking so bad. Still a huge milestone in computer animation technology, though.
There wasn't even any sequencer like some audio synths from the time? That sucks.
To be honest, it doesn't look that bad. It actually just feels like it's a different style of animation...
@@maurojas1234 Still nice.
it's like playing QWOP.
Their second system, CAESAR, had computer control - I figure that's what they used for this.
Of course Hanna-Barbera would try to be innovative with their ways in streamlining animation production. They were even one of the first American animation studios to use digital coloring and compositing, on several of their 80s shows.
Zak Wolf And one of the first to outsource animation to Asia via Wang Film and Fil-Cartoons
It was developed by Marc Levoy.
I wonder if anyone could showcase any of their 80s shows that used digital ink and paint?
Tatsunoko used it for some of their shows too, Time Bokan and Tekkaman had Scanimate effects in their openings, and Yattodettaman had a time travel sequence that used Scanimate as well.
This would've looked REALLY weird if they want with this approach instead of traditional cels.
It's like seeing Adult Swim 25 or so years before it was even a thing
Wow, very good analogy.
Yeah, it kinda looks like 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force'.
Yeah remember the Blair Witch thing they did with Scooby back in the early 2000s ? Looks exactly like this but little bit more refined.
Adult Swim
Adult Swim
This is so strange!! I never would have guessed this existed back then. The movements are actually uncanny, it resembles the sort of interpolation modern AI software adds between frames. I imagine this would have benefited from being reduced back down to 24 frames per second instead of 60. That and if there were more unique frames of animation for the characters, it could have worked. Absolutely bizarre compared to all the other HB cartoons at the time.
0:36 Zoinks scoob, I'm getting assembled in scanimate
Lmao
This was like a mix of 2d puppetry (popular with After Effects) and regular 2d frame-by-frame. I can only imagine that producing this must have been pure hell. there was a definite interesting vibe going on though with the pliability of the characters. They could never accomplish that with simple frame-by-frame. What's lost here though is the crispness of cell animation I think. Well, based on this video and other scanimate videos. The whole blooming effect.
The blurry outlines on the cels is because Animate uses interlaced scanning (at 30fps). So it was 'scanned' at interlaced 30fps and between then and now, recompressed who knows how many times to get it onto RUclips. So it would have looked crisper originally, although still with that 'electric' video look.
To start running, you have to know how to walk.
That being said, for the time, this is beyond amazing
If you thought Hanna-Barbera shows of the 70s and 80s looked cheap, just remember: it could've been MUCH worse.
Given the technology of the time, this would have been much more expensive and time consuming.
This is really smooth for being made in the 1970’s. The animation movement kinda reminds me of how people who animate iReady characters would do it.
The Scanimate generates video at the standard NTSC rate of 60 images per second, hence the smooth movement.
@@IvanDSMthat’s pretty cool
Not bad, looks kinda like flash animation.
Flash's analog grandfather
This is the closest the 70's had to magic.
OF course this looks very primitive compared to our newest technologies in animation,, but truth be said, that basketball baloon animation was incredibly impressive for the year
This description talks like this animation technology was everywhere in the 70's and 80's but I've literally never seen anything that looked like this video before in my entire life
I don't think it was ever really used for full-length animation, the technology was way too limited and it was really expensive. It was mostly used to make animated logos for TV shows and commercials, you can find lots of examples of these on RUclips. There's a good chance you've probably seen scanimation before and didn't even know it!
Ah, makes sense. Thanks.
@@m0rShh I think I've mostly seen it used through home video logos.
70s flash animation!
Too see how Scanimate was tested here in Scooby Doo, and see those very familiar Scamimate qualities interact with (what was) typical hand drawn characters is really fascinating. I'm happy that there's even this much video of it available to be seen.
Scanimate is STILL relevant. I know I'm not alone when I say that there's things which it can do - as well as qualities it imparts, which are unlike anything else.
I've heard and seen animators who first floor interested inCGI because of Scanimate, who (still) wish to transpose that l those qualities to digital, but rather than trying to do tha - an 'either/or'-type, I think it should be a world where both ecosystems can work together.
Imagine some 99 year old watching this, grew up in an era where the lightbulb wasn’t even invented, to this.
The echoing of Shaggy's voice at 1:03 under the static and warbling and odd almost circus music is HORRIFYING TO ME
It sounds more like some other character talking, not Shaggy Rogers, as revealed at 1:06.
What you're hearing is known as Pre-echo. It commonly occurs when magnetic tape sits around for a long while and the recording slightly bleeds onto the tape beneath it.
That's more like Fred's voice, not Shaggy.
Reminds me of weird low budget local commercials you sometimes see.
Never saw this before and I gotta say, whlie pretty cool, the bit with Shaggy's separated body parts is horrifying. It does make animation look weird though and it makes me appreciate cels even more.
The reference audio is from The New Scooby Doo Movies episode 16, The Loch Ness Mess (December 23, 1972).
This is by far the weirdest type of computer animation I've ever seen.
This is actually neat.. looks like SPACE GHOST COAST TO COAST almost.. i'd watch this in the Seventies..
That music at the very end of the video really brings back memories of Saturday morning TV, usually in the background of an action/chase scene.
This is Computer Image's CAESAR, not Scanimate! Thanks for lifting from my DVD's!
That shot looks like something out of the mid 2000s. This technology was ahead of its time, but unfortunately not in a good way. Still, I'm surprised it doesn't look much worse.
Love the 60 hz hum and white noise,how times have changed.
So This is Before Flash Animation
Pretty much
the program flash was first made in 1996 under the name futuresplash animator
All these comments saying it’s “not bad”… what an understatement. It’s 2023 and this still RULES. I don’t believe a faithful digital recreation of this look is even possible.
This looks terrible. There's a reason it never caught on
The origin of all tweened flash animations.
So basically, this was flash animation before Adobe Flash was a thing.
animation that looks like a predecessor to after effects' puppet pin tool!
I had no idea Hanna-Barbera experimented with this kind of technology. (Or even knowing that this technology existed as far back as the late 60's.) It almost look like early Flash animation, or the kind of animation you'd see in something like 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force, or 'Archer'. Was this used to test out how the cels would look before laying them onto of the background art, and shooting them frame by frame?
I am doing some educated guesses here. That it's not the 60s. That Hanna-Barbera in the late 70s wanted to see if they could streamline their animation department even more than it already was. So they got this test made that essentially just remade a scene from an earlier production. That way they could compare how much time and money they would spend on a minute of animation vs the animation quality. The test was probably never meant to go further than this. It's not a previsualisation. If they deemed the workflow feasable, this is the kind of animation they would air.
Evidently, someone at HB said no and we were spared thus kind of wobbly rubber sheet animation for a while.
@@jmalmsten you can probably imagine just how much more expensive/time-consuming it would be to produce an entire animated feature like this, versus cel animation which they already had down to a science. No wonder this never went any further.
@@HarvestmanMan
Yeah, but someone evidently wanted to see what the results and costs would be here. I have no illusions that they basically balked at both the cost and the results. But they felt the need to try it out to be sure.
Just pure speculations on my part. I would love to hear what actually went down.
This is apparently not exactly Scanimate but a more advanced system called CAESAR. But the principles are similar. Scanimate, though, was all over 1970s television, particularly in commercials, credit sequences and station idents. It could make shimmering starfields, flying and warping images, perspective-like distortions, text exploding into warped debris or coalescing from it, that kind of thing. Always with this hard-to-describe, fuzzy-edged quality that came from analog video manipulations.
The show it always makes me think of the most was "The Electric Company" (the original), which made heavy, heavy use of Scanimate effects from the first episode in 1971.
This looks like those weird badly animated pornos you find
i wonder if they used the same computer systems
...those what?
I like how you think thats something people can relate to. You on your own chief
@@limbo4598 well it got 84 likes so apparently people can relate to it. You sound upset over something so silly. You on your own, tiger.
@@tracefleemangarcia8816 THOSE WEIRD BADLY ANIMATED PORNOS - they're not even hot, but they are weird and funny. idk what kind of person is into that but i dont judge
@@ZeranZeran I know what y'all are talking about. Those are all done in Flash
Wow this is actually really fascinating imagine if this series was actually animated like this it would look slighty werid but it would also look really cool if it were animated like this
There are some shots that honestly don't look that bad. Since these aren't rigged completely it gives off a unique 2D frame to frame feel. It's very janky but still impressive and honestly looks better than some shitty flash cartoons now somehow.
i don't think i've seen anyone mention this anywhere else, but i found that there were some Navajo cartoons about a coyote [not related to Wile E. Coyote] made with Caesar and done by CIC. There's even one that's like, behind the scenes, and features some cool scanimated text in the beginning and end.
This video perfectly illustrates the limitations of analog synthesis in general. Even if they can get REALLY close to copying the thing they're trying to replicate (in this case, cel animation), you just can't ever get it quite spot-on. (for the audio version of what I'm talking about: ruclips.net/video/c2zurZig4L8/видео.html)
the animation style looks like flash animation. neat
So THIS is the TRUE power and ability of Scanimate and how it works...
I like how the 70s studio is better than my studio!
Knowing how this kinda works, this is like magic tbh
This looks eerie...
I can't even begin to understand how they did this.
this actually looks alright in my opinion
it isn't the best thing ever but the movements are very nice, smooth and cartoony like they sjould be
Okay who got in a time machine and brought Flash animation to the '70s
This really is just 70s toon boom
Moho of the 70s!
Where the hell did you find this footage?! Crazy cool
You can find it and a ton of other Scanimate clips in this video on the Internet Archive!
archive.org/details/SCANIMATEDVDCOMPLETO
@@m0rShh It's 9.6 Gb in size, and keeps buffering every couple of seconds.
Considering Scooby doo animation wasn't that great. This doesn't hurt it
Very impression for its time!
this is what i call animating at 60 fps
the Loch Ness mess guest starring the Harlem globetrotters
I bet the test audiens wasn't very blessed to this back then.
Keep in mind. For them back then, Computers was like witchcraft.
Now we're amazed.
Wow really crazy, looks just like flash
Adobe Animate, in the 70s!
I do not miss the sound of static
No one does
To be honest it doesn't look that bad compared of typical HB low budget animation of that time.
This must have been some crazy ass shit back in the day
It’s like early flash animation!
So it’s basically a very primitive version of Tweens and Rigs?
Not gonna lie but the animation kinda reminds me of Johnny Test, even before Flash existed.
Definitely looks more like CAESAR than Scanimate
What's that?
@@iLikeTheUDK Computer Animated Episodes (using) Single Axis Rotation (CAESAR)
@@InariOkami cool
WHAT can I say, but "ZOINKS!!!"
Wow tweeting has come a long way. This is insane.
Fascinating. Thanks.
That is so *weird"! I grew up with Scanimate video, but I'm used to seeing Scooby Doo less... saturated, maybe? I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm not used to seeing Scooby Doo like this. 😂
Flash animation before flash animation.
This almost looks like early flash with the weird squashing and fried colors.
Hanna-barbera understood scanimate!
it's like adobe flash before the internet
Still better animated than johnny test
Has a very 1990s Adult Swim quality
It's weird seeing Scooby-Doo characters move so fluidly and not rigidly...
neat to see they had tweened animation before it was really a thing.
It’s like the early stages of ai, I guess machines have been replacing animators since the 1970s
I find the smoothness of the motion uncanny
This one looks way better than The Apteryx and the Easter Bunny, the animation is pretty weird
Oh my God shaggy who did this to you?
Ух ты ж какой раритет!😃
hand drawn animation on 60 fps looks weird
I never seen Scanimation being used for animation.
Good thing this was only a test... right? Because the characters in final product look unreal, and that might be off-putting to the fans/viewers.
More scanimate animation here; ruclips.net/video/2bIeARfQurE/видео.html
tweening before tweening
It looks awful to modern eyes but it sure looks damned advanced for the time. Is it really so far off stuff like Sealab 2021?
That animation just looks like it's from the 2000s not the 1970s
you can still see this type of animation in some flash cartoons
Doesn't look like scanimate to me, looks like CAESAR
Where can I find more of these kinds of animation?
Know where there’s more of these videos? I’m intrigued!
I’m here because of Velma and everybody hates it.
0:00 That is one creepy, eyeless, mouthless, Slender Man-esque Shaggy Rogers there.
Here is a link to an animation celluloid of an eyeless, mouthless Shaggy and Scooby-Doo: www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/original-1972-scooby-doo-movies-2002957671
Sheesh! When Hanna-Barbera, with its notoriously limited and often sloppy animation, tests an animation-streamlining technology and never really uses it, that says a lot about the technology!
This is definitely interesting….
Still better than Velma (2023)
It’s proto-Adult Swim
Animan Studios:
the original Flash.