Space Angel was a television cartoon produced by Cambria Productions from 1962-1964 for independent television stations. It was produced in 5-part, 5-minute chapters that could be serialized every weekday morning as part of a local station's cartoon kiddie shows.It's notable for a number of reasons. It was one of the first programs aimed at children that exploited the 60s space race, it was the first job in animation for acclaimed comics artists Alex Toth and Doug Wildley, and it employed the patented "SyncroVox" process. This amazing process involved superimposing the highly rouged lips of live actors over the faces of cartoon characters, for absolutely perfect, synchronized dialogue! Among Cambria Production’s other innovations was an extremely liberal interpretation of the word "animation," as they relied pretty heavily on utterly static drawings of their characters.
This six-page comic story was drawn by Toth to promote the cartoon, and appeared - I believe - in an issue of Jack & Jill magazine.
Read my review of the Space Angel cartoon DVD collection at DVD Late Show.
And don't forget Clutch Cargo, that other masterpiece of SynchroVox.
ReplyDeleteOne of the extras on the DVD for The Incredibles is a Mr. Incredible cartoon that is done in SynchroVox style. I was laughing my ass off when I saw it.
The copyright on p. 2 says "prepared especially for JACK & JILL."
ReplyDeleteA magazine I had entirely forgotten until now.
Oops. Missed that. I'll correct the post.
ReplyDeleteI remember these style of cartoons from my youth, though I never knew what they were called. I just remember that they were way more static than the others ones I preferred like Looney Tunes or whatever, and just the lips moving was plain freaky.
ReplyDeleteNeat post. I like Zot too.