Obscure but brilliant cartoons

[Tankred]

I remember watching The Flight of Dragons as a kid on Sky actually, I thought it was rather dark at the time but I liked it enough that It became a firm favourite for me, I think it definitely deserves more recognition than it has got for sure.

[Angel]

I'm a pretty hardcore afficionado of Western animation, so I'm gonna rock this thread...

- Exo Squad
- War Planets (Shadowraiders in Canadian)
- Sonic Underground
- Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego
- X-Men Evolution
- Batman Beyond
- Undergrads
- Tron Uprising

I'd name about a dozen more if you dropped the "obscure" requirement.

I don't know if this counts as a cartoon, because it's actually rotoscoped (real film frames digitally colored over to be styilized), but Richard Linklater made an art film around 2000-ish called Waking Life. It's about a guy who's stuck in a lucid dream, and spends the majority of the movie wandering in to people and having surreal and philosophical conversations with them. The only part that upsets me is that Alex Jones gets a small part in the film.

That movie has a follow-up titled A Scanner Darkly. It's a great movie to watch when you're on drugs.

[chazthesilencer]

I wouldn’t call Batman Beyond or X-Men Evolution obscure, but whatever. Never saw the original 90s X-men toon myself, but Evolution had some good action in it.

The UK had “Shadow Raiders” (stupid name, eh?) on Sky One. I still remember the duel between Lord Mantel and Blokk - a significant and dramatic moment - being utterly demolished by the continuity announcer suddenly and loudly (VERY bloody loudly) chiming in during the scene.
Somebody must have hit the switch too soon. We can only hope the imbecile got sacked.

[Angel]

I wouldn’t call Batman Beyond or X-Men Evolution obscure

They're well-known to fans of Batman and X-Men. To everyone else, they're in the same category as Extreme Ghostbusters, GI Joe Extreme, or Sonic Underground: a late-'90s show attempting to copy the success of a more well-known early-'90s or late-'80s show.

The UK had “Shadow Raiders” (stupid name, eh?) on Sky One. I still remember the duel between Lord Mantel and Blokk - a significant and dramatic moment - being utterly demolished by the continuity announcer suddenly and loudly (VERY bloody loudly) chiming in during the scene.

At least you got to see Season 2. We 'Muricans only got to see Season 1 until the DVDs were released.

[Ieyasu]

The Flight of Dragons

A 1982, made-for-TV fantasy wherein a “man of science” leads a quest to defeat an evil wizard alongside dragons and knights.


^That’s one hilariously terrible DVD cover, never mind the fact that Carolinus the green wizard is wearing purple garb- you’d think from the general aesthetic of the art work that the film was aimed at pre-schoolers. I’d love to see a child’s reaction to the Ogre’s introduction; hell- it made me jump. Shrek this is not…

This was one of those “taped-off the telly and rewatched over and over again” films from childhood I’d pretty much forgotten all about, seeing it again recently however was one of those genuinely pleasant nostalgia trips.
One highlight would include the voice acting. With James Earl Jones hamming it up as the villain Ommadon you know you won’t be disappointed, you can tell he relished the role: Doom! Doom!
Carolinus is played by Harry Morgan; something about a wizard speaking with Col. Potter’s voice really lends a lot of believability to the character.

The animation certainly isn’t Disney-level quality, and the spectacle of certain scenes may be lacking, but things are colourful, rarely static, and there’s always that 80s charm about it.
I never fully appreciated the final confrontation between Ommadon and Peter as a nipper, it isn’t often a hero literally talks the baddy to death, but I think it just might be one of my favourite movie duels now.

Bits of the story feel a tad rushed and a few concepts are left not fully explored or expanded, but at 1 hour 35 minutes the film tells a good tale of fantasy adventure and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
My nostalgia googles are quite thick, so I’d be interested to hear what a 00’s kid thinks of The Flight of Dragons after, say, watching the Hobbit trilogy.

I loved this movie as a kid. Oddly enough I managed to get that copy on DVD from the Warner Archive about a week ago since they finally released it. It's not too bad - not exactly "restored", but watchable. The colors have always been muted in this film, apparently. Before that it was a home-made rip I had from someone's copy of a Channel 5 VHS they were selling on eBay, and that copy was bad.

I don't think it was a "kid's" movie as such. It was a lot more cerebral than the average animated feature knocking around at the time. I believe it was a joint Japanese-US (Rankin Bass) production though, so not entirely "Western". And not having too much in common with the book it's based on of the same name. Personally I think this is JEJ's best VO work. It's amazing how malevolent he got his voice to sound in this.

That cover really does suck and is hilarious. Seems like it's a general bad habit among distributors. I only laughed harder at what they did when releasing "Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind" for the first time in the West. Now that's false advertising. The cover on my rip version is even worse, I think maybe the guy who was selling it drew it himself. Check it:



...yeah.

I guess I could add to the list the Lord of The Rings (Bakshi) [1978] and Watership Down, although the former is probably guilty pleasure material, and not recommendation material. But it was the only decent movie of LOTR around at the time I was a kid, and PJ did steal whole scenes from this thing in what I assume was homage. I found the Ringwraiths to be far more menacing in this version than they were in the live action. Sometimes animation is a far better medium for conveying certain moods and ideas.

Watership Down [1978] - it's about bunny wabbits, if you haven't read the book. Probably not for kids either, given how its undertones are cynical, violent and I guess for some maybe disturbing (par for the course with Richard Adams, I guess...) Kids in the 80s like me were allowed to watch this stuff and it gave us perspective on fear and mortality, which I think is a good thing. That's missing from most fare these days. This film's always had a certain eerie charm to me, never seen another made quite like it, and that's before you get into Adams' weird ideas about "rabbit society" and rabbit beliefs.

Some others to check out - maybe just for their weirdness and originality - might be Belleville Rendezvous [2003], La Planète Sauvage (a.k.a Fantastic Planet) [1973], Wizards [1977], The Secret of NIMH [1982] (although the book is much better), An American Tail [1986] (great animation style and attention to detail), and Who Framed Roger Rabbit [1988].

[Ray]

I recently found a USSR made cartoon of Riki tiki tavi. It's trippy, and far better than the 90's cartoon I saw on VHS as a kid.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7txhwH0OzcU

[Chuckman]

I wish instead of remaking stuff that doesn't need to be remade they'd make an epic live action version of Flight of Dragons.