Email from Dave Hoover on october 2008 about his work at Filmation:
Hey Ron,
Just to agive a little info on working at Fimation Studios:
I started working there in 1977, and at this point they were working on
the second season of Tarzan. The first season consisted of 13 shows,
and I think they were doing seven new shows for the second go-around.
They were also working on "The Archies" and "Fat Albert." I
would occasionally see Bill Cosby, but he was not the friendliest guy, and
when ever he was at the studio was usually accompanied by one, if not two,
beautiful blonde women.
Tarzan was a great success for the studio, and they did receive some
recognition for this from other animation studios of that era including
Hanna Barbera. I would often see Danton Burroughs there, the grandson of
Edgar Rice Burroughs, who would just kind of hang out, and it gave me a
chance to get to know him a bit better than I otherwise would have. Most
of the character design work was done by Herb Hazelton and Carol
Lundburg. The Tarzan character design was sort of a cross between the
Burne Hogarth version and the Russ Manning version, so if you're familiar
with those two Tarzan artists you will know what I mean.
Seeing that his was my first job as a professional artist it was a great
thrill for me just to be working there, and I am appreciative to this day
for those people who decided to hire a guy who had raw talent but no
actual animation experience. I was hired as a layout artist, which meant
that, working form the storyboards, I would do all the first
sketches/drawings of characters and backgrounds for each scene. These
drawings were to guide the animators, letting them know exaactly what they
had to animate. Layout is the department that makes sure every scene that
is shot will work properly. Sadly I have very little in the way of model
sheets or storyboards from those days. Most of what I had saved was lost
in the mail when I tried to ship it home to Pennsylvania. Someone out
there has the stuff I'm sure. I also lost just about my entire collection
of Tazan comics and had to start over collecting them.
An animation studio was a great fun place to work, and as I look back I'm
surprised anything actually got done. Lou Schiemer was a great guy to
work for, very personalble and paid close attention to everything that was
being worked on. It was really like working for a "mom and pop" business
because it was a small studio but they were doing popular stuff for it's
time that was pretty successful.
When Tarzan went to a third season I was pulled off the show to work on
Flash Gordon, which was sort of a dissappointment for me because I wanted
to keep working on Tarzan. Eventually I did work on Tarzan again for a
brief period.
From time to time I would see actors waiting in the small lounge area by
the front desk who were usually there to do voices. On one occasion I
walked right past David Opatoshu, who played Augustus Vinero in Tarzan and
the Valley of Gold. Again, I wish now I would have just stopped to talk
to him a bit about his Tarzan movie role; he was busy reading a script,
and I was always hesitant to bother actors who were otherwise occupied.
I'll scan some of the model sheets that I still have and post them next
week some time. Hope that answers any questions. Anyone not familiar
with my Tarzan work can go to a small gallery I have at the ComicArtFans
site:
http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryRoom.asp?GSub=41615
And there are other galleries there you can peruse containing a host of
comic book characters, mostly women.
Dave
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