widgetotaku
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Currently preparing to journal about the classic series
Posts: 69
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Post by widgetotaku on Sept 28, 2020 17:15:54 GMT -6
After learning about what a soft reboot is (from the last Winx Club season, the one with the Cosmix power), I have some vague feeling that season 2 of the classic Inspector Gadget was written as a soft reboot: new house, new secondary character, new storytelling method...
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Post by Systemcat on Sept 28, 2020 18:34:49 GMT -6
With the points you make about the changes seen with season 2, I see your point. How I've been looking at it is they wanted to freshen up .. yeah, anyway it's sliced. Now your logic sticks with me.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2020 18:50:10 GMT -6
After learning about what a soft reboot is (from the last Winx Club season, the one with the Cosmix power), I have some vague feeling that season 2 of the classic Inspector Gadget was written as a soft reboot: new house, new secondary character, new storytelling method... It pretty much was a soft reboot, more like the next chapter into Gadget, Penny snd Brain's lives. The actual reason why they wanted to change things up a bit because they moved the production from Cananda to Los Angeles, and it was the end of the contract for Nirvana which DiC helped them get out of bankruptcy after the failure of Rock and Rule. Plus this was the time when DiC made their own Japanese animation studio and left TMS. So that's why changes were made on the writing and the animation... (for some reason I always loved the 2nd season animation)
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Post by Uncle Sporkums on Sept 29, 2020 9:45:57 GMT -6
The writing of season 2 seemed a little more awkward to me since they had a new staff as well. They got some of the old writers from Get Smart on the team, but for some reason, they never seemed to nail down the personalities as strong as the first one, and everything seemed to take longer to get from point A to point B imo.
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Post by riffraff on Aug 13, 2021 6:58:12 GMT -6
I recently found some interesting stuff about Season 2 in the book Rise and Fall of the 80's Toon Empire by Jason Waguespack (apologies if this has been covered elsewhere before).
From 1983-1985, the Home Video Format, in those days primarily Betamax and especially VHS, was exploding in popularity. For movies, consumers generally preferred renting to buying tapes, but videos aimed primarily at children (dubbed "Kidvids" in those days) were an exception, and tapes of popular contemporary TV cartoons like Strawberry Shortcake, G.I. Joe, Voltron and He-Man were flying off the shelves, even with the still quite high price range of the time (around $25-$50 in the US). Kidivds also tended to have longer shelf-lives than the latest movie releases, which would sell the majority of their stock in the first month of release.
DIC and their distributors at LBS Communications took notice of this boom and launched a new line of videos called Kideo Videos, and DIC tailored the Second Season of Gadget specifically with VHS releases in mind. The idea was that 3 x IG episodes continuing the same story, would equal one Home Video release of around 60 minutes, a fairly standard length for kidvid at the time. Thus Season 2 is 21 episodes, consisting of 7 3-part sagas, which could then be turned into up to 7 vaguely movie or TV special like Inspector Gadget VHS releases.
It doesn't seem to me like they went through with it though. Maybe you guys in the US (or elsewhere) can tell me otherwise but it looks to me like any IG VHS releases were of random episodes, rather than any of the connecting stories. I had a UK VHS with three Season 2 episodes, but they were from different sagas (Gadget's Roma, Mad in the Moon and Gadget Meets the Clan).
I can recommend the book if you are interested in this kind of stuff. It's focused exclusively on syndicated cartoons from the 80s, and is based more on the business side than the creative. It is a little dry, with no illustrations (some trade ads etc wouldn't have gone amiss), but I find this stuff very interesting so I don't mind. It doesn't go that deep on Gadget specifically, or any individual show really, but there is quite a bit about DIC over the course of the book.
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Post by Systemcat on Aug 13, 2021 10:27:25 GMT -6
Thank you for that information, riffraff. I didn't think season two had that type of planning underlying it but that makes sense now pointed out. My family did have a single IG VHS tape but from what I remember of it, the episodes were random on the tape ( ... goes to Google for lookup ) I couldn't find the tape information. But I can firmly recall at least two episodes from the tape and they were both from season one. I have an interest in consumer home video history, meaning formats studios weren't just privy to. So this nugget of info was interesting to me outside it's fandom related information. The price tag does sound a little surprising. Now I can not remember what VHS costs when I was little. All I know is my dad grumbling about what LaserDisc costs and later knowledge I got on a format less known. I have picked up from time to time CEDs still shrink-wrapped with price tags on them from back in the day. Those old price tags marked the discs at what we now a days would expect to pay for a slightly high DVD of example $19. Which back in the 80's I'm sure people viewed as pricey.
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Post by riffraff on Aug 13, 2021 13:34:47 GMT -6
You're welcome, glad you found it interesting.
Cartoons did tend to be on the lower end of the price range ($24.99-29.99), which was another reason they were popular, but some were still in the more expensive range, but parents knew they were (relatively) good value as kids would watch their tapes repeatedly.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2021 15:58:07 GMT -6
I recently found some interesting stuff about Season 2 in the book Rise and Fall of the 80's Toon Empire by Jason Waguespack (apologies if this has been covered elsewhere before). From 1983-1985, the Home Video Format, in those days primarily Betamax and especially VHS, was exploding in popularity. For movies, consumers generally preferred renting to buying tapes, but videos aimed primarily at children (dubbed "Kidvids" in those days) were an exception, and tapes of popular contemporary TV cartoons like Strawberry Shortcake, G.I. Joe, Voltron and He-Man were flying off the shelves, even with the still quite high price range of the time (around $25-$50 in the US). Kidivds also tended to have longer shelf-lives than the latest movie releases, which would sell the majority of their stock in the first month of release. DIC and their distributors at LBS Communications took notice of this boom and launched a new line of videos called Kideo Videos, and DIC tailored the Second Season of Gadget specifically with VHS releases in mind. The idea was that 3 x IG episodes continuing the same story, would equal one Home Video release of around 60 minutes, a fairly standard length for kidvid at the time. Thus Season 2 is 21 episodes, consisting of 7 3-part sagas, which could then be turned into up to 7 vaguely movie or TV special like Inspector Gadget VHS releases. It doesn't seem to me like they went through with it though. Maybe you guys in the US (or elsewhere) can tell me otherwise but it looks to me like any IG VHS releases were of random episodes, rather than any of the connecting stories. I had a UK VHS with three Season 2 episodes, but they were from different sagas ( Gadget's Roma, Mad in the Moon and Gadget Meets the Clan). I can recommend the book if you are interested in this kind of stuff. It's focused exclusively on syndicated cartoons from the 80s, and is based more on the business side than the creative. It is a little dry, with no illustrations (some trade ads etc wouldn't have gone amiss), but I find this stuff very interesting so I don't mind. It doesn't go that deep on Gadget specifically, or any individual show really, but there is quite a bit about DIC over the course of the book. I want to thank you so much more information about season 2! For the longest time I was wondering about the reason behind the 3 sagas, I honestly do wish that they did continue on from the episode " Gadget and the red rose" since the gangster saga was getting a bit interesting and also we have a little peak into Claw's childhood. As for putting the sagas into VHS does make a lot of sense since it was beginning to be very poplar at that time and it was a new trend. I do want to look for this book since I've always been a fan on digging deep into more information about the animation industry. I honestly didn't own any IG VHS growing up and didn't see that many in the 90s, but while going through the U.S., Canada, U.K. and France eBay listings, I was surprise that there was so many that they made with different titles on them.
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Post by riffraff on Aug 15, 2021 13:51:06 GMT -6
You're welcome Incidentally in the bibliography the author cites a Variety Magazine article from 14th January 1985 that covers this story ("LBS, DIC form Homevid venture" by Tom Bierbaum), but unfortunately the article does not seem to be online.
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