The Legend of Calamity Jane was an animated television series produced by Canal+ and France 3. The series followed the adventures of Calamity Jane. The series was gritty, much like Batman: The Animated Series and had a very European animation style. It aired in France and Canada from 1997 to 1998 and in Portugal in 2002.
In the United States, three episodes were aired on The WB in 1997. The WB gave the series heavy promotion, but quietly pulled it from their line-up after only three episodes. No reason was ever given (although the show's violence was the most likely plausible explanation). It was promised on Warner Bros.' website that the show would return later in the year, and that Superman: The Animated Series would be filling in for its timeslot, but this proved to be untrue.
I really LOVED this show with what few episodes that aired. I told myself back then that it was TOO violent and adult for the braindead kids who would sop up Pokemon. But I found this to be stylish and VERY European comic story telling like Blueberry. I wish it was on DVD but I'll have to suffice with the YouTube stuff till then.
The Lone Ranger cartoon 1966 is below
I like the style
ReplyDeleteVery odd that anyone decided to put this in the Saturday morning time slot. This would have done better as a late night program or didn't WB have any late night programs.
ReplyDeleteJim...you're too much with your animation enthusiasms. I'll have to check this out.
ReplyDeleteanimation enthusiasms ALL THE WAY. This show just has a look that I like. Plus it's a WESTERN. Reminds me a lot of the Filmation Lone Ranger toon that aired back in the late 60's. It had a very unique look to it too. like the OLD intro the the Wild, Wild West TV show.
ReplyDeleteThat top one, up until 1:34 I could have done all that animation with Storyboard Pro in less than a couple of hours. If I had the art handy
ReplyDeleteKids, nor the WB, seemed to have had any problem with violence that I can recall. I think it's probably likely that it didn't resonate with it's target audience. Westerns haven't been popular for a long time and, assuming that was the first episode, the pacing was rather slow for kids, too.
ReplyDeleteWell if you watched the episodes you'd find more than just run of the mill violence. Bigotry, revenge, implied rape? it's not average but the points get across. Too deep for Sat morning. This should have been shown at night but naw, they reserve that for low brow satire about bodily fluids and excrement jokes. How sad.
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