I am a huge fan of the animated series Mysterious Cities of Gold, it is my favourite programme of ALL time and was a formative part of my childhood; single handedly igniting my interest in anime, manga, South and Central American cultures and synthesizer music (It's why I love Jarre, Vangelis and Oldfield).
In my mancave I have a MCOG medallion, an original cel, a French book discussing the making of (even though I haven't studied French since my GCSE's 20 years ago) and a model of the golden condor. The animation was created by DIC and legendary creators Haim Saban and Jean Chalopin, who in their time created Ulysses 31, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, M.A.S.K and Inspector Gadget.
Now, a new documentary is seeking to be crowd-funded to explore their world and find out about the origins and development of the studio. I am SO on board with this as anything that delves behind the making process of some of the finest animation of my childhood deserves further exploration.
In their own words:
We have started with the distribution of leaflets in mailboxes. About 100 people worked full time. One day, we received an order to create a cartoon, Bernard Deyries joined us and we started to work on the animation. We had a company that was based in Tours and then in Paris. One day, we felt like creating series just like big companies. We started by making a creation that was “Ulysses 31”, which he presented to France 3. They accepted the idea and Jean Chalopin said:" there are not enough people to do this in France". He went to Japan and came across a Japanese company looking for a way to get into Europe. One day, Jean Chalopin told me: "I will go to the United States." I said: “You’re crazy! You're not going to beat the Americans on their own turf." Well! I was wrong. In cinema as in television, going to Hollywood is always a dream, which until now and before our company existed, has been unattainable to almost all Europeans. We created a different way of working, which mixes the American and the French systems with Japanese special effects. We imported, for example with “The Littles” or with “Inspector Gadget”, a trait, which was very different; it did not exist in the American market.
I’m going to help fund this documentary, why don’t you?