Dedicated to the preservation and showcase of scripts, storyboards and other production material from Sunbow Productions, Marvel Productions and their co-production partners. This is an unofficial site that has no affiliation with any company responsible for the commission or production of the cartoons depicted herein.
On 8th November 1985, auditions were held for the My Little Pony n' Friends series. The following actors auditioned for the main human character Megan Williams, replacing Tammy Amerson who voiced her in the 1984 and 1985 specials, as well as the 1986 movie:
On December 4th, 1985, Pat Fraley, Charlie Adler, Frank Welker, Peter Cullen and Michael Bell auditioned for the following roles:
0:00 Bushwoolies
2:32 Grundle King (replacing Danny DeVito) and assorted Grundle responses
5:40 Second round of auditions for the Moochick (replacing Tony Randall)
Within the last week, I have launched and am currently building a companion blog to the Sunbow Marvel Archive. One which will house production material from cartoons of the 1980s not produced by either Sunbow or Marvel Productions: Animated 80s
This site will feature scripts and storyboards that have come my way whilst in the course of pursuing material for the Archive proper. These currently include:
As part of space-saving and general housekeeping, storyboards for all 31 final sequences of The Transformers: The Movie, as well as Peter Chung's early sequences, have been put through OCR and greatly reduced in file size. Additionally, the 1600+ page full storyboard book is available to download at 175mb (down from over 1gb).
Thanks to Larry Houston for saving them from likely destruction back in the 1980s and thanks to Rich Helscher for making them available, the Archive now hosts the tenth full Transformers storyboard set: The Secret of Omega Supreme.
Thanks to Ryan King, the Archive now hosts material found by Marvel Productions storyboard artist/producer/director Larry Houston.
Firstly, the full storyboard set for Transformers episode Blaster Blues. To view the boards, head to the Blaster Blues storyboard gallery
Next are two model sheet books: one covering the main 1984 cast and the other incidental models from the 13 main episodes of Season 1. Including designs that did not make it to air, such as Dr. Lynn Hyashi, whose role in War of the Dinobots was given to Chip Chase in script revisions.
The Archive now hosts the full storyboard set for David Wise' My Little Pony episode Revolt of Paradise Estate, Part 2. Where, thanks to a can of magic paint sold to naïve pony Paradise by evil wizard Beezen, the furniture of Paradise Estate has come to life and driven the ponies out of their home.
The Archive takes a trip to Sunbow Entertainment's later years, with storyboard sets for The Brothers Flub episodes "Family Outing" and "Sidekicked". This series was produced on behalf of German company Ravensburger Film + TV and aired on Nickolodeon from the start of 1999 to the start of the year 2000.
With thanks to Webhead at http://spider-friends.com, the Archive now hosts the storyboards for Act II of the 1982 Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends episode A Firestar Is Born.
Drawn by Larry Houston, see what happens as Angelica Jones recounts the trials and tribulations of growing up with superpowers, then joins with Spidey, Iceman and the X-Men to defeat their unwanted house guest Juggernaut.
View the storyboards and more material from Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk and Pryde of the X-Men at: Marvel Superheroes 1981-1989
2023 was an interesting year for the Sunbow Marvel Archive. Thanks to the various contributors, material from a wider variety of shows is now available and also helped in demystifying a series that has previously been considered "lost media."
In terms of general organisation, the website has been streamlined to collect the material for 24 shows on 6 pages.
For Transformers, the march towards series completion continued with full or partial storyboards for another 10 episodes, over 100 audition sheets from voice director Wally Burr's collection, plus various model sheets, backgrounds and the script for The Killing Jar.
The biggest Transformers-related item saw release in August. Three years since it was found by Flint Dille and scanned by Jim Sorenson, the very first script for The Transformers: The Movie is available to the public.
An unexpected surprise came in the form of over a dozen My Little Pony storyboard sets, sold from the estate of artist Wendell Washer. Including the first special Rescue At Midnight Castle and a selection of episodes from the main series, spanning from the first episode Ghost Of Paradise Estate to the final one The Prince And The Ponies.
Beyond paper material, a selection of dialogue reels from various Marvel Productions' series came to light. Among them was audio from The Young Astronauts, Marvel's ill-fated series about space exploration that was cancelled in mid-production due to the Challenger shuttle explosion. The reels covered dialogue for the episode Ghost Ship, as well as auditions for the series narrator, featuring a who's who of 1980s voice actors.
With 2024 marking the 40th anniversaries of Transformers, Muppet Babies and My Little Pony making their television debuts, who knows what untold stories will be uncovered in the year ahead.
Added to the Archive this month is a plethora of Transformers material, with storyboards from the following:
Unproduced pilot miniseries/Season 1 intro sequence
More Than Meets The Eye, Part 2
More Than Meets The Eye, Part 3
Transport To Oblivion
Roll For It
The Ultimate Doom, Part 3
Countdown To Extinction
Unproduced Season 2 intro sequence
Unproduced commercial bumper
Autobot Spike
The Immobilizer
Additionally, a quartet of story premises, written by storyboard artist Wendell Washer during early Season 2, have also become available. Along with the early version of the 1985 New Product briefing he was given for reference.
Thanks to tfwiki mod Monzo, the Archive now hosts storyboards for Act III of The Transformers episode Webworld.
Co-written by comics legend Len Wein and Diane Duane, this episode sees Cyclonus make the reluctant decision to have his unstable leader Galvatron committed to psychiatric care on the planet Torkulon. Only to find that the methods employed by his "carers" are far more insane than the Decepticon leader ever was.
As an interlude while I prepare to make the next homegrown storyboard animatics, I have uploaded the five that were available on Shout Factory's 2011 Jem And The Holograms DVD box set.
A couple of home-made animatics I have made using recently-revealed Transformers storyboards, combined with episode broadcast audio. If these pique your interest, then please follow the links to the full storyboard galleries.
In 2016, the Mapes brothers found an assortment of Marvel Productions cassette tapes containing dialogue recorded in the summer of 1984, principally Season 1 of The Transformers. Deleted dialogue from those tapes is available on the Transformers At The Moon YouTube channel.
At the time of the recordings being found and made available, only one episode had a complete storyboard set available: Heavy Metal War. Animatics utilising the deleted dialogue from that episode were created and presented by Chris McFeely for TFNation 2017.
Since then, the number of full episode storyboards available online has grown to seven. Including a second episode for which a dialogue tape is available: S.O.S Dinobots.
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