Recent additions, December 2020

 Robotix

With thanks to Jim Sorenson, the show bible for Robotix has been added to the MP 4000 section.  Along with the 14 scripts for episode recap, with correspondence by story editor Alan Swayze

Transformers

Background keys for select episodes of Season One have been added to the archive, thanks to Ryan King.

Elaine Hultgren, co-owner of and layout artist at XAM Productions in Utah, made the jump to storyboard artist for Marvel in 1985.  For her storyboard test, the Transformers episode Blaster Blues was used for story.  Those storyboards are now available at the archive.  Elaine would go on to be credited for the entire runs of Jem, Inhumanoids and Dino-riders.  Her career would continue to be involved with shows covered by the archive throughout the 1990s.  First with Marvel, then with Graz Entertainment and the final involvement with a Sunbow co-production coming with Generation O! in the year 2000.

The Transformers The Movie

All 31 storyboard sequences for the movie have been cropped to the original two-panel pages.  All pages have been straightened, vertical pans rotated and file sizes reduced for ease of loading and viewing.

Fraggle Rock

The full storyboard for the main title sequence has been added to the archive.

Transformers deleted dialogue recordings

 Uploads by Transformers At The Moon

MP 4023 The Transformers - Day 1 (in five parts)

MP 4024 The Transformers - Day 2

MP 4025 The Transformers - Day 3

MP 700

01 Transport To Oblivion

02 Roll For It

03 Divide And Conquer

04 Fire In The Sky

05 S.O.S Dinobots

06 Fire On The Mountain

07 War Of The Dinobots

08 The Ultimate Doom, Part 1

09 The Ultimate Doom, Part 2

10 The Ultimate Doom, Part 3

11 Countdown To Extinction

12 A Plague Of Insecticons (including Insecticon Body English for sound library)

13 Heavy Metal War

Laserbeak ADR session - Chris Latta and Wally Burr

Ravage ADR session - Frank Welker and Wally Burr

Season 2

21 The Immobilizer

30 Dinobot Island, part 2

August 2020 update

This month has seen some obscure rarities come to the archive.

MP 200 Pandamonium

Added model sheets, height comparison charts and background layouts for Pandamonium.  One of two co-productions in 1982 between Marvel and Intermedia Entertainment (on behalf of MGM/United Artists).

The series revolves around an alien artifact, sought by the sorcerer Mondraggor, which falls to Earth and breaks into pieces.  American brother and sister Pete and Peggy observe the piece which makes planetfall in Tibet.  Upon flying out to examine it, they discover three pandas have been turned into talking bipeds: Chesty, Timothy and Algernon.  The siblings and the pandas are now in a race against Mondraggor to reunite the pieces of the artifact.

The series was presented as a comedy with the panda's personalities being expys of The Three Stooges.  It and fellow Marvel/Intermedia show Meatballs & Spaghetti were among the last US animated shows to include a laugh track.  Both were cancelled after one season and have had no modern home release.

MP 700 Transformers

The Hasbro briefing binders, originally purchased from the Ron Friedman auctions, have been uploaded to the archive.
These include binders for the initial 1984 cast, including early names and designs.  As well as separate briefing material covering Shockwave, Jetfire, the Dinobots, Insecticons and Constructticons.

Air Raiders

Added the Sunbow press kit for what would have been the next Sunbow/Marvel co-production for 1987.  Development work by Doug Booth and Ron Friedman during the summer of 1986 led to a three-part pilot script written by Friedman and ready by January 1987.
Unfortunately, low retail orders of $30 million at Toyfair in February, combined with Hasbro's decision to abandon funding for full-length animation once the existing contracts were fulfilled, led to the pilot being cancelled.

Marvel Productions Behind The Scenes

A documentary made in 1981 during the production of Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends.  Spider-Man On The Move, presented by Stan Lee.  According to documentary producer Arthur Greenwald, Stan's star turn on this programme led to NBC requesting he record narration for seasons 2 and 3 of Amazing Friends, as well as narration retroactively added to repeats of season 1 and to The Incredible Hulk.

Sadly, the main production office (flat-topped, single story building) featured in this documentary burned down in March 1984.

8mm home video of Marvel Productions' head office, filmed in 1984 and uploaded by Bryce Malek, as he and Dick Robbins worked as story editors on The Transformers

 A floor plan of the head office from February 1986, from John Semper's files

1st floor

Ground floor

More of Bryce Malek's home video, this time of the office Christmas Party in 1986.  Putting faces to a lot of the names on the above floor plans.

July 2020 update

This month has seen some housekeeping at the archive.  The "Productions" links have been moved to the top of the page for easier navigation between the various shows

MP 600 G.I Joe

Due to the official Hasbro YouTube channel releases reaching 50 out of 95 full episodes.  The GI Joe section of the archive has been split into two parts, in the same manner as Transformers.
For production material from season 2, as well as the full script and storyboard samples from GI Joe The Movie.  Update your bookmarks to: https://sunbowmarvelarchive.blogspot.com/2020/07/mp-600-gi-joe-real-american-hero-1983.html

MP 900 Defenders Of The Earth

To streamline the DoE page, only full episodes which are supported by available production material will be uploaded.


MP 5205 Jem

A trio of music video storyboards have been made available to the archive:

First up we have There's A Melody Playin' by future Shrek director Vicky Jenson, from the episode In Search Of The Stolen Album.  Jenson took visual ideas from Madonna's Papa Don't Preach video, the single for which was only released less than two months before these storyboards were finalized.

Next is the original version of Love's Not Easy, by comics legend Romeo Tanghal.  This music video was slated to be the third video for the episode Island Of Deception.  Due to the issues which affected many shows sent out to overseas animators by Marvel Productions in the summer of 1986.  This episode along with 6 others in season 1 were cut down to 19 minutes of original animation.  The time being made up with music video replays and Superstar PSAs.

The video below is of a fanmade animatic using colourised versions of the storyboards.  This was premiered at Jemcon 2018:

Finally, there is Gettin' Down To Business, version 2.  Drawn by Marvel Comics and Productions artist Mike Vosburg for the season 2 episode The Bands Break Up.  Unusually for the time, the storyboards were drawn on 3-panel pages (left over from GI Joe The Movie), versus the usual 6 panels.  Viewers are encouraged to compare the storyboards with the finished video as major changes are made to the first five pages:

One year anniversary

Better late than never!  The Sunbow Marvel script/storyboard archive celebrated its one year anniversary on June 10th. 

Since launching, the archive has expanded beyond anything I thought possible.  Covering 13 years worth of shows, movies, miniseries and pilots:

• 91 full or partial scripts
• 118 dialogue scripts
• 73 full or partial storyboard sets
• 43 model sheet/cel files
• 7 show bibles or writer's guides

Not counting concept art, memos, outlines, voice actor call sheets and much more

Thank you to everyone who has contributed scanned material over the past year.

There is still a lot more out there to be preserved, so if any owners are willing to contribute, please message the archive.

Here's to the second year!

May 2020 update

Here is a roundup of additions and changes to the archive for May:

MP 100 The Incredible Hulk

Added sample pages from both the outline and the full script for Prisoner Of The Monster, written by Susan Misty Stewart (Misty Taggart).


MP 700 Transformers

• Completed the 9th digital reconstruction of a Ron Friedman-revised script, back to first draft dialogue.: Doug Booth's Roll For It
• Received a contribution by NeverDoubt of the first draft script for Fire In The Sky
• Added low-resolution samples of storyboards for The Immobilizer
• Separated the More Than Meets The Eye script into it's three parts, for ease of loading and reading.

MP 5204 Moondreamers

Added 6 pages of samples from the show bible, created by future Spider-Man TAS showrunner John Semper and Cynthia Friedlob.