YOUTHFUL DREAMS MADE REAL: HOW 'NET FANS REVIVED AN ANIMATION FRANCHISE
By Shannon Muir
Originally
published at Suite101.com
***
Some television
shows become "resurrected" by the efforts of avid fans. It's something
to keep in mind that your next series could easily be a "revival,"
whether by executives or fans. To me,
it's the fan efforts that are more interesting because they are passionate. I've been a part of one, so I know.
VOLTRON:
DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE first hit the airwaves in 1984, an adapted and combined serial of
two Japanese hits, GO-LION and DAIRUGGER XV. One robot formed from five robot lions; the
other from fifteen exploration vehicles. Of the two VOLTRON storylines, the
Lion Voltron captured fans' imagination and a second season of twenty episodes
was released.
I could be
counted among that fandom at thirteen years of age. I became so engrossed in the storylines I wrote my own and sent
them via the television station to the producing company. When all I received back was a stock fan
package, instead of the feedback I had desired, I resubmitted the ideas
directly to the Executive Producer at the address on the package. Many months later, thinking I had been all
but forgotten, I received a wonderful letter from the Head Writer of VOLTRON who had read my materials, although the show had ended. His praise and words of encouragement --
that I had potential if I stuck to writing -- led me on the road I've been on
for fifteen years that has brought me to this point.
Years
passed. VOLTRON fans
remained, isolated but unable to communicate as they grew older, never
completely letting go of the show that captured their imaginations in
childhood.
Enter the
Internet.
I don't remember
what got me started on the search. Maybe the discovery of a fan
site for a different show. But one day
in 1996, as I prepared to move to Los Angeles, I typed voltron into the
Alta Vista search engine -- http://www.altavista.com -- and found more information than I
imagined. I came to realize fans of the
show, now adults like me, were networking over the web and sharing their
knowledge and passion! My interest in VOLTRON put me on the road
I’m traveling now, a story that deserves a column of it’s own. I felt I had to
get on the bandwagon. It seemed a perfect way to leave my "fannish"
past behind me and share all the information I'd collected years before, not to
mention my Voltron fiction.
So, I created
Shannon Muir’s Voltron Pages at http://members.aol.com/shanemuir/voltron.htm, then I headed off to Los Angeles
thinking it was behind me. [EDITOR'S NOTE: This site was taken down by AOL when they discontinued hosting any pages October 2009 and these pages are now at http://www.duelingmodems.com/~shan/Voltron.htm.]
Some people
credit me for starting the boulder rolling down the hill. A lot of people say they put up their sites
because they saw mine first. I really
can’t say. What I do know is that
things started to happen.
All the web
sites fans dared to put out there (myself included) spoke loud and clear to the
folks at World Events Productions, who had done the dub work on the original VOLTRON series. They had a hint of the
show’s continuing popularity through some letters and late-night airings on St.
Louis’ KPLR-TV -- which had a long standing relationship with World Events
through broadcasting executive Ted Koplar’s interest in both businesses. The sites gave them something solid and
substantial, not to mention free promotion.
Unlike the
efforts of some companies to shut down fan sites, World Events embraced the
fans’ Internet presence. With that they attracted toy giant Trendmasters at http://www.trendmasters.com, Mike Young Productions and the
now-defunct Netter Digital Entertainment to sign on board and create VOLTRON:
THE THIRD DIMENSION, a 3D CGI series picking up five years in the
future. Ultimately, they produced
twenty-six episodes spanning two seasons (a season lasts from Fall of a
calendar year to the Fall of the next calendar year, for those not familiar
with industry-speak).
Some people
liked the CGI version; others hated it. I have mixed feelings but recognize its necessity as a marketing tool to
get an old franchise a little added attention. After all, it was one of the first motion capture CGI TV shows and the
first CGI series to be totally produced in the United States.
World Events
also created an official site for VOLTRON -- http://www.voltronforce.com [EDITOR'S NOTE: now discontinued]--and encouraged fans to be involved. And, in what’s hard to be a humble opinion, they paid respect to the
fans by embracing the work of one fan as "official" with proper
credit and compensation. The material
in question, a starmap of the galaxy in which the show is set, came from
myself. This knowledge as gathered partially
from episodes and partially from my own theories, clearly served as a resource
for the writers who didn't work on the prior series. I wish others had been given similar opportunity.
Maybe I was the
most powerful voice, but I don’t want to imply I did it alone. The combined work of all the fans was
required to become the powerful chorus
that reached the ears of World Events Productions and beyond. Below are some of the better-known VOLTRON fan sites:
- THE UNOFFICAL VOLTRON FORCE HOMEPAGE at http://www.arus.org/voltron/index.html
- CASTLE CONTROL: VOLTRON HEADQUARTERS, at http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/1988/
As a working
professional, I'll never have this experience again, at least from the fan
side. I think, though, if I ever find
myself in the producer’s chair on a show and hear the fans cry out, I will
listen. After all, I’ve walked a mile
in their shoes.
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WITHOUT EMAILING SHAN@DUELINGMODEMS.COM FOR PERMISSION. Thank you.
All content copyright 2001 - 2011 Shannon Muir. All rights reserved.