March 2020, Issue No. 18
TIME TRAVEL NEXUS PRESENTS . . .
Animator to the Stars
An Interview with Hal Sutherland
by Mike Main
from Free Fall 6, July 1975
—In my younger days, I had two good pals—Paul Chadwick and Dan Dorman—and like every other red-blooded American comic book and sf fan, we published a fanzine. Each issue of Free Fall featured Paul’s unparalleled art—such as this cover that absolutely drew me in with curiosity about that girl—as well as writing by me and Paul and Dan. So what’s all this got to do with time travel?
To answer that, you first need to step over to the latest installments of C. R. Berry’s Time Trek column where he reviewed three Star Trek Animated Series episodes with time travel, or at least time manipulation: “Yesteryear,” “The Time Trap,” and “The Counter-Clock Incident.” Those episodes—as well as all of Star Trek: The Animated Series and many other animated escapades—were directed by the multitalented director and artist Hal Sutherland. Early in his career, Mr. Sutherland worked on Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, but by the time I ran into him in 1975, he was the principal director at Filmation, an animation studio he founded along with Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott.
I wish I could remember how it was that Mr. Sutherland and I met, but that recollection is gone, and all I remember now is that in the summer of 1975, he kindly invited me up to his ranch in Bothell, Washington, and I spent an afternoon in heaven talking with the man. Naturally, I memorialized my recollections of that afternoon in the mimeograph ink of Free Fall 6. The production of that issue on a hot July day in Steve Kristopher’s basement is something that Paul and I might sit down to tell you about someday, but for today’s Time Travel Nexus Presents, I’d just like to give you my recollections of Mr. Sutherland as they appeared in the fanzine. Enjoy!
Hiking as he unloaded logs from a pick-up truck on his ranch in Bothell, Washington, Hal Sutherland, director of the Star Trek cartoon series, explained to me the current state of the art of animation and Filmation’s Star Trek cartoon. Actually, the Star Trek cartoon is only one of Hal Sutherland’s achievements in animation. He began in 1954 with Walt Disney as an artist. Before that, he said, he had done many things: dishwasher, cotton-picker, horse-portrait painter, or whatever in Florida, Alabama, Texas and California. He grew up in Massachusetts.
“Back in the fifties,” said Sutherland, “Disney used to sort of corral talent.” They would get a class of about thirty people and have them on a trial basis for a month. From each class they would take about ten promising artists and hire them on learn-on-the-job terms. “If you made it through that, you were pretty much in, but it’s still not a very secure business.”
When I brought up a quote by Eric Vincent from a recent TBG [The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom] saying animators are often as zany as their creations, Mr. Sutherland disagreed. “If anything, they’re neurotic. Zany implies happy, but these guys are so busy worrying about making a living, they can’t be zany.”
Mr. Sutherland, though, was a quite pleasant man—and one capable of being zany. He now lives what seems a quiet, carefree life on his ranch in Bothell—what one of his visiting neighbors called “a bum’s life.”
Mr. Sutherland agreed, laughing. “Yes, I’ve been down and broke before, but this is the first time I’ve been able to live like a bum. The life has something to say for itself.”
Apparently, the success of his studio, Filmation, has allowed him to finally live like that on his ranch. He started the studio with two partners in the early sixties. He has done much of the directing and producing himself, leaving the sales and promotions to his partners.
When asked about the violence-in-cartoons controversy, Sutherland replied, “Hogwash.” His explanation is that parents see the rush-job stuff on Saturday mornings these days and realize it’s not as good as the things they used to watch. They need to complain about something. And it’s partly the censor’s fault. They need to anticipate complaints. “I wouldn’t like a censor’s job—they tend to see everything in black and white, nothing in between,” Sutherland said, using his hands for emphasis.
Sutherland said he didn’t see violence as that big a deal. “Nobody’s ever been killed through violence in a Filmation cartoon—or really even badly hurt. Some things are a part of life kids have to learn, anyway.”
Sutherland did give value to educational cartoons. “Like Fat Albert,” he said. “Each story in Fat Albert had a moral, a strong one, without really ramming it at the kids. We never received any complaints about that show.
Among other Filmation productions is the feature-length Journey Back to Oz,, with Liza Minnelli doing the voice of Dorothy. In talking about the Oz cartoon, Sutherland said, “It’s one of the few animated features to be a success other than Disney. But that sort of quality work took us ten years to produce. Saturday morning cartoons are expected to be done in under six months. That, in part, explains the current use of limited animation, as opposed to the great full animation of the early Disney cartoons.”
Time and money, Sutherland said, are the two factors pressing today’s cartoons. Animators of today are forced into close-up face shots and limited animation because of those. In the fifties, Disney could get $65,000 for a seven or eight minute short. Today, a half-hour cartoon is expected to be made for only $80,000. “What you may find very soon is the really fine animation being restricted to features, but theaters are reluctant to show even those.”
Sutherland sees many trends in cartoons. “A couple of years ago, we did Superman, and pretty soon everyone was a superhero in long johns. Then we did The Archies and everyone had a teenage music group running around. Now the trend seems to be toward live action, like Shazam (a Filmation production).”
With the movement toward live action, Sutherland sees bad times for the animation industry. “It’s a small industry with only a couple thousand people in it in the US.” He said he really couldn’t advise an artist to get into the business. “Soon only those with much experience and talent will be left, but maybe in a couple of years a new trend will come along, sparked by a really good animated show.”
As for writers, he advises them to “write.” He said, “Just keep writing and submitting. Agents are sometimes valuable, but sometimes it’s better to just go to the producers and skip the middleman. One of the best Star Trek cartoon episodes was submitted by a 19-year-old kid from South Carolina. When it was handed to Roddenberry, he said it was the best first draft he’d ever read. The guy who wrote it fell over backwards when we contacted him.”
The Star Trek cartoon seems to be Sutherland’s prize show. He said he wasn’t planning on doing any more cartoons, but when the Star Trek show was offered, he just had to do it.
He felt the Star Trek cartoon show was really on the same level as the original, despite BEMs. “A lot of people were ready to throw fits when the cartoon series was announced, but I think we managed to please them.” He said that just as much technical research went into the cartoon as the live-action show. The shows were all new, and Roddenberry made the network sign an agreement so that he would have final say over everything. Sutherland had nothing but praise for Roddenberry. “He is a man who has his principles and sticks by them.”
Sutherland also mentioned the cast members. “Their rapport is really remarkable,” he said. Roddenberry’s wife (Majel Barrett, who played the role of Nurse Chapel) is a really wonderful woman.” He mentioned that the Roddenberrys had their first child a year ago.
Talking about Jimmy Doohan (Scotty), he said he is a fantastic actor with a masterful control of dialects. “I don’t understand why he isn’t all over the screen, unless it’s because he doesn’t want to be. Apparently he does a lot of acting in plays.
Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), he said, was a far underused actress of many talents, and George Takei (Sulu) a great man.
“Leonard Nimoy is a very inward man. It’s too bad his Spock image has to follow him everywhere, because he’s a very talented man capable of much. Nobody seems to remember him except as Spock, though. He was up here not too long ago, and they still billed him as ‘Mr. Spock.’” Sutherland mentioned that Nimoy writes poetry as well as being a talented singer.
As for William Shatner, he is an actor’s actor. He can play any role at all, and doesn’t feel right unless he is acting. He tries to squeeze as many things as possible into his acting schedule: TV, commercials, movies, whatever.”
One problem the Star Trek cartoon series did have was that the actors were busy with many things. Sutherland said the sound tracks had to be recorded separately and then put together. “That’s certainly not ideal, but they all know each other so well, it didn’t hurt too much.”
He said there were some things that the cartoon show could do better than the live-action. “The Galileo shuttlecraft, for example, was never really done to Roddenberry’s satisfaction, so it was easily redesigned to what we thought was a much better design. The alien at the helm was another example.”
Sutherland said that probably no new Star Trek cartoon episodes would be made. (There are currently 23 episodes.) But he is looking forward to the feature-length, live-action Star Trek movie by Paramount. The movie may be the key to the resurrection of the series, he said. The major problem with a revival has always been the reconstruction of the sets, which at today’s prices would be costly. But they’ll have to make sets for the movie, so who knows . . .
I enjoyed sharing that memory with you. Right now, in addition to remembering that quiet day with Mr. Sutherland, I’m wondering what he’d think of the upcoming animated comedy Lower Decks, “coming in 2020.” I think computer animation would be a jolt to him, but even so, he would appreciate the expanded range of animation that exists some 45 years after our talk on his ranch. Boy, the animation team really nailed Commander Ryker’s Ransom’s beard, didn’t they?
Until next month, I’m leaving you with another of Paul Chadwick’s covers for Free Fall. This illustration features Free Fall’s three recurring characters: the Scientist (in the balloon), the Poet (sitting with a copy of Byron), and the Armchair Philosopher (standing)—and in my mind, it embodies all that’s good in the world (or at least in Free Fall).
’nuff said!
—Michael