Faking Filmation is a documentary that explores the depths of fandom, intellectual property and the dangerous intersection between them while tracing the origin and evolution of cartoons, the history of Filmation and one man’s mission to create the ultimate love letter to the creators of his favorite cartoon show.

Synopsis:

James Eatock has an obsession: 80s cartoons. While most fans of the era can quote various episodes and talk in depth about character backstory, James’ encyclopedic knowledge goes much deeper. He can tell you when and where characters appear with slightly different color shades, when lines were dubbed in, when and where storyboards were different than the final episode, and knows all about unproduced shows and future plans. He lives and breathes it and specifically, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Ever since he was a kid, he’s wanted to tell He-Man stories and while he’s authored books for Dark Horse detailing every single episode of the beloved cartoon, edited the celebrated fan magazine, cereal:geek, and remains a popular resource for 80s cartoons, his childhood goal has alluded him – until 2017. 

Four years ago, James decided he was going to fulfill his dreams and create an unofficial He-Man cartoon that, ideally, would seamlessly fit into the heralded Filmation version of the famed character. The look, the sounds, the voices, the music – It was all going to be like the Filmation series. After 3.5 years of hard work with a handful of collaborators all volunteering their efforts because they shared the same passion as James, the cartoon was completed and ready to showcase at Power-Con – and then came the legal warnings from NBC/Universal, the rights holder for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. With his childhood dream on the precipice of becoming a reality, James must now choose what he wants to do: does he shelve it and save himself from expensive legal action? Does he find a way around the situation? Does he release it no matter what – because dreams matter more than money? Of course, he has decided to journey forward!

While chronicling James’ journey to create and release his unofficial cartoon, we will talk to industry insiders, animation aficionados, and cartoon lovers from everywhere about the impact of cartoons, the current state of cartoon culture, Saturday morning, weekday and prime time Cartoons, the rise and fall of Filmation, the impact of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Fan Films and so much more!!!

While the main drive of the film will be James’ story including his beginnings, personal life and so forth, it’s all being wrapped in a giant discussion about cartoons with some of the most respected and talented people on the planet. So what kind of topics will the film showcase? LOTS:

Cartoon history/evolution, the rise and fall of Saturday Morning, emergence of afternoon/weekday cartoon dominance, prime time toons, cartoons and learning, hand-drawn vs CG, Cartoon Network and 24/7 cartoons, cartoons for adults, branding/licensing, cartoons and politics, cartoons and toys, viewer impact, domestic and foreign production, cartoon heroes and villains, from movies to television to youtube and SO MANY MORE!

Those are some very broad topics but just know our focus rests in episode content created for television – that’s what we consider cartoons for the purposes of this film – even when practice was to bundle theatrical shorts for air on TV.

But what cartoons will we discuss and showcase?

Of course, we’ll discuss He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and She-ra: Princess of Power given the obvious tie to James’ story, but we’ll also explore other shows like G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Transformers, M.A.S.K., C.O.P.S., Visionaries, The Mighty Hercules, Blackstar, Bravestarr, The Real Ghostbusters, Captain Planet, Reboot, Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, The Simpsons, South Park, Rick and Morty, Adventure Time, Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men, Spider-Man, Thundercats but basically whatever  people bring up during our discussions! There is certainly a heavy 80s and 90s influence with the above shows, but it would be impossible to tell this story and leave out hits from the 60s and 70s, plus everything that’s happened in the last 20 years too!

Here are some of the people who have agreed to participate in our production if we get funded:

Erika Scheimer – Producer/Production Coordinator/Voice Actor, He-Man, She-Ra

Rob Lamb – Writer/Storyboard Artist, He-Man, She-Ra, Filmation’s Ghostbusters

Tom Tataranowicz – Director/Producer/Animator, He-Man, She-Ra, Biker Mice from Mars

Andy Mangels – Co-Author, Creating the Filmation Generation

Larry Houston – X-Men: TAS, G.I. Joe, TMNT, C.O.P.S., Batman: TAS, Exosquad

J. Larry Carroll – Writer, TMNT, Captain Planet, G.I. Joe, Thundercats, Bravestarr, She-ra

Victor Dal Chele – Director/Storyboard Artist, Extreme Ghostbusters, Exosquad, SWAT Kats

Ron Friedman – Writer, Transformers: The Movie, Bionic Six, G.I. Joe, Fantastic Four

Brynne Chandler – Writer, Batman: TAS, Spider-Man, Gargoyles, TMNT, He-Man, She-ra

Christy Marx – Writer, Bucky O’Hare, G.I. Joe, Dino-Riders, Jem

Zadoc Angell – Co-founder of The He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Website & Producer, Van Helsing

Val Staples – Event Director, Power-Con

“MOTU Joe” Teague – Masters of the Universe collector and pop culture expert

Daniel Benedict – Filmmaker, Fall of Grayskull, The Bloody Man

Dusan Mitrovic – Director/Producer, The Return of Faker

Andrew Cramer – Lead colorist, The Return of Faker

Keith Seymour – Special FX, The Return of Faker

Jukka Issakainen – Writer, Dark Horse MOTU books / Colorist, “The Return of Faker”

Jay Bartlett – Toy Collector, Action Figure Adventure, Nintendo Quest

Jordan Morris – Writer, Former Toy Store Owner

Glenn Stanway – Video Game Producer

AND MANY MORE PROFESSIONALS, FANS, COLLECTORS, INSIDERS AND PEOPLE LIKE YOU!

Many of you visiting this campaign are curious if we will include The Return of Faker as  bonus material, in some sort of uncut, unaltered capacity. I can say our current goal is to include The Return of Faker as a piece of bonus content. To make this possible, we will seed the cartoon center-frame and have various “pop-up facts” that appear throughout the runtime that further showcase the process to make the unofficial cartoon come to fruition. None of the pop-ups will cover the cartoon but will appear beside the cartoon and point out things like dialogue that was used from other episodes, instances where other Filmation cartoon characters were used for reference poses, FX work etc. This is important because a lot of time and effort went into creating this unofficial cartoon and given that the focus of this documentary is the cartoon, it’s creation and hopefully, it’s release, showcasing it uncut and in full, further showcases our goals.

But there’s more…

I firmly believe this is a rare opportunity to take James’ love for cartoons from the 80s and his efforts to make The Return of Faker as a vehicle to unpack all of cartoon history, and of course, Filmation. I’ve been waiting for a great, current day story about 80s cartoons for a long time and to have one that follows an individual who’s hellbent and driven beyond any relative rational sense of sanity to most people is RARE. It’ll be great if we hit our base goal and showcase how James and his team made The Return of Faker, but it will be special and significant if we can showcase the James’ journey to see his childhood dream come true. Specifically, there are NINE key goals that James has and wants to accomplish with “The Return of Faker” – and they’re all awesome!!!

It’s no secret that making films is not a cheap endeavor. Below you will see the projected cost of this film, for the full blown feature length, global release version – which is only a starting point depending how long the journey takes to truly unfold and resolve. On average, documentaries take 3-5 years to shoot, edit and complete. We think our story will resolve sooner than that with delivery around the 2 year mark. 

Rob McCallum – Writer/Director, Pyre Productions

Locked in a tower in parts unknown, Rob McCallum spends his time building elaborate story-driven worlds, playing with action figures, video games or air drumming to some of his favorite tunes. This Emmy-nominated and award-winning filmmaker has been featured on NBC, CBS, CBC Radio•One, WIRE, /Film and Destructoid over the course of his career that includes sales to Netflix, Super Channel, Tubi, and other broadcasters around the world. He’s obsessed with all things Jim Henson, has a deep love of Masters of the Universe and one day wants to visit Duckburg.

www.RobMcZob.com

This motion picture is protected under the copyright laws of the United States and other countries throughout the world. Country of first publication: United States of America. Any unauthorized exhibition, distribution, or copying of this film or any part thereof (including soundtrack and “bonus materials”) may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution. If you become a backer of this project, you pledge to retain your rewards for private exhibition only and will not share, showcase, or upload any of the associated material.

Risks and challenges

We’re created this campaign with scalable goals and expectations. The backers determine the end result with their level of support. We will be able to create a better end product with the more we raise, but that also means more time. The people involved in the creation of this film hail from at least 3 or more countries that have different styles of governments with different ways of operating – in other words, who knows what obstacles might arise, as we’ve seen with the pandemic, but we will do our best to give you an amazing film commensurate with the amount we raise, just like all our other projects.

Special Thanks to the London Arts Council of London, Ontario for supporting our endeavor!