Rock Odyssey (found Hanna-Barbera animated film; 1987)

Title card.

Status: Partially Lost

In 1981 Hanna Barbera had come up with the idea of an animated TV special for ABC titled Rock Odyssey. Though the film would later be shelved due to its violent and graphic imagery, until the mid-1980s where the project would resume production. The film would feature many popular songs by Jerry Lewis, The Beatles, and Wham! being covered by their own singers. It take's you through a tour with the history of rock, The Jukebox voiced by Scatman Crothers is your host. Overall it's a very confusing, pretty, and pscyhedelic animated movie that not many know of. Surprisingly, though uncredited Rock Odyssey was co-directed by Robert Taylor. The same man who directed the 1972 R-Rated animated film, The Nine Lives Of Fritz The Cat.

The Music

Many songs are highly recognizable, some are by artists like The Beatles, Elvis Presley etc. There was a small argument over whether or not the film should use the original songs. But in the end, Robert Taylor had decided to do something "fresh" and record covers of the songs himself with a hired band. The film received “negative” reviews, and has never released on VHS or DVD. It was never aired on television again, until 2010 when it was rebroadcasted on Boomerang Southeast Asia.

Availablity

There is a copy of this film available for viewing in the Library of Congress, but there is no place to buy or watch it publically. There are copies of the movie on YouTube and Dailymotion, but they are both in low quality, split into pieces, and dubbed into Spanish (due to them being recorded from a TV airing, although the songs are still in it’s original English audio.) However, on August 25, 2018, LMW user EL_PRESIDENTE found the movie in a higher quality (but still in Spanish). The full 90 minute English version remains lost, though there is a low-quality English version available, made from various sources by LMW user Ziggy Stardust. It is made from as many available online scenes as possible but was edited together before the Spanish dub's discovery, so the quality is less than satisfactory. But for months since the Spanish rip was shared, LMW user Notelu had been working on a serious remaster of the film. And during the 16th of October, he had finished it, and uploaded it to the Archive.org and Myspleen.org. Notleu's cut is the closest we have gotten to an Enlgish, high quality version of this lost film. It is highly unlikely that this movie will ever see an official release.

Gallery

A still from the movie

External Links

• Link to the Spanish dub of the movie. Retrieved 27 Aug '18
• Link to the Ziggy Stardust cut. Retrieved 27 Aug '18
• Link to the superior Notelu cut. Retrieved 16 Oct '18
• The Wikipedia page on Rock Odyssey. Retrieved 24 Aug '18
• The IMDb page on Rock Odyssey. Retrieved 24 Aug '18

Refrences

• A Blogspot page that includes art from Rock Odyssey. Retrieved 24 Aug '18
• A Google Books listing for "Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters". Retrieved 24 Aug '18