Post by exosilver on Feb 15, 2019 21:34:46 GMT
I found something that many people may have never known was nearly lost.
(one of the few decent-quality videos among the incomplete and dwindling selection on YouTube)
Fantadroms [Фантадром] was created in 1985 by Ansis Bērziņš in Soviet Latvia (Republic of Latvia after 1991) by Studio Dauka [Animācijas filmu studija DAUKA]. The series involves a cat-like yellow robot named Indrikis, a purple cat-octopus creature named Receklite, and various animals and amorphous shapes. Indrikis likes to morph and sneeze a lot??? It's a very strange and trippy show and hard to describe, but the characters communicate through grunts and such. I was introduced to Fantadroms in 2016 while it was on YouTube, and became highly interested in its abstract narrative structure, animation style, and sound design. Since then, several episodes of decent quality have been removed from the site, as evident by an article on cartoonresearch.org by animation historian Fred Patten (1940-2018) about his time working for anime dubbing and redistribution company Streamline Pictures:
Patten, co-founder of Streamline Pictures, along with other co-founders Carl Mack and Jerry Beck, planned on releasing Fantadroms to Western audiences, but it was deemed to bizarre for American children; they also unsuccessfully attempted to secure the rights to Fantadroms after the fall of the Soviet Union, as Patten writes:
Streamline was devoted from its inception to Japanese animation, but that didn’t keep small-time salesmen from trying to sell us whatever they had. These were usually not theatrical releases, so Jerry never got involved with them. Carl generally brushed them off, but there were two non-Japanese items that he was interested in, brought to us around 1991 or 1992. One was all of the animation from Studio Dauka in Riga, Latvia. (Latvia had separated from the dying USSR in August 1991, and its animation was no longer controlled by Soyuzmultfilm in Moscow.) The other was a live-action Chinese-language children’s horror-comedy fantasy TV series about three kids versus a string of adult jiangshi corpses plus one cute 5- or 6-year-old little-boy jiangshi. We called the series informally “The Little Rascals vs. the Hopping Zombies”.
Both sales failed when Carl found out they were dubiously legal or definitely illegal. The Chinese series was tied up with one of the Triad gangs, which Carl refused to get involved with. (All three of us had witnessed TMS trying to become an American TV cartoon producer during the 1980s, with unofficial Yakuza money. The Yakuza even sent “representatives” to Hollywood to loom around TMS’ offices.) The man peddling Dauka’s cartoons did not have any rights to them; he simply had obtained a set of video prints. Presumably he planned to be long gone with Streamline’s money before we discovered that we were not getting any negatives from Studio Dauka, which had never heard of us or of its supposed representative.
Both sales failed when Carl found out they were dubiously legal or definitely illegal. The Chinese series was tied up with one of the Triad gangs, which Carl refused to get involved with. (All three of us had witnessed TMS trying to become an American TV cartoon producer during the 1980s, with unofficial Yakuza money. The Yakuza even sent “representatives” to Hollywood to loom around TMS’ offices.) The man peddling Dauka’s cartoons did not have any rights to them; he simply had obtained a set of video prints. Presumably he planned to be long gone with Streamline’s money before we discovered that we were not getting any negatives from Studio Dauka, which had never heard of us or of its supposed representative.
DOWNLOADS
The only downloads that I can find are torrents on Rutracker, with an unreliable amount of seeds. I have mirrored them to MEGA and credited the original uploaders (honour among thieves).
Tele-Film Riga (1984-1985)
01. Взлетное поле фантазии [Take-off field of fantasy] (1984 PILOT)
02. Соль [Salt] (1985)
03. Пожар [Fire] (1985)
02. Соль [Salt] (1985)
03. Пожар [Fire] (1985)
Studio Dauka (1985-1995)
01. Smiekli [Laughter] (1985, 7 min.)
02. Sāls [Salt] (1986, 7 min.)
03. Ugunsgrēks/Uguns [Fire] (1987, 7 min.)
04. Puķes [Flowers] (1992, 7 min.)
05. Piens [Milk] (1993, 7 min.)
06. Saldējums [Ice cream] (1993, 7 min.)
07. Sacensības [Competition] (1993, 7 min.)
08. Zemestrīce [Earthquake] (1993, 7 min.)
09. Pudelīte [Bottle] (1994, 7 min.)
10. Mājiņa [House] (1994, 7 min.)
11. Varavīksne [Rainbow] (1994, 7 min.)
12. Kakao [Cocoa] (1995, 7 min.)
13. Tētiņš [Daddy] (1995, 7 min.)
02. Sāls [Salt] (1986, 7 min.)
03. Ugunsgrēks/Uguns [Fire] (1987, 7 min.)
04. Puķes [Flowers] (1992, 7 min.)
05. Piens [Milk] (1993, 7 min.)
06. Saldējums [Ice cream] (1993, 7 min.)
07. Sacensības [Competition] (1993, 7 min.)
08. Zemestrīce [Earthquake] (1993, 7 min.)
09. Pudelīte [Bottle] (1994, 7 min.)
10. Mājiņa [House] (1994, 7 min.)
11. Varavīksne [Rainbow] (1994, 7 min.)
12. Kakao [Cocoa] (1995, 7 min.)
13. Tētiņš [Daddy] (1995, 7 min.)
DVD Menu Screenshots:
In 1985, Ansis Bērziņš was awarded the Lielais Kristaps National Film Festival for "Sāls" [Salt].
Sources and further reading:
edit mar 13 2021: I removed the files from MEGA to make space, but I put the files on the Internet Archive.
