Fantastic Voyage (1968–1969) User Reviews

Was Supposed to have been a live-action series

[ddc300 · 8/10 · 4 July 2007]

The interesting aspect of the Fantastic Voyage animated series is it's history....originally 20th Century-Fox was considering doing a live TV series based on the film. Veteran TV writers William Reed Woodfield and Allan Balter ('Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea', 'Lost in Space', 'Mission Impossible') came up with the series version in 1967, but the series idea was shelved, partially due to the untimely death of writer Balter in a plane crash.

20th Century-Fox had given the rights to another of their sci-fi action-adventure films, 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' to Filmation the previous year and was warmly received. So Fox decided to go with the less expensive route of animation rather than live-action with the added expensive of model work and set building (ala Land of the Giants).

In is also interesting to note that Filmation later did a special animated version of 'Lost in Space'....rumors abounded in the mid-70's that if the LIS cartoon had been picked up by the ABC network, then Filmation was poised to do animated versions of the other Iriwn Allen series, 'Time Tunnel', 'Land of the Giants', and 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'.

Neat Sci-Fi Cartoon Classic

[jeremycrimsonfox · 8/10 · 30 April 2021]

Fantastic Voyage is cartoon based loosely on the 1966 film of the same name. In it, the Combined Miniature Defense Force selects four people for one mission: to combat the unseen, unexpected threats to freedom. Shrinking down and piloting the Voyager, the team, consisting of Commander Johnathan Kidd, mystic Guru, biologist Erica Lane, and scientist Bubsy Birdwell, must stop these evils causing the problems, and they have twelve hours to do so, as after that time, they will return to normal size.

So yes, it does have some differences from the film (mainly the time limit and the CMDF acronym meaning something different). As this was made by Filmation, there will be some reused animation and some errors meant to save money (but then again, it worked for Filmation, as it helped them stay open until the late 1980's). However, despite this, the show has some interesting stories and some good villains.

It was Fantastic!

[GTDMAC · 11 March 2003]

When "Fantastic Voyage" came out on the big screen in 1966 starring Raquel Welch, it was one of the best pure Sci Fi releases to date and really took the genre by storm. When the cartoons came out two years later they also were popular. For those of us who remember those Saturdays flipping channels between the three networks looking for the right cartoon for that morning's worth of TV, Fantastic Voyage was a always worth at least a look even if you'd seen it before. It had quality voices like Jane Webb, who was more famous for her Betty/Veronica/Sabrina characters on the "Archies" related shows, and Ted Knight, best known for his hilarious work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

It also had decent animation and the effect of the ship shrinking out of sight never failed to enthrall as it was supposed to do. There was always a hint of science and that part appealed to the children of the atomic age in addition to the familiar voices. The idea of traveling around in a flying ship was a common theme then on TV with Lost In Space, Star Trek, and Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea all having some sort of flying vehicles you could zip around in and go wherever you wanted to. But the ship on Fantastic Voyage was just that much cooler having been patterned after those shows' ships but with a sleeker design. This made the show stand out over others at the time and gave them a faithful following for years after it was cancelled. Definitely worth a look if any reruns remain.

One of Lifes Weirder Pleasures.

[alphaspace · 14 July 2001]

This was sort of a spin off of a movie of the same name and, using the same concept. A Huge top secret government agency perfects a miniturization process, a futuristic ship is designed so it and, its crew can be miniturized to fight evil on the sub microscopic universe. All it had to be is sci-fi for me to like it back then or now but for saturday morning TV this was good stuff.

Remember: the CMDF

[larryn75 · 23 July 2003]

I cannot for the life of me remember any of the plots now (I was, 9?), but that image dominates of the ship shrinking on that rotating disk of colored lights like a giant wheel-of-fortune, with the three large emitters pointing down, blazing away atop arcing pylons rising up, out and back down toward the wheel. And the shrinking music theme cue with a powerful but languid tone--*da-dum-da deeeeeeeeee dow! da-dum-da deeeeeeeeee DOW!*--sorta a twist on the Perry Mason opening riff. I can still see Buzby Birdwell (what kid knew that takeoff name then?) sitting up in the little bubbled cockpit on top to fly it ... and Ted Knight's announcer voice as the Narrator intoning: *The C-M-D-F ...Combined Miniature Defense Force!* I had a set of Mattels TogÕl blocks and often made the Voyager. Cool ship before I ever knew the Enterprise.

"Sub"-standard

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 4 April 2006]

The 1966 science-fiction film 'Fantastic Voyage' had an audacious premise: a crew of scientists and a submarine are reduced to microscopic size, then injected into a man's bloodstream in order to perform vital brain surgery. (The patient is himself a scientist, whose vital knowledge is endangered by a blood clot in his brain.) The movie had several merits, but also had some distinct lapses in logic ... some of which were partially resolved by Isaac Asimov in his novelisation of the movie.

The 1968 TV series 'Fantastic Voyage', featuring extremely low-budget animation, was allegedly inspired by the film. This series was (to my knowledge) never aired on British television, but I saw several episodes in London in 1972 when Filmation Associates tried to sell the UK syndication rights to this series. For some reason, somebody connected with this animated series seemed to think that it was a direct sequel to the original film: I recall that the press kit included comments such as 'the crew continue their adventures in the scientist's body'. Not true! None of the film's characters made the transition to this series; the only common link is the premise of a miniaturised sub and its crew. In fact, none of the episodes which I viewed depicted the submarine inside a human body.

The crew consisted of Commander Kidd, smart plain-Jane scientist Erica Lane, and smirking bespectacled wiseguy Busby Birdwell. Allegedly, Birdwell had designed and built the submarine, but the character as depicted here never convinced me that he was smart enough (or serious enough) to achieve this. Impressively, it was usually female crew member Erica who came up with the best tactics and strategies. The fourth member of the crew was ... get this ... Guru. That was his name, not his title. Guru was a tall swarthy bearded guy in a turban, who acted like Mr Spock and made laconic comments. He also had some poorly-defined paranormal abilities. Whenever the crew needed some object to do the Indian Rope Trick, Guru would make a few mystic passes in midair and the gizmo would levitate.

The crew worked for some top-secret American organisation. Every episode portentously explained (with an echo effect) that the crew had only "TWELVE... HOURS..." to complete their mission, or else some hideous unexplained fate would occur. They would all pop back to normal size, I guess.

The missions they undertook were amazingly trivial. In one episode, Busby dressed up in a jester costume and Erica shrank him down to doll size (without authorisation to do this) so that he could entertain the kiddies at an orphanage. The fact that they were able to do this doesn't speak well for their employers' security system. I recall another episode in which the miniaturised submarine went airborne (like Supercar) and ran afoul of a squadron of monarch butterflies, which were gigantic in proportion to the mini-sub.

Every episode of this series was self-contained, with no cliffhangers. This show was more intelligent than a lot of other Saturday cartoons (which isn't saying much!), and I recall that I liked the stock music during the submarine sequences. I liked Asimov's novel better. He even wrote a sequel, titled 'Destination: Brain'.

A Sight And Sound Wonder...But Mainly The Sounds

[StuOz · 11 January 2017]

Cartoon about a miniature craft/submarine doing science fiction adventures.

Good voice artists are vital to a cartoon and this one had one of the best in the business: Marvin Miller (once Robby The Robot) as the voice of the darkly lite boss. At the start of each adventure he got you in the mood for what was to come with his outstanding delivery of lines!

And when that big ship/submarine started to shrink and go places we sort of felt like we were in some animated Irwin Allen world complete with spacey sound effects used in Lost In Space (1965) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964).

But let us not get too carried away here, not all the episodes of this short lived series were good, but enough of them were...to make this one of the best old school cartoons ever!

And finally, to add to the list of interesting things to listen to, great music cues playing over these fantastic voyages.