Unaired Pilots

[Daniel]

The bird cracked me up. "I don't know".

[gaastra]

Power rangers.



Early he-man animation. This commercials animaation is really the test pilot for he-man pre filmation!

[Randall]

I never got into He-Man, but that commercial is cool.

[Ben]

A bit reminiscent of Heavy Metal, I wonder if Nelvana were involved? When pitching to get the series, Filmation probably got it by putting in a lower budget. Fun to see Bob Iger as the dad, though!

[Randall]

That was Filmation! This is according to an oral history at syfy.com, though I'm sure I also have printed sources. Doing the commercial led to Lou Scheimer wanting to do a show, though they obviously had to simplify the styles and animation quality for a lesser-budgeted (per minute) ongoing series.

[Ben]

Ah, gotcha. Yes, it looked similar but obviously had a commercial budget. The series ironically also resembled the toys more, which I guess was a consideration as a crossover, whereas the commercial is more about making He-Man look epic. Would have been cool if the inevitable series film, Secret Of The Sword, had gone back to this more fluid, richer style.

[Daniel]

The Power Ranger pilot aired in 1999 advertised as a "Lost Episode". It was hosted by Jason and Zack's actors who talked about the history of the episode and the series in general. Still pretty fascinating. Bulk without Skull, different Trini. Everything that changed was for the better.

[EricJ]

A bit reminiscent of Heavy Metal

Yeah, I'm seeing a little bit of Heavy Metal-esque Den movement in He-Man--

Also, before Filmation, Mattel had almost literally no idea who the character WAS:
The first action figures came with his own backstory comic, where He-Man was just a lone wandering Conan-like figure with a mysterious past, who finds Castle Greyskull while defending the locals from Skeletor.

[gaastra]

Not a pilot but episode of the lost wolf rock tv has been found! Here is the intro only.