DC Promo video on their PSA campaigns in the 80s

[Earth 2 Chris]

Found this on the great Titans Tower website. It's interesting to see segments of the animated Teen Titans anti-drug commercial, considering it's apparently nowhere on youtube! And fun to see all of the classic Super Powers-era merchandise too. You see a brief glimpse of some "mall appearance" costumed actors as well.

Kind of sad to say that the DC characters have lost much of their wholesome appeal though. The content of these PSA comics wasn't far off from the actual monthly books of the time. Now they'd have to take a throw-back approach if they were to offer such things or use the animated versions. Sigh.

It's a bit dry, but if you're an old DC fan, worth a look.

http://www.titanstower.com/monitor/?p=14251

Chris

[Earth 2 Chris]

Wow, no comments on this? AT ALL? Okay.

Well Chris, what did you think of this promo video?

Well Chris, I think it's a nice time capsule of DC history from the mid-80s. I like seeing the vintage products and comics.

Me too. But do you think they could have come up with a less exciting narrator?

No, it would have been hard. Unless they somehow reanimated a corpse for five minutes and had her read the lines.

Good call. Thanks for your thoughts, Chris.

You're welcome Chris!

Chris and Chris

[ctc]

>But do you think they could have come up with a less exciting narrator?

Oh, c'mon.... Truman Capote has to eat too....

It's interesting to see stuff like this. They're schilling their characters for edutainment.... a twofold boom for them since it's good press and gives their stuff a sense of pertinence. Although I can't remember too many kids really buying into edutainment back in the day. "Raven says (somewhat ironically) that I should wear a condom. What's a condom?" It's also interesting that the tone of the ad places their characters firmly in the realm of "kid stuff;" just a few years before the whole "dark and gritty" boom. (Which would have been around the time of Marvel's dipping a toe in that water, wasn't it? With the "racism bad!" X-Men and Miller's Daredevil?)

Don C.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Yeah, this was right before DKR and Watchmen, before Supergirl was killed in Crisis, etc. The last vestige of DC's innocence, in a way.

Chris

[ScottA]

Interesting. I don't think I've ever seent that Teen Titans show before. The costumes at the end looked cool.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I remember seeing posters for the Titans anti-drug campaign in the hallways at my elementary school. I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. The 4th and 5th graders got the comics and I saw a few kids with them. I wanted them so bad! I was flumoxed by the use of "The Protector" instead of Robin. Years later I learned that Robin was licensed to Nabisco for the Super Hero cookies, so he had to be replaced in the Keebler-sponsored drug comics. George Perez's art was drawn over to make the change. Oddly enough, the front of each box of Nabisco Super Heroes Cookies featured artwork featuring Robin by...George Perez!!!

Chris

[AO]

Thanks so much for that!

Those are the first glimpses of the Titan's anti-drug PSA short I've ever seen. Nobody I know has a copy. The only one I've ever known who has said he's seen it was Marv Wolfman. Apparently it did air somewhere. I have the character style guides used for it, as it was a proposed Titan's cartoon that the PSA spot was used for.

A bit of trivia, one of the earliest DC Animated movies announced was an adaptation of the "Judas Contract." Tom DeSanto, a friend of mine, was going to produce it. But it got derailed because of the whole Robin into Nightwing aspect of the story that other people wanted to claim. I urged Tom to do it anyway and use The Protector, even sent him the style guide. With the whole "New 52" stuff it's been pushed even further down the line. Maybe someday...