If you think I'm going to give you the set-up of this version of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, you're crazier than Ben Gunn. It's been adapted for the movies more than fifty times. This makes me wary of yet another adaptation, when you have the version with Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery, as well as Robert Newton's much-imitated turn as Long John Silver to measure it against. Still, the lazy producer can look at that number, consider the fact that Stevenson's copyright expired before any of us were born, and throw the dice.
But why do it as an animated cartoon? It's the most expensive form of film-making that ever existed. You have to hire crews larger than live-action crews to draw every frame, and then you still have to hire actors to voice the darned thing. It is my firm belief that animation should be limited to things you can't shoot live. True, that's a small target these days, and there's a drunken rat in pirate gear that Jim Hawkins makes a pet of, but you could do without that. The only rational conclusion is that there are three or four musical numbers scattered through the movie, and for a while, that was the only way you could do a musical, as a children's cartoon. I don't find that very satisfactory. Most likely, some one at Filmation wanted to make his own version, and some one else said "Well, we're a cartoon factory."
It was released at the low point of animation, just after Walter Lantz had quit. Well, that meant there was plenty of talent available, and the background art by Maurice Harvey is marvelous. The character designs are simple, but well done, and the animation is greatly limited. The characters are limited to stereotypes, because this was an era when children were viewed as idiots, unable to understand that adults are subject to contradictory impulses. The voice actors include Richard Dawson, Davy Jones, Dal McKennon, and Larry Storch. This version adds nothing worthwhile to previous versions.
