I was 5 years old when “Sealab 2020” was broadcast on Saturday mornings, but I distinctly remember it. This series had a sense of wonder capitalizing on the popularity of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau (whose television documentaries I also enjoyed watching at the time).
Now available through Warner Brothers manufacturing on demand service Warner Archive, this classic Saturday morning cartoon is now available. Spoofed a couple of decades later in a new series, “Sealab 2020” is both a product of its time as well as still relevant. Oftentimes the storytelling is heavy-handed with explicit environmental messages. Sadly, many of those messages have yet to sink in.
Hanna-Barbera produced this series in its heyday, back when nearly half of the cartoons broadcast on Saturday morning were produced by the studio. Only 13 episodes were made, but according to Wikipedia, there are three episodes that didn’t make it to air. These are not included in the 2- DVD set. There is also no paper insert to denote which episodes are on which disc. Instead you have to insert the discs in your player to see what is available for viewing. Interestingly, there are 8 episodes on the first disc and 5 on the second. This seems odd and disproportionate. Why wasn’t the distribution 7 and 6 (or 6 and 7)?
One of the episodes previously appeared on Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970s Volume 2, which my older son watched. He was interested in “Sealab 2020” based on his previous experience on that DVD, and after a couple of episodes, he was done. A few days later, he wanted to check it out again. He stil hasn’t watched all of the series, but it did hold his interest enough to keep coming back to it.
It would be easy to complain about the stock and reused footage in “Sealab 2020” but it’s not bad, plus this was how cartoons were made 40 years ago. Not only are some of the technological limitations noticeable, but many of the storytelling conventions are dated. Women may have been scientists, but men are men and women are women, and equality, even under the sea, seemed a decent notion but impractical. At least that’s the only thing I can think of with regards to how the male crew treated their female counterparts most of the time. No, “Sealab 2020” wasn’t sexist, but merely reflects the times.
“Sealab 2020” was different, and watching it now I can say that it remains pretty unique it Saturday morning cartoon history. The subject matter in each episode is pretty grown up, even if not handled in the most adult manner by the characters, and there’s a lot of educational material here, considering what we knew then about the oceans. It was fun to revisit this series and share it with my own kids. Now you can too thanks to Warner Brothers Manufacturing On Demand and Warner Archive services.