Does anyone notice that the majority of the later syndicated released episodes didn't have as good of a quality of animation as the earlier episodes? I do notice that during most of the late released syndicated episodes such as "The Old College Spirit", "The Devil In The Deep", "Station Identification" and "Hanging By A Thread" the animation was cheapened and there were a lot of scenes that appeared to be stalling for time.
shareI believe the studio involved in making the syndicated episodes didn't have the budget, so what you see is what they originally aired at the time.
I think Phelous covered it in one of this "RGB" videos, but I don't remember which. He mentioned why some of them looked crappy while others were spectacular. For example, the network gave DiC what they needed to make "The Halloween Door" (1989). You can tell the animation department went all-out on that particular episode.
If you have the time, maybe you can find where Phelous mentioned the quality. Here's his playlist if you're interested:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3XCSTT5utputyx8D95SWVpAZUekGWsud
Honestly I didn't think any of the episodes you mentioned looked that bad. I liked Devil of the Deep and The Old College Spirit.And I don't notice a difference in the animation. Though honestly the first few episodes were meh anyway. Ghosts R Us and Killerwatt were not very good in my opinion and I didn't care for Troll Bridge either. These are my most favorite episodes.
You can't take it with you
Drool the Dogfaced Goblin
Ghostbuster of the year
Lost and Foundry
The Bird of Kildarby
The revenge of Murray the Mantis
No one comes to Lupisville
The headless Motorcylist
The Thing in Mrs. Faversham's attic
When Halloween was Forever
Mrs. Rogers' Neighborhood
The Boogie Man Cometh
Mr. Sand Man dream me a dream
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Ghost
The Man who never left home
Boo Dunit
Beneath these streets
Night Game
Cry Uncle
I wasn't big on "Ghosts R Us", "Killerwatt" and "Troll Bridge" either, I personally thought "The Boogieman Cometh" was the series first great episode, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who really likes "Boo Dunit" a lot, always felt that was a highly underrated episode, "Drool" is another episode that seems to get better with each viewing, I initially wasn't very fond of that episode but it's really grown onto me a lot and it's now one of my favorites.
shareBecause these syndicated animated shows from the 80s often had to have as many as 65 episodes (around 21 hours of footage) completed in a short space of time, the animation was outsourced all over the world, mostly within Asia, to multiple studios, some of whom produced excellent work and some of whom did not, and even the good studios could get burned out by the level of demand. The third season of Transformers, despite being a relatively restrained 30 episodes, is a good illustration of this, some episodes have excellent animation, others have some of the shoddiest animation to ever premier on American television.
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