Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter Books In Order

[Demetrius Dade]

Clampettwas surprised to find Burroughs so receptive to the idea of animation. Burroughs wanted to see his characters receive further exposure, perhaps because his other creations were currently being overshadowed by the enormous success of Tarzan. Burroughs also realized that the medium of animation would allow for special effects and an outer space setting that might be cost prohibitive or poorly done if translated to existing live action film techniques.

Clampett immediately got to work to put together a test reel of footage. He had to have a major conflict that got resolved, introduce the main characters, and establish the strange world of Mars. The basic plotline that Clampett settled on concerned an exotic race of Martians who lived in the mouth of a volcano.

Edgar Rice Burroughs himself had already contacted MGM about buying the animated series. MGM was anxious to keep Burroughs happy since they were enjoying success with their Johnny Weissmuller film version of Tarzan and they were generally dissatisfied with their animated short subjects at the time. So, Clampett was under pressure not only to make test footage that would satisfy Burroughs but also the more pragmatic accountants at MGM.

Because Clampett and the others were still working full-time at Warners, the John Carter work had to be squeezed in at night, on weekends and whenever a spare moment managed to pop up. Even John Coleman Burroughs and his fiance Jane would sometimes help out by painting some of the cels for the cartoon themselves.

It was planned that these scenes would be incorporated into the first film if the series sold. Burroughs loved the final work and more importantly, so did MGM. Clampett gave notice to Warners that he was leaving and he started production work on the first episode.

The MGM cartoon concept would be funny animals doing silly things and then at the end of the cartoon, Tarzan would briefly appear and save these foolish animals from being caught in quicksand or facing a vicious predator.

Clampett stored away the storyboard, notes, sketches, actual cels and completed footage of the John Carter project and for the most part, forgot about the aborted series until he started lecturing at events and colleges.

Forty years later, Clampett told audiences, while working on John Carter, he developed the idea of a city protected by a gigantic glass bubble. There was huge helicopter blade on top of this glass dome so that in times of trouble when the city was threatened by invaders, the city could just lift up into the air, fly to a place of safety and descend.

The Beany and Cecil: Special Edition DVD features as a supplement most of the existing animated material with some of this footage actually narrated by Clampett himself in commentary that was obviously borrowed from one of his university screenings of the material.

A few years back, a cell from this project was sold on Heritage Auctions. The auction description indicated they were unaware of the historical importance of the cell, and the final price was relatively low, alas, higher than my budget at the time. It can still be seen on their archives:

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