"The Firebird" GODZILLA! Pilot Script (Hanna-Barbera, 1978) REVISITED

 

"Say, what are we looking at?"

Scouring the KING KONG vs. GODZILLA script made me remember--with much embarrassment--that I'd never found time in the past three years to go back to the other script I own, that of the pilot for what at the time was called GODZILLA! with an exclamation point.  When I first got the script, it was messily stapled together in bundles, and I was afraid of taking it apart...well, that fear is conquered. It's been carefully un-stapled and completely scanned, as well as meticulously compared to the finished episode.  As hinted at in the few lazy photos I'd included in the original post, it's very different from the finished product.

Whereas the KING KONG vs. GODZILLA script included mostly smaller differences to the finished product (and may have even been constructed after the fact?), the Firebird script is full of altered dialogue, cut lines, and most of all, unproduced scenes...multiple pages of them, in fact. 

As I slowly went through the finished episode a couple of seconds at a time, I annotated all of the changes in red (using Adobe Acrobat which enabled me to both line through discarded parts, and type in new and changed dialogue because you don't want to mess with my handwriting), which you can see in the screenshot above.  Spoiler alert:  there is metric tons of red.

Here are some of my random observations:

*This obviously wasn't the "Final Draft," which would've been the working version for the episode--which makes this script all the more important, and interesting!

*While lots of dialogue is cut out, and conversations are compressed for time, it quickly becomes apparent that many of the scenes were simply changed because they would've required too much animation...in other words, cost more. Let's fact it, Hanna-Barbera wasn't known for high art, but instead for cutting corners to crank out as much product as possible.  Two shocking examples of this are: 1) the scientists fleeing the flowing lava, which was shortened and simplified to the point of embarrassment, and 2) the final battle between Godzilla and the Firebird as originally written, which took place on a shrinking ice floe that melts down to just enough room for the two of them.  That would've been really cool!

*While much was deleted from the 52-page script, I had to type 9 pages of my own that wasn't in the original draft.  As you would guess, lots of the material involves cramming more Godzooky into the proceedings.  It's not that he's absent from the original, just not nearly goofy enough for their liking.  The rest of the additions involve rewrites of the more complicated scenes, to simplify them for animating.  

It's a very interesting read, and a real behind-the-scenes lesson in the production of the show and others like it.  I should point out that the download includes two complete versions of the script; the original untouched script AND my annotated/red-lined/supplemented version.  Read along with the finished episode, and you will be quite surprised!

LINK:  The Firebird (Pilot Script) both versions