Well, it had to be: it was the first one. At least, to the best of my understanding, 'Arthur' was the first Australian-produced TV cartoon series. It was a regular and favourite show on Sunday nights when I was a kid, and it was in fact a long, long time before I found out that it wasn't American.
Since then I've read interviews with the series' creators, who admitted they had no idea at all what they were doing. Perhaps this is why it worked so well. It had a slightly off the wall eccentricity to it which set it apart from other similar fare. The voice characterisations were great (Lancelot, Arthur and the Black Knight's voices are still embedded in my brain 35 years later. I'm fairly sure that John Meillion (known to US audiences mainly via Crocodile Dundee) was responsible for some of them, though I can't prove this.
An objective critical review of something I haven't seen since the late 60's is pretty difficult, so I won't even try: I'll just say that it has a lot of fond memories associated with it, that Black Knight was sometimes in drag, that Arthur reminded me (physically) of the King in The Wizard of Id, and that I can still hum the theme song.
It was a bunch of Australian animators having a go an art form which didn't even exist here at the time, and pulling it off surprisingly well. I saw a video of it in a supermarket about 10 years ago and am still kicking myself for not buying it.
Since then I've read interviews with the series' creators, who admitted they had no idea at all what they were doing. Perhaps this is why it worked so well. It had a slightly off the wall eccentricity to it which set it apart from other similar fare. The voice characterisations were great (Lancelot, Arthur and the Black Knight's voices are still embedded in my brain 35 years later. I'm fairly sure that John Meillion (known to US audiences mainly via Crocodile Dundee) was responsible for some of them, though I can't prove this.
An objective critical review of something I haven't seen since the late 60's is pretty difficult, so I won't even try: I'll just say that it has a lot of fond memories associated with it, that Black Knight was sometimes in drag, that Arthur reminded me (physically) of the King in The Wizard of Id, and that I can still hum the theme song.
It was a bunch of Australian animators having a go an art form which didn't even exist here at the time, and pulling it off surprisingly well. I saw a video of it in a supermarket about 10 years ago and am still kicking myself for not buying it.