Little Gems - The Space Sentinels (1977)

This great animation series came out of the Filmation Associates camp around 1977. It concerned the adventures of three young people removed from earth, taken to an alien planet and given super human powers. They were then returned to Earth to look after it and help the people develope naturally without any interference from outside forces. Hercules was the Sentinel empowered with the strength of a hundred men. Strong as he was though, from time to time he was a bit thick. Astrea was given the ability to transform herself into any other living creature. Mercury was given the gift of speed and was so fast he could match the speed of light. Mercury (if memory serves me right) was a bit younger or immature compared to the other two. He always seemed to be the joker of the pack constantly sparring with Hercules or boasting of his ability, whereas Astrea appeared to be the brains of the outfit and kept the other two in check. Astrea made most of the decisions so I supposed was really the leader of the group. The threesome were guided by Sentinel One who was a super computer with a holographic head that appeared when it wished to communicate. The Sentinel base (spaceship inside an extinct volcano) was maintained by a maintenance operator droid called MO. We soon learn from the first episode "Morpheus", that the Sentinels were not the first ones. Before they were on the seen, a single sentinel had been produced who had the powers of all three. He had turned to evil though and wanted to rule/control the Universe and had left the planet whereabouts unknown.

At the start of each episode Sentinel One would explain how the young Sentinels were chosen and given their powers:

Many centuries ago, three carefully selected young Earthlings were transported from their native lands to my faraway world.

Then returned to Earth, their mission, to watch over the human race helping the good in it to survive and flourish.

The Sentinels basically lived inside the spaceship that returned from the planet which turned them into superhumans. They spend most of their days watching the planet Earth although the real observer is Sentinel One. MO has a similar type personality to the AI droid in "Flight of the Navigator." Mo is in love with Astrea and occasionally gets his circuits in a twist when she smiles at him. The spaceship lies at the bottom of an extinct volcano - no idea where though. The Sentinels had the power to fly when launched from the spaceship. Three large cylindrical clear acrylic type tubes would drop down from the top of the spaceship and the threesome would be launched into the air. Amazing but apparently their were only thirteen episodes made. A bit like Mr. Benn, it always felt that there were considerably more, although I guess many were repeated and only shown one per week helped to possibly create the memory of more. It was usually on television around 16:20 on a school day afternoon on BBC1.

Click below images to see some of the episodes (two presented below but six more to follow soon)

Episode Titles - no specific order (I believe a total of thirteen were created).

The Space Sentinels Cast
The Space Sentinels Cast
Executive Producers	Norm Prescott & Lou Scheimer
Produced by	Don Christensen
Associate Producers and Story Editors	Len Janson & Chuck Menville
Supervising Director	Hal Sutherland
Animation Directors	Don Towsley, Rudy Larriva, Lou Zukor, Marsh Lamore, Gwen Wetzler
Production Manager	Joseph Simon
Art Directors	Herb Hazelton, Jim Fletcher & Alberto De Mello
Ley Assistant	Mike Hazy
Layout	Kurt Connor, Lonnie Lloyd, Frank Gonzales, Carol Lundberg, George Goode, Greg Nocon, Clark Haas, John Perry, Dick Hall, Virgil Raddatz, Ed Haney, Joe Roman, Wes Herschensohn, Leo Swenson, Dave Hoover, Cliff Voorhees, Les Kaluza & Jim Willoughby
Storyboard Director	Bob Kline
Storyboard	John Dorman, Paul Fennell, Gary Goldstein, Hal Mason & Mario Piluso
Director of Colour	Ervin Kaplan
Background Artists	Tom O'Laughlin, Don Watson, Curtiss Perkins, Rolly Oliva, Don Schweikert, Barbara Benedetto, Don Peters, Pat Keppler, Sheila Brown, Douglas Stevenson & Gary Selvaggio
Animators	Tom Baron, Bill Nunes, Carl Bell, Casey Onaitis, Becky Bristow, Jack Ozark, Jim Brummett, Tony Pabian, Emil Carle, Karen Peterson, Zion Davush, Bill Pratt, Otto Feuer, Bill Reed, Ed Friedman, Len Rogers, John Garling, Don Ruch, George Jorgensen, Don Schloat, Lou Kachivas, Ben Shenkman, Walt Kubiak, Larry Silverman, Lawrence Miller, Hank Smith, Joe Morrison, Bob Tyler, Fre Myers, Dardo Velez, Emory Myrick, George Waiss & Ron Westlund
Assistant Animation Supervisor	Lew Irwin
Checking Supervision	Marion Turk
Xerography Supervision	John Remmel
Pain Supervision	Betty Brooks
Camera Supervision	R. W. Pope
Camera	F.T. Ziegler, Dean Teves, Don Dinehart, David J. Link, John Aardal & Dan Larsen
Colour by	TECHNICOLOR
Film Editing	Jim Blodgett
Film Co-ordinator	June Gilham
Background Music by	Yvette Blais & Jeff Michael
Music Publisher	Shermley Music Co. A.S.C.A.P.
Music and Sound effects by	Horta-Mahana Corp.
Voices by	Hercules/ Sentinel One - George Di Cenzo Mercury - Evan Kim Astrea - Dee Timberlake Maintenance Operator - Lou Scheimer
Copyright 1977	Filmation Associates

	A Filmation Production

Hercules	Astrea	Mercury
Sentinel One	Maintenance Robot Mo	The Sorceress
Morpheus	The Time Traveller	Anubis
	Space Giants