The 1980s was the beginning of the end for Filmation Studios ... sort of. For, while their Saturday morning fortunes began to fade and eventually disappear, their successes turned to the burgeoning syndication market. It was there, starting in the early 1980s, that the studio introduced us to a sword-wielding warrior who became an animated legend.

Unfortunately, the studio's success in syndication would be a small, but powerful, blip for the two-decade old company. By the end of the 1980s the studio would fade into memory as the company was broken up and its talent moved onto bigger and better things.

While some advances have been made in how gays are portrayed and accepted on television, one doesn't have to think too far back to remember a time when gays were either not on television at all, or those who were gay often played characters whose mannerisms were chalked up to them merely being "eccentric." That's probably a good topic for a more serious post some other time, but for today I just wanted to point you to this funny piece over at Cracked, written by comedian Vinnie Penn and titled "10 Movie and TV Duos That Were Probably Gay." The piece has some great lines, such as Penn's appraisal of the relationship between Tonto and the Lone Ranger: "Just ask yourself the last time you were at a club and saw a white-as-can-be, no-nonsense kinda guy sitting next to a considerably smaller, non-speaking, cowering foreigner, what was your immediate assessment? Golf buddies?" I also give Penn extra points for not taking the easy route with the Peanuts gang and going for the tired joke about Peppermint Patty being a lesbian. Instead, he insists it was actual Linus and Schroeder who had eyes for one another. I'm not sure Lucy would have handled that news very well.