In the early days of the medium, producing a cartoon for television was all but a technical impossibility. Prior to Hanna-Barbera's groundbreaking planned animation technique—wherein shots were composed of mostly still images that only animated necessary parts of a character's anatomy—Syncro-vox was the answer. And it was a damn creepy one at that.
In essence, Syncro-vox, invented by a cameraman named Edwin Gillette, is an early ancestor to planned animation. Both rely on still images to minimize the cost of cell animation and in-between frames, but Syncro-Vox superimposes human lips on top of animated characters. Luckily for me, the style became obsolete long before I was born. Otherwise, cartoons would have petrified me instead of earning my lifelong adoration. Syncro-vox now only shows up as a gag or homage to a bygone era of animation. In the video linked above, you can check out an episode of Space Angel– my favorite cartoon to employ the technique.
