Rock Odyssey is an animated jukebox musical feature film produced by Hanna-Barbera for a Worldvision Enterprises release in 1987.
[2] Directed by Robert Taylor (but credited to William Hanna and Joseph Barbera on the final print),[3] with storyboards by Pete Alvarado.
The film was released on a program of special world premiere matinee screenings of the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration’s opening day gala event.
Despite the book being cartoony in nature, Bob and Laura are shocked by its depiction of warfare, as the knight in the story is constantly defeated by Tooth Decay, the anthropomorphic castle, and thus turned into a chocolate kiss.
To get their minds off of things, the two head for a walk in the park, where Bob begins to perceive inanimate objects as military weapons, terrifying him further.
Bob returns, now controlled by marionette strings, morphes into a skeleton soldier and catches fire, leaving Laura heartbroken.
[5] Production of Rock Odyssey began in 1981 at Hanna-Barbera's short-lived feature animation unit, as a follow-up project to Heidi's Song.
(Subsequently, Robert Taylor left the studio, and H-B closed their feature animation unit, after the box-office failure of Heidi's Song.
[7] However, the film remained on the shelf until the mid-80s, at which time a new sequence was added, featuring classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon clips set to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go".
Hanna-Barbera and Worldvision Enterprises made Rock Odyssey available for international television distribution in 1987, and the film is mentioned in trade advertisements from that year.
(Ironically, this final completed and released version seems to retain all of the "offensive" scenes which had led H-B to shelve the project back in the early 80s.)
Rock Odyssey has not yet been aired on TV, or released on VHS, DVD or Blu-ray in the United States by Warner Home Video, however, it was screened at the Second Los Angeles International Animation Celebration in July 1987.