Star Trek (1973)

There was a time in animation history when most of usa cartoons were made as cheap as possible and contained as few frames of animation as weeaboo garbage does during its entire existence. But enough about 2010s.

This is a low-budget cartoon from the era before usa cartoons started to have advertisement budgets, because they became mere ads for toys. I thought this will be as worse than Star Trek as Return to the Planet of the Apes is worse than Planet of the Apes. But considering that Star Trek already was a low-budget poorly written TV trash recycling the props, sets and the stories, the only way is up. Yes, it is underbudgeted, but being a cartoon it had the freedom to use actual aliens, instead of Earth clones with 12000+ years old yankee declarations word for word.
To a viewer, the main representative of the supposed federation (not confederation) of many worlds is a ship with a (usually more than) 99,76635% human crew. During this run, the racist blackface caricature of a slave is replaced with an alien-american with a big third leg. And some bridge shifts are covered by a catgirl. Half of the encountered aliens aren’t even humanoid, and Klingons aren’t blackfaced. (But probably blackvoiced, though.) Being made for kids, the crew (and the writing) takes a break from being horny 24/7/4/12 for ageing sleazy dad-bods.

Just having more aliens and not being braindead from horniness is already a giant improvement. But the episodes are also generally better-written. A couple of them are a mess, but overall they are engaging and logical.
Instead of taking Spock on every covert mission to yet another racist planet, just to be caught, his alien-ness is either used as a plot point to save everyone, or as being the main problem of an episode with only him being sick. Instead of grasping for his power, even when being obviously incapable, Kirk often lets healthy people take the command.
Like, there’s an episode where Uhura leads an all-female landing party to rescue the boys. Chef’s kiss.
Also, the cartoon has the first appearance of the holodeck, and of Kirk saying “beam us up, Scotty”. And Larry Niven put his Kzinti from Known Space into Star Trek.

The cartoon uses most of the cast of the series on voice-acting. And this is pure magic. You can still read the emotiveness of the characters if you saw the show. But either the actors didn’t know how to act with their voice only or because the acting director(s?) is an absolute genius, instead of being constantly stupidly hysterical the crew is always professional, chill, composed under stress, cerebral and rational. Just like one other captain, who was quite popular with the viewers.
Instead of being a yeehaw cowboy, during this mission, Kirk is often responsible and polite. I don’t remember them breaking rules too much or engaging in various shady activities.

Another thing going for this cartoon is the shorter run-time. Without having to stretch such short stories with filler and lack of budget, the episodes do not waste viewers’ time. If it’s something good — it’s all good, if it’s a weak episode — it will be over soon.

Even at such a low budget, the team tried their hardest. The blocking and editing hide most of the recycled animation. And the parts on which they spent most of the effort look actually good. The art-style and designs are pleasant and clean. Though, Spock looks 30 in human terms.
This cartoon even as it is looks better than all of the Hanna-Barbera trash. The only thing i will hold against it is the ship’s profile cell.
Profile shots are already boring, and this one cell is drawn all wrong. It has entirely wrong geometry with a complete lack of understanding of perspective. And to rub the salt into a wound, it’s the most overused cell of them all. I dunno why they insisted to have so many profile cells for all these different ships, when those look the weakest.

I was surprised, but this isn’t bad at all. A competent team with a crew of good writers can make something enjoyable even when they had to work for food.