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Anime 101
Gigantor
Gigantor was named Tetsujin 28 - go (Iron man 28) in Japan. The animation was through TCJ (Television Corporation of Japan - now extinct) and the English version was produced by Fred Ladd and Al Singer through Delphi Associates inc. Peter Fernandez wrote the English lip sync scripts for at least half of the episodes and was paid $100 to $125 per episode. The series had a catchy theme song from Lou Singer and Gene Raskin. The following production information is from Kelly Lannan.
The old black and white series as we know it supposedly consisted of 52 episodes dubbed into English from the Japanese series Tetsujin 28-go, right? Well, not quite....Tetsujin 28-go in fact consisted of *2* separate BW series, spawning a total of 96 episodes in all. This means that at least 44 episodes were dropped from the originals andwere probably not translated.
The series was shown on Melbourne TV in January 1968 through Translux, on channel 0 at 5pm. It was described by the tv week as "Animated science fiction series about the world's mightiest robot, and 12 year old Jimmy Sparks who controls the jet propelled giant." After the success of Astroboy on the international market, Gigantor became the most popular Japanese export during this time. The idea was simple - a boy named Jimmy Sparks fights crime around the world with the help of a huge remote controlled robot. Whoever has the remote control, controls Gigantor. The series is set in the year 2000. Gigantor was made of steel, complete with a rocket powered backpack for flight, a pointy nose and eyes that never moved, incredible strength but no intelligence. Jimmy is the nephew of Dr Bob Brilliant and lives with him on a remote island. Jimmy usually wears shorts and a jacket, and even carries a gun.
Jimmy's voice was that of Billy Lou Watt who was a female; not a male as many people are led to believe. She was also the voice of Astroboy and Kimba. The voice of Inspector blooper was Cliff Owen, who also played Dr Elefun from Astroboy and Dan’l Baboon from Kimba. Gilbert Mack was the voice of Dick Strong, who also played Mr Pompos from Astroboy and Pauley Cracker from Kimba. Peter Fernandez was the voice for many characters as well. The names were all whimsical with characters such as Dick Strong who was a secret agent, and a funny policeman named Inspector Blooper who joined with Jimmy, Bob and Gigantor on their adventures against enemies such as the Spider, Ungablob, General Von Que Ball, Dubble Trubble, Dr Katzmeow and Prince Abdul Ben Hothead and there were plenty of other robots that Gigantor had to defeat. In the last episode titled ‘The Secret Valley; The Gigantor team decide to holiday in Australia to see the kangaroos. They end up in the bush on a sheep station. They call the natives ‘savages’ and instead of being Aborigines are Indians with feathers on their heads riding horses. It goes to show what little the Japanese knew of Australia at that time. The dubbing team tried to imitate our accents, but didn’t come close.
A coloured version was produced in 1980 in Japan named ‘New Gigantor’ and another version in 1992 but neither has been seen on Melbourne TV.
Special Thanks to: Glen Johnson from Gigantor for the information.
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