Growing up in the sixties, I
remember rushing home after school to catch all my favorite shows on
local Philly UHF TV stations;
Channels 48, 29 and 17. The reception was always a bit fuzzy, the
commercials were atrociously cheap and tacky,
but the warm and cozy memories of those cherished shows remains
hardwired into my memory. In that dinosaur age preceding the explosion
of the Internet, cable TV, home videos, DVD
s and video games, kiddies, there were only (gasp!) several channels of
programming to maintain the attention of the
6-12 crowed . More often than not, those beloved shows of old
would be immaculately crafted Japanese creations like
Ultraman, Tobor
The Eighth Man,
Gigantor and Prince Planet. One of those not to miss
shows for us media-starved Baby
Boomers was
Astro Boy.
More than
forty years since this show's
original broadcast on American shores,
Astro Boy -
The Complete Series (Sony) has just been made available as a
definitive 5-DVD set. The show's
premise was simple, centering upon a lovable atomic-powered robot boy,
who like the formerly retired super heroes
in
The
Incredibles,
takes his task of saving the world from the bad guys more as a moral
obligation than an adrenalin-charged mission. He's
an equal opportunity superhero
keeping humans and robots safe from the nefarious and dastardly deeds of
the underworld.
Created by
Osamu
Tezuka, Astro Boy
started life in Japan as a comic strip in the fifties. Known in the
Orient as Tesuwan Atom,
Astro Boy
remains a brilliantly animated
and scripted assemblage of retro-jet
age fun. Watching it once again for the first time in several decades
one is impressed by the stunning quality of
all the components; script, visuals
and storyline.
Each episode finds our hero in a deadly
mess that only he can find a way out. It's
pure, innocent fun for the young and old. The animation is especially
thrilling. Today's cutting-edge, modern
technology now allows the rich and robust colors of this seminal
anime creation to deliver a
spectacular visual and visceral feast.
A little trivia: Billie Lu
Watts, the actress who voiced the Astrogirl
character also was the voice the title character of yet another fondly
remembered animated show from the Sixties,
Kimba The White Lion.
Mastered in high definition,
the DVD set contains the complete
50-epsiode series, and for the die-hard, includes a whopping 29 episodes
that have never been seen Stateside .
Along included on this collector's edition is
a special featurette
chronicling "The
Making Of Astro Boy."
Ken Sharp
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