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 and
were probably not translated.
JAPANESE BROADCAST INFO
Iron Man No.28 (Series 1) consisted of 83 episodes:
#1-25 broadcast 20/10/1963-5/4/1964 (at 8.00pm)
#26-83 broadcast 16/4/1964-27/5/1965 (at 7.00pm; it changed days and timeslots)
Iron Man No.28 (Series 2) consisted of 13 episodes
#1-13 broadcast 1/9/1965-25/5/1966 (at 6.15pm)
Iron Man No.28 (New)(Colour sequel)consisted of 51 episodes
#1-51 broadcast 3/10/1980-25/9/1981 (at 6.00pm)
(Kelly Lannan)
The following information is from Fredd Ladd
"TCJ asked us, years ago, not to take their first 26 episodes of'Tetsujin 28-go'.
Those episodes contained some material unflattering to the West, and some bad animation;
the new studio, with new animators, felt their early efforts were not world-class....so
our shows began with episode 27 and continued in sequence (as far as we knew) for the next
52 shows."
So what this means is that:
The first series # 1-25 were all untranslated; our Gigantor episodes started at 2nd Series
# 27 (ep.2 of the second block until its end)
The 3rd block of 13 episodes were probably repeats or Japanese only episodses.
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 Danl 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 didnt 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.
The following information is from E. Bernhard Warg
(EBWarg@aol.com)
The 1980-81 "Iron Man #28" (Tetsujin Ni Juu Hachi
Goh) series was broadcast on America's Sci-Fi Channel from 9 September, 1993 to 30 June,
1997 under the name "The New Adventures of Gigantor." There was also a sequel
series, "Iron Man #28 FX" (Tetsujin Ni Juu Hachi Goh Effu Ekkusu), about the son
of the original controller operating a new robot (with Daddy and the FX-less #28 appearing
from time-to-time to help), but I don't have much info other than that it ran in Japan in
1992.