Anime Profile: 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 two 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 October 20, 1963 - April 5, 1964 (at 8:00pm)
  • #26-83 broadcast April 16, 964 - May 27, 1965 (at 7:00pm; it changed days and timeslots)
• Iron Man No.28 (series 2) consisted of 13 episodes:
  • #1-13 broadcast September 1, 1965 - May 25, 1966 (at 6:15pm)
• Iron Man No.28 (new color sequel) consisted of 51 episodes:
  • #1-51 broadcast October 3, 1980 - September 25, 1981 (at 6:00pm)

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 the 2nd Series #27 (episode 2 of the second block until its end). The 3rd block of 13 episodes were probably repeats or Japanese only episodes.

The series was shown on Melbourne TV in January 1968 through Translux, on channel 0 at 5:00pm. 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, eyes that never moved, and 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 female, not 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. Peter Fernandez was the voice of Dick Strong, who also played Mr. Pompus 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 colored 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:

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 it ran in Japan in 1992.

The enemies include the Evil Dr. Katzmeow, Dr. Diamond, and The Spider. The most dangerous episode for Giantor is called "Dangerous Dinosaurs". In this episode Gigantor looses an arm and a leg for the first and last time, and Gigantor actually has to be repaired. The series was brought to the U.S. by Trans Lux and Adventure Cartoons for Children. The Sound recording was done at TITRA sound studios in New York City.