Tuesday, March 5, 2013

A Godzilla Mystery

in doing some vital research for a writing project, I had to look up information about the original Godzilla cartoon.  OK, this is not about any mysterious mystery regarding the show, it's just something funny I discovered about my viewing of the series.

a little backstory, probably no surprise to anyone reading this: in 1978, at the age of 13, I was something of a self professed Godzilla expert.  I could dismantle most of the popular movie books claims about Godzilla movies quickly and easily, since usually the authors looked down upon almost all of the Japanese genre movies.  easier to make fun of them, I guess.
I was also starved for all things Godzilla and Godzilla related.  I bought the Marvel comic book and loved them. wrote my first Letter of Comment to them for it, and yes, I was disappointed when it wasn't printed in the first issue.  so when I read in the magazines of the day that Hanna-Barbera was doing a Godzilla show I was pretty happy.

knowing all this, here's the mystery: the show debuted September 8th, 1978.  I am almost certain I was watching it that morning.  however, "The Firebird" is listed as the first episode.  that's NOT the episode I saw.  I saw "The Earth Eater" which is listed as the second episode.  I can't fathom how I would have missed a week of a show about Godzilla.

for the record, I like the show pretty much overall.  there's a few clunker episodes, and there's usually too much nonsense with Godzooky and Pete, but there are some pretty good episodes, including the one where Godzilla takes on COBRA.  not the GI Joe one, but pretty darn close in retrospect.

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