332. Channel 20 WDCA, the Greatest Station Ever!

My praise of this great channel of my youth.

Kimba-casts

I saw a lot of Kimba when I was in West Virgina (WDCA Channel 20, greatest channel ever).  I have written about the show here, and had been doing episode reviews about 12 years ago.  Since I started the podcast, the Kimba episode overview I did has been the most popular one.   Speed Racer is right behind Kimba as well.  They have more than six times the combined listens than the third place episode.  That makes me think I should talk more about Kimba.  Well, it is only logical.  However, I do not want to do an episode by episode sort of thing, since that would take a year.

The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan 1972

FROM WIKI- Legendary detective Charlie Chan solves crimes... with the "help" of his ten kids and one dog.  The family travels around the world in the Chan Van, a vehicle built by teenage genius Alan Chan, which can transform itself with the push of a button. While solving mysteries, the Chan kids break off into small groups with Henry and Stanley, the two oldest children, being paired together and driving the Chan Van. To ostensibly aid in their detective work, Stanley usually changes into some sort of goofy disguise much to the chagrin of his older brother Henry.

Batman promo ad

 

I really enjoy seeing these ads for television shows from old TV Guides.  They appeared until the late 70s.  I think the cable TV explosion made the guides change things a lot since all those ferkin channels took up so much more space. I am glad people saved these, and I should go through my small collection of TV Guides to see what is in them.  Who knows what treasures I could find?  I am so glad the Batman series got released on Blu Ray.  That was a long time in coming, I'll tell you what.  I am still amazed the Green Hornet wasn't released when the lame movie came out several years ago now.

Ultra MOTW- Miroganda

This was the third and final episode of Ultraman I ever saw as a kid.  It is not the most exciting episode, but now I really enjoy it.  It's a mystery, and fun to watch.  This is the first plant monster an Ultra fights, and it won't be the last, though these sort of creatures are rare.  This one grows huge but really isn't a threat to Ultraman, who finishes it off with the Spacium ray.  But look at this set up- I love the miniatures and the way it is shot.  No wonder this show was such a hit back then!

Random Marine Boy Post

Every once in a while I like to post about Marine Boy, which was the reason I started this blog in the first place.  This is my favorite episode, mostly because it has several giant monsters monsters in it.  Superheroes and monsters?  I loved it!  It also helped that Channel 20 WDCA aired this episode twice in a row, which embedded it in my mind.  This happened with The Nightmare Narcissus episode with Kimba the White Lion as well, though I don't think it was two days in a row.  At the time, I was annoyed because I wanted to see different episodes, but I am glad I saw them more than once now.

Happy Ultraman Day!

 

It's been 55 years since the Birth Of Ultraman special aired on television.  The series premiered the following week.  The rest really is history.  It's one of the most successful franchises that has ever been created, and the series has been aired around the world.  It really is that popular.  Well, at least in most of the world.

MOTW - Marine Monster of the Deep

 

Thaddeus E (the E stands for Evil) Brackish has a murder of monsters he plans to use to conquer the seven seas.  In addition to being able to breath under water, they can fly and have a fiery breath.  How that works underwater is a mystery to me.  It's a good thing Marine Boy and the Ocean Patrol were around to stop Mr. Brackish.   You just can't go wrong with mermaids, monsters and exploding boomerangs!

Five Venoms fighting styles

I love this movie. I've never watched it in any Chinese language though, interestingly enough. It's pretty close in English as it is. I remember exactly where I was when I first saw this movie, in WV, watching it with my cousin Tuck. The wonderful Channel 20, WDCA, of course. While they had fallen off the cool cartoon bandwagon, they still came through with some great movies.

TV Monsters in Colorado

I have complained a bit about the lack of great cartoons and shows that were never aired in my area- as far back as I can remember we never got Ultraman, Speed Racer or the Hanna-Barbera World of Super Adventure.  Heck, even the Batman TV series disappeared from Colorado airwaves in late 1970 (there's a story for later, I remember it clearly).  We only got the 50s Superman show in the late 70s thanks to the excellent 1978 movie.  It was always sort of a challenge to get up early when I was on vacation in West Virginia, since I could watch the 60s Spider-man cartoon, among other great shows.

The Three Stooges- Disorder in the Court (1936)

this is my favorite Three Stooges short. it's also the very first one I ever saw. we didn't get a package of them to watch in syndication in Colorado, or I never noticed it. I suspect the former, since I did see Laurel and Hardy a lot. naturally I saw it on WDCA Channel 20 in WV.

NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN: Superman meets Brainiac

with all the talk of the new Superman movie (ooh, he's "darker" now) makes me wish they wouldn't tamper with what makes Superman Superman. these cartoons are so indicative of what Superman was like in the 60s. now I see he's got some new costume and even Zod (do movie makers have no new ideas now?) is wearing armor. why would a Kryptonian need to wear armor? I sure wouldn't if I was from Krypton.

Five Deadly Venoms - Trailer

one of my favorite kung fu movies- favorite Shaw Brothers' movies- you name it. none of the styles are actually a real form (the snake style is invented in for this movie). it's got an unusual set up and story, which is what sets it apart from most other martial arts movies. I saw this in West Virginia on the great Channel 20, some weekend afternoon.

Spider-man Sunday

swiped from my buddy Fester, here's two episodes of the loads of fun 60s Spider-man cartoon:



to this day, this theme song grabs me like only two or three others do.  I've related the WDCA story many times.

and I love that I have the entire DVD set now.  way better than 13 video tapes.

Superboy and Krypto

The Adventures of Superboy (1966–1969) was a great cartoon I saw as part of the The New Adventures of Superman cartoon that Filmation blessed us with.  I got to see it a lot on visits to WV, on the great Channel 20, WDCA.  thank the gods for syndication!

anyway, it's a really fun show, and features Krypto, my favorite super-dog.  since he no longer exists as such in the DCU, I'm glad he was immortalized in cartoon.

oh yes, I did enjoy the Krypto the Superdog show for what it was.  it was nice to see Streaky and Ace the Bat-hound as well.

I seem to have digressed away from Superboy.  due to the lawsuits surrounding the character this cartoon may never get released on DVD.  the intro was a bonus on the Filmation Superman DVD set.

I think we need more of those released as well.

the real Kimba opening

this really is a better version.

this theme has a bit more "oomph" to it.  it's really catchy, it's hard not to keep singing it after it's over.  which is the whole reason for a theme song, right?

it is a bit different than the original!  I'll post that later on.

Kimba opening (alternate theme)

I think I saw more episodes of Kimba, The White Lion growing up than any other Japanese cartoon that made it over here.  it was ALWAYS on Channel 20, WDCA back in the day.  I think someone must have been a fan.

this is an alternate opening, one I never knew existed until I saw a screening of an episode once from 16mm film and this version played over the credits.  that was a surprise.

I'm surprised I haven't written about Kimba more, but then there's loads of info already out there about it on the net. 

it really is a great series and I am quite happy to own the the Ultra Set from a few years ago.

The Mysterians (1957)

saw this movie a few times growing up, and it was one of the first VHS tapes I bought (ah, Star Classics (I think), you had the best tapes). 

ultra cool poster!

of course, it was the original US dub that was aired.  the first time I could have seen this movie was as a kid over Christmas in WV, where it was given a prime 8 PM slot on WDCA Channel 20 in the evening.  however, family plans and poor aerial reception deep in the boonies meant I had to have fun but not watching tv for two hours that evening.

probably better off, because as good as this movie is, I might have been bored til the final battle.  I can appreciate the philosophy and speculation a lot more now that I am a wee bit older.  it takes it's time telling it's story and that's a good thing.  there is a lot of talk at the beginning, so it's also nice to see a giant robot show up here and there!  good ol Mogera, just nothing like it anywhere.

the new DVD is nice, but I miss the original dub.  and the awesome trailer!

how about that Marine Boy

what a schedule of great shows

this blog was ostensibly started to track the progress of the Marine Boy book.

then I got sidetracked by a real job and life and all that fun stuff that goes along with things.  but I have not forgotten, and I do have all the writing nearly done.  I do not know exactly how it will be published, either as a Xenorama imprint or on it's own, but at least I have the body of the work done.

and thank God I got to talk to the late Peter Fernandez about Marine Boy.  he was a great gentleman and had some really cool information for me.  I feel like I owe it to his memory to get the information out now.

to the left here is an example of how the early morning line ups used to look on television.  this sort of programming will never happen again.  I used to get up early just to watch the cool shows that were never aired in Colorado at the time.  not knowing anything about how shows were chosen, I just thought tv in Colorado was really poor at the time.  still do, actually!  we did get a lot of cool monster movies though.

boomerang throw!

I know that Marine Boy did get shown in CO in the late 60s, as I remember seeing the opening when I was about four years old.

so stay tuned, as things are starting to move again with this project!

stop the pigeon... how?

as I have mentioned before, I saw a lot of cool superhero cartoons on WDCA Channel 20 in WV.  I never cared too much for the "Scooby Doo" variety of cartoons (except for Josie and The Pussycats, more on that sometime) since they had flooded the airwaves starting in 1969 or so.

I do like the Hanna-Barbera comedy cartoons from before that time period- such as this one, the one my brother and I referred to as "Stop The Pigeon".

Spun off from the successful "Wacky Races" this featured Dick Dastardly and his henchdog Muttley trying to stop Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering his messages across enemy lines.  apparently this takes place in WWI.  this is also why we referred to it as such.

Dastardly and Muttley stole the show.  there was a segment where Muttley would daydream about different things, a la Walter Mitty.  there were some goofy segments called "Wing Dings" as well.

our hero here never actually does too much to the Vulture Squadron, he usually doesn't have to, as they manage to stop themselves all the time.

the show has influences from the Road Runner/Coyote series of cartoons, Snoopy and the Red Baron and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965).

it was an agreeable way to spend a half hour on the way to the shows I wanted to watch- Ultraman, Speed Racer, Superman/Aquaman cartoons, live action Batman or whatever the lineup was at the time.

"Yeah yeah yeah yeah"... Muttley outlived his boss, and went on to appear (sometimes with different names, such as "Mumbley") in several shows.  yeah, I know "Mumbley" wasn't supposed to be him, but come on, a dog's gotta take what jobs he can to eat, right?