Return to the Planet of the Apes : Flames of Doom (1975)

Return to the Planet of the Apes is a short-lived animated series, by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises in association with 20th Century Fox Television, based upon Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle. Boulle's novel had previously been adapted in a series of movies, beginning with the 1968 Planet of the Apes starring Charlton Heston. Unlike the film, its sequels, and the 1974 live-action television series, which involved a primitive ape civilization, Return to the Planet of the Apes depicted a technologically advanced society, complete with automobiles, film, and television; as such it more closely resembled both Boulle's original novel and early concepts for the first Apes movie which were changed due to budgetary limitations in the late 1960s. Produced following the last of the big-screen features and a short-lived live action TV series, this series was among the last Planet of the Apes projects for several years following a number of comic books from Marvel Comics  (August 1974 - February 1977) and a series of audio adventures from Power Records in 1974. Aside from a number of comic book series published by Malibu Comics in the early 1990s, the next project based upon Boulle's concepts would be Tim Burton's reimagining in 2001.


As with the film and the live-action series, Return to the Planet of the Apes involved a handful of astronauts from Earth who were hurtled into the future and found themselves stuck in a world populated by advanced apes and primitive humans. Over the course of the thirteen episodes the astronauts attempted to keep one step ahead of the apes while at the same time trying to make some sense of what had happened. Additionally, they did their best to safeguard the human population from the apes.
Each episode was self-contained to an extent. The story threads did weave in and out, with characters and plots from earlier episodes popping up in later ones. In order for the series to make any sense, the episodes need to be viewed in order.

The animated series does chronologically fit with the rest of the Apes universe. It borrows characters and elements from the movies, the TV series, and the original novels. General Urko is borrowed from the TV series. Along with Zaius, Zira, and Cornelius, Brent (renamed here as Ron Brent) and Nova are from the movie series. Krador and the Underdwellers in the animated series are loosely based on the mutants in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. As with the live action television series, the animated series was concluded before the resolution of the storyline, and we do not learn if the astronauts are able to return to their own time period. But the animated series does otherwise offer a conclusion. Doctor Zaius, in recognising the threat of a military overthrow from General Urko, assures that he is relieved of command. Further, Cornelius and Zira, in recognising that Simian Society was established long after human society had deteriorated, believed that the time was right for humans to be offered equal rights to that of apes, and intend to present their proposition to the Senate. Characters in the animated series frequently mentioned prominent Apes noticeably named after human historical figures by appropriately inserting the word "ape" into their name. A notable example included "William Apespeare", an Ape analog of William Shakespeare. Another scene showed a couple of Ape soldiers chatting about a new movie called The Apefather, an apparent analog of The Godfather.


 EPISODE # 1 : FLAMES OF DOOM
Astronaut Bill Hudson transmits to Earth from the NASA spacecraft Venturer. On board are crew members Jeff Allen and Judy Franklin. The ship's date is August 6, 1976. Bill explains that they are living proof of Dr. Stanton's "time thrust" theory. Due to the advanced speed of the Venturer, their Earth clock indicates that they have traveled over a century into the future. The craft begins to reel wildly as the Earth clock starts clicking up. The crew blacks out while the ship enters a planet's atmosphere and crashes into a desolate desert region. Meanwhile, General Urko, leader of the gorilla army, is debating before the Supreme Council of Ape City. He demands permission to begin an all-out assault on the humanoids. Cornelius, an animal psychologist, pleads for the council to allow the humanoids to live as subjects of scientific research. The Council decrees that the humans should not be exterminated since they have no language, but they will continue to be hunted, enslaved, domesticated and studied. According to the Book of Simian Prophecy, however, the humanoids must be destroyed if it is ever discovered that they can speak. Bill, Jeff and Judy have escaped their disabled, sinking ship and rafted to shore. Bill's watch reveals the date still to be August 6, but in the year 3979 A.D. With no better plan, they begin trekking across the wasteland. They encounter sudden electrical storms, high-velocity winds, tremors, unexplained flames and ruins. Judy pleads with Bill and Jeff to go on without her, but they refuse. Another mysterious wall of flames consumes their survival packs. After many days, they find green, living plants; water must be nearby. Suddenly, a quake swallows Judy. Frantic, the men move to higher ground in the hopes of spotting her and find a puzzling and frightening sight: ape faces carved into the mountainside. They find a group of primitivel humans. They try to speak to them, but the primitives run away. Finally, Bill and Jeff collapse from exhaustion. The tribe takes the two men to their cave dwellings and nurse them back to strength. One of the tribe's women, Nova, is wearing US astronaut I.D. dog tags around her neck belonging to a Ronald Brent, an astronaut born in the year 2079. Bill and Jeff manage to teach Nova their names. Suddenly, gas bombs are thrown into the caves by gorilla attackers. Nova manages to hide Jeff, but Bill is captured along with most of the tribe and taken to Ape City in cages.

RETURN TO THE PLANET OF THE APES : FLAMES OF DOOM
20TH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION  (1975)
25 MIN
USA

Star Trek : The Animated Series : Beyond The Farthest Star (1973)

Star Trek: The Animated Series is an animated science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe following the Star Trek: The Original Series of the 1960s. The animated series was aired under the name Star Trek, but it has become widely known under this longer name (or abbreviated as ST: TAS or TAS) to differentiate it from the original live-action Star Trek. The success in syndication of the original live action series and fan pressure for a Star Trek revival led to The Animated Series from 1973–1974, as the source of new adventures of the Enterprise crew, the next being the 1979 live-action feature film Star Trek: The Motion Picture. TAS was the first Star Trek series to win an Emmy Award.

The series was produced by Filmation in association with Paramount Television and ran for two seasons from 1973 to 1974 on NBC, airing a total of twenty-two half-hour episodes. An early Filmation proposal for this series had children assigned to each of the senior officers as cadets, including a young Vulcan for Mr. Spock. According to interviews with Norm Prescott, Paramount offered Roddenberry a substantial sum of money to abandon creative control of the project and let Filmation proceed with their "kiddy space cadet" idea. Roddenberry refused. Filmation would later develop the idea into its own original live action program, Space Academy, in 1977. The writers of the animated series used, essentially, the same writers' guide that was used for the live-action Star Trek: The Original Series. (A copy of the "series bible", as revised for TAS, is held in the science fiction research collection at the Samuel Paley Library, Temple University, Philadelphia.) While the freedom of animation afforded large alien landscapes and believable non-humanoid aliens, budget constraints were a major concern and the animation quality was generally only fair, with very liberal use of stock shots (as was often the case with many of Filmation's shows). There were also occasional mistakes, such as characters appearing on screen who were elsewhere, or a character supposed to appear on the bridge's main viewing screen, but then appeared in front, indicating bad ordering of animation plates. These were typically isolated errors however. Occasionally, though, parts of episodes would be animated at a near-theatrical quality level.

Broadcast historyAiring on NBC, the series premiered on September 8, 1973 and was broadcast until October 12, 1974, although only twenty-two episodes were produced. The series aired Saturday mornings at 10:30am Eastern/9:30am Central in 1973 and at 11:30am Eastern/10:30am Central the following year.  The series was later shown in reruns on Nickelodeon in the 1980s and on the Sci Fi Channel in the 1990s as part of Sci Fi Cartoon Quest.

Voice castingThe series featured most of the original cast performing the voices for their characters, except for Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), who was omitted because the show's budget could not afford the complete cast. He was replaced by two animated characters who made semi-regular appearances: Lieutenant Arex, whose Edosian species had three arms and three legs; and Lt. M'Ress, a female Caitian. James Doohan, and Majel Barrett, besides performing their characters Montgomery Scott and Christine Chapel, performed the voices of Arex and M'Ress, respectively. Initially, Filmation was only going to use the voices of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan and Majel Barrett. Doohan and Barrett would also perform the voices of Sulu and Uhura. Leonard Nimoy refused to sign up to lend his voice to the series unless Nichelle Nichols and George Takei were added to the cast — claiming that Sulu and Uhura were of importance as they were proof of the ethnic diversity of the 23rd century and should not be recast. Koenig was not forgotten, and later wrote an episode of the series, becoming the first Star Trek actor to write a Star Trek story. Koenig wrote "The Infinite Vulcan", which had plot elements of the original Star Trek episode "Space Seed" blended into it. As is usual for animation, the voice actors did not perform together but recorded their parts separately to avoid clashing with other commitments. For instance, William Shatner, who was touring in a play at the time, would record his lines in whatever city he happened to be in and have the tapes shipped to the studio. Doohan and Barrett, besides providing the voices of their Original Series characters and newcomers Arex and M'Ress, performed virtually all of the "guest star" characters in the series, except for a few notable exceptions such as Sarek, Cyrano Jones and Harcourt Fenton Mudd, who were performed by their original actors from The Original Series. Occasional other guest voice actors were also used, such as Ed Bishop (Commander Straker on UFO) who voiced the Megan Prosecutor in "The Magicks of Megas-tu", and Ted Knight (Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show) who voiced Carter Winston in "The Survivor". Nichelle Nichols also performed other character voices in addition to Uhura in several episodes, including "The Time Trap" and "The Lorelei Signal".




STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES
BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR
FILMATION (1973)
25 MIN
USA

Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot : Nucleon the Magic Globe (1967)

Giant Robot (ジャイアントロボ, Jaianto Robo?), is a manga and tokusatsu series created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. It is similar to his famous Tetsujin 28-go (Gigantor in the US), though Giant Robo has more fantastic elements. The original tokusatsu TV series, produced by Toei Company Ltd., aired on NET (later re-named TV Asahi) from October 11, 1967 to April 1, 1968, with a total of 26 episodes. The English-dubbed version of the series was produced by American International Television, with Reuben Guberman as line producer, under the title Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot. The Earth is under invasion by a terrorist group called "Big Fire," "Gargoyle" in the US version, an illuminati-style organization led by the alien Emperor Guillotine, who spends almost the entire series in a multicolored space ship hidden at the bottom of one of the Earth's oceans (presumably the Pacific) whence he issues his orders to the members of Gargoyle, frequently referred to in the series as "The Gargoyle Gang."


JOHNNY SOKKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT : NUCLEON, THE MAGIC GLOBE
MITSUTERU YOKOYAMA  (1967)
TOEI COMPANY
24:27
JAPAN

Torchy the Battery Boy : Pom Pom and the Toys (1958)

Torchy the Battery Boy was the second television series produced by AP Films and Gerry Anderson. It was another collaboration with author Roberta Leigh and was directed by Anderson, with music scored by Barry Gray, art direction from Reg Hill and special effects by Derek Meddings. The second series of 26 episodes was produced by Associated British Pathe, but Gerry Anderson and AP Films were not involved in their production. Both seasons are now available on DVD.


The series followed adventures of the eponymous boy doll with a battery inside him and a lamp in his head, and his master Mr Bumbledrop, voiced by Kenneth Connor (who is probably best known for being a member of the Carry On ensemble cast) who also voiced a number of other characters. Puppetry was still fairly crude then and their strings are easily visible unlike in later Gerry Anderson shows.

Each show's titles started at night with a rocket outside a cottage and Torchy sitting inside it. It would take off with lots of sparks and then would begin the theme tune which would tell you about Torchy and his magic light as the rocket went through space. In the first episode we are introduced to Mr Bumbledrop who had lots of toys and loved children and his dog, Pom Pom, a white French poodle with straight hair which needs curlers in every night. Also to Bossy Boots, a nasty little girl who likes pulling her toys to pieces but a trip to Topsy Turvy land reforms her. Flying kites, the bad children (Bossy Boots, her brother Bogey, etc.) playing in Mr B's garden tie their toys to the kites they are flying and a strong wind comes along and blows all of the kites and toys away as well as Pom Pom who tries to save them. The children leave and being all alone, Bumbledrop decides to make a boy for himself. In four hours it is completed and Torchy wakes up and knows Bumbledrop's name and all about his magic beam. He has to recite special words for his magic beam to find something. torchy has a battery inside him which powers him but unlike the other toys, if it runs down even on Topsy Turvy land, he is helpless till a new one is put in. Torchy presses the switch on his jacket and uses his magic beam which can shine anywhere to find Bumbledrop's missing glasses then he bursts into song. Out in the garden, Torchy uses his magic beam to locate the lost toys on the twinkling star. Next morning Bumbledrop builds a rocket of cardboard and such and by nightfall it is finished and Torchy flies off to the twinkling star (these are the scenes which are used at the start). In the second episode, the toys decide to stay on the twinkling star where they are safe from naughty children. As well as Flopsy the Rag Doll, there is Pilliwig the Clown. Flopsy who was Bossy Boot's doll hasn't got enough stuffing inside her because it has been pulled out so is a bit dim as her head is empty and uses the phrase "Piggle-poggle". In this magic land, there is lollipop fields, cream buns grow on trees as well as bullseye bushes.

The third episode has Torchy on the twinkling star where he meets Squish the Spaceboy (with a water pistol ray gun), who came from America and got to the twinkling star by rocket, which broke on arrival. Squish steals Torchy's rocket and manages to crash it too. Pom Pom gets to sing a song, being able to talk by the magic there. Torchy has to get back to Earth otherwise his battery will run down. We find that Torchy's magic beam allows him to talk to people it is shining on, even Bumbledrop on Earth. Episode four they go to an orchard where all the fruit is enormous and they built Frutown by hollowing out these fruits and living in them. Torchy uses a pineapple for his own house and Squish makes Flopsy a house out of a cherry. In episodes 9 & 10, Bossy Boots wants her stuffed doll, Flopsy back so Torchy takes her to the twinkling star. It is Topsy Turvy Land where grown ups become as small as toys. Torchy lands A strange effect in the episode nine. As Torchy is singing a song, Bossy Boots fires a cannon and the picture shatters showing blackness and Torchy appears, face blackened. Bossy Boots learns her lesson there before being taken back to Earth. Other toys joined the show, notably ruler King Dithers who was as dithery as his name suggested. He lived in an orange peel palace (which looked like a normal palace) and seemed to have no soldiers. Pongo the Pirate (who had belonged to bad boy Bogie) sailed the oceans in a pirate ship made of fruit. His comical song sung by Kenneth Connor was:
"I'm Pongo the Pirate and I live in a grapefruit sloop and with my spy glass I spy and I peer and I snoop. I'm Pongo the Pirate, I love to pinch and spank. If I should catch you, I'll make you walk the plank. Pongo bad, Pongo bold. Pongo always looks for gold. Pongo bad, Pongo bold. Pongo always looks for gold. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Gerry Andeson would later go on to produce the shows , Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captin Scarlet and Joe 90




TORCHY THE BATTERY BOY : POM POM AND THE TOYS
GERRY ANDERSON  (1958)
ITV NETWORK
15 MIN
UK
DOWNLOAD / MPEG2 / 756 MB

Marine Boy : Dragon of the Sea (1965)

Marine Boy was one of the first color anime cartoons to be shown in a dubbed form in the U.S., and later in Australia and the United Kingdom. It was originally produced in Japan as Undersea Boy Marine (海底少年マリン, Kaitei Shōnen Marin?) by Minoru Adachi and animation company Japan Tele-Cartoons. It was sold outside of Japan via K. Fujita Associates Inc., with Warner Bros / Seven Arts Television handling worldwide distribution of the English language version.
The show revolves around a talented boy who is further enhanced by some sophisticated inventions. With these, he serves with the underwater policing agency, the Ocean Patrol, in making Earth's oceans safe. The series is set in the future, when humankind has pioneered the world's oceans, establishing great facilities for undersea ranching (episode 4, 17, 22), mineral and oil exploitation (ep. 2, 12), research (ep. 6, 7), and some underocean communities (ep. 10, 15). In this era there is an ocean based government agency: The Ocean Patrol, whose mission includes protecting all in the sea from danger (episode 4). Most of the activity we witness of the OP is that of policing the world's oceans, for this affluent frontier and its resources seems to have produced a startling number of megalomaniacs—it seems hardly a week goes by in which the Ocean Patrol doesn't divert someone with an impressive private military force from taking over the world. That being the case, the Ocean Patrol is also an impressive military force with small and large subs, war ships, and an air force (ep. 5, 18). The military branch of the OP includes researchers and scientists who are constantly developing their defensive and offensive arsenal (ep. 9, 10, 17, 19) as well as new research vehicles (ep. 10, 12) and devices (ep. 13). Key people in this department are Marine Boy's father, Dr. Mariner, as well as the brilliant Professor Fumble. However, there are non-military branches of the Ocean Patrol which conduct some of the aforementioned ranching, research, oil drilling and so on.

The series follows the Ocean Patrol's patrol boat P-1. The patrol boats are small submarine craft, comfortably sized to be manned by 3 or 4 people. They are also capable of flight for limited times using retractable wings (episode 4, 27). Patrol boats may be heavily armed, most commonly with small "rocket torpedos," but optional weaponry is sometimes mounted. These have included a heat beam, boxing glove missiles (ep. 4), smoke screen (ep. 4, 14), a heavy saw, sonic cannon (ep. 9), a steel net (ep. 11), power claws, drill and laser beam guns (ep. 28). The crew of the P-1 includes Bullton and Piper (a double act, reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy) and often the Ocean Patrol member Marine Boy. Marine Boy is an extremely intelligent, strong and athletic boy of perhaps 13 to 15 years of age. He is a martial artist (episode 1, 2, 8, 16), and an accomplished pilot (ep. 10) whose talents are further enhanced by the inventions of his father, Dr. Mariner. He has a great affinity with sea life, most particularly with a white dolphin he calls Splasher who Marine Boy occasionally seems able to communicate with quite clearly (ep. 11, 12, 28). (He also wears a ring with a dolphin-calling whistle in it (ep. 2, 4, 16).) It is perhaps because of his talents along with his avid insistence to get involved with trouble that his father, Dr. Mariner, along with Professor Fumble, invented for him the red wetsuit which protects and equips Marine Boy, allowing for him to use his talents to perform dangerous duty. With his headstrong personality, he hardly seems able to avoid it. The suit is highly resistant to penetration (ep. 1, 2)(it appears it may be bulletproof) and temperature (ep. 17, 21). The boots have hyper-powered propeller packs built into the heels which are so efficient they can enable Marine Boy to move huge boulders (ep. 3) and break free from metal manacles (ep. 10). When the power units are exhausted Marine Boy has spares in his belt. He also has retractable flippers, released at the click of his heels (ep. 3). The headgear includes a radio transceiver, but most remarkably, there is no breathing apparatus or face shield. Oxygen is supplied through another of Professor Fumble's inventions: "oxy-gum" which Marine Boy can chew and receive hours of oxygenation. He tends to have to replenish the gum after heavy activity. Presumably the oxy-gum is very limited in production because no other Ocean Patrol officers use it. Marine Boy also carries a weapon: a boomerang made of a hardened alloy. The alloy can cut through many matierials and the nimble Marine Boy has even used it to deflect bullets (ep. 24). It folds on a spring so it can be carried in a holster on his left arm. When unfolded and thrown it can generate a powerful electric shock, which has proved to be so disruptive to some electrical systems, it has blown up entire submarines (ep. 14, 16, 28). Marine Boy also has a friend in Neptina, a young (8-12 year old?) bare-chested mermaid who was always kept decent by her long flowing hair. Neptina wears a magic pearl around her neck, which could be used for various purposes including creating an envelope of protection and deterring dangerous animals (episode 1, 2), as well as working as a crystal ball to see events (ep. 3, 6, 13, 15, 16). She also seems to understand Splasher (ep. 3, 6, 10) and have an innate understanding of sea life (ep. 4).

 History
The program concept was developed by Terebi Doga, (aka Japan Tele-Cartoons or JTC), in Japan in 1965, originally known as Dolphin Prince (ドルフィン王子 - Dorufin Ôji). Produced as a short experimental trial series of only 3 episodes and filmed in black and white, Dolphin Prince aired on Fuji TV on Sundays at 7.30pm between 4 April and 18 April 1965. The episodes featured young Dolphin Prince, his mermaid friend Neptuna and Dr. Mariner, with stories entitled "Secret Of The Red Vortex", "Call Of The Sea" and "Attack Of The Sea-Star People". It was a well-received experiment and Terebi Doga prepared to produce a full series follow-up, although this time they decided that their program would be produced in color in order to maximise the potential of the production, both artistically and commercially. Although color television was introduced to the US in 1965, Japan had been transmitting some programs in color since 1960, however, not

 all Japanese studios had invested in the conversion of their operations to color. To complicate matters, not all the networks were interested in buying expensive color film series which were considered "vehicles" for selling commercial airtime, especially programs aimed primarily at children. Some broadcasters, (such as NHK, TBS, NET, Yomiuri, etc), had embraced color as the emerging and more engaging format, but others such as Fuji TV were unwilling to buy or co-finance color programming without a guarantee of commercial return or sponsored support. Fuji TV had broadcast the popular color series Jungle Emperor (ジャングル大帝 - Janguru Taitei) in 1965, but this would not have been filmed in color at all without the pre-sale of the series to US distributor NBC Films for broadcast in the US as Kimba The White Lion, (on the NBC Network which, at the time, insisted that it be supplied color programming by its distributors, the network using color as a promotional tool to attract both sponsors and viewers alike).

I have fond memories of watching this show, with my little sister every morning before I ran of to school.

MARINE BOY : DRAGON OF THE SEA
SEVEN ARTS TELEVISION (1965)
25 MIN
JAPAN/USA