Not as famous as Astro Boy or as kooky as Speed Racer, Marine Boy was a '60s Japanese cartoon (from Japan Tele-Cartoons aka TV Films) dubbed by the Peter Fernandez/Corinne Orr/Jack Grimes team. Apart from quick glimpses on hotel TVs while on vacation in other markets, I never got to see this show as a kid. Currently languishing in the vaults of Time Warner Turner Whoever, this show really ought to get a proper DVD release (
and has, says 2013). Anyway, I bring it up to show you this clipping that D. Thompson found in a 1966 issue of a TV broadcasters magazine:
What's interesting about this article is how Frish's Big Boy Restaurants purchased Marine Boy in Ohio, Kentucky, and Florida markets. Was this a promotional tie-in? Did the Big Boy and Marine Boy ever meet in the pages of those free promo comics? Was there a "Marine Boy Surf And Turf" special on the menu? The mind boggles.
That's a pretty cool Marine Boy illustration up there with the article, pity it isn't in color. Hold on a minute...
And on the back...
wow, WLWT, that's just weird.
ReplyDeleteHeh, thinking of it some more, I kinda feel sad I grew up in a town that was a smaller market, and didn't have any 'true' independent stations on the UHF dial dedicated to showing stuff like Ultraman, Marine Boy or maybe Prince Planet in those days like in larger markets. Wonder if the Frisch's Big Boy thing was also done in my hometown as well since we still have those to this day (though they are now sub-licensed to a local company that doesn't even use the Frisch's name outside the buildings). Would love to know that (and whether or not a Marine Boy crossover occured in those freebie comics I still have copies of). I only imagine those in my town having to turn their Channel Master antennas up to Detroit or Cleveland in the hopes of ever picking up Marine Boy since that was the best way of getting anything passed the few stations that were on locally at the time (WTOL ch. 11 (CBS), WSPD ch. 13 (ABC/NBC) and WDHO ch. 24 (originally independent, but became ABC in '70), not counting our public TV station WGTE on ch. 30). WKBD (ch. 50) and WXON (ch. 20) would've been the ones to watch if I had been born much earlier to appreciate those days of watching the hazy, snowy receptions in my bedroom!
ReplyDeleteNowadays I've seen pirated DVD's of Marine Boy that look FAR better than the WPHL broadcast copies that I've seen before in my tape-trading days. I still wonder where they get their source material from, but it certainly doesn't look like the typical pinkish 16mm prints I've seen before!
Oh, and it's so damn lucky you got Orr and Fernandez's signatures too! Speaking of Corinne, Jerry Beck posted a cartoon short from Paramount she did some voices on that was one of the final shorts for the studio produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi, and a pretty nifty one at that I only wish got released on DVD nowadays entitled "Marvin Digs"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paA3d6pIwAk
hi! since i'm currently writing a book on Marine Boy, i am wondering if i could use that tv ad? i'll give proper credit, for sure!
ReplyDeletethanks,
David
Well the MOST interesting thing about Marine Boy (did you catch it?) is the fact that the dubbing was performed first and Fujita's animators drew the character's mouth movements to fit the English-dubbing.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know the details about the process.
Then we suppose the Jap language version was done the "old-fashioned" way with a cute-turnaround on the voice actors, heh heh.
As far as I know this is unique in anime lore, unless Johnny Cypher was done the same??
i do have a bit of information about the dubbing process, but i can't reveal it here, you'll have to read the book! ;)
ReplyDeleteDavid
Hey Xenorama, feel free to use the newspaper Marine Boy clipping. If you need a higher-res file let me know. Credit should go to Devlin Thompson, since he dug it out for me in the first place...
ReplyDeleteHey Xenorama, feel free to use the newspaper Marine Boy clipping. If you need a higher-res file let me know. Credit should go to Devlin Thompson, since he dug it out for me in the first place...
ReplyDeletethanks, i'll be sure to credit it properly. this size picture is perfect as it is!
ReplyDeleteDavid
Bothering to add updated information to an old entry that people may or may not browse through in future net-surfing, I felt I have to send in further 2 centage to my statement from before!
ReplyDeleteI found some proof Marine Boy did air in my hometown around '69, though it was a side-line blurb in an ad for a locally produced Romper Room in a TV Guide, but it was there!
http://vintagetoledotv.squarespace.com/picture/romp691108.jpg?pictureId=2170607
Also, if anyone out there has an extra $20-30 to blow for nothing, you owe it to yourself and your country to pick up the recent Warner Home Video's release, Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s Vol. 1. A single pristine episode of Marine Boy abounds this compilation of the best 60's toonage that hardly gets any exposure much on Cartoon Network these days!
http://www.amazon.com/Saturday-Morning-Cartoons-1960s-Vol/dp/B001QU880M
Yes, it's only one episode, but it's a START!
Since it's been a while now (and going over the other posts here), as that book been completed yet? Love to read it!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if that guy is ever going to finish that book. I guess I will have to write one myself.
ReplyDeletewell, if that doesn't inspire me to get off my butt and finish it, nothing will.
ReplyDeletelife has gotten in the way, not that that is an excuse.
David (that guy)
Yes! Leap into action and finish that book!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this and giving me a warm glow of nostalgia to start the week. Here in Britain we love Marine Boy, since we actually got to see him on TV. The BBC was pretty sniffy about airing Japanese cartoons but Marine Boy made it!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see Helen showed up! Interesting that the BBC would show this in the end (course they also showed Battle of the Planets, but I bet they probably didn't know it was Japanese then).
ReplyDeleteMarine Boy was my favorite cartoon.. I remember watching it in Atlanta GA around 1969...I've had a life long fascination with boomerangs thanks for that show..
ReplyDelete