Godzilla (TV 1978–1979)
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- This page is for the 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoon. For the '90s TriStar cartoon, see Godzilla: The Series.
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— Opening theme song |
Godzilla, also known retrospectively as Godzilla: The Original Animated Series, is an American science-fiction Saturday-morning cartoon developed and supervised by Dick Robbins and Duane Poole. The show was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in collaboration with Godzilla series creator Toho and its American licensing partner Henry G. Saperstein's Benedict Pictures Corporation. The story centers around Godzilla, his relative Godzooky, and a team of scientists who call upon Godzilla to aid them as they contend with various malevolent monsters. Two seasons of 13 episodes were broadcast on NBC, the first from September 9 to December 9, 1978, and the second from September 8 to December 1, 1979. Despite Toho's involvement, the series has never been released in Japan.
Godzilla headlined multiple programming blocks throughout its run and subsequent reruns. For its first seven episodes, it and Jana of the Jungle comprised The Godzilla Power Hour, which is also sometimes used colloquially as a name for the show. The remaining six episodes of its first season were aired as part of The Godzilla Super 90, which lasted 90 minutes instead of an hour thanks to the addition of reruns of Jonny Quest. The second season's initial run was not supported by any other shows, but reruns from both seasons were paired with various shows until 1981.
Plot
The series follows the adventures of the crew of the research vessel Calico, headed by Captain Carl Majors. The rest of the crew includes Dr. Quinn Darian, her assistant and Carl's first mate Brock Borden, and Quinn's teenage nephew Pete. Also along for the ride is a winged relative of Godzilla named Godzooky, who is Pete's best friend.
The Calico crew are able to call upon Godzilla using a special communicator known as the "Godzilla Signal" whenever they are in peril, usually due to attacks by other giant monsters. If the communicator is not present or is lost, Godzooky can summon Godzilla himself with a special call. Godzilla is depicted as a benevolent monster who is more than willing to assist and defend his cousin and his human companions, as well as other civilians who find themselves in harm's way during the rampages of other, more malevolent creatures. All of Godzilla's enemies in the series are original creations for the show, as Hanna-Barbera did not acquire the rights to use any of Godzilla's existing monster co-stars.
Episodes
| Episode no. | Title | Premiere date | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Television | YouTube | Shogakukan[a] | |||||
| Overall | Season | Overall | Season | Overall | Season | ||
| Season 1 | |||||||
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | "The Firebird" | September 9, 1978[11][12] |
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | "The Eartheater" | September 16, 1978[13][14] |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | "Attack of the Stone Creature" | September 23, 1978[15][16] |
| 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | "The Megavolt Monster" | September 30, 1978[17][18] |
| 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | "The Seaweed Monster" | October 7, 1978[19][20] |
| 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | "The Energy Beast" | October 14, 1978[b] |
| 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 9 | "The Colossus of Atlantis" | October 21, 1978[c] |
| 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 6 | "The Horror of Forgotten Island" | November 4, 1978[d] |
| 9[e] | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | "Island of Lost Ships" | November 11, 1978[28][29] |
| 10[e] | 10 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 8 | "The Magnetic Terror" | November 18, 1978[30][31] |
| 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | "The Breeder Beast" | November 25, 1978[32][33] |
| 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | "The Sub-Zero Terror" | December 2, 1978[34][35] |
| 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | "The Time Dragons" | December 9, 1978[36][37] |
| Season 2 | |||||||
| 14 | 1 | 22 | 9 | 20 | 7 | "The Golden Guardians" | September 8, 1979[38][39] |
| 15 | 2 | 14 | 1 | 21 | 8 | "Calico Clones" | September 15, 1979[40][41] |
| 16 | 3 | 15 | 2 | 16 | 3 | "Microgodzilla" | September 22, 1979[42][43] |
| 17 | 4 | 16 | 3 | 22 | 9 | "Ghost Ship" | September 29, 1979[44][45] |
| 18 | 5 | 17 | 4 | 19 | 6 | "The Beast of Storm Island" | October 6, 1979[46][47] |
| 19 | 6 | 20 | 7 | 24 | 11 | "Valley of the Giants" | October 13, 1979[48][49] |
| 20 | 7 | 19 | 6 | 15 | 2 | "The Cyborg Whale" | October 20, 1979[50][51] |
| 21 | 8 | 18 | 5 | 14 | 1 | "The City in the Clouds" | October 27, 1979[52][53] |
| 22 | 9 | 23 | 10 | 23 | 10 | "The Macro-Beasts" | November 3, 1979[54][55] |
| 23 | 10 | 21 | 8 | 18 | 5 | "Moonlode" | November 10, 1979[56][57] |
| 24 | 11 | 24 | 11 | 17 | 4 | "Pacific Peril" | November 17, 1979[58][59] |
| 25 | 12 | 25 | 12 | 25 | 12 | "Island of Doom" | November 24, 1979[60][61] |
| 26 | 13 | 26 | 13 | 26 | 13 | "The Deadly Asteroid" | December 1, 1979[62][63] |
| Special | |||||||
| N/A | "Godzilla vs. Y2K Bug" | c. 1999 | |||||
Staff
Both seasonsStaff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.
Season 1
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Season 2Staff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.
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Cast
Actor's name on the left, character played on the right.
- Jeff David as Captain Carl Majors
- Al Eisenman as Pete Darian
- Hilly Hicks as Brock Borden
- Brenda Thomson as Dr. Quinn Darian
- Marlene Aragon
- Michael Bell
- Barney Phillips
- Michael Road
- Michael Rye
- Les Tremayne
- Bill Woodson
- Michelle Hart
- Stan Jones
- Katherine Victor
- Janet Waldo
- Ted Cassidy as Godzilla
- Don Messick as Godzooky
Appearances
Broadcast history
Godzilla originally aired in these formats on NBC:[64]
- The Godzilla Power Hour (September 8, 1978 – October 28, 1978)
- The Godzilla Super 90 (November 4, 1978 – September 1, 1979)
- Godzilla (September 8, 1979 – October 13, 1979)
- The Godzilla/Globetrotters Adventure Hour (October 20, 1979 – September 20, 1980)
- The Godzilla/Dynomutt Hour (September 27, 1980 – November 15, 1980)
- The Godzilla/Hong Kong Phooey Hour (November 22, 1980 – May 16, 1981)
- Godzilla (May 23, 1981 – September 5, 1981)
Gallery
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The Godzilla Power Hour title card
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Animation cell
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Captain Carl Majors
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Dr. Quinn Darian
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Brock Borden
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Pete Darian
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A panel from Scooby-Doo! Team-Up #22 (March 2017)
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Godzilla as a weather reporter in ToonFM: Live from Tokyo
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Episode listings in the Godzilla 1954-1999 Super Complete Works
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Model sheet of Colossus
Video releases
Classic Media DVDs (2006–07) [Godzilla: The Original Animated Series]
- Region: 1
- Audio: English
- Subtitles: Unknown
- Special features: None
- Notes: Released in three volumes containing one disc each. Volume 1 contains episodes 1–4, Volume 2 contains episodes 5–9, and Volume 3 contains episodes 10–13.
The second season of Godzilla has never been released on home video, although Cartoon Network recordings of all the episodes circulate on the gray market as bootlegs. The GODZILLA OFFICIAL by TOHO YouTube channel began uploading episodes of the series in order, with each episode broken into three videos, from August 9, 2021, to May 9, 2022. It added episodes from the show's second season from June 6, 2022, to February 27, 2023.
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Godzilla: The Original Animated Series Volume 1 DVD cover
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Godzilla: The Original Animated Series Volume 2 DVD cover
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Godzilla: The Original Animated Series Volume 3 DVD cover
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The Firebird and The Eartheater VHS cover
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The Firebird VHS front and back cover
In other languages
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Videos
- Main article: Godzilla (series)/Videos.
Trivia
- In the late 1960s, Filmation intended for an animated series starring Godzilla, but was never made.[66]
- Rather than use Godzilla's trademark roar, Hanna-Barbera cast Ted Cassidy to record vocalizations for the character. He performed similar work for the live-action TV series The Incredible Hulk, which began airing the same year. Strangely, several television bumpers from Cartoon Network which aired later did use Godzilla's standard roar from the Toho films.
- This show's basic premise, a team of humanitarian scientists traveling the globe and combating giant monsters while having the ability to summon Godzilla as an ally, is also featured in Godzilla: The Series, which aired two decades later.
- While the majority of Hanna-Barbera's properties were acquired by Warner Bros., Godzilla and all of the characters within it fell under the sole ownership of Toho once Warner's rights to the series expired in 2003. Toho has since licensed the first season of the series to Classic Media for DVD distribution in the United States, and even allowed companies such as Toy Vault and Mondo to create merchandise based on the series. It uploaded all 26 episodes from both seasons of the series onto its official English-language YouTube channel for the Godzilla franchise from 2021 to 2023.
- The trailer for Godzilla: Smash3, a mobile game tie-in for the 2014 American Godzilla film, features the text "Up from the depths," referencing the opening theme song for this show.
- Dr. Gale Melody, a character in the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode "Shoyu Weenie," closely resembles Dr. Quinn Darian. Numerous Hanna-Barbera characters appear throughout the series.
- Douglas Allen Booth, who wrote for the series' second season, later wrote an episode of Extreme Dinosaurs called "Zogwalla-con," which features a monster inspired by Godzilla.
External links
Notes
- ↑ Episode order used in Shogakukan's Godzilla 1954-1999 Super Complete Works, which differs significantly from the broadcast order. The numbers for season 1 also match those given in their U.S. copyright registrations (the season 2 registrations do not provide episode numbers). These may reflect Hanna-Barbera's production order, as they are known to align with the production numbers for episodes 1–2, 6–7, 9, 12, 17, and 25–26 (prod. nos. 1,[1] 3,[2][3] 7,[4][5] 9,[6] 10,[7] 12,[8] 22,[9] 25,[9] and 26,[10] respectively).
- ↑ The Philadelphia Inquirer attests to an episode airing on this date, but provides no description.[21] However, a U.S. copyright registration associates the date with "The Energy Beast".[22]
- ↑ The Philadelphia Inquirer attests to an episode airing on this date, but provides no description.[23] However, a U.S. copyright registration associates the date with "The Colossus of Atlantis".[24]
- ↑ The Philadelphia Inquirer attests to an episode airing on the previous Saturday, October 28, but provides no description. However, the description for its accompanying Jana of the Jungle episode roughly matches that show's first episode,[25] despite it having premiered weeks earlier.[11] The Godzilla episode was, therefore, likely also a rerun.
The Inquirer's November 4 issue explicitly names "Horror of Forgotten Island" as the episode airing that day,[26] and this is reported as the episode's publication date in its U.S. copyright registration.[27] - ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Classic Media DVDs flip episodes 9 and 10. They otherwise follow the original TV order.
- ↑ Supervisor in season 1, manager in season 2.
- ↑ Misspelled as "Villare." Corrected in season 2.
- ↑ Misspelled as "Peterson."
- ↑ Misspelled as "McClean."
- ↑ Misspelled as "Westland" in season 2.
- ↑ Misspelled as "Fleckal" in season 2.
References
This is a list of references for Godzilla (series). These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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