Spectreman

When I was in middle-school (or maybe early high school? -- the mid- to late-'80s at any rate), there was an afternoon block of kids' programming on the local independent TV station, Channel 69. (No, I'm not making this up. In fact, they're still there, although now they are the local UPN affiliate.) Hosting the afternoon was Captain 69 who, along with a robot buddy whose name I can't remember, cracked wise from his show desk aboard whatever spaceship set they'd constructed for him. The programming rotated, showing obscure Japanese cartoons like Tranzor Z, but the mainstay of the afternoon, for me at least, was always Spectreman.

Spectreman was a third-rate Ultraman created by Fuji Television and P-Productions in 1971, presumably to cash in on the rubber-suit craze. I don't know whether they succeeded or not on the "cash in" part, but the resulting 50+ -episode run certainly kept a lot of kids entertained. Even at that point I knew Spectreman was pretty bad but back then with no cable TV (my parents just started subscribing within the last few years) and no internet, it was the best thing going.

At a recent sci-fi convention (see the entries on MegaCon below) I was able to pick up a bootleg DVD with the first four half-hour episodes of Spectreman, and it was every bit as bad as I remember. Actually, it was somewhat better than I remember. The initial episodes feature Spectreman's alter-ego, George, trying to fit in with us Earthlings. Since the evil ape-scientist Dr. Gori has come to Earth and plans to conquer the world with giant monsters born of the pollution we humans so foolishly create, George allies himself with a pollution-fighting task force. Budgets for the series must have been hideously low, as the show must constantly create excuses for George not to change into Spectreman, even when it would make sense to do so. The main limiting factor is that the transformation process is controlled by "Overlord," a disembodied voice who watches over George from the roving planet "Nebula 71." Overlord is a control freak who spends a lot of time telling George to solve his problems in his human form before finally relenting, which is when Spectreman appears and may kick some ass.

I think we're probably going to do a review of some part of the series over at Stomp Tokyo so I won't say a whole lot more, but I gotta say it's a kick seeing an old favorite like this and to discover that it's still enjoyable.