ASTRO BOY BREAK!: Episode 11, "Strange Voyage"

When I purchased the first "Ultimate" set of Astro Boy DVDs several years ago, I was taking something of a shot in the dark. Not that I hadn't done this sort of thing before -- I purchased two volumes of THE CARL BARKS LIBRARY in 1985 on more or less of a whim. Back then, however, I had at least read some Barks adventures in digest form and was pretty sure that I'd like other Barks stories. In the case of Astro Boy, the presence of the Kimba dubbing cast and my positive impression of one Astro episode were basically all I had to go on. Historical interest, these eps would certainly possess. Consistent entertainment value? I wasn't so sure.

The first 52 episodes of Astro Boy were far more cheaply animated than a polished later effort like "The Terrible Time Gun." An average of only 4500 cells were used per episode. For a science-fictiony adventure cartoon, that didn't seem to promise much in the way of visual excitement. The earliest eps of the series are in fact rather "stiff in the joints" when it comes to action and (not surprisingly) voice performances. It was sheer novelty value, more than anything else, that convinced local stations to purchase the Astro package. With "Strange Voyage," however, the series first began to flash the qualities of "Heart" and thematic sophistication that would come to define it (and which Americans only got to see a portion of; NBC purchased 104 episodes for American distribution, but the Japanese series lasted 193 episodes, with many of the later plots achieving remarkable levels of complexity). The voice acting also begins to "ramp up" right about here, as Ray Owens, Gilbert Mack, and Billie Lou Watt begin to settle into their production routine.

Much like DuckTales, many of the early Astro episodes were based directly upon Osamu Tezuka's manga adventures. "Strange Voyage" was an adaptation of a 1959 tale, "Ivan the Fool," which was inspired by early Soviet successes in lunar exploration. Tezuka drew from H.G. Wells' THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1901) in hypothesizing the existence of a sublimating lunar atmosphere and the existence of exotic plant life that had adapted to the cycle of the lunar day. Arthur C. Clarke's EARTHLIGHT (1955) and Herge's TINTIN story EXPLORERS ON THE MOON (1954) had been kicking around similar ideas earlier in the decade, but Tezuka's take on the notion is particularly clever.

When adapting the story for TV, Tezuka made a small but important change: he relocated the action to a remote asteroid on which Astro and a small band of humans must land after a lunar trip has been aborted. Tezuka also eliminated the subplot in which a rescue ship is dispatched to save the castaways, which forces the group to use their own wits in an attempt to escape their celestial clink. These alterations has the side effect of lending even more emphasis to the subtheme that truly puts this episode "over the top" as a classic: the believable interactions among a diverse group of characters that are forced to cooperate to survive, a la John Ford's Stagecoach (1939). As in Stagecoach, the identities of the "good guys" and "bad guys" are not quite as clear-cut as it appears on the surface... and the ending packs more than its share of "justice served" in a manner that must have seemed shocking indeed to a contemporary audience used to happy, sprightly Hanna-Barbera cartoons and the mock-serious adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, King Leonardo, and others. It is for these reasons that I flag "Strange Voyage" as the first truly great episode of Astro Boy.

Note: This episode has been remade twice: once during the original run of the 1963 b&w Mushi Studios series itself (Episode 142, "Minya's Star") and once in color by Tezuka Productions in 1980 ("The Wreck of the Titan"). The original manga story can be found in Volume 4 of Dark Horse's ASTRO BOY reprint series.

In all other versions of "Strange Voyage," Lucky Louie the Lug (Ray Owens) is a short, dumpy man, while little Marble (Billie Lou Watt) is a young boy. Who knows why? Also, why are all of those men seeing off the haughty Mona Toujours (Watt)? We never learn her profession, but I have some uneasy suspicions on that score...

The opening announcement of "the first commercial flight to the Moon" -- not to mention the Taurus' brief flyby of a space station -- are strongly reminiscent of 2001 (1968). I wonder whether the passengers on the Taurus had the opportunity to enjoy Howard Johnson's cuisine and to "phone home" using The Bell System.

At this stage, Billie Lou Watt's Astro Boy voice is still somewhat "ball-shy." (For an explanation, see here.) Oddly enough, the higher-pitched voice -- which reminds me a bit of the lead singer of the Ran-Dells -- does seem to fit the wider-eyed, more doll-like visual version of Astro that we are provided with here. This would seem "cute," except that Marble (who makes Webbigail Vanderquack seem positively pessimistic and cynical) has already cornered the market in that particular area.

So why wouldn't the gatekeepers be given a physical description of Lucky Louie in case he tried to bluff his way onto the ship? Sometimes, Chief McLaw's (Owens) police force can be as dense as the police forces of Duckburg and St. Canard. The castaways don't get away easily on this score either; the first place that I would look for stolen diamonds would probably be an innocent kid's teddy bear. Blame my suspicions on this Duck story.

Billie Lou Watt does a super job delivering the tape-recorded message from Margo Polo (or Pogo, depending on source), but the time frame posited here seems a bit sketchy. One might be able to buy a mission to Mars "by 1969" -- the "Space Race" was galloping at a speedy enough clip at the time that anything seemed possible -- but a functioning sentient robot, even one as dense as Kris Kringle (Ivan)? Kris' physical appearance betrays the fact that he was designed and built by the Soviets, and, indeed, the female space traveler in the original manga story was a Soviet cosmonaut.

It may seem somewhat surprising that Tezuka would use overt Christian imagery (the cross on Margo's grave), but, in a late episode, the plot centers on a "crying" statue of Jesus! That one did not make the cut for American syndication.

This is one of the first eps in which Astro Boy formally assumes a leadership role, albeit out of sheer necessity. I wonder whether Tezuka was trying to draw an explicit contrast here between the selfless actions of the robot and the all-too-human bickering and "back-going-behinding" of the human cast. At least most of Our Gang wises up in time to make the flight out, with the singular exception of the greedy Rocco Gibraltar (Gilbert Mack). Lucky Louie may wind up in jail once the passengers get back to Earth (and why wouldn't he -- it's not as if his noble actions cancel out his thievery), but he will undoubtedly emerge from durance vile a better man, much like the safe-cracker Scrap in the later episode "Contest in Space." The ending does seem somewhat rushed, but, for 1963, this is a remarkably sophisticated piece of TV cartoonery.

Up next: KIMBA KONNECTIONS presents a musical drama by Billie Lou Watt... and then we return to KIMBA with Episode 18, "The Runaway."

Comics Review: WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES ARCHIVES, VOLUME 1 (April (sic) 2011, Boom! Studios)

I don't know how many of these we're going to get, but I'm sure going to try to enjoy them! Though this first volume only reprints WDC&S #1-2 (October and November 1940), the reprints are facsimiles, complete with original advertisements and promotional offers (which an introductory note helpfully informs us are no longer valid), plus such quirky text features as a dance lesson in the "Donald Duck Doodle," which was (1) actually referenced in a "TNT" story six decades later and (2) evidently NOT the only such feature in the early WDC&S, according to David Gerstein's informative introduction. Given the choice between more issues per collection and thoroughness of the reprints offered, I'd have to opt for the latter.

David describes the early issues of WDC&S (as it transitioned away from the text-heavier MICKEY MOUSE MAGAZINE) as "endearing, tentative, imaginative, clumsy, and full of genius all at once." For sure, #1 appears to have been a "shakedown cruise" of sorts as formatting bugs were worked out. The first feature in #1, ironically enough, is a text story based on the Disney short The Robber Kitten (1935). It's almost as if Western Publishing were attempting to reassure parents that stories would, too, be a key part of the revamped magazine, but starting with a story when "Comics" are the prominently featured item (in a bigger font on the cover, yet!) still seems strange to me. The reprints of Al Taliaferro's DONALD DUCK daily strips are printed three to a page without any clear dividers indicating that one strip was ending and another beginning. The first part of the reprint of Floyd Gottfredson's classic "Island in the Sky" simply begins with no particular fanfare, apart from a subtitle that wouldn't have been out of place in a Sunday gag page of the era. The final chapter of "Mickey Meets Robinson Crusoe", a serial carried over from MICKEY MOUSE MAGAZINE, gets somewhat better treatment with a "title bar" that would come to be standard formatting for many of the vintage Gottfredson reprints to come. Of course, that wouldn't have helped those who'd never purchased MMM but had decided to give WDC&S a try, so there's yet another self-inflicted formatting problem.

Issue #2 solves some of the aforementioned problems but unearths others. The new "secondary" MICKEY feature, "Oscar the Ostrich," has its title on the first page, but doesn't formally introduce the story otherwise. Part two of "Island in the Sky," meanwhile, which readers of #1 would presumably have anticipated more than any other feature in #2, is shunted to the back of the issue, behind "Oscar"! You might, if you were so inclined, regard this as a precursor of sorts of the MICKEY serials that would wind up issues of WDC&S for many years, but the placement here seems pretty arbitrary. Progress is seen, however, in the use of geometric dividers to split up DONALD strips (though the transitions are still sometimes difficult to recognize) and a "last month, as you recall..." text box in the first panel of "Island" part two.

Nattering over formatting issues aside, these first two "numbers" of WDC&S gave readers of 1940 considerably more than their money's worth. The generous samplings from Gottfredson's prime period are the obvious highlight at this point, but the Taliaferro strips are spotted effectively without wearing out their welcome (sideways glare at "Gladstone II"'s DONALD DUCK), and the text pieces are primarily adaptations of Silly Symphony cartoons, a prose accompaniment of sorts to the verse-versions run in GOOD HOUSEKEEPING. It's intriguing to note that Western saw nothing wrong with depicting button-eyed and pupil-eyed versions of Mickey in the same issue, when the transition was apparently regarded with much more trepidation at the animation studio. (One story I've heard is that an animator sarcastically suggested that the studio "pupil" Mickey's eyes one at a time to help the audience accept the idea.) It probably helped that Mickey and company were still very much a presence in movie theaters at this time and that the redesigns of the major characters had occurred fairly recently, so that many readers -- even some of the younger ones -- might have been familiar with both versions.

It's a shame that this fine collection is being released at a time of such uncertainty regarding Boom!'s "degree of stewardship" of Disney comics. Here is where soliciting support from the "general" comics community might help the company's cause. Anyone seriously interested in the history of American "Golden Age" comics is a potential customer for WDC&S ARCHIVES and should be approached as such. If Boom! gets enough broad-based support, Disney might even think twice about taking "classics reprint projects" away from the company. Given the high quality of most of Boom!'s efforts along those lines, that would be a very good thing.

Comics Review: CHIP AND DALE'S RESCUE RANGERS #7 (June 2011, kaboom!)

Well, the Danger Rangers finally do reappear (in a manner of speaking) at the end of part three of "Stranger Danger," for whatever that's worth at this point...

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It seems that everything we've seen since part one has been meant to "manipulate" the Rangers into a confrontation with a character who has an obsessive animus against one of Our Gang. Paging Dr. Killjoy, paging Dr. Ivana Killjoy! Now, if this character evinces a burning desire to join the Rangers in C&DRR #8, then we'll have all the "traditional C&DRR fanfic trope bases" covered -- aside from doing Gadget some sort of physical harm, that is (and the butch-y Glitch seems eminently capable of checking off that particular box if she has a mind to).

Foxglove makes her second appearance in the title here, and we get a "kinda-sorta" version of closure regarding the death of Eaglewood in C&DRR #2. The shocking thing is that Foxglove doesn't react to the news of her father's death (which she apparently had been clued in on before seeing Dale) so much as to Dale's reaction to her father's death. A timely wing-whap (which in itself is a little out of character) helps snap Dale out of the funk he's been in, but would Foxy really take the death of her father that calmly? Granted, I'm glad we didn't get a "Death of a Comedian"-style torrent of bathos, but this almost errs too far in the other direction. Ian Brill doesn't make it at all clear how Chip managed to get a message to Foxy from the Ninja Porcupine headquarters (perhaps a homing implant?). Foxy also suddenly develops quasi-super strength; viz., the ability to glide through the air while Chip and Dale are holding on to her wings! Had she possessed those powers during "Good Times, Bat Times," the episode would probably have ended a lot quicker, for good or ill.

Brill has left himself quite a task for #8 -- get Monterey Jack out of durance vile, help Chip recover from a potentially dangerous wound, and allow Glitch and Gadget to have their big showdown. And what about the other Danger Rangers -- not to mention the mute mouse who sent the Rangers on that phony rescue errand? After those first two issues, this title has been a crushing disappointment, but perhaps Brill can pull the ramshackle temple down with some style in the one issue left to him.

THE BEST (AND REST) OF KIMBA: Episode 17, "The Magic Serpent"

Kimba episodes very frequently had morals, but that didn't necessarily mean that they were moralistic. Usually, any life lessons that were learned were slotted into the context of some overarching adventure... though the "fit" was tighter in some eps than in others. "The Magic Serpent" is a reasonably good morality story, all things considered, but the rivets definitely show. The adventurous component -- Kimba's face-off against a lone-wolf would-be usurper -- has to be broken into two parts in an overly convenient manner, and a short flashback to Kimba's life in the human world has to be included, in order to lend sufficient bulk to a fairly simple fable about not judging people based on appearance.

Interestingly, the very next ep in the series, "The Runaway," will also feature a character -- Gargoyle G. Warthog -- who is misunderstood by others because of his outward form. Gargoyle's demons, however, are primarily internal in nature, whereas the smelly Rancid Reekybird (Sonia Owens) is presented as pretty much of a pure victim of prejudice. Psychologically, "The Runaway" is more satisfying, but "The Magic Serpent" has a better framing story. I'd have to rate both eps as about even in terms of quality.

Link to episode at Hulu

Well, thanks loads, Mr. Narrator, for giving away the "magical power" of Puffy Adder (Gilbert Mack) before we've even formally met the character.

A vulture-esque bird very much like Rancid makes a very brief appearance in JUNGLE EMPEROR, visiting the animals' restaurant (which the TV series will be introducing just a couple more eps down the pike). There, however, the Rancid lookalike is pretty clearly a carrion bird. That would give other animals just as legitimate of a reason to shun Rancid as Rancid's smell (perhaps more of one, in fact; jungles have a way of being odoriferous by nature).

As if Ray Owens spilling the beans about the "evil eye" weren't bad enough, Puffy has to blather about it to Kimba, allowing the lion prince to be at least partially forewarned before "the beam goes on." It's as if Puffy is a supervillain who's arrived on the scene and told the hero exactly what to expect of him. It must be admitted, though, that this carelessness is believable coming from an exceptionally arrogant character. No doubt dominating a group of humans (who, from the looks of them, appear to be Indians of some sort -- apart from the bereted Tezuka cameo, of course) only added fuel to the fire of Puffy's pretentiousness.

Having done the "how great I am" routine, Puffy proceeds to demonstrate his mighty powers by... slithering away after a "fight" that is all chase and no clash?! How thoughtful of him to make way for the upcoming moral lesson, though I'll give him a few points for facing down Boss Rhino. Puffy would be much better served, however by hypnotizing Boss Rhino and other large animals into attacking Kimba than by using the critters he ultimately will coopt into doing the deed. Boss Rhino sticks up for Kimba here, an odd thing to do in light of the fact that he'll prove to be Kimba's harshest critic among the other animals, but he doesn't hate Kimba per se; he just dislikes Kimba's openness to ideas from the "stupid" human world.

What a trouper, that Kimba, ignoring the stench emanating from Rancid long enough to provide that well-timed pep talk. He then ignores his optimistic prediction that the other animals will change their minds about Rancid by forcing the issue while in his "Scrambled Eggs" schoolmaster role. The kids seem to recognize what's coming, as they pounce upon Kimba's "plaster and paint" comment and try to get Kimba talking about the human world. Kimba seems to fall for it but deftly shifts back to his "talking points" and the flashback story that will drive his moral home.

You know that a story has a dark tone when the role of the United Nations in the world is presented more positively than the outcome of a quarrel over a lost cat and a cash reward! The tone would have seemed even harsher had Kimba, Mr. Pompous, and the "Thames Triad" not been illogically capable of talking to one another. (By this time, "whatever works" appears to have become S.O.P. for handling the issue of animals and humans conversing in the Kimba "universe.") The jungle cubs don't quite seem to get the "barb" in the "tail" of Kimba's story, as Kimba concludes his narrative to gales of laughter. If they did miss the "barb," then at least they got the point, as demonstrated by their subsequent gesture towards Rancid.


I'm assuming that Pauley is referring to his experiences in the human world when he argues from the authority of TV detectives. In typical fashion, he takes his play-acting too far and soon becomes ensnared in Puffy Adder's mental web.

Speaking of which: Why does Puffy rely on birds to perform his dirty work? Wouldn't turning all of the larger animals in the jungle against Kimba be a more efficient plan? The problems with a Hitchcockian approach are that (1) you have to have a huge number of creatures involved and meshing together as a unit, and (2) Kimba could neutralize the attack simply by taking refuge under the heavy jungle foliage, where the birds couldn't easily get at him. Add on the fact that the birds' suspicious behavior gets Rancid concerned and then actively involved in the anti-Puffy campaign, and the rep of the "great magician" takes a major hit here.

How strong must Rancid be in order to carry Dodie Deer on his back?! And here I thought Foxglove's feat of remaining aloft while both Chip and Dale are hanging onto her wings in C&DRR #7 was impressive. In order for Rancid to be so strong, he'd have to be, what, two or three times as large as Kimba...?

Um... well, OK. This would be a little more convincing if Rancid's size hadn't fluctuated so much throughout the episode.

After Rancid's stench breaks the birds' spell, Puffy again chooses to retreat. And he wants to rule an entire jungle full of animals? In African colonies previously ruled by France, perhaps... This time, Kimba and Rancid refuse to let him off the hook, and there's no reason to disguise the giant snake's ultimate fate. The good Kimba does (in convincing the other animals to accept Rancid) comes back to him, and the "wheel of morality" completes its rotation. Not a great episode, but certainly a watchable one.

Up next: I'll be away next weekend, so will postpone the next KIMBA post until I get back. In the meantime, we'll take an ASTRO BOY BREAK later this week with an early ASTRO ep that greatly impressed me: Episode 11, "Strange Voyage."

THFT!'s All, Folks!

THE HARVEYVILLE FUN TIMES! #75, containing my final RICHVILLE RUMINATIONS column, is now available from Mark Arnold. Mark is stepping down as editor and turning the reins over to Ben Samuels. I'm pretty much "tapped out" in terms of talking at length about "classic" RICHIE RICH and figured that this was as good a time as any to close up shop. I will, of course, continue to comment on matters Harvey in N&V.

It occurs to me that RICHVILLE RUMINATIONS, lasting as it did from 1993 to 2011, represents the single longest lasting non-familial commitment of my life. During the time that I produced the column, I changed jobs once, moved twice, got married, cycled through several dogs... the list goes on. I've been writing about Disney comics and sundry other matters since the late 80s, but those efforts were spread over several venues, both print and electronic. Writing for THFT! for 18 years... who'da thunk? Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Mark.

Book Review: WILL ROGERS, A POLITICAL LIFE by Richard D. White, Jr. (Texas Tech University Press, 2011)

Will Rogers is well remembered as a sort of pop-culture Renaissance man of the early 20th century: a comedian, a cowboy, a vaudevillian, a successful movie star and radio performer, and a "bark-off" commentator on social and political issues. With modern-day celebrities constantly using Twitter and other social media to comment on issues, there is a temptation to regard Rogers as a very similar figure, only using an earlier generation of technology. Richard White argues that the real Rogers was a far more serious opinion leader than your bog-standard pop singer opining on global warming or the latest doings in Chechnya. Forging relationships with Presidents of both parties, circling the globe on multiple occasions, reaching millions through newspaper columns and telegrams, and even acting as an ambassador without portfolio as far away as Manchuria during the 1931 Japanese incursion, Rogers was an effective advocate for his positions -- whether they be development of the American aviation industry, help for suffering farmers, opposition to American intervention in foreign countries, or opposition to Prohibition -- precisely because he knew how to reduce complex issues to simple terms while still respecting the intelligence of his readers and listeners. Rogers got his fair share of criticism for his folksy, grammatically challenged approach to discussing issues, but it resonated with an America that was becoming steadily more urban, yet still spiritually centered in the rural small town.

One way in which Rogers differs from the Internet pundits and talk-show hosts of today is that he was generally a moderating influence on the public debate. Though a Democrat, he didn't hesitate to poke fun at his own side when he felt it was deserved. He also shunned extremism at a time when the economic catastrophe of the Depression had sent many Americans on a search for "better" economic and political systems. (He did have nice things to say about Mussolini, but then, a lot of deep thinkers of the 1920s regarded the "efficient" Italian version of fascism with the same starry-eyed admiration that Thomas Friedman, for one, has been known to bestow upon China.) White makes no attempt to compare Rogers to present-day figures of similar stature, a rather major omission in my view. The "Palace Guard Comedians" who mock only one political party and the talk-show hosts who invite only guests who agree with them onto their shows would do well to adopt Rogers as a role model.

Though it too easily devolves into a "year-by-year travelogue format," this is a good introduction to the political side of Will Rogers and an interesting read for those wishing to learn more about the intellectual and cultural history of the teens, 20s, and 30s.