Part Astro Boy, Part 007 and part Johnny Quest give you Marine Boy. Kids around the world thrilled to this cartoon show each Saturday morning seeing a kid doing amazing things they could almost relate to. He was not a super hero, he had no powers, but this kid kicked the enemies right back into jail, he was a cartoon hero! Today we present Marine Boy in The Astounding Shellfish - really inovative episode for its time almost 50 years ago! 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 1965 in Japan as Undersea Boy Marine, (Kaitei Shōnen Marin) by Minoru Adachi and animation company Japan Tele-Cartoons. It was sold outside Japan via K. Fujita Associates Inc., with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Television handling worldwide distribution of the English-language version. The series was distributed in syndication in the United States starting in 1966. The program concept was developed by Terebi Doga, (a.k.a. Japan Tele-Cartoons or JTC), in Japan in 1965, originally known as Dolphin Prince (Dorufin Ôji). Produced as a short experimental trial series of only three episodes and filmed in black and white, Dolphin Prince aired on Fuji TV on Sundays at 7:30 pm 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. Japan had been transmitting some programs in color since 1960, however, not all Japanese studios had converted their operations to color. To complicate matters, not all Japanese 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 and Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation) 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 in 1965, but this would not have been filmed in color at all without the pre-sale of the series to U.S. distributor NBC Films for broadcast in the United States 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). The voice of Marine Boy, Neptina and Clicli [2] was that of Corinne Orr, who was also the voice of Trixie and Spritle in Speed Racer. Jack Grimes, who also worked on Speed Racer, was the voice of Professor Fumble and Splasher. Peter Fernandez was the voice of Piper and Dr. Mariner. His other work includes The Space Giants, Ultraman, Star Blazers, many of the Godzilla films, as well as both Speed and Racer X from Speed Racer. Jack Curtis was the voice of Bullton, as well as the series' narrator (performing the same duties on Speed Racer). Just trying to expose cartoon fans to as many different types of good classic animation as we can! Thomas R Reich PhD The Cartoon Crazys Channel Watch Dr Reich staring in the 12 episodes of Cartoon Wars streaming everywhere and featured on TUBI
If disney were anime
