by O.Supreme » Thu Feb 21, 2019 2:13 pm
Overall, it is pretty dated & cheesy, but I really like it. It came at a fundamental time in my life. I was 14 and had just moved, starting high school, no friends yet etc...Of course, the original Ultraman, had been off the air for nearly a decade, and all I had was a couple of sci-fi books magazine articles, and my fading memories of episodes. I had the faintest of knowledge about *other* Ultraman Series. Then, that fall I went with a friend from my old neighborhood into a toy/model shop in Chinatown San Francisco, and they were playing scenes from the new series (Towards the Future). I demanded to know how I could get episodes. The shop owner literally did the shifty eyes treatment. He said if I came back with 4 Blank VHS tapes, he would have them for me the next day....
I didn't fully understand, but I guess 2 blank tapes were *payment*, and he gave me the other 2 blank tapes back that contained the first 6 episodes (3 on each). I was surprised to see they were in english, and that this was made in Australia was even more puzzling. But for almost 2 years I watched those 6 episodes many times. In that time Bandai (DreamWorks) * Not the film company started b Spielberg, but a toy company subsidiary of Bandai) had acquired license for the product in the US. They released a line of toys, a Video Game for the SNES (which I was disappointed wasn't the original Ultraman game from the SFC as was initially advertised in Nintendo Power Magazine), and of course the TV show to air in syndication. It aired locally for me on Sunday Mornings Beginning in January 1992, at 7am on Channel 31 Sacramento. They went through the 13 episode cycle ONCE and that was it, where as in other markets (like the Bay Area), they showed it in perpetual rerun for nearly 2 years, admittedly though at the ungodly time of like 5am on Sundays. Of course that's how I caught a couple episodes I missed. because I had the original unedited first 6, I noticed the omission of the *Bull-S*&t* line from episode 5, and other scenes that had to be edited unfortunately for time. Years later of course I saw the unedited latter part of the series online. I'd love to get the Tsuburaya Blu Ray, but I cant justify spending that much. I'm happy with having them on my hard drive until a reasonably priced version is released, if ever.
There are no more good TV Shows, only ones that haven't disappointed me yet.