by O.Supreme » Tue Mar 03, 2020 4:10 pm
Well there was Utlraman Towards the Future, which aired in some markets in 1991, but you'd really have to be in the know to catch it. In some areas (like San Francisco), it had a good time slot on Sunday mornings (9 or 10 am IIRC), whereas many markets gave it the death sentence of 6am. I had to set my VCR, and I missed an episode! My local affiliate didn't even rerun the series, whereas the Bay Area kept it in syndication for almost two years! (Thanks to a relative I picked up that missing episode)
Additionally growing up with the original Ultraman (especially having many of the same voice actors as the Godzilla Films thanks to Titan/Titra), made them seem both very similar, and just as impressive. As I've stated before, it was in 1982 that a revelation was opened to me that there was more than one Ultraman! I went to a local sci-fi show (which was partially organized by August Ragone I found out years later), they were airing several Japanese movies, TV shows, and anime. We walked in on Episode 3 of Ultraman 80, and I had no idea what it was, but it was Awesome! Then my parents purchased a cardboard book for me (probably $5 at the time, now would cost about $20) which had stories from Return of Ultraman. I didn't know quite what it was at the time other than it was Ultraman, with Monsters I had never seen before, so I knew something more existed.
Coincidentally, the magazine Markalite #2 (published in 1991), gave a breakdown of pretty much every Ultraman series that existed up to that point, and of all of them I knew that Return was one I'd be most interested in. I've had bootleg VHS of some episodes, and the Malay DVD set that came out a couple of years ago. But just this week, I feel like a 38 year journey is now complete, now that I finally have a good quality Return Of Ultraman BRD set to enjoy, and it only gets better from here on out.
There are no more good TV Shows, only ones that haven't disappointed me yet.