Saturday, 13 June 2015

Galaxy Boy Troop (1963)

Galaxy Boy Troop is a Japanese children's TV series that combined marionettes with traditional animation.
It ran for two seasons from April 7, 1963 to April 1, 1965, for a total of 92 episodes. The series also aired in France as "Le Commando De La Voie Lactee" although I'm fairly certain we never had it over here.
In the first season, the eponymous Galaxy Boy Troop, headed by a boy named Rob, travels across the galaxy to find a material that can restart Earth's dying Sun.  And in the second season, the Troop fights off an alien invasion of Earth.
As ever thanks to Tim for the heads up on this wonderfully obscure find.


Steve
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6 comments:

  1. DeadSpiderEye14 June 2015 at 17:32

    I wanna see this, if there isn't a boxed set, I'm hoping it'll be one of those Japanese series translated by fans.

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    Replies
    1. Steve15 June 2015 at 12:02

      I think its one of those shows which has been deleted except a couple of surviving episodes

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    2. Tim Armstrong16 June 2015 at 01:24

      Yes sadly the network which produced these shows erased them so as to reuse the then very expensive video tape so only a handful of episodes from all three series spaceship silica,galaxy boy troop and aerial city008 exist at all.The best of these is Aerial city 008 which looks to be very comparable with gerry andersons works from the mid 60s-70 but sadly only one half hour episode exists out of 230 15min eps,you can see it at
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQd1SJE4Ddk

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    3. Steve16 June 2015 at 12:48

      Thanks Tim. There you go DeadSpiderEye. It's not much but its all there is. let us know what you think

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    4. DeadSpiderEye17 June 2015 at 16:52

      Thanks for the link, it looks like it was a demonstrator to pitch the show to a foreign market, there's an English voice over bookending the episode, which I assume is two 15 minute ones edited together. 230 episodes seems like a remarkable production feat, it's more of a tv production standard than the later Anderson stuff, there's not the same focus on lighting and scene setting. Some of the scenes are quite complex, which gives it a slightly more inhabited feel than was common with the Anderson productions. Model effects are pretty good too, although they display the limitations of being shot at standard frame rates. It's a shame it didn't make it here, it would've been a real tea time asset back in the 70's and it's just criminal that the efforts of the people who produced it should be lost.

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    5. Tim Armstrong17 June 2015 at 23:57

      Glad to be of help,I`d only just discovered the series myself and was rather miffed to learn that it no longer existed.I heartily agree with "it's just criminal that the efforts of the people who produced it should be lost.",its actually quite shocking how much stuff from the 60s and 70s has been lost,for instance one of the lost films I would love to see is the Filipino production Batman vs Dracula,there is always hope that these things could turn up after all look at metropolis

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