I LOVE the 80's Canadian Astro!!!!

[jeffbert]

Ok, I read all of Jay's posts (In the Astro voice actor here thread) that directly covered the episodes' details. I may have misinterpreted some things in these two; for that, I apologize, Jay.

"Save the Classmate"

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The fat, purple-shirted mom of Alvin is our director, Del Lewis. The principal is Greg Zerkle. You will note in these scenes that we are really running into trouble matching the rhythm of the Japanese actors. We had to rewrite many, many times, on the spot, and anyone's suggestions were taken. But sometimes . . . you have to just get the plot points out in however few syllables are available.

HA! As the ride wrecks, Alvin's bald and flat-headed dad is very cleary Carl Battaglia, our associate producer. This must have been a pick-up in post-production. A lovely man, but he never pretended to act (and, ahem, you can tell).

"Lily on Peligro Island"
I didn't have much to say earlier about this episode, and everyone asks, so here is more. I wish someone would just fly me to Australia or Japan and I could do this all on the DVDs. I asked to. But I am happy to take any and all of your questions here.

Where on freaking earth is Peligro? You all have wondered, I know. Well, here is the answer: it is just south of Shangri La and north of Brigadoon. It is a beautiful place.
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This is an early show -- really early. Generally you can tell how early a show is by how many of the cast are in it; we added more actors as we went. You can also tell how early it is by how closely we match lip movements; we got lazier as we went -- especially when Linda directed. Later, we fell really far behind on schedule, and Del was away, and we just burned through a bunch of episodes with Linda.

Moreover, I apologize for not being specific with my critiques. I had a general feeling that some lines were flat, but failed to name either the episode or the character. I understand how this would offend you. Yet, it will be a while before I run the entire set with the English audio again, so for now, please forget my comments on that. I really appreciate your contributions on this forum, Jay. I do not suppose that too many 30 year old cartoon shows have voice actors who even remember working on them, much less, who go to the trouble you have to feed the fans' appetites for answers. I cannot thank you enough.

[Astro Forever]

I think that huge fans of every possible topics have something in common on the Internet: they will tend to dissect the topic until they have stripped it to the atoms (no pun intended). I personally never gave that much thought over the quality of any Astroboy dub except the one I grew up with, for obvious sentimental reasons. However, even if a dubbing may not be unanimously acclaimed from the beginning to the end, I'm pretty sure the children who enjoyed the series back then never thought the dub was anything less than enjoyable, and obviously it was great enough to create a lasting impression of the series because many here have grown up with that dubbing. That's quite something, isn't it?

Here we are, as adults, with our piles of DVDs that we can watch over and over again and nitpick on everything: that's a very different setting. I can easily distinguish now that some of the robots are voiced by the same actor, but back when I was a child, I never even noticed that from one series to the other, many of my favorite characters also shared the same voices, and there were a lot of these.

I've made a "Did you ever find mistakes?" thread in which I've listed all the funny little things that were wrong visually (h/km instead of km/h, missing or misplaced layers of cellulos, wrong colors, whatever). That didn't mean I didn't have the utmost respect for the artists who drew the series, the work they put in and the end result.

[Strange Wings]

Here we are, as adults, with our piles of DVDs that we can watch over and over again and nitpick on everything: that's a very different setting. I can easily distinguish now that some of the robots are voiced by the same actor, but back when I was a child, I never even noticed that from one series to the other, many of my favorite characters also shared the same voices, and there were a lot of these.

The child's mind often doesn't care about similar voices among different characters, it appears as children are still able to percept with their hearts other than with logical analysis. They just can tell whether they like a show or not.
Remember the french voice of Abra, the Sultan's servant? As I watched the episode as a kid, I wasn't able to consider Abra's cultural background that caused his weird accent, I just thought of his voice to be tremendously funny.

I've made a "Did you ever find mistakes?" thread in which I've listed all the funny little things that were wrong visually (h/km instead of km/h, missing or misplaced layers of cellulos, wrong colors, whatever). That didn't mean I didn't have the utmost respect for the artists who drew the series, the work they put in and the end result.

That was one fun thread. From discussions about Astro's questionable flying abilities to wrong colorations - any thinkable detail has been treated. The 60's series would create a nearly endless topic about the mistakes appearing there, still, without them, the show would lose plenty of its charm.

[jayrath]

I think that huge fans of every possible topics have something in common on the Internet: they will tend to dissect the topic until they have stripped it to the atoms (no pun intended).

As a huge fan of Star Trek, myself, I agree!

But you've now made me mad with desire to see the Canadian series! It sounds like an exceptionally good show, and I want to watch it. And for what it's worth, I absolutely adore the 2003 character design.

[Astro Forever]

Remember the french voice of Abra, the Sultan's servant? As I watched the episode as a kid, I wasn't able to consider Abra's cultural background that caused his weird accent, I just thought of his voice to be tremendously funny.

Oh I did catch his weird accent... but his voice was indeed hilarious as well!

That was one fun thread. From discussions about Astro's questionable flying abilities to wrong colorations - any thinkable detail has been treated. The 60's series would create a nearly endless topic about the mistakes appearing there, still, without them, the show would lose plenty of its charm.

I had so much fun in that thread, too! For those who have never seen it: http://www.astroboy-online.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2576

And for those who might enjoy the mistakes thread, I created a variation as well for those things that weren't mistakes but I thought were amusing: Random observations

Jay, in any case, I suppose you understood what I meant, that it's almost a given that huge fans will always find some things wrong, but that it didn't have to mean that the end result wasn't very worthy. I don't want to tell you that you shouldn't feel offended, a bit sad or whatever, but please also keep in mind how much your work meant to so many people, because what you've all done will stay in our memories for the rest of your life.

[Fauna]

But you've now made me mad with desire to see the Canadian series! It sounds like an exceptionally good show, and I want to watch it. And for what it's worth, I absolutely adore the 2003 character design.

Here's links to the first parts of each episode on Youtube. All of them, except for the Mars one, were uploaded by me, and these are the only episodes available at the moment...

The Girl From Alsoar (Changed to be "Andor")
The Robot Circus
The Expedition to Mars
The Robots Nobody Wanted

You might also get a kick out of the preview for "The White Planet", Jay...starting at about 3:15, you hear the name Skunk got in the Canadian dub...