Gigantor

I saw this about twice in the UK back in the 1960s, but it disappeared from our telly schedules for some reason, they must have been pilots which were dropped.

I enjoyed it so much I never forgot about it, wondering for years what happened to "gigantor" So we in the UK never got to enjoy the series, and I searched for it, even asking my parents about it.

My 10/10 is a five year olds vote.

It looks awful to an adult, but was top stuff for a youngster, and here I am decades later wondering if I imagined it because no-one else I know who lives over here can remember it.

Without a doubt this has to be one of the best "Classic" cartoons I have ever seen. I first watched it on VHS as a kid and had long forgot about it, then one night I fell asleep with the TV on and woke up to the GIGANTOR theme song. I said to myself I must be dreaming, there is no way that this is back on TV, well sure as sh** it was, so I stayed awake to watch. The next day I went online and purchased the 2 DVD boxed sets that I saw on Bestbuy's website. Man it made me feel like a little kid again it was AWESOME!! I can definitely say that waiting to see all these great episodes will be well worth the money I spent on them. Gigantor rates right up there with other classic favorites of mine such as ThunderCats, Transformers, GI Joe, Fraggle Rock, HE-Man, and many more. If you have never seen GIGANTOR before I would say first off you are missing out big time, secondly you must a least buy or watch one episode. Only downside is that it is Black and White, However depending on how "old" you are you'll be able to appreciate it's modernness for its time.

Every time I come to IMDb, I want to crawl back into five-year-old-dom. I used to rush home from first grade to catch Gigantor at 3, followed by Kimba the White Lion at 3:30, hoping that the bus driver wouldn't be out of root beer lollipops that day. Now they show selected reruns of the original series (no, not the later, full-color "Tetsujin 28-Go" ["Iron Man No. 28"]: I can give you the kanji, too, but not with _this_ keyboard) on the Cartoon Network at 5:30AM, before reasonable people have awakened. I seem to remember that my favorite episode involved Gigantor fighting against an evil robot that could shoot lava bursts out of a slot above his forehead. Naturally, the robot was gigantic and could fly, etc. (They're everyday phenomena, no?) I always thought something was fishy about Jimmy Sparks's voice--only later to learn that it was a female--but, then again, Debi Derryberry does a fine, thoroughly convincing job as both Jimmy Neutron and Zatch Bell, so I can scarcely complain.

Who wouldn't want a remote control towering machine that's as big as a skyscraper, flies, fights and can do anything you want? I recall his cartoon being played on Sci-fi weekday mornings after Robotech. It was originally a black & white comic called Tetsujin 28 or Iron Man 28 turned cartoon series "Tetsujin 28-Go", the animation similar to Astroyboy. Eventually it became "Gigantor" a few years later. The plot consists of a young boy, Jimmy Sparks controlling the huge robot Gigantor. Dr. Brilliant created the robot, and acts as a mentor for Jimmy. They also team up with the police chief and take Gigantor on crime-fighting adventures. Jimmy operates the robot from a little lunchbox type carrying case.

I never really liked the show that much, some of the robot vs. robot battles were cool. At one point another robotics professor tries to build a robot as good as Gigantor and they fight, hoping that his model will take it's place. I forget why the let the boy control the robot, probably because he was less likely to want to use it for evil purposes, maybe. The theme song is also really annoying, it's just guys chanting "Gigantor" a whole bunch of times followed by some cheezy rhymes.

Actually the theme song for Gigantor had no rhymes in it at all. There was the chorus: "Gigantor" (2x)

followed by: "Gigantor the space age robot, he's in your control, Gigantor the space age robot his power is in your hands"

followed by the chorus again.

I don't recall any other verses but what do you expect from such an early import. The transition from Japan to here of this cartoon was equal to other early imports like Kimba, though perhaps less refined than Speed Racer. As to plot I have no recollection only a warm hint of a memory. But this was not from SciFi airings but from the original run on television.