For Doyce’s “Grimm Therapy” game, my kid, Jason, has a toy robot (Super-Mega-Bot-Z!) who’s also his demon. While the voice I have in mind for the robot is straight from the awful H-B cartoon Frankenstein Jr. (and, thus, was the inimitable Ted Cassidy), I also have a heavy dollop of Giant Robot in mind, from a favorite Channel 13 Saturday Afternoon Bad SF Movie regular, Voyage into Space (also known, as mentioned below, as Journey into Space or Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot).
That movie, it turns out, is a pastiche of four of the TV series (yes, there was a TV series) episodes, including the first and last. Which explains part (but only part) of its general incoherence and cheesiness. Nonetheless, I loved Giant Robot, his young master Johnny Sokko, who worked with the good super-spy organization Unicorn, fighting the evil Emperor Guillotine from the Planet Gargoyle (not to mention both the sinister deputy Spider and the various Giant Rubber Suited Monsters). Triffic bad Japanese Monster Movie stuff, complete with a heart-twanging ending. Fun.
>(yes, there was a TV series)
You didn’t know that? Many years ago (while you were still in California, I think), KDOC was running the show regularly. It was weird seeing all the “extra” material!
Oh, and I still find myself whistling the theme from the movie every now and then.
Like now.
Do you really mean to say “pastiche”? Or did you mean “fixup”, as in when you take a couple of associated short stories and make them into a novel which mostly holds together?
I have fond memories of the movie. In the NYC market, the ABC station had the 4:30 Movie, five days a week. Every now and again they’d have “Monster Week” and you’d see various Japanese cities get smashed. Other “Monster Weeks” featured various classic big monsters such as Ray Harryhausen’s stuff. They also showed the two Dr. Who movies with Peter Cushing, various George Pal flicks and more. Wonderful stuff, almost as good as “Chiller Theatre” (a Saturday night favorite when we were kids…who else remembers “The Crawling Eye”????
I don’t recall “The Crawling Eye ,” but “The Brain from the Planet Arous ” was pretty cheesily frightening.
I had known there was a series, but I thought it came after the movie — “Hey, it worked for this feature, let’s make an ongoing series from it.” I hadn’t realized it was the other way around.
i also watched johnny sokko yrs ago wish they bring it back hahahah wishful thinking i remeber the series finally back back in the 70’S it went 4hrs and showed the desruction of lord gillotine and the giant robot back then if you got caught up with it it was a tear jercer lol
Where can you buy a copy of Voyage into Space? I’ve tried Amazon and Blockbuster but have come up empty. I just e-mailed the company in Japan but don’t know if I will even get an answer. Any suggestions?
I’m pretty certain I have a copy of it I picked up from “the Internet.” I’d Google for it and see if someone is selling it.
One word: ebay.
That’s indeed not a bad word for this pursuit.