I Am 7 Again or Speed Racer Trivia To Impress Your Friends With .......
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Artist:
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Album:Saturday Cartoons
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Track:Go Speed Racer Go
The regression to my childhood will be complete on May 9th (It started on May 2nd with the release of Iron Man, and if you haven't yet seen this film do so at your earliest convenience). If you have been living under a rock for the past 4 months, I would like to tell Speed Racer will be hitting the big screen again. This time the movie will be directed by the (shudder) Wacko-wski Brothers aka 'Half a Freak Team'. While I am not all that happy about 'the Bros.' doing this film, I am glad it has finally happened. Speed Racer was already in syndication when I first saw it back in 1975 or 1976. Philadelphia's channel 29 ran the cartoon just before Star Blazers everyday in the afternoon just about the time I got off the bus. Back then most boys my age were heavily into cars and all things motorized, which in retrospect probably contributed to the popularity of Evel Knievel, Starsky and Hutch, Team America, and The Bionic Man (who is only half motorized). Also, in the mid 70's, open wheel car racing was more of a national craze than it is today. Names like Unser, Andretti (Mario not Mike), Foyt, and Ruthford were heard on a daily basis around the elementary school I had attended. Since this is a music and entertainment site I think this is a great segue to a personal music memory. In 1976 the, and I mean 'the' song to hear was 'Afternoon Delight' by the Starland Vocal Band. My mom and I along with her then boyfriend trekked the 35 miles up state to the Pocono Speedway to see the Schaefer 500. Mom's boyfriend had an in with Mario Andretti (local boy who still lives in Nazareth about 10 miles from my current location) and this 'in' got us into 'Pit Row'. I have pics of me sitting in Mario's car and me on his lap hamming it up for the camera. In the garage the song I remember being played was 'Afternoon Delight'. That year Al Unser Sr. won the race and it was the beginning of Cosworths dominance as a race winning engine. Yeah, those were good times. Anyway, back to Speed Racer. Speed Racers real name is Gō Mifune, the significance of this is three fold. Gō, is Japanese for 5. Hence the Mach 5. Originally Speed's creator Tatsuo Yoshida titled his pioneering manga "Mach GoGoGo!" This is also why you see a G on Speed's shirt. The big M on the Mach 5 and the one on his helmet car wasn't supposed to stand for 'Mach' at all. Instead it stood for Mifune Motors, which was the name of 'Pops' and 'Sparky's (aka Wilson Sparkolemew) business venture. Mifune is a reference to Toshiro Mifune who was a big name Japanese actor at the time. If you are familiar with the work of director Akira Kurosawa no doubt you know who Mifune is. The US rights for Speed Racer was picked up by Trans-Lux Entertainment shortly after the early episodes were being broadcast in Japan. It was up to Pete Fernandez to translate the original Japanese dialog and assemble a team of voice actors for the show. Many of the places you look online say it was "a monumental effort" to get the first few episodes ready for broadcast in the US. What they don't tell you is that Fernandez had less than a week to bring it all together. In that short time he gathered the experienced voice actors (from a pool of friends) and penned the theme song we all know today. Pete himself did the voice of Speed and Rex Racer or Racer X. Corinne Orr did the voices of Trixie and Spritle and Mom. Corinne's voice may sound familiar to fans of early anime; this is because she also did the voice of Marine Boy and Nova from the Star Blazers. Jack Curtis who did Pops Racer, Inspector Detector, and the ubiquitous 'Announcer' voice. He also worked with Orr on Marine Boy. Jack Grimes who voiced Sparky and Chim Chim. Jack went on to appear in shows like Maude and All In The Family. All of the actors were involved with the vocals of the theme song. Tatsuo Yoshida created Mach Go Go Go as a graphic series. This manga incorporated all of the stylistic unpinning we see in modern manga. With his 2 brothers Kenji and Toyoharu, Tatsuo started the animation company of Tatsunoko Productions. Tatsunoko meant 'seadragon' and this was the impetuous of the company's logo of the seahorse. If you watch any of the old Speed Racer episodes, you will see the logo on everything from gas trucks to restaurants. It was Tatsunoko Productions gave us other classic anime such as Battle of the Planets or 'Gatchaman' and Macross (which later became Robotech). The company is still in existence and a lot of the anime you see today owes a huge debt to this studio. Well that is all I time for. Thanks for sticking with this fanboy. Enjoy the Sponge tune.
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