Better Than Coffee: A Kaiju Quest
There’s just something about golden era Kaiju that sends me, I’m not sure why. Other girls may swoon over a kitten in a teacup, or a ginchy pair of boots, but for me, happiness is a wonky rubber suit monster that goes “RAWR” and breathes fire.
RStevens showed me a random image last week that made my innards all floopy:
“Family reunions were always tense after cousin Toshiro married an illegal alien.” (Via Neatorama.)
He had no idea where it came from, and neither did I. Oddly compelling, innit? Without context, it looks like an old snapshot of an intergalactic exchange student taken for Mom & Pop Kaijin back home. Our friend Ariana used her formidable web-sleuthing abilities to try to track down its origins. This was as far as she got. But I had to know more… MORE… MOOAARR! I sent out a mass email to all of my most knowledgeable, righteously nerdy friends, imploring them to share any info they might have concerning this mysterious beast. Within 24 hours, Gooby had an answer, bless him:
I emailed my friend August Ragone, author of the Eiji Tsuburaya biography [Master of Monsters: Defending the Earth with Ultraman and Godzilla], figuring he’d know, and he nailed it without even pausing. It’s a monster called Ghostler, from Episode 13 of Toei’s 1967 TV series, Captain Ultra.
Mystery solved! Captain Ultra was a short-lived, much-loved tokusatsu program that aired on the Tokyo Broadcasting System in 1967. It’s an invigorating world of primary-colors, rubber suit monsters, brave jetpack-wearing/raygun-wielding heroes, scrappy robots and beautiful space cadets. YouTube user Tokusatsugod26 has uploaded scores of clips from the show to his channel for our enjoyment. Click on Ghostler’s face to get there:
September 21st, 2009 at 3:55 am
Cool…I thought I was the only Toku/Kaiju nerd on the premises.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:45 pm
KAIJU! You may also want to check out the Kaiju Cafe, here in Portland, OR. Pretty nifty.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I trust that some of you know of may know of the glory of STARFISH HITLER, but for the uninitiated…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3SzmfZ6F24
( Uploaded by ZombieToaster )
September 21st, 2009 at 9:57 pm
oh my! bulbous theremin demons! from space!
September 21st, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I owe all of Japan a drink for this.
On behalf of the west, thank you for perfecting television.
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:52 am
“Innit”? Meredith – in your short NZ sojourn, you’ve already mastered Anglo-English !