Voltron: Lion Force

Hello everybody, this is TFG1Mike with the GeekCast

Radio Network I just wanted to preface Tooncast

episode 4 by saying I'm very very sorry about

the audio quality in this episode It's not as

bad as our original take on episode 2 but uh...

it's we're still working on kinks not really

sure what's going on uh... i was hoping by now

we would have them worked out uh... not next

time we're gonna have to figure out a different

system so up next is tuned cast episode four

voltron lion force please enjoy from days of

long ago From uncharted regions of the universe,

comes a legend. The legend of Voltron, defender

of the universe. A mighty robot, loved by good,

feared by evil. As Voltron's legend grew, peace

settled across the galaxy. On planet Earth, a

galaxy alliance was formed. Together with the

good planets of the solar system, they maintained

peace throughout the universe. Until a new horrible

menace threatened the galaxy. Voltron was needed

once more. This is the story of the super force

of Space Explorers. and sent by the Alliance

to bring back Voltron, Defender of the Universe.

Hello and welcome to the fourth episode of Tooncast.

Brought to you by the GeekCast Radio Network.

I am your host, TFJ and Mike, and today I am

joined by Kevin, Professor BossKDog, and Dion.

Hey guys. Hey. It's going I didn't wake up with

any loose chunks of teeth in my mouth this week

Yes very much so I actually got rid of my Skype

stalkers I blocked them don't have to deal with

that anymore Barely anybody knows what my aim

screen name is but anyway So what's been going

on with you guys this week um I actually have

a couple things that are going on besides waking

up without a voice couple days um I had Purchased

my purchase of the year, which I was talking

to you about earlier Did the pre -order for both

the Transformers and the G .I. Joe Complete Series

sets, so I'm not buying anything else this summer,

obviously. And then on a couple other notes,

in the process of, I don't know if you ever were

at TFW 2005 when we did that tournament a couple

months ago, but we're in the process of starting

a second Transformers tournament over on TFW

2005, so that'll be fun. I usually run all that

myself. we vote on different characters and kind

of uh... march madness type nc double a bracket

tournament going uh... so in the process of running

our second one over there should start here with

before the end of june and also another kind

of note go along with our uh... cartoons in our

voice actor segments i'd just became an administrator

over at uh... behind the voice actors dot com

the uh... voice compare part So I actually get

to go in and have a lot more flexibility in creating

some voice compares. What it is is basically

it takes different. Characters for example, let's

just throw one out Megatron Megatron Michelangelo

from Teenage Mutant Turtles Just pick a character

and what it does is it takes the different people

that have done their voices in different shows

or different video games or movies or whatever

Puts it all on one page and it has the sound

clips already up there So you can just hit play

and compare the different people that have done

characters voices So that's kind of cool. So

I'll be getting into that a little bit more here

in the next month Yes, and you got a shock among

shocks the other day, didn't you? Which one which

one are you talking about there when a stranger

started texting you? Got a text from you, and

I was like who is it? I was trying to get a hold

of me since I was kind of Yeah, I was like wait.

He said he was supposed to have that script to

me Tuesday. It's fucking Friday What the hell

is up with this shit? For most of the week Waking

up waking up with no voice whatsoever, and then

I put off everything that I should have been

doing all week until Basically Friday night,

so I was in a cave Friday and Saturday getting

the work done for my online classes and other

stuff But I'm back. I'm in the with the living

and I'm ready to go. Yes What's going on you

down? This week? I tried to at least the last

couple days here I've been doing um tried to

fix my girlfriend's computer. Unfortunately Did

not work her machine will boot into Linux, but

it will not boot into Windows whatsoever It tries

but it will reset itself. So we basically need

to format that damn thing. On a broadcasting

radio show called Dion's Digital Diddies on another

network. It's not a podcast of course. It's just

me playing music and doing some interesting stuff

like that on JJRN .net. Yes, I'm going to just

throw that out there because I can. Everybody

go visit that website. Please go make a donation

if you can because that station really need people's

donations I mean, I know that sounds like I'm

begging but I'm really not it actually, you know,

we do this we do this stuff for you guys and

Remember, you know without you guys and I've

said this on the air because I've done a show

actually I did a test show I did three test shows

and one of the test shows I did Because I use

I use station playlist creator, but one of the

test shows I did the um the fucking salmon coders

ran out of time you only get like three hours

on the demo and i ran i went over the three hours

i went for and i had to register them so i had

to do that but um uh let's see friday night was

my first launch show and um whatnot so that was

fun i might do one i don't know i might do one

again but you know let's see that that's pretty

much it i don't know Really, what else? You know,

I went to get a new Hewlett Packard keyboard

because my wireless keyboard finally bit the

dust after about three years of operation. And

yeah, so now my son plays with it and likes to

step on it. So that's fine by me, you know, it

doesn't work anyway. And it's funny because I

thought, well, you know, maybe it was the batteries

and, you know, you do the obvious things, check

the batteries, make sure they're not dead. you

try new batteries and if it's you know the you

don't think okay it's because your first your

first thinking of observation is alright the

batteries are dead the keyboard is not responding

so it's the batteries so I put in new batteries

it still didn't work so I was like I looked at

my son I'm like here you can have this and he

just likes to sit down and play with it so yeah

that's that's been my Exciting adventure for

the week, and I'm sure it will repeat this week.

Yes. You said you're trying to fix her computer.

I was going to say there's one way to fix it.

Do the three stitches method. Take a hammer and

go whack. Yeah. Anesthetic? No. Unfortunately,

since this is her only machine, we really don't

know what the hell happened because we went and

switched keyboards, and we think that something

in Windows got really, really corrupted because.

It will let her go into Linux, but we cannot

get into Windows either way. We can't get into

Windows normally, and we can't get into Windows

through the safe mode. It's like, all righty.

That sucks. I've been seeing a lot of stuff from

Kevin from TFW on Twitter about how bad the movie

forum is getting. Oh, I haven't been there in

a long time. Oh, really? Well, I mean the movie

form. The only places I've been going lately

is the GD. I used to go to the toy one a lot.

I try to stay away from the movie one because

it's usually asking for trouble. Yeah. I've heard

that that's... Yeah. That is definitely something

that we'll be able to mention next week. If you're

going to ask me next Sunday what I did this week,

obviously... Oh, yeah. ...transformers would

be one of those. Yeah. Hopefully if... The person

that bought my sound wave actually pays me on

eBay. I'll go see it this week as well. So, huh,

what? Hear what I said? No. I said if not, you'll

be turning them in very quickly. Well, yeah,

that too. But then it'll, you know, I don't know,

whatever. Or I'll just turn them in and then

relist it. Go back and turn around and relist

it and sell it to somebody else. Yep. crap so

today we're going to be talking about and yes

before anybody asks that was Peter Cohen somebody

asked me another transformers man asked me I

tested that with him and he goes was that Peter

Cohen like yeah so I think before I start choking

I'm gonna pass it over to Kevin for the history

lesson. Alright, hello fellow Voltron fans, this

is Professor Boss K -Dog and it is indeed time

for another history lesson. For episode four,

we go way back to 1984, which is actually the

furthest we've gone back so far in Tooncast.

Voltron debuted in syndication in the United

States in September of 84. It lasted for two

seasons of 52 episodes apiece. And it was later

revamped under new name, The New Adventures of

Voltron, which would give us an additional 20

episodes, bringing our episode total to 124.

For those of you unfamiliar with Voltron, let

me give you the roughest brief. premise of a

nutshell here. The time is the 21st century.

The place is planet Eris, where a giant samurai

robot has been transformed by a space witch into

five individual robots, each in the shape of

a lion. While the evil King Zarkon has plans

to take over the planet and rule the entire universe,

the only thing that stands in his way is a five

person space explorers team who has traveled

to the castle of lions to reassemble Voltron,

which is known as the greatest robot ever. defend

the planet and defeat Zarkon once and for all.

To get more into the details, let's move on to

the rest of the episode. This has been the Professor

and as always, class is dismissed. Yes, we're

going to move on to the general memories recollections.

This was a show, I don't know if I started watching

this or Transformers first. I have equal amounts

of phangasms for both. Just because they are

very similar But you know obviously transformers

there was more of them I'm we're gonna get to

this later, but Power Rangers ripped off Voltron.

I'm just gonna get that out of the way now. They

did I Will discuss that later on because I do

have a couple of clips Let's think the coolest

part about this show after watching it all week

this week. I think my favorite episodes were

the beginning like five or six of the first season.

When we find out who the space explorers are,

they go to Eris. They find, you know, the castle

lions and just total shambles. It's, you know,

the damn things ready to fall over. And then

they find Voltron, they form it, and it was just

really, really cool. I don't remember much else

about the show. There are some continuing storylines,

but then there are some one -shots. But just

hearing the theme and hearing the formation and

just seeing It was just really cool. I mean,

I really don't know what else to say about it

It was just like one of those super cool shows

as a kid and it's like hell. Yeah So that's all

I've got Voltron for me I got to admit it was

kind of like an anomaly for me because I know

I was outside a lot I know I played games with

my friends and stuff and was out around the neighborhood

It seems like every cartoon show that was on

in the 80s. I somehow watched all of it and remember

most of it except for Voltron. I don't know why,

but it's just one of those ones that didn't stick

around with me. If you would have asked me before

this week to describe anything about Voltron,

the only thing I could have done was told you

what Voltron looked like and what Zarkon looked

like. And that would have been it. I wouldn't

have been able to name any of the other characters.

I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything

else about it. I wouldn't have even probably

been able to tell you how many parts made Voltron,

just because it wasn't one of those that it just

stuck with me when I was a kid. But... Looking

back at it this week It's not bad It's not bad

and it actually isn't too bad this much, you

know more into the future I was actually watching

episodes one after the other without having any

type of boredom issues or frustration issues

or anything So, you know, I don't have fun childhood

memories of it, but it was what it was and that

was one of the best shows for for boys out there

at that 1984 time period. Basically, you had

four choices if you were a guy in 1984 of that

age group and you either had your two robot shows,

The Transformers or Voltron, or you had your

two fantasy Dungeons and Dragons and He -Man.

Other than that, you didn't have many other choices

unless you were still watching Smurfs from a

couple years ago. Or My Little Pony. Yeah, but

most of us had moved on and we needed something

a little bit more. older than that. So you had

your fantasy and your robot choices and this

was one of the best out there. Yep. How about

you, Dion? Probably Voltron for me. I gotta say,

I mean, yeah, we spoke about Peter Cullen, but

yeah, that was actually, when I first heard his

voice, I was like, you know, at that age, I was

thinking to myself, yeah, the voice of Carr!

Because, you know, obviously he had done Carr

in Knight Rider and he was also in Transformers

as Optimus Prime. And You know, then Voltron.

I think he did a lot of animation stuff Peter

Cullen did from Japan, if I'm not mistaken. But

there was more to it than that. I agree with

Kevin. There weren't any boredom issues with

the show. There were a lot of exciting chapters

to the storylines. Some of my friends think that

The show was a bit boring for them. They didn't

really like the way that the plots were, but

I did. It kept a lot of twists and turns. There

were a lot of... Just things that were not invented

or you know thought of in cartoons back then

so it was just Amazing to see here's this cartoon

show that deals with space and exploration if

you think about it in a sense It's almost kind

of like a miniature Star Trek in a way, but not

quite. Oh, but they make plenty of references

Yeah, I think my I mean just as general what

I can remember most is Not only the formation

of how the five lines came together, but when

they form the sword that was just so fucking

cool Yeah, yeah, so I think now we're gonna move

on to the characters and voice actors As I said

a second ago, I don't know if I said it on or

off air, I didn't even know Trist McNeil was

in this because in the original, I think three

or four of the sets of the DVD sets, it only

lists six actors. It lists Jack Angel, Michael

Bell, Peter Cullen, Neil Ross, BJ Ward, and Lenny

Weinrib. And they play everybody. Neil Ross and

Michael Bell would sometimes play little girls.

I mean, they had these guys doing every voice

on the show. And that's all you see in the end

credits is six actors listed. You don't see anybody

else. It's not a huge list like Transformers

had like, you know, thousands and thousands of

people voicing, you know, different robots. Jack

Angel, who... Yep. Well, minus Tress McNeil she

did the voice of Merla but Merla didn't come

in until later on Yep, you only had six people

doing the entire show Jack Angel who I actually

know most from Transformers who he mainly played

astrotrain I don't remember the other voices

he did but I know he did astrotrain He did Ramjet,

Smokescreen, and Ultra Magnus at times. In this

he played King's Archon and Cossack the Terrible.

Michael Bell who did Prowl and I'm sure a whole

bunch of other voices in Transformer played Lance

and Sven. And Lance and Prowl have the exact

same voice. And you can almost throw in Duke

from G .I. Joe. It's almost the same voice. Peter

Cullen who you know along with Which I'm actually

surprised Frank Welker isn't wasn't in this but

anyway Peter Cullen Peter Cullen along with Welker

Yeah, he played King Al for played commander

Hawkins Koran, and he played the narrator And

then you know we've already mentioned Tris, but

Neil Ross played commander Keith Jeff Pidge and

Chip Chip is actually Pidge's brother from the

vehicle Voltron, which we will not be talking

about. Worst fucking show ever. oh my god yes

uh... bj ward played a lora nanny and hagar and

then lennie uh... winery played hunk and low

tour uh... what uh... lennie winery died uh...

three years ago in two thousand six so uh...

pretty much majority of the dvd sets on all the

special features it has and you know loving memory

of uh... of lennie uh... as far as the characters

uh... it's listed in the credits like each special

feature after it's done it has like you know

who produced it who has you know who did the

dvd stuff whatever else at the bottom of each

one it has in loving memory of lenny wine rib

yeah um before you before you want to characters

just real quick since uh i always like to do

my little connection um we had if you take actually

the six main actors or actresses, voice actors,

and throw in Trace McNeil actually even, the

seven of them were all in Smurfs together. So

all seven of them appeared in Smurfs, and if

you take a couple out, if you take Trace McNeil

out and if you take Lenny out, the rest of them

all appear together in Pirates of the Dark Waters

and G .I. Joe, and then you had four of the guys

obviously on Transformers. So this group got

uh... had to know each other very well i mean

it's a sound like a paycheck account their bank

accounts did not hurt no and they did so much

stuff together that they probably worked really

well together which is probably helping the fact

that you know there's only six of them in the

show but a couple things about the only having

the six of them in the show number one it's a

testament that they could all pull off the you

know the tons of different characters that were

needed in the show just between the six of them

but as good as that was i think it led to a couple

bad voice acting jobs by a couple of them I love

Michael Bell, and I love, even though he sounds

very similar in a lot of his voices, I love his

voice as a cartoon character, but Sven, the voice

acting for Sven was god awful. Like, when watching

the show there was two or three characters that

I just couldn't stand the takes on them and it

was Sven, Pidge, and actually King Zarkon. Those

three voices I thought were just not, I don't

know if it was because they were overtaxed doing

so many other characters, but it seemed like

that wasn't their best effort for those three

characters. Probably because you're doing so

many voices for so many characters, you know,

you have to... get into the voice for one, then

you have to do a track for another voice, and

then a third track for another voice, you know,

and it just goes back and forth between those,

you know, that actor. So it could just be that

it was just overtaxed. It could be that... I

think that had to be. Very much so because...

It could just be overtaxed. Oh yeah, very much

so because with, um, when I was watching on,

I think it... I think it's collection four. I

actually have the booklets here so I can go through

the special features when we get to the DVDs,

but... I believe it's collection four red lion

that there is a Yes, there's an interview with

the voice actors and Michael Bell and Neil Ross

both said in the interview that they when BJ

ward or they couldn't find somebody else they

would have them doing Female little girl old

lady voices. So it's a testament to these two

people to Michael Bell and to Neil Ross that

they could even pull that off And most guys cannot

do that in those types of rooms. No. Zarkon with

Jack Angel, he was, for me, since I've watched

it all week this week, all I kept thinking is,

OK, when is he going to transform into Astro

Train? That's all I kept thinking because it's

nearly the exact same voice as Astro Train. No,

it's not as well. It's not as robotic because

I'm sure on astro train They put him under some

sort of not bow coder, but something Yeah, but

what I'm saying is it's not as you know, I've

heard astro train and it it's not I mean Astro

train and and Zarkon are gravelly but I think

with with Zarkon's voice. It's not as Because

you can tell it it sounds kind of old. Yeah in

that in that voice whereas Asher Jane obviously

sounds younger yeah so you know it just seemed

to me that like I don't know maybe the I don't

know who the voice director was for this show

but it just seemed like they didn't look at the

actual animation of the character and then listen

to the voice and make sure it fit because they

didn't like yeah I mean with Pidge that voice

didn't even fit that character at all I thought

it did but I don't think I did. I don't think

that one or Sven. I didn't think it was the actual

look of the character. I don't like Sven anywhere.

If they had like eight actors, if they had somebody

else doing Sven or Pidge, I think it would have

worked. But I mean, then again, you have to think

of this is 1984. There aren't a lot of, I mean,

animation was just, I mean. Frank Welker. Well,

yeah, but I mean, OK, shut up. But I'm just saying.

In general, this type of animation, this type

of show, was just starting out. I mean, you know,

technically this isn't an anime show, and even

though I said this wouldn't, you know, Tunecast

would not cover anime, even though basically

Voltron and Thundercats kind of are, you know,

they're childhood shows that I remember the most,

that I loved, and I do not see these... You know,

we're doing Voltron this week, we're doing Thundercats

next week. I do not see, though, these two shows

as anime. I just don't. No, I don't either. You

don't really look at them as anime, even though

they're probably from Japan. Well, Voltron, we'll

get into this later, Voltron came from Go Lion,

but we'll get into that later. Well, my point,

though, is that you don't see, you don't look

at these as anime. You just look at them as,

okay, these are cartoons. Yeah. Just a couple

last things about voice actors from my end. Michael

Bell, I don't know if you guys have seen these

commercials or not. I don't know if they're shown

everywhere or not, but the Zales Diamond Store,

he does all of the voice acting for the Zales

Diamond commercials from the announcer guy. Oh,

yeah. And Lenny, who I think, I think he was

probably one of the best voice actors in this

show, actually, and definitely the most experienced

one. I didn't realize this until just this week,

but the show HR Puffin Stuff. He actually wrote

that entire show. And he did all the voices,

didn't he? Yeah. Wrote them all and did all the

voices. So I thought that's something to note

about. Which I thought was a hell of a job to

do. Yeah. And for the record, that's got to be

some tiring work. For the record, Mike, you mentioned

Peter Cullen first this episode. I don't care.

Doesn't matter. At least I know he's still alive

and still working, unlike some people. That's

true. Yeah, he's doing voiceover work for Cartoon

Network now. A lot of them are doing video games

lately. If you look at Jack Angel and Neil Ross,

they haven't done many shows lately, but they

are all over the video game map. Oh, very much

so. And this is our first... You smug son of

a... Just for the record, that was... Exactly.

When I watch the voice actors thing, and I mean,

I'll get to this more in the DVD features. When

I saw Neil Ross, I'm like, holy crap, that was

the voice of Keith? Because in the special feature,

he sounds nothing like Keith. I mean, he did

do the pitch thing a little bit, but he sounded

nothing like Keith. So yeah, I think we're going

to go on to the characters. I tried to cut this

down as much as I could, but there are a lot

of characters that need talking about. We're

not going to go through all of the... all of

the actual character bios, but we'll go through

the five main ones and then we'll go through

some of the supporting characters for each heroes

and villains. Planet Eris was the planet that

the space explorers Keith, Lance, Pidge, Sven,

and Hunk landed on when they crash landed after

escaping from Planet Doom, which is Zarkon's

planet. Was supposed to write this down, but

I completely forgot there is something that Eris

was originally called in the pilot I think it

was planet no not not Naboo like is in Star Wars,

but it was like planet NIM I I think it was planet

NIM and then And yeah, I don't know so the first

one up we have Captain Keith commander in leader

of the Voltron force If you want to it doesn't

really matter Commander and leader of the Voltron

force who pilots the Black Lion that forms the

bulk of Voltron. Keith wears a red uniform in

the original series and a black uniform in Voltron

the third dimension. Keith is quite individual

who spends much of his time pondering his decisions,

thinking up new strategies, and simply being

a leader. He also has a hobby of reading books.

He can often be found doing so either in the

pilot's lounge or in his room. He seemingly cherishes

Princess Elora and is thought to be somewhat

protective of her. His worst fear, according

to Voltron, the third dimension was that she

would be forced to marry the evil Prince Lotor.

Keith was played by Neil Ross. I liked Keith.

I thought he was a really, really cool character.

He was very outstanding. Well, no, not really.

In some episodes... In some he was, but for the

majority he wasn't. No, not for the majority

but something. Oh, yeah. Yeah Especially when

he was going up against low tour the two of them.

Yeah, obviously since they're both fighting for

Laura's affection Yeah, they're yeah So Lance

second in command of Voltron who pilots the red

lion that forms the right arm of Voltron Lance

wears a blue uniform in the original series and

a metallic red uniform in Voltron the third dimension

He's a tall man both wiry and wily Lance is always

cracking jokes and teasing others whenever he

gets the chance He is the only one in the group

who contests any of Keith's commands He is ladies

man and a great pilot though reckless at times

Lance was voiced by Michael Bell As we said before

Lance and prowl basically have the same voice

I do You just can't escape. You can't escape.

Yeah, and it's funny when I was watching the

voice actors thing Michael Bell's just his normal

voice is that voice. It's I mean, I don't think

he changed it that much for Lance. I don't think

he No, I think he's one of those guys that just

has a natural perfect voice for characters like

this and so when he goes to do them I don't think

he changes them that much. I mean I think you

could listen to Lance and then Prowl and then

Duke speak one after the other and I don't know

if they're... Yeah, I'm not sure. Pidge is the

youngest and smallest of the group. He pilots

the Green Lion that forms the left arm of Voltron

and wears a green uniform. His home planet, Balto,

was destroyed by nuclear missiles from King's

Archon. Pidge graduated from the academy at a

young age and his specialty is science. Like

the others, he is well trained in martial arts

and uses his size and agility to his advantage.

Pidge is not afraid to speak his mind, especially

to the villains. He is as hard as often in his

words. Pidge has a twin brother, Chip, who is

a member of the vehicle Voltron Air Team. Pidge

was voiced by Neil Ross. In Voltron The Third

Dimension, Pidge was voiced by Billy West. Note,

Pidge is the only member of the Voltron Force

whose uniform did not get a color change in Voltron

the Third Dimension. He is also the only member

of the Voltron Force whose original uniform color

was actually the same color as his lion. We will

talk about this in detail a little bit later

when we get to the actual lions. I'll let you

read, Sven, Kevin, since you like so much. Me

too! So, Sven supposedly is a Norwegian pilot,

although you wouldn't know that by his voice.

He was the original second in command. He piloted

the Blue Lion and wore a black uniform at the

very beginning of the series. In episode 6, he

is badly injured during an attack by Hagar and

was sent away to the planet Ebb to be healed.

He was killed in the Japanese version with his

younger brother appearing later in the series.

However, since this is America, he couldn't have

been killed, so Ev was attacked and raided by

Loader's forces and Sven was captured. The prison

ship on which he was transferred accidentally

crashed on Planet Doom. where Sven went into

hiding, becoming a hermit within the caves. He

eventually encountered Allura's cousin from the

planet Pollux, Princess Rommel, who had been

sent to the slave mines after she rejected Lodor's

advances. Lodor is a ladies' man. During Sven's

time on planet Doom, he witnessed Zarkon and

Lodor's cruelty to their slaves, which drove

him to the point of madness he recovered thanks

to Rommel's emotional support and helped her

escape Doom. Sven was later reassigned to the

planet Pollux with Rommel and her brother, Prince

Bandor. Sven eventually fell in love with Ramel,

though he was reluctant to pursue his feelings

because he felt he was unworthy of her love.

Sven was always very quiet and reserved and spoke,

thank God, only when he had something important

to say. Though he may not show it, he's a very

emotional person and his heart is always leading

his mind in any decision. Sven was voiced by

Michael Bell. Unfortunately, Sven does not appear

in, nor is he mentioned in Voltron the Third

Dimension. Although Sven no longer pilots the

Blue Lion on a regular basis after episode 6,

he continues to be featured as a pilot for the

Voltron force in the opening credits of the series.

Sven does pilot the Blue Lion into combat alongside

his colleagues on one more occasion, however,

during the second season episode, Who's Flying

Blue Lion? Yeah, just to stay on Sven for a little

bit, I never realized he was still in... the

title sequence. I thought at some point they

replaced him with Elora's pink uniform with her,

and it pissed me off that after he got quote

unquote hurt, you know, they replaced him. But

yeah, I can't stand Sven. I wish they almost

would have let him fucking die, bastard. That

would have been much better. Maybe I would have

remembered the show more. Yeah, you know, you

know, they would have to air that episode like

at night when children Yeah, yeah All right on

Good what? I said it. Oh, yeah. Did you find

the title yet or no? No, I can't well, I don't

know. I don't remember what do I think doom was

like Castle Blackstone or something? I don't

know. It doesn't really matter in a connection

to Billy West by the way cuz Kevin loves doing

these he voiced Bender in Futurama Okay. Alright,

Princess Allura of the planet Eris is the ruler

of the kingdom of Altair. As well... Okay, hold

on. What was the original name of the planet

that you forgot to write down? Well, I know Eris,

the original name was Nym. I don't remember what

the original name for planet Doom was. Okay,

let me go see if I can find it. Let me go see

if I can find it real quick. So Prince Alora

is the ruler of the kingdom of Altair and as

well as a de facto ruler of the entire planet

is also the subject of Lotor's affections. Daughter

to the late King Alfor, Alora inherited her father's

authority on his death and is commander -in -chief

and head of state for the planet Eris and thus

commander Keith's superior. However, later she

takes over for Sven and the pilot of the Blue

Lion that forms Voltron's right leg. and defers

to Keith during operational engagements. Allura

wears a pink uniform in the original series and

a metallic blue uniform in Voltron 3rd Dimension.

Though a bit naive, especially with matters of

romance, Allura is a strong -willed person and

is very capable of ruling her planet. Though

some like Koran and Nani tend to doubt this ability,

she is capable of invoking the dead... A dead?

What? Dead for your father? Okay, yeah. Yeah,

okay. She's a summoner of souls. I guess anyway

The late king alpha in the third dimension a

Laura later learned special mind skills that

could allow the Voltron force to control the

lines Without having to be in the cockpits Also

helps the others learn it as well. Laura's voice

was played by BG Ward. She also has feelings

for Keith Saying that she's a bit naive this

yeah very much so I mean, how many times can

the girl be tricked into thinking something?

Oh, I know ain't that the truth Well, at least

you had the balls to stick up the load and defend

herself against low tour Yeah, and I thought

I'd throw this in here real quick cuz I'm on

yeah here right now the first season Was based

on the 1981 series? Yes, we have that already.

We just need that. Yeah, we know we've got that

in the notes later on I didn't know if you had

that or not, so okay. Going with Princess Allura

though, I will give the animators and the drawers

credit. They did make her look pretty good for

that time period. I mean, compared to some of

the female characters on He -Man or some of the

other shows that were out there, Princess Allura

was probably the best looking one out of the

bunch. You want to rate Hunk since you like him

the best? Yeah, Hunk. Hunk is a strong man of

the group, piloting the yellow line that forms

Voltron's left leg. He's shown wearing an orange

uniform in the original series and a metallic

yellow uniform in Voltron the third dimension.

He may look tough and mean, but has a soft heart,

especially when it comes to children and puppies.

He is never late for a meal, obviously. His friends

tease him about his appetite. Most of Hunk's

bulk, though, is muscle. It is revealed that

he eats Froot Loops almost every morning. Hunk

was voiced by Lenny, like we said before. Third

dimension is voice by Kevin Michael Richard.

Yes. Um, I'm not really gonna go too much into

the space mice They were really kind of funny

side characters for for Pidge to kind of play

around with I'm just gonna list their names they

would eventually pilot the The mouse plane which

is kind of like a mini Voltron kind of like a

support for the Voltron force You have chitter

chitter cheeser cheesy pip squeak mousy Prince,

Toadie, Inky, and Sookie. Okay, which half of

those are cheese names. Anyway, I thought it

was really funny. It added a good sense of comedic

thing for Voltron to have these guys in there.

No, I didn't mind the mice at all. They were

looking for a comic relief type character I would

much rather have the mice than some things that

we'll get to in some of the shows in the future

like Yeah, yeah snarfer Oh God Yeah Snarfer and

then I know snarf and then little snarfer or

whatever his nephew was called Yeah Definitely

more annoying than the rest. Prince Bandor is

the co -ruler of Planet Pollux, which is Aris's

sister planet, along with his sister Princess

Rommel. Rommel is Allura's cousin who lives on

the planet Pollux, where she co -rules with her

brother, Prince Bandor, like I just said. She's

a dead runner for Princess Allura in terms of

physical appearance. Rommel was once a slave

of Lothor, and Sven came to her rescue, and they

eventually ended up living happily ever after.

uh... yeah that's pretty much all there is to

say about ronal she really has no no character

in depth that much uh... karan is a loris royal

advisor and is in charge of the castle control

he also advises the voltron force and is very

wise though he can be very overprotective and

opinionated at times he is the uh... commander

of the castle of lions crew once the castle became

a battle worthy and especially once it transforms

into the Mecha Fortress in Voltron the Third

Dimension. Koran remains the same as before,

but is now more affiliated with the Galaxy Alliance

than before. His biggest role in the series was

when the Voltron Force was on trial. For treason,

he spoke for them in their defense, which resulted

in the Alliance finding the Voltron Force not

guilty. Koran is voiced by Peter Cullen. Woo

-hoo! In Voltron the Third Dimension, Koran was

voiced by Michael Bell. Oh, come on! As much

as I like Michael Bell, what the fuck? I can't

even read this next one, you're gonna have to

do it, because I hate that bitch so much. That's

fine, it's no big deal. Nanny is Allura's overprotective

caregiver who always wants to make all of Allura's

decisions for her. Like Cran, Nanny fusses over

the princess and is bent on keeping her away

from all harm. She dies near the final of Go

Lion, shot to death by Garrett while protecting

Cran. But of course, that scene was cut from

the US version. Damn them. I will say it was

always interesting. I wouldn't have thought so

as a kid, but looking back at it now, when there

was a scene that had Hagar and Nanny and Allura

all in the same scene. Yeah, BJ played all three.

Yeah, so that's kind of interesting to watch

the last couple days, but I wish I would have

got to see her die and spend die. This show would

have been so awesome. It's not really, okay,

I can get past the fact that she's overprotective

of Allura, but it's just the way that she expresses

herself. This, you know, higher upper crust wench

that doesn't respect the Voltron force for what

they are. You know, um, I just, yeah, she sure

died in this series. I guess I'll let you do

Alphor since I've been reading the majority.

King Alphor is obviously Allura's deceased father

and the previous ruler of the planet Eris. Years

ago, King Alphor went forth to battle against

King Zarkon. and his forces in the valley of

Zohar on planet Eris. He was tragically killed

on that day. His body was placed in a royal tomb

located directly beneath the castle. Nowadays,

he returns to the world of the living in a ghostly

form to give advice to his daughter and help

her in her struggles to maintain peace on Eris

and the surrounding galaxy. King Alphor is credited

with being the designer of Voltron in the American

version, not in the Japanese version. In the

third dimension, it was Alphor's rejection of

Witch Hager that embedded her to evil. She later

got her revenge on him by capturing a spirit

with magic and implanting it within a Robes,

preventing the Voltron force from attacking it.

He was eventually released with the help of Allura

and the voice of Queen Ariella. Alford is voiced

by Peter Cullen and in the third dimension is

voiced by Tim Kerr. Yeah, Voltron the third dimension.

I just want to take this and we'll talk about

it here in a minute, but after the... we'll talk

about once we get to the DVD stuff. Voltron the

third dimension was their way of trying to update

it and they put it in 3d animation and No, it

did not not at all I've seen clips. I've seen

clips on you. Yeah, no no and then again the

YouTube quality doesn't quality doesn't help

either but Good I was just gonna say didn't work

it just It wasn't, you know, I don't think they

really should have done it in a 3D time. I mean,

I understand what they were trying to go for,

but they just failed miserably. Yes, they did.

And we really can't talk about this show without

talking about the lions themselves. The lions

were just as much a character as the actual actors.

Black Lion piloted by Keith. It was also piloted

by Allura in one episode. Unlike the other lions,

the Black Lion did not have a closed hanger.

throughout the series. It was assumed that the

black lion hangar was located on the large tower

fronting the castle which was previously occupied

by a winged lion statue which hit it. When the

black lion was first activated the statue crumbled

apart to reveal it and the black lion folded

its seldom used wings. The red lion piloted by

Lance Allura In one episode, since Lance was

using Blue Lion to find the cure for the deadly

flowers, the Red Lion's hangar was located inside

a volcano near the castle. Green Lion was piloted

by Pidge, piloted by Keith in its first launch

before the Black Lion was recovered. The Green

Lion's hangar was located in the forest near

the castle. Blue Lion piloted by Sven up to episode

6, and thereafter. And thereafter, by Princess

Allura, although Sven would return to pop - bleh,

would return to pop the blue lion on one more

occasion in the second season episode of Who's

Flying the Lion. Piloted in one episode each

by Keith, Koran, and Nanny together in a replacement

pilot who turned out to be an agent of Zarkon.

Piloted once by Lance when he went off to the

distant planet to find the cure by which to heal

the princess. Lance piloted the blue lion because

the planet had special magnetic - field that

only the blue line could overcome the blue lions

hangar was located underneath the most sort of

that's around the castle yellow lion piloted

by hunk of the yellow line hangar was inside

a cave located in desert near the castle uh...

it should be noted on the lions that in a later

episode in the first season they are all from

the five elements of the earth you have uh...

uh... yellow was uh... the earth Red was fire,

blue was water, black was air or lightning or

sky or whatever, and then the green lion was

supposed to be life. Green lion was in the forest

and he was supposed to signify life. So I thought

that was a really good thing that they did with

that, you know, I guess kind of bringing Mother

Nature in. A rip -off of Captain Planet, dammit!

except for captain planet doesn't exist yeah

exactly what the fuck no but it just what i'm

saying is that captain planet kind of took from

this oh okay i'm not saying that it was a i'm

not saying that it existed i was saying that

they they took from voltron because it was kind

of you know you know five kids with rings and

they could form this hero yeah we'll talk about

comparisons a little bit later because there's

one other major one um the cast and why the hell

i i have to ask this because i never did why

does pitch sound like a fucking rib chuck on

stardust oh i don't know that's just the voice

why does this why does the throat sound all clamped

up like this i don't know that's just the voice

that ross gave him um The, uh, the Castle of

Lions, uh, was, or, uh, it was the Lion Ultron

space of operations in her home, which near the

final finale can transform into a flying fortress

piloted by Koran. And I know we're not to the

music section, but I have to play this now because

it relates. It is the Castle of Lions theme from

the show. I always liked hearing that. That was

so cool. That was craft work on the keyboard.

What did you say? Crap work on the... Oh, crap.

Did you say crap or craft? Craft. KRM. No thanks,

I don't want any cheese. Yeah, we're not going

there. Oh crap, it's escaping me, but... planet

doing the pilot was originally called i think

it was like castle blackstone or something i'll

have to go back yeah i'll have to go back in

the blue lion said because i i was going to grab

it and i was a regard originally put in there

i just forgot until they decided to go with much

more than anything planet doom went into most

of the villains can if you want to uh... basically

that uh... two main villains will get into some

of the lower ones but uh... the main villain

obviously is king sarkin of the planet doom uh...

is one of the rulers of the drool empire of the

wino means the absolute ruler he's constantly

using others as scapegoats for his own failure

including his son motor in the japanese version

over he is the evil ruler of his own empire without

anybody controlling and this differs from the

american version where he is a king with the

senate advisory body with none daring to oppose

inverse uh... Well, we won't get into that. In

the Japanese version, his character was eventually

killed by Golion. Zarkon was voiced by Jack Angel.

In Voltron, the third dimension, Zarkon managed

to redeem himself prior to his final defeat and

become a member of the Galactic Council. His

redemption, however, was a ruse by which he and

his son worked together to take over the Alliance.

And in that version, it was Kevin Michael Richardson

again. His son, Prince Lodor... He very much

dislikes his father and wishes to rule in his

place with Princess Allura by his side, of course,

to whom he has developed a strong and obsessive

attraction. Like some supervillains who follow

the cliché but adorable idea of a villain falling

for a beautiful girl, Mordor is often shown commenting

on how good a queen she would be or how beautiful

she is. One of his fantasies is seen in Lordo

Trap's Pidge. He even has Allura in a bridal

gown. So powerful are his feelings that he is

unable to even destroy a holographic image of

Allura. Lordo also has an even stronger hatred

with Keith, obviously, because he's seen Allura's

love towards Keith. Because of Allura and Keith's

love, Lordo is more determined to kill Keith

than any other Voltron Force member. Lordo is

a very sly, smart, smooth, powerful man who exudes

force and emanates what seems to be pure evil,

except when Allura is around. In GoLion, Sinclair's

obsession with Farla occurs because she resembles

his mother, whom Emperor Dybazal, aka King Zarkon,

had killed for refusing to marry him after Lodor

was born, with Princess Farla Allura becoming

his major psychological weakness. This is basically

an Oedipus complex. Lodor was killed in the last

episode of GoLion, something that is typical

for super robot shows. Lodor was voiced by Lenny

Weinerib. Voltron a third -dimension loader was

mortally wounded in a battle and was converted

into a cyborg after he was placed in prison However,

he escaped and perpetrated his revenge on the

heroes though. He still has feelings for Allura

and in this version he was by Tim Curry Well,

he is but I'm sorry Okay. Well, he wasn't in

this actual he wasn't aligned for us. He was

in the third dimension version, but Tim has Tim

Curry has good voice acting talent, but I am

I am a big believer in once somebody is set as

a voice actor for the most part Like especially

like like like this show these these five people

Keith Allura Pidge hunk I don't think I could

see anybody else playing them then who actually

played them Queen Murla who a villainous exclusive

to the US version. She was voiced by Tress McNeil

Zarkon intended to have his son Lothar Merla

Mary, but it didn't work out We then go on to

which Hagar Hagar the witch is a the one responsible

for creating all the row beasts or Whatever the

hell they're called in the Japanese series voltage

Yeah, whatever. Yeah something like that Voltron

must destroy She is notorious for using her dark

magic to cast hypnotizing spells over people

though. She was once a good and beautiful She

is now evil and ugly It was Hager who was responsible

originally for splitting Voltron into five components

in the American version. In the Japanese version,

she was the one of, I believe it's Zarkon's,

it's Zarkon's translation, old love interest,

and possibly a concubine. Hager's voice was played

by B .J. Ward in Voltron the Third Dimension.

Hager went into hiding after the final battle

and rejoined Lotor in his conquest schemes. They

strike a deal in which if Lotor conquers the

universe, she gets the magic of the lions while

he gets the universe and the lions themselves

uh... cova haggard's blue cat the enemy of the

space mice uh... one episode that i remember

haggard specifically for was when they created

a copycat voltron and send it to uh... a planet

that zarkon had enslaved but because he was so

lax in enforcing his in slavery the planet was

yeah the people of this planet were starting

to revolt and she created a copycat of Voltron

she didn't the one thing she forgot the one reason

why Voltron was able to win was because she forgot

to have the her lions detach yeah I remember

that yes they stayed together In the copycat

version. Yes. Yes, she's like I'll do it next

time this ire or whatever else If you want to

take your ac you can count Yeah commander your

ac commander of the doom forces in both versions

he is sentenced to death He has transformed into

a gigantic beast fighter in hopes of redeeming

himself However, he is killed by Goliath or Voltron.

Yarek's death is one of the few on -screen character

deaths that were retained for the American Voltron

release. Alright, these bastards in America make

you sick. Because he wasn't technically human,

so he could die. I don't care! You could have

good death scenes for here in the States, but

you leave them in Japan. Well, you gotta think,

it's 1984. And we haven't had the death of Optimus

Prime yet which pretty much panicked everybody

Well, no, I know but I know this is the reason

why this is why they wouldn't I mean Japanese

culture and everything else versus American culture

back then the Japanese were used to people dying

because they would They would actually celebrate

it. I guess I don't know. I can't speak for japanese

culture because i don't know shit about it but

i'm just saying from what i've seen in the in

the dvd things you know back then it wasn't something

that american broadcasters wanted to show on

their networks was death so that's one of the

reasons why a lot of the changes are and like

uh... almost called you keith holy shit like

kevin said like and said There will be no mutiny

on the bounty here buddy, but No, like I said

Your act wasn't he was turned into a row beast

and all the row beasts were technically robots

So, I mean technically he wasn't human after

he got turned into a row beast Mogor took Urak's

place as Prince Lotor's second -in -command,

and that's pretty much all we have for Mogor.

And then the last one is Commander Cossack, a

replacement for Mogor. He was generally ineffective

against Voltron, though like Urak, he often went

into battle throwing everything he could think

of against the robot, including various robes

given to him by Hagar for the purpose of battling

Voltron. Calls himself Cossack the terrible the

symbol on Cossack's helmet is the same symbol

on Mumra's chest in Thundercats Hmm. That's a

connection for next week. Yes, that's that's

a connection for next week Yes Do we have any

other thoughts before we move on to the production

behind the scenes segment But you do good already

then The background of Voltron, it was a combination

of two Japanese anime series from 1981 to 1983,

which Dion kind of already touched on that. The

test marketed in US 90 minute special 1983 and

then syndicated as a half hour. Daily 276 markets

in 1984. The... I'm trying to think the... Crap.

the original pilot was it was very very weird

because I saw it on on the DVDs and obviously

it's not what I remember the original intro being

and I will play the original pilot intro here

in a second I know but I like Like the final

product of lion force better than the original

because Voltron was supposed to be a trilogy

originally supposed to be Near universe middle

universe far universe and middle universe is

the only one and we'll get to this later Middle

universe is the only one that was never released

in the u .s. It was Exactly so here is the original

pilot of Voltron From the far reaches of space

world events productions presents Voltron the

trilogy defenders of the universe The Voltron

trilogy The adventure series that follows the

interstellar heroics of three super robots who

protect a group of daring young space pioneers

Voltron 1 The magnificent mechanical wonder who

is guardian of the near universe Voltron 2 The

intrepid protector of justice in the middle universe

Voltron 3 the spectacular super robot who battles

the forces of evil in the far universe the Voltron

trilogy today featuring Voltron of the far universe

so that's it that is a big departure from what

we got you know Peter Cullen and it'll be in

the intro of the show uh... i'm not going to

play it within the show because you know people

are to hear it i don't want to double back uh...

going on to more of the uh... per uh... per that

yeah he did uh... we mean the intros he was the

one boy he was the narrator that did your root

no no no did for interest of the do besides You

know, the one that we know now. For Ultron, I

don't think so. Did he? I don't think he did

because... You don't think he did? That's pretty

damn good. That was their original pilot once

they first got... Because actually, it was an

accident that... Exactly, but it was an accident

that... World events even got go lion it was

just something that came in the shipping that

Ted Coppola the president of world events production

said so Voltron was basically a surprise hit

because it was not in the original the original

three shows that world events originally purchased

from Japan Yeah That's off the DVD, right? Yeah

The main people that are in the are in the DVDs

for the behind the features is Ted Koplar who

is the president of world events productions

Franklin Coffert who was the producer slash director

of Voltron Paul Vitello who did the sound and

Bill England who was the logo designer now why

the hell they would have a logo designer on a

thing was beyond me also Peter Keith was the

executive producer Guess I can play some behind

-the -scenes stuff here. I'm trying to think

where did I put it? This is You know, I'll say

I'll say something else real quick Mike before

you get into that You know, you said that they

have a lot of people they had a lot of the voice

actors on the DVDs I'm actually surprised. I

was too. I I don't know why that they wouldn't

have him on there You know because obviously

you didn't mention him because you know obviously

if you did we would be talking more about it

But you know Peter Cullen was not You know because

usually they try to get as many of the voice

actors and actresses that that you know brought

the show together and For more behind -the -scenes

stuff it was actually Voltron was the first show

First cartoon show of its kind to use two -channel

stereo And what had happened was a byproduct

of all the success of it, every afternoon at

four o 'clock all the consumer electronics stores

that were coming out with TVs and stuff, they

would turn it to Voltron to show off TV and stereo

and here's what Ted Koplar had to say about that.

There's some very interesting byproducts of that

because what we found was that when we went into

the consumer electronics stores, We didn't plan

this, but because television sets were converting

to stereo also, is that four o 'clock when Voltron

came on, everybody switched in the consumer electronics

stores, the Voltron, so they could show their

customers how a stereo show sounded like. So

it was kind of an interesting byproduct of the

show. Which, yeah, I thought that was really,

really cool. Yeah. I'm going to save all the

success stuff that I have of them talking about

the success from when we do Legacy, the Legacy

segment, because that's really what it, um, what,

um, what it, uh, yeah, whatever. So we're going

to go into the actual meeting details of the

show. Um, Kevin, I'm going to let you take this

over on the trivia and unfortunately I will be

right back. So I will be right back. We're going

to get into a couple of just little different

trivia things about the show itself. Before we

get there, now that we're onto the actual show,

I do have to say I like the plots that Voltron

had. I like the stories, especially at that time,

1984. You didn't have a lot of shows that had

some continuity in their episodes with a little

bit of connection from episode to episode. So

I liked how well thought out some of the stories

were. But it seemed when it come to naming things,

the... the writers took a break or something

like that i mean we have the space explorers

team and that's the best they could come up with

um we have planet doom that was the best they

could come up with uh like we talked about having

three different voltrons they just named them

voltron one voltron two and voltron three right

i'm like couldn't you guys come up with a a little

bit better like the alliance For the the galaxy

alliance. It just seemed like they didn't they

didn't care too much about the actual names of

some of these groups But I'll give them break

because the writing of the show was actually

pretty good Well, I think too, you know back

then, you know, they're they're trying to make

it They're trying to make something for kids,

you know, yeah, that's true. It's not something

we're like, okay Well, we should call it this

and we should call it this and we should call

it this and then they're gonna have kids confused

cuz Yeah, you know kids are looking at it and

you know Wouldn't you know if they get older

and they look back in there and they see all

this and they'd be like what? What the hell was

this back then exactly? It wasn't I think that's

why they did it that way, but I would have you

know You just like the clip that Mike played

earlier. It would have been interesting to see

three different Voltron cartoons And speaking

of the three Voltrons, we mentioned that there

was three of them. Obviously, the one was never

seen in the US, the middle universe one, but

interesting little piece of trivia though, the

toys based on that one were released in the US.

Yes, they were. I read that on Wikipedia. They

were released here in the States. And I just

want to say it right now, normally I do not get

up and leave in the middle of a show, but yeah,

when nature calls and you don't have a bucket

around, you just have to go. Thank you for sharing

Going on to another bit of trivia here the first

like we've stated a couple times the first season

of Ultron's is not a straight dub from the Japanese

anime series Due to broadcast standards living

beings were never killed on screen in the u .s.

Mechanical creatures and stuff like that. However

was fair game One of the most notable differences

obviously involves the character Sven Like we

said, he died after battling Hagar after six

episodes in the Japanese version. And in the

American version, we just get to have him be

injured. And we already touched on that a little

bit. You bastard! Going on to a little bit about

the Blue Lion. The Blue Lion trivia fact had

the most different pilots with six. We had Sven,

Allura, Keith, Koran, Lance, and Garrett all

piloted the Blue Lion. The Yellow Lion was the

only lion to have just one pilot, Hunk. uh...

keith and allure flew the most number of lines

with three each uh... keith was a pilot for the

black line also find the green line twice in

the blue line twice in the word did uh... the

blue line black line and red line uh... spent

hunk and page are the only voltron force numbers

to fly just one line each and uh... uh... comment

on these and i think it's on the line uh... well

no i'd i'd uh... no i know but i mean in the

japanese series when he died his brother shows

up who apparently is his twin brother and what

they did in the american series was they kind

of bolt spend from the american series up and

just said all that his brother but it's him that

day they use the model for the brother as span

after he got healthy uh... as far as lines we've

kind of already Done that to death in the in

the third season second season for the lion force

Voltron Was created specifically for the American

audience They were made up of new footage as

well as stock footage from the first season with

the command form forms arms and body changed

to forms arms and torso and sven written in place

of brother who eventually died for the original

version haggard nanny and motor all of whom were

killed in the original japanese series make their

returns in the original character of queen marla

was introduced uh... and going onto that continuity

group i think that's a good Yeah, we already

know about his brother. In order to activate

the lions, each team member had to insert a special

key, obviously. In many instances, when Keith

is starting the Voltron forming sequence, his

key can still be seen on his tunic, but then

is also seen on the panel of his lion. That made

absolutely no damn sense. No, it didn't. Okay,

if you're going to start a lion... and you start

the key and it lights up the panel and blah blah

blah. Why in the living Sam hell do you see the

same key that starts the same damn lion on his

tunic? What sense does this make? I'm not sure,

but it doesn't make sense, just like when, and

I know this is changing gears a little bit, but

when Optimus Prime passed the Matrix of Leadership

to Ultra Magnus in the Transformers movie. Magnus

opens his chest. There's a matrix already there.

So it's the same It's the same thing. So I mean,

you know, it's the same type of I guess animation

glitch. Yeah, I don't know so Yeah changes from

the Japanese version through airing in syndication

which offered other anime shows such as Robotech

greater freedom to deal with subject matter such

as death that were off -limits in most network

children's programming WP's adaptation of Voltron

was heavily edited to confirm to the more strict

standards of American television, as well as

the standard name change of characters and concepts

in Goliath. Do you want to go through the plot

changes, Kevin? Yeah, first one, obviously both

shows begin with the five pilots sent by the

Galaxy Alliance, whose space exploration mission

takes them to a planet devastated by war. In

Voltron, the plan - Pilots arrive on Eris and

are captured and taken to planet Doom. Then they

escape and return to Eris and become the pilots

of the robot lions of Voltron. In Go Lion, the

initial scenes are actually of Earth as the pilots

have returned from their mission in the year

1999 to find that the entire population of Earth

has been killed in a nuclear war. They are then

captured and taken to planet Gaura where the

plot proceeds similarly to the Voltron one. Second

one, Zarkon soldiers were referred to as robots

as opposed to alien soldiers and the crews of

spaceships that were destroyed were often either

said to have been evacuated prior or referred

to as robot ships in order to lessen the impact

of their deaths. It was a goddess, not Hager,

that split up Golion due to his arrogance. Golion

is supposedly sentient, although this was subtly

discarded in the Voltron series where the robot

was sentient. Yeah, I gotta go into that a little

bit. Well, okay. In our version, in the US version,

they don't really say that other pilots piloted

Voltron. But at the same time, they don't say

he was sentient either. But we are led to believe

that before Haggar split him up into five lions,

that the original Voltron for Lion Force was

a sentient robot. So, you know, whatever. Again,

these are horrible things, but shots of torture

and atrocities inflicted by the alien conquerors

on their slaves such as a contest where alien

soldiers would be rewarded according to how many

prisoners they would have managed to decapitate

in a given time and some shots of corpses. Those

are all removed from the American version. In

Voltron, obviously Sven was severely injured

by Hager and sent to a space hospital and go

lie and he's killed. In one episode the princess

befriends a bear -like creature which is subsequently

captured and converted into a beast fighter,

a ro -beast. In Go Lion, Go Lion kills the beast

fighter while in Voltron, Voltron releases the

creature from its ro -beast state rendering it

in a deep sleep. In Go Lion, Nanny is fatally

shot in the heart while protecting Koran. I want

the Japanese version to be the American version.

Voltron's Queen Merla, that whole story arc never

existed obviously in the original Japanese run

and was created by Toei at the request of World

Events Production. The Japanese GoLion series

ended with the destruction of the giant Zarkon

beast fighter which killed him. In Voltron's

episode 20, the planet the heroes visit is Pidge's

home world. However, That planet is actually

in Goliath, the war -torn Earth. And in the original

Goliath series, Lotor is biracial. His mother

was of the planet Eris. Also in the original

Goliath, Hagar is hinted to be... Thank God for

that, though. In Voltron, neither of these are

mentioned or suggested. That's right. Leave that

one out. I'll bring back the killing of all those

other people. Couple other things since we're

on the actual show part. I just got to share

a couple quotes that I Some of the lines in Voltron

are just completely cheesy and I obviously it's

1984 It's a kids show so I understand that but

a couple of them that I heard in the last couple

days listening I just got a What was I don't

remember which one of the five is saying this

but they they say the line we're space explorers

and we need space Oh my god, what And then again

they were trying to uh one of the characters

i don't remember if it was keith or lance or

someone they were trying to kind of retell what

what's gonna happen if if they eventually find

boltron it's one of the original or one of the

early episodes and they're explaining how the

lions are going to attach and then he just like

skips over he's like and then the five pieces

will attach somehow that's because he didn't

know that that's because they didn't know at

the time it's like we're not gonna Well, that's

the other thing. I mean, I know we're still in

the meeting potential section, but that's the

other thing. Only King Alphorn knew the secret

of Voltron, and it was never revealed what that

secret was. And I'm sure it had something to

do with the keys or the power source. And I mean,

as I said before, the power sources came from

nature. from different parts of nature so i mean

i guess that i guess that's the secret of voltron

but i mean that in that original episode what

when keith was telling that story you're right

uh... uh... it you know that they didn't know

at the time uh... right i also like that when

they were in the original i don't remember what

it was but as the What was it? I don't remember

who said it what they said, you know now you

guys are known as the Voltron force and then

and then it immediately goes to our con outside

the castle with King Zorak or Sarkon excuse me.

Yeah, but yeah, how does he already know let's

destroy the Voltron force. I'm like, wait a second

Yeah, exactly. I was wondering that too. You

weren't inside the castle a second ago. Yes How

the hell were you listening into the meeting?

What the hell? You have psychic powers? And another

thing that kind of annoyed me with some of the

first season episodes is Pidge constantly...

Well they all did that though. Changing from

in uniform to out of uniform. But I noticed it

more with pitch like you'd see one shot of him

and he's got the hair out and a little headband

in and then the next episode Or the next shot.

He's got the whole suit on and everything like

that. I'm like, wait No, that was hung any version

of Mario. That was hung not kids. Yeah, hunk

is the one that's always on that Yeah, um, we're

on the show itself one thing that really that

I noticed that kind of pissed me off in a couple

episodes shut the hell up shut up shut up whatever

okay my point is When they go for the lions,

when they show all five things, they show one,

two, three, four, five. Well, in some episodes,

some episodes when say the number four person

or the number two person was missing, it would

show one, three, five, two, four, five, whatever.

There are a couple of episodes where all five

of them are there, but they never show Hunk.

They show the first four, they never show him.

uh... going through the door they never show

the number five door that all of a sudden later

on when they're in the lions they show him coming

out of the desert the uh... uh... uh... that's

that's the other thing while i was like wait

what are the lions in all Yeah, it seems like

an easy thing to do Cuz they had different color

uniforms and you had like a black yellow green

red and you know the blue lion and All their

uniforms were not yeah up with the lions. It

seems like would have been something so simple

like I Don't know. Well, let's you know what

we're gonna be color. We're gonna be we have

five lions. So let's With the vehicles Yeah,

I just never got since we're on the actual show

I will play the formation So that was majority

of that was for the theme, but they also did

do the You know the you know, I'll form this

you form that thing I don't know No idea but

yeah going back to Kevin Yeah, no not connect

for which by the way that commercial ran during

Voltron pretty much every afternoon the can yeah,

yeah with the kids Going back with Kevin in the

quotes one of the most one of the most comedic

quotes I thought was in the episode with some

what's his name? the one that colin voice the

the pilot there uh... that one of the ship red

he's like uh... i'm i'm trying to get a character

uh... uh... yeah i don't know i don't know anyway

uh... he said i wanted to read and they must

have windows many more windows and haggard's

like uh... why magic can change the company don't

do windows uh... so i mean There was other than

the mice being basically the comedy relief for

the most part there was other funny moments in

the show Do you have any other thoughts or any

other quotes that you'd like to say Kevin? No,

I just, I thought the animation of the show,

since we're on the actual show part, the animation

was good. I liked the storylines. It just seemed

like every once in a while there was just some

very cheesy little quotes or cheesy lines or

names for people. But I can get past that because

the stories, like I said, for the time period,

we didn't have a lot that kind of had that connection

from one story to the next. And so that was kind

of a pleasant thing to see in 1984 where the

shows actually were somewhat connected. Why did

Hager's eyes change color sometimes? Yeah. They

all did. They all did. The cat's eyes, Archon's

eyes did. I don't even remember that. I know

they glowed a couple of times. Not sure. I don't

mean changing as in she had a different eye color.

Right. Her and the cat had yellow eyes and I

think what the glowing was signifying is that

they are both filled with evil energy. Yeah,

she had she had she had yellow eyes if she wasn't

doing magic Oh, I don't know if she was doing

magic her eyes would either go darker or or brighter

I think in a way it might have been to to help

people understand that she was bad because she

was all you know a lot of times she'd be Yeah,

so I think we're going to move on to the music

segment this what Anyway this this show actually

as I said before was done in a full digital Dolby

digital stereo or not Dolby then but it was it

was done in two -channel stereo the first cartoon

of its kind no yeah I know anyways they remastered

it for 5 .1 but that's besides the point And

it was done by a full orchestra. I think they

had a 52 -piece orchestra and they would orchestrate

the music before the shows actually. They would

see the video and then they would just orchestrate

around it. John Peterson was the main composer.

I already did play the Castle of Lions. I will

play a couple of, I believe this was supposed

to be Allura's theme. Then you had this was the

one they used a lot And then I'm just gonna go

through three bumps and then that's it bump one

is this That's right Yeah, I do But it just goes

to show you that you know the musical talent

that was on this show, I mean Yeah, I mean Peterson

himself that I mean originally he thought the

theme was just gonna be bump bum bum And that

was it it was like three or four notes I didn't

I should have grabbed some of the Peterson interview

audio, but I didn't but Yeah, yeah Well, there's

five lion sets for Lion Force, and there's, I

think, a total of 72 episodes. Well, they got

him on there, too. That's good. I don't know.

But yeah, I mean, the music, I thought, was really,

really good. Yeah, synthesizer. Yeah. What I'm

what I'm actually glad that they did was they

mixed everything it was a mixture of orchestra

rock kind of like a rock guitar and synthetic

yeah synthesizer type deal, you know, it wasn't

just You know and oh, yes very much So that's

what made the show the music made the show besides

the the plots the story plot The music is what

also made the show You know, it was what made

the show what it is. Oh, yeah Especially the

intro part of the same with Collins lyrics behind

it, you know when he's telling the story of how

it came about I think I know this isn't Right

I think it later. I think it later later earrings.

They took his no not in the ones that I'm not

in the DVD sets It's not where Peter's voice

is Taken out you just hear the music No, no,

no, this was this was when they this was when

they um This is when they aired it years later

for TV. There were two sets that I saw there

was You know the one that we know of with Peter's

voice behind yeah, I could have been but even

though ones where Peter's voice isn't in it at

all right be like that for the new adventures

of Ultron when they reared it Yeah, I mean there

was there was one without him there, but I don't

think they use it a lot And I know for a fact

that it's in get the version that's on the DVDs

for all of the episodes even the new adventures

of Ultron Yeah so I would have to say one of

my favorite moments from the show was this even

though this this isn't kind of this isn't music

related, but I haven't played yet, so Just seeing

that montage with with With the ding with the

hands together and then the you know, the thing

comes out, you know That was just super cool

and we've kind of hit on that before so I think

we're gonna move on to the popularity segment

and you can hit on the the live action movie

that's coming up Yeah Yeah, it's so popular that

apparently we're getting a Voltron Defender of

the Universe live action movie. Basically, skip

past some of this, but interest in the property

heightened after the box office success of Transformers,

another film obviously involving robots. So they

were trying to develop the whole project for

getting a live action movie of Voltron. On August

18th of 2008, Relativity Media entered negotiations

with New Regency to finance and produce the film.

Though on a more moderate budget utilizing cost

-saving CGI techniques such as those used in

the movie 300, Max Mikowski is set to direct,

and as of the end of August 2008, the title had

been set for Voltron Defender of the Universe.

Hold on, why didn't they get World Productions

involved since they were the ones behind the

cartoon? Oh, no, they're involved. They're involved.

I'm getting that next line here. World Events

Productions are currently in a legal battle with

a toy company over the movie rights. And IGN

ranked it 76 out of 100, those bastards. That's

what I said when Kevin first told me. I was like,

what the fuck is wrong with them? What the hell

is wrong with them What's up fuck I think we

got a I almost need to go through the IGN list

and take out all of the adult cartoons that it

has on there so we can see what what their listing

is of the just To cartoons made for children

because I just skews those I'm gonna play a couple

of clips from the president of world events productions

on the success of Voltron and a couple other

ones from Peter Keefe and Bill England Peter

Keefe was the executive producer and Bill England

was the logo designer. So here is Ted Coppola

on the sick. Yeah, I know what the fuck And here's

Ted on the success I had no idea about what success

really meant with an animated television show.

We were a television station, an independent

television station that bridged into animation

just as an afterthought. When Voltron hit the

air, we were all of a sudden deludged. God damn

it, stupid thing, all right. I had no idea about

what success really meant with an animated television

show. We were a television station, an independent

television station that bridged into animation

just as an afterthought. When Voltron hit the

air, we were all of a sudden deludged with all

kinds of licensees wanting to license the Voltron

name and brand into everything from home video

to DVDs to toys and games. that she's in public

places even talking toothbrushes so yeah i mean

i didn't know that there's not a lot of people

for a god damn talk about it but i think that

was a talking about the talking toothbrush that's

what i mean that kicks ass i had no idea uh...

and here is peter keith on the success uh...

voltron as well he was as i said before he was

the executive producer i knew we had a white

hot hit voltron when I watched children watching

the first couple of episodes. I knew then, because

kids have just wonderful crap detectors. If they

don't like you, they put their finger down on

the remote control and you're gone. You get about

two or three minutes to captivate their imaginations.

When children started role -playing as they were

screening the show, saying, I'm Keith. No, you're

more like Hunk. I'm Princess Allura. The girl's

saying that. When they started to do that, I

know we had a mega hit on our hands. I knew that...

we had worked our way into their being, into

their souls, into their fiber of their lives.

Once kids start role -playing and your concept

has become part of their world, they've adopted

it, taken in their world, you know you have them

hooked. And of course that made us all... feel

good in another way because we all worked very

very very hard to have the words the characters

would say bring meaning to children not just

have a an aimless show with robotic characters

but a show that had heart so we thought we'd

be making a wonderful contribution to what ended

up being children in over a hundred countries

seeing this property and still today um and yeah

i mean Used to do that. I'm just gonna be a geek

and go back as a kid. I oh, yeah my friends We

used to we ever I did though You know that watched

Voltron we would you would all kind of roleplay

as different characters from the show That was

you know, that was the fun that was fun about

being a kid is you could you could and and who

was that Peter Keith? Peter is right. Um if you

Could not capture kids imagination within oh,

yeah, you're gone You are so gone your show sucks

to them your show is horrible, but Voltron I

remember the first time I watched it and I looked

I'm like what you know, it did it I can see Kevin

I can see Kevin in his apartment or his house

or whatever, you know getting a knife saying

I'm Keith and I'm Lance and I'm spending everything

else No, not that part. I mean just the just

the two to three minutes it grabbed my attention

immediately Like I sat down to watch it this

week and within two minutes. I'm like glued to

the There are no bored there are no boring scenes.

There's no boredom in the show at all. It's the

thing that for me Yeah, you're calling catches

you as well Yeah, but I mean for me it was the

theme when I first heard what when i first saw

the scene with them running to the to the uh...

the elevators to go down in that in the in that

whole original sequence that to me was the show

and that is what pulled me in was seeing how

they form voltron and i think the design of voltron

was key to i mean it just looks so awesome oh

yeah very much so uh... i think too with a lot

of even though you know we mentioned this before

maybe in a sense maybe in a sense it was good

that they only had six oh yeah voices because

how many people and i'm just talking nowadays

in cartoons guys how many people nowadays can

you say in the cartoon business you know whether

it's adult cartoons or children's cartoons okay

How many cartoon shows can you say nowadays well

for well, let's see The Simpsons for instance,

I'm just throwing that out there but for instance

You cannot have six people doing no voices in

that show. There's too many. There's too many

Well, I mean the Simpsons is an exception. I

don't really think we could use that because

there are There are at least two to three people

that play six to ten characters. Castellaneta

plays Homer, Grandpa, and like two or three more.

And I think the thing about back then was there

was a character cap. You can only, I mean just

like there's salary caps in sports, there was

a character cap in animation. One actor could

play three voices, and that's it. That's all

the... that they were allowed to get paid for

was three voices. But with Voltron, they could

always go back and forth, because once they found

their niche in getting the voice actors together,

the other thing is, this is the first one that

I know of outside of Transformers that did a

voice ensemble cast. They did not get, you know,

actors when they could. They all got together

in a room. They kept the same ones. Right, but

what I'm saying is like, okay, say the three

of us are doing voice acting, okay? instead of

calling me up saying hey I need a voice for this

and then calling you Dion or calling you Kevin

they would have all three of us come into one

room and we were recorded at the same time as

an ensemble cast so we were all together so that's

the same thing they did with it with this show

and outside of Transformers this is the first

show I even knew of that did an ensemble cast

but I thought it was kind of interesting because

you know this show only has six people for every

damn single voice possible. And, you know. Oh

yeah, very much so. I don't know how, I don't

know how, but they pulled it off successfully.

And you were talking about success and obviously

the sound clips we heard of were talking about

how much it took off. I think you can just look

at the number of episodes that it had and that's

proof right there of the success in it. If you

look at all cartoons that aired in the 80s. You

just took every single series that started in

the 80s and totaled the number of episodes in

individual series. There's only five shows that

had more episodes in Voltron. So that's saying

something right there. I mean, I'll give you

the list real quick. The Smurfs, Teenage Mutant

Ninja Turtles, He -Man, Thundercats, and the

real Ghostbusters. Those are the only five shows

that had more episodes in Voltron. Yeah, they

beat Voltron by just a few more episodes. So

I mean, that's something that to last 124 episodes,

which technically is what Voltron did, that's

a testament to the success. And without winning

awards or without having anything else, just

the number of episodes you survive is a statement

on how successful your cartoon was. But it's

also, too, what kids are into. If they're not

into the Voltron thing anymore, or if it's just,

OK, we've done as much with this as we possibly

can. It's time to it's time to move on. It's

time to put this to rest You know because eventually

you will you will just say oh, yes You will just

you will just fade and kids are like I've seen

this give me something else. You've captured

my imagination You've captured my attention.

You did a great you did a great job at it, but

give me something else now Give me something

new and fresh and I think For Voltron, like Kevin

said, for Voltron to last 124 episodes. They

did a damn good job. Oh, yeah, very much so.

The licensing of everything that was licensed,

like they said, with toothbrushes and stuff like

that. Here is Peter Keefe on licensing. It was

very funny because I talked to a lot of toy companies

and licensees, trading card companies, about

doing licenses for Voltron. And they all told

me to get lost. Then six weeks later, they were

sending limos over with deposits of $50 ,000

to put stickers on bicycles. It's quite amazing.

So in that short frame, we all knew that something

grand was going on here. I mean, you know. You

know why? Because they realized this. Well, what

had happened was, you know, like I'm going to

play a clip from the logo designer Bill England

here in a second on the success. And, um, you

know, he said, and whatever. Anyways, um, you

know, no one knew. I mean, everybody was doubting

this because it was like, it wasn't Transformers,

but it was like Transformers. So this is what

Mr. Logo had to say. We had been told that we

just couldn't even succeed. We had no business

being in the Transformer line. In fact, there

was a show called Transformers. I mean, Anybody

who was putting up any cash or anything was saying

You got an uphill battle and here we hit a home

run on our first few series You know Okay, tune

cast is not responsible for anything Dion Walker

says on this podcast I'm sorry, but it's like

he's not really Oh well listen to this on the

Barbara apparently he saw on a Barbara Walters

special on transformers About some kid she asked

him and she asked the kid what his favorite transformers

was and listen to this I think the one thing

other than just the written reports and the specs

coming in Was an interview in New York by Barbara

Walters at that time And she was grabbing this

special on Transformers. And the first kid she

picks out of this huge crowd of Transformer fans,

she says, what's your favorite Transformer? And

the kid said, Voltron, the Thunder of the Universe.

And I thought, God, we are in. We are in. And

from there was whoosh. We were just ecstatic.

Mean yeah, you know cuz I mean half the time

most kids that I knew that's I Mean Voltron is

Voltron is in a way a bit. It's like transformers

because you're transforming. Yeah, I'd like to

know that it is now I said I'd like to know what

it is now. Something that needs to be done. You

want to go into the interactive Voltron? Yeah,

apparently there's another animated series somewhat...

in the works, an untitled one. It was slated

to be released in the fall of 2005, produced

by Kickstart Productions with Tom Pugsley and

Greg Klein writing the episodes, but as of 2009

it has yet to debut. Kickstart's website lists

the series as still in production, so I guess

we'll skip that. Yes, and with the DVD releases

in Australia, DVDs of all episodes of Voltron

have been released by Madman Entertainment. The

original series was released in five volumes

between August 2004 and July 2005. the name Voltron

Defender of the Universe. Each box is in the

color style of One of the Lions, another three

volumes of Vehicle Force Voltron, or released

between August and December 2005. Additionally,

a Best of 2 DVD set was released in November

2006 featuring five episodes from each series.

Prior to the release of the box sets a promotional

DVD was released for Voltron. It was packed in

a three -fold glossy cardboard folder The folder

features full color artwork and text about upcoming

releases of Voltron on DVD The disc has an image

of Voltron and is labeled for promotional use

only it features the first episode Castle of

lions part one and several promos for other series

in here in the US in region one Voltron It's

already been released on DVD. In its original

broadcast form by New York -based distributor

Media Blasters, Lion Force Woltron was released

in five volumes between September 06 and December

07. The volumes contain about 15 episodes each,

along with special features such as interviews

with producer -director Franklin Colfod and various

other involved in the original and current productions.

Lion Force is the original. The first volume

of vehicle force Voltron was scheduled for release

on September 30th 2008 is volume 6 world events

productions l t d or l t c uh... has confirmed

that many copies of voltron volume six in region

one suffer from a manufacturing defect uh...

the defect caused the desks to grind and shake

or freeze when played in dvd players the manufacturer

media blasters has been shipping replacements

but many of the replacements over from the same

problem the defect Yeah, the defect can be seen

on many of the discs as a watermark on the backside

of the disc. You can read about the fleet of

doom. The Fleet of Doom special was released

on DVD early in 2007 as an online Voltron .com

exclusive. Fleet of Doom was a special crossover

film where the vehicle and Lion Voltrons joined

forces to defeat the Fleet of Doom. The special

was originally released in 1986 and has announced

that they will be releasing Fleet of Doom on

May 26, 2009. That would have been a little bit

ago as a full retail release. Media Blasters

also plans to release the two Japanese shows

that make that made up Voltron, each in their

original unedited Japanese form with English

subtitles. Volume one of Go Lion was released

on May 27, 2008. Volume two on August 12, 2008.

Volume three, November 25, 2008. Yes, and just

going into the Lion Force collections. Collection

one is Blue Lion, and the special features on

that are the original pilot, the Voltron Trilogy,

staff interviews, making of the DVDs, the 5 .1

surround sound mix, And then the booklet has

episode synopsis with original air dates Collection

two is yellow lion that has Buckethead music

video, which I did not watch that feature international

Voltron feature at which I didn't watch that

either exclusive I don't know Exclusive staff

interviews TV ads and the 5 .1 surround and yeah

Green Lion Collection 3 has Interview with Murphy

Lee 1984 newsreels exclusive composer interview

TV ads in the episode synopsis Collection 4 Red

Lion has the voice actor special Season 3 feature

at May on the Street, Voltron Memories in a picture

gallery. In Collection 5, Black Lion has the

lost footage of Season 3, the lost episode of

Voltron, vehicle team preview, history of world

events production, Go Lion preview, digital comic

trailer, and the 5 .1 surround in the synopsis.

They're all very good. I mean, if there's somebody

out there that's a major, major Voltron fan like

me, you're going to want to pick these up. If

it's something that you grew up on, you're going

to want to get them. The actual tins, actually,

if you bought them from Best Buyer, if you buy

them from World Events or Voltron .com and you

don't actually cheap out and go to Walmart, you

get a metallic tin. Each set comes in a color

-coded metallic tin. like I said blue yellow

green red and black are you know one through

five and then the DVDs come in you know the you

know generic fold out whatever you know packaging

but the tins are awesome they're they're they're

great display pieces they're true metal and it

just it it it makes it look almost 3d yeah well

the lion heads and they look like lion heads

is what they're on show and then and then on

the back of each of the tins is whoever pilots

that line yeah uh... for the most part and thank

god he even even though spend is on the actual

packaging on the inside they've got a little

lower on the back of the ten oh my god uh...

kick somebody's passive and but that uh... and

just and shooting uh... uh... and then of course

you know kevin mentioned you know vehicle force

uh... the collect you know real force collection

of leader dorm the fleet of doom uh... to remove

the compare Yeah, Dorm, yes. The Fleet of Dorm?

No, I actually, okay, you know, you mentioned

Sven a little bit. We've kind of picked on him

a bit, because we can. Why didn't they just put

Allora's picture on the front? No, they did.

I understand that Sven did it originally. No,

no, no, no, no. What I'm saying is, okay, when

you have the tin, you set it down, you open it.

the DVD packaging like you know how you know

how when you buy a DVD package if it comes with

outer sleeve that you slip it out of and then

it unfolds to like three or four panels same

thing here the actual inside of the packaging

shows Sven and Allura together with the space

mice and then it unfolds and it shows you know

blue disks for the blue lion but the back of

the tin packaging shows Allura in her in her

Voltron uniform We're gonna move on to comparisons

cuz yeah, there are two major comparisons The

first one is that I thought of was Power Rangers

Okay, you can stop now Okay, well then I guess

I'm no longer allowed to host it because I did

like Power Rangers, but that's beside the point

The first run of Voltron had a big hand in ushering

in the age of giant robots in American culture

and inspired a number of imitators. And in quotes

it says, or in parentheses it says, we're looking

at you in your direction, Power Rangers. And

it ends right there. If you look at the original

1993 to 1996 Power Rangers, the original Megazord,

he does not have the green part, but his left

leg is yellow. No his his right leg is yellow

his left leg is blue his body is black and his

chest piece is pink slash red and Then his head

is red. So, I mean it's basically yeah. Yeah,

it's a ripoff and this is what Jeremy Corre who

was a part of world events productions that had

to say about this And, uh, you know, these kids

that were raised on Power Rangers and everything

like that, I remember when I was exploring Power

Rangers, it was like, I just watched it just

to get that little tingle of Voltron, you know?

And now, having been on the street and having

to explain to these kids, like, look, it's not

Power Rangers. This is Power Rangers daddy, okay?

This came out way before, right? This is the

DNA of Power Rangers. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, very

much. He's absolutely right. God damn it The

saddest part about that is Power Rangers comes

out so much later and then it's not as good When

I first saw Power Rangers and this is kind of

going on tangent when I first saw it the first

thing I was like, oh wow They made a live -action

TV show of Ultron cool, and then I realized with

something else But but I mean they took the same

premise the same thing with um planet T captain

planet. They took the same premise You know five

five kids with somewhat attitude with special

powers or special vehicles or whatever Voltron

Created it first Right just you just scared me

my only the only difference is the only difference

is that captain plan Planet was kind of a human

type thing, but it was the basis the same premise

applies. Mm -hmm because You know you form Captain

Planet, you know You just so scared me Mike though.

You said that Power Rangers is like And then

earlier we mentioned the Voltron's coming out

with a live That's fucking evil do Our Rangers

better go away now Yeah, that guy is right Jeremy

is right. This is the daddy. Yeah It's just ridiculous

how much it looks just like it, you know Just

another testament to Voltron's success I mean

not only the number of episodes But the number

of impacts and influences that has had on other

shows that came out after it and the number of

Things that were made off. I mean we're having

a series possibly we're having a movie Yeah,

I guess we can go into the comics I don't do

comics you can do that I don't do comics a lot

either, but it's just another instance of how

it's kind of transpired or turned into other

things. We had in 1985 there was a modern comics

that produced a three -issue miniseries based

on the Lion Voltron television show and then

Devil's Dew in 2002 announced it had acquired

the rights to publish Voltron comic books and

published a five -issue miniseries which featured

the Lion Voltron incarnation of the character

and rebooted the property. This was then followed

by an ongoing series self -published by Devil's

Dew which was placed on the hiatus in 2005 after

the 11th issue due to poor sales. Devil's Do

announced in January 2008 that the five -issue

miniseries, the 11 issues of the ongoing series,

and the number zero issue would be collected

into a Voltron Omnibus trade paperback that would

also include the unpublished twelfth issue of

the ongoing series that would wrap up all the

storylines. And then there was a new issue, new

five -issue miniseries in 2008 July that was

released by Devil's Do, which picked up where

the ongoing series left off and explored the

origins of Lion Voltron's creation. from 12 ,000

years in the past to the present day. Voltron

in the comic book series published by Devil Dude

was originally a unified machine intelligence

since it was created by sorcerers and scientists

therefore having hands and feet making him look

like a knight. Voltron was tricked by Hagar into

landing on a black comet which nearly the gravitational

attraction of a singularity, I don't know what

all that means, Voltron was then attacked by

Hagar and somehow blown into five pieces which

then became the five lions. So we have series,

movies, merchandise, comic books, everything

about... Voltron and that leads us into some

other places where we've seen Voltron kind of

creep up and I think this leads to basically

evidence that Voltron like so many other shows

in the 80s kind of became that iconic thing that

that is just when you're looking for something

to represent the 80s you go to these cartoons

like Transformers, G .I. Joe, He -Man, Voltron

and you grab something and put it in your whatever

you're doing that you want to have a reference

in. Yeah, American Pie presents Bandcamp, which

sucked. On the guidance counselor's desk, there's

an action figure of Keith, the Black Lion's pilot.

Lost, fire plus water, number 2 .12, whatever

the fuck that is. Liam... Oh, lost. Fuck lost,

I hate that show. That show sucks. Not sucked,

it sucks. It still sucks. What the fuck? That

show sucked. Two against one, you're overruled.

I like it. I like it. Sorry. But I actually just

watched this episode because I'm on the second

season. I'm trying to get caught up to the fifth

season this next year. So I've only watched this

first season and half of the second season. But

Liam, one of the characters, gets a Voltron toy

for Christmas in that episode. And actually,

it was crazy because I just watched that episode

last week. and i'm watching the episode and he's

open his christmas present and i'm like that's

boltron toy and that's what we're doing next

week on contunecast that's absolutely ridiculous

and then uh... the third one was south park in

imagination land number eleven point ten i'm

assuming that's a season number an episode number

yes episode ten and now we are going to uh...

do you guys have any final thoughts on the show

Mean I kind of look back and wish that I wouldn't

watch it a little bit more as a kid since obviously

it's one of the ones that I Like I said before

snuck past me, but watching it this week was

it was fun. Um, it was entertaining for what

it was In 1984 it was one of the best shows available

to watch Get their asses, you know get off off

their asses and decide whether or not they're

gonna do this because it would be good to see

something You know Of a Voltron series come back

or at least try to make a comeback and you know,

maybe do with the movie Supposedly coming out

or being in production. I have a fear now that

I've thought about this with our comparisons

I have a fear that they're going to use the technology

that the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie used

with their zords In order to be able to bring

Voltron to the screen unless they do it if they

didn't see yeah, yeah Yes, all right next you

will hear a couple of Special features in this

episode Where I believe it's Voltron the legend

the let the legacy and the legend and then the

toy feature at So we will be back after that

and some commercials for the closing We lived

Voltron for a year. We lived it and breathed

it for a year not because we were silly souls

running around Talking about how wonderful it

was or how wonderful we could be because we were

participating We just lived it you you thought

it you dreamt it you did it you didn't touch

anything any day that didn't have some connection

with Voltron You can forget the Castle Lion sequence

that first week where they were searching for

the keys, unraveling the mystery of Voltron.

I think every kid was just locked and hooked

in that first week. And the anticipation of forming

Voltron and getting the clues and having the

bad guys on their trail the whole time was just,

you know, too much for us seven -year -olds.

So that particularly, that whole sequence, that

whole arc stands out as the definitive moments

of Voltron for me. When we began the production,

we were experimenting. No one had done this before.

So we were experimenting with sound, we were

experimenting with the visual editorial elements,

and we were trying to put together a seed machine

that could then swallow 125 episodes, including

new ones. Yeah, I want to tell you, it was, I

mean, it was a factory. I mean, we didn't have

time to, you know, to worry about, you know,

to think about what's going to happen next week

or anything. It was just, you know, we were totally

immersed in it. A lot of it was trial and error.

There were many times when we began, I thought,

we'll never finish. It's a herculean task. I

felt like Sisyphus, rolling the ball up the hill,

only to have it roll back down again. We were

having a tough time initially keeping up with

delivering five shows. five shows a week. It

was a lot of work. We would record dialogue during

the day, the voice actors, and we would mix the

audio, usually starting late in the afternoon,

like at five o 'clock until we're done, which

was maybe five or six hours to do the whole show

in the recording studio. So we basically, there

were four experienced sound editors that were

working on it. different shifts, different studios.

And simultaneously with that, the music editing

was going on, sound effects were happening, the

show was being edited, the dialogue was being

laid in and slunk up and edited in. And it was

a pretty grueling thing. We were producing five

shows a week. So, as I would say many times,

you have today to do this show when today is

over you got to give it up so get on with what

you're doing and it was amazing we would go and

we would literally record a show every day and

we recorded it we didn't record it ADR we recorded

it with a stopwatch and we had measured every

speech the lip flap for every speech the writers

tried to write to that mouth movement and we

knew exactly how long it was and I would sit

there with a stopwatch and record and say a little

faster a little slower and we recorded each actor

individually. We were working around the clock

and I think that first six weeks of that we were

in production I basically I figured I slept about

six hours every other night. I would you know

I can't remember very many days when I was home

before you know two or three in the morning.

That's probably why I didn't get into like 10.

It sounds like what I said before I get into

10 in the morning, but that sounds kind of luxurious.

But everybody just worked harder. It's like if

you're playing a sport and it isn't working,

you play harder. So we just played harder. I

was very fortunate to have some very good people

working for me. I had a woman, Mary Roscoe, who

used to work for Chuck Jones. and she essentially

supervised the entire editing process, getting

the dialogue laid in properly, editing out the

stuff that was too violent or we didn't want,

finding stuff to fill it with from other shows,

extend sequences, was quite a challenge. Lots

of people came up with lots of great ideas on

the production team to streamline it, to make

it uniform, but we invented many... techniques

and fortune favors the bold and fortune also

is good when things are invented because you

need to have them so there were many daunting

times early on about halfway through the summer

of 1984 was when it was a well -oiled machine

and I knew then that we were going to make it

I didn't know until I saw the kids eyes if it

was just our vision and our vision could have

been bogus it could have been completely off

the track but we stayed with our vision we stayed

the course So many times you listen to what everyone

else is saying and you don't follow your gut

and it doesn't work. It becomes mediocre because

it's a committee -made property. We followed

our passion and it worked. In one respect it

was a surprise because others had had other people

had had similar shows but other people didn't

do it to the same degree. As a matter of fact

my my mentor Riley who I was operating the Foley

stage being that his specialty was acquiring

rights to foreign's picture, he had tried years

previous with another show that was similar in

style, but did it very inexpensively and didn't

do it to the same level. The one thing I think

that set Voltron apart from those other shows,

and there had been other shows that were adapted

from Japanese productions that had been adapted

that didn't do quite as well, Or didn't do anywhere

near as well Voltron is a Japanese made cartoon

syndicated to ten countries and dubbed in a dozen

languages It's the story of the lion force the

way that they did that and You know it started

from adapting the story and they use top -notch

writers. They use top -notch actors Going the

stereo sound effects was increased production

value, so it's a cumulative effect so The fact

that they put more into it maybe that doesn't

surprise me, but You know I'd seen other ones

come and go that you know they that weren't nearly

as successful Voltron showed me that a team of

people working unselfishly together of course

we had our ups and downs You can make anything

happen if you set your mind to it You can will

it into being all the subsequent shows that I

did the sum and total of my career Was probably

made possible by Voltron showing me that you

could will something into being with a courageous

and happy crew of people and a little bit of

money and very little time and that on any given

day your vision can translate to something special

for everybody in the world. You know it really

is a testament to the talent of the people behind

the series and its creation that they were able

to see. God knows how many tapes of different

shows to be localized and something special was

about this show that said hey this really is

going to resonate with children and adults alike

so it really is a testament to their foresight

and their instinct and and Ted being able to

look at this and say hey I think this would make

a great series and You know, with minimal adjustments

and a little localization, it really shined.

And the two combinations coming together was

a dream come true for kids our age. Voltron is

loved by all good people and feared by evil.

And if we can locate those parts, we can operate

them. There's five of us. And when we form Voltron,

no evil will harm you again. Princess, our prayers

are answered. From this moment on you five shall

be known as the Voltron force the identity with

Voltron is the fact that When you think about

it you have an anchor a human anchor with the

Voltron force where you have just another transformer

with the Voltron so when the Voltron took on

the go lion like shell to, so to speak, that

imagery to form the Voltron. Then Voltron separated

itself from the whole wrath of other Transformers

in that era. Most robot shows, I mean by their

nature, they're hardware shows. You know, we

had shows like Transformers that I've also worked

on and and GoBots and shows like that and it's

about hardware, it's about machines. And little

boys like machines, they like tractors and so

there's a certain appeal to that. But that wasn't

what Voltron Lion Force was about at all. It

was not about machines It was very different

it was Myth based and I think that's really what

accounts for the appeal of it And that's certainly

what appealed to me about it, but a lot of the

fans it was mythical so Voltron and I'm now talking

about Lion Force Voltron Voltron was not created

in an R &D lab nobody nobody drew up a schematic

and created Voltron and did prototypes. Voltron

is this mythical entity that its origins are

mysterious and it shows up when you need it and

it has a connection to the royal house of Eris,

planet Eris and its ultimate mission is a grand

mission to defend the universe. So it's mythical

and the way that you come into the story is that

Princess Allura is alone, abandoned in this bombed

-out castle. So you have this image of abandonment.

Everyone can relate to that, how that feels.

And it's a castle, so she had some kind of destiny.

She's from a royal family, and yet everything

in her world is destroyed. Her parents are gone,

no family, no community, et cetera. And now she's

being attacked by the, by Zarkon and his evil

forces. So what happens is, you know, everyone

can relate to that feeling of being abandoned

and alone, and then the universe provides an

answer. It provides a protector for her, and

the protector is Voltron. And Voltron comes out

of mystery, out of, out of the need, I think,

out of her need comes the answer. That's a completely

different thing than some scientist coming up

with a... you know, with a new weapon. So the

feeling you get from it is that the universe

provides us with answers when we need them. And

that's a comforting, it's a comforting fairy

tale to believe that, that the universe is going

to defend us and help us and provide for us when

we need it. And it comes in the form of Voltron,

which is, first of all, it's made out of five

lions. So they're machines, but they're not machines.

they're machines but they're also pets they're

also animals and when you when you fly in one

of those lions they roar they don't roar because

you pulled a lever or pushed a button they roar

because they have their own personalities they

have their own spirits so again that's not mechanical

it's something that goes beyond mechanics it's

much more mythical and also you know they're

they look the same the designs are the same which

of course is practical for animators but also

um the only differences are the are the colors.

So they weren't designed by a creator to be different

from one another. What is the difference? It's

not a mechanical difference. It's an essential

difference. One of them is from... Has the power

of the earth is from the earth yellow line is

from the earth and has the power of the earth

One has the power of the sea one has the power

of the sky So they have these elemental powers

the four elements plus life green line comes

out of the forest So what drives them are again

elemental mythical powers not design differences,

but elemental powers So there's all of these

mythical aspects to the to the series that I

think gave it its power plus She's a princess

her father appears to her as a ghost etc etc,

and I think that was all the appeal of the show

that's what made it special and that's what made

it fun to work on. What was really to me intriguing

about the show was there was not a lot of characters.

There was a team of kids that were the basis

for the show. Kids that we relate to every day.

Whether it was the hunk who was the sports enthusiast,

whether it was the computer geek in Pidge, whether

it was the beauty of Princess Allura, Commander

Keith. What was really kind of neat about the

show, although these kids were totally different,

they all represented a team concept. And in order

to win, they all had to come together. And the

kind of is analogous to life today is that in

schools that I think kids should understand that

it's not just the superhero that should be the

stars. It's the combination of different backgrounds

and characters coming together and united that

makes this world happen. And that's what happens

in the Voltron show. You know, there was also

King Alford, who was one of my favorite characters,

and probably one of the more misunderstood. I

mean, he was the guiding principle behind the

show. And in my opinion, King Alford's spirit

represents the various members of the team force

that come together and make it happen. And Voltron

is the physical version. of King Alfort. It's

his incarnation, and that's what makes Voltron

an exciting character. He's more humanistic than

just a robot. He represents Alfort. Mark Handler

and some of the writers had put some quirkiness

into it, and I think that was the thing that

was needed to separate us from the other so -called

Transformers. Ilk and some of that tongue -in

-cheek thing grabbed a lot of kids and older

kids like for example, there's one sequence where

Which Hager is in the group of the bunch of deals

and there's our kind of saying you do this and

you guard the flank of the castle and you Hager

you take the windows and she turns around she

says honey I don't do windows. I don't do windows

and I They just threw a lot of stuff like that.

And I think there was little bits and pieces.

They had that humor going along with the battle

thing. And when you looked at that at that time

period and you compared it with the other Transformers

shows, that was one more thing that just grabbed

kids. They liked that thing that, hey, we can

be in right in the middle of battle and then

something, a neat little line will be thrown

out like that. Changes must be made before I

fly that thing. Is the Great Carp afraid? I fear

nothing, but it must be the fastest rope beast

ever built and it must be red. I only fly red

ships and it must have windows, many more windows.

That's nonsense. You'll fly any kind of ship

you're given. Oh, it's quite alright. My magic

can easily change the color to red, but I don't

do windows. We tried very hard to operate on

two levels, you know, for, you know, kids to

understand the dialogue and make it simple, but

stuck a lot of innuendo in there so that, you

know, teenagers and older people would, you know,

get a kick out of the sum of stuff that was going

on. Like hookup. Where did hookup come from?

Well, hookup is actually an old animation term

which means that From the last frame of one scene,

it needs to hook up to the next scene because

it's going to a wide shot or a close -up or a

different angle or whatever. So that's where

it comes from. But then the lions start to hook

up and, you know, now today kids, you know, talk

about hooking up. And I won't take credit for

that, but who knows? What I hope anyone gets,

whoever looks at Voltron, even if it's a thousand

years from now on some technology that would

amaze us, some holographic technology. is that

it's a microcosm of our world. There's beauty,

there's grace, there's dignity, but there's evil.

And the evil isn't pedestrian evil, it's real.

It's people who will do something evil because

they can get away with it, not because they're

just a bad guy or a bad woman. They will see

weakness, they will see weakness in the character's

souls, they will see remorse, they'll see grief,

they'll see avarice, they'll see anguish. Some

of the deadly sins are in the show, not many,

one or two. They'll see humanity in a make -believe

realm, but with real characters walking back

and forth across the stage. So I think they'll

see a passion, and I hope they take a passion

for life, for humor, and they understand that

at the end of the day, it's not who's the most

powerful, who's the most brave, who's the most

strong. It's more like who has the biggest mind,

and how open can your mind be? and how important

a sense of humor is, and we shouldn't all take

ourselves very seriously. So if they walk away

with a little bit of a lighter lilt to their

step, that's what Voltron means. It means have

a heart, have a soul, and of course it takes

place in a wildly fanciful world, but that's

what people take. I hope. I hope fans take away

that it's a compelling story, they're likable

characters, the bad guys are people you can love

to hate. and that good conquers evil. You know,

I could sit here and say about the teamwork and

everybody coming together, but frankly, I would

have to say the life lesson learned from Voltron

is don't trust a mysterious stranger who's claiming

to be a relative, or if it's just too good to

be true, it's probably Witch Haggar in a disguise,

okay? I don't know how many times she went through

that plot hole. She would always get a disguise,

a mysterious person would show up at the door,

oh, I'm your lost cousin or whatnot, then suddenly

when you're not looking, Robeast City. buddy,

all right? That was very common. So that's what

I learned. Don't trust people claiming to be

your relatives. They're probably ropeys. Eris

is defeated and I, Zarkon, rule the entire universe.

And with the capture of the space explorers,

I need no longer fear the galaxy alliance. Zarkon

was a little harder to draw and he just had a

kind of a majestic quality there because with

the rest of the characters they had their...

spaceships and their cockpits and so forth but

Zarkhan had a real empire that he thrown fire

and you see some of the drawings of the sets

there he had a lot of pizzazz behind him and

he also had a few minions and sidekicks like

I think it was dredge or dredge lock and I kind

of liked it. Well, Haggar is kind of a classic

witch and she had mystical powers but that was

coupled and the frosting was put on the cake

and she teamed with Zarkon who was just a nasty

guy. You know, I kind of like some of the Robes

designs because it was always so fantastic and

just crazy and Haggar just kept ramping it up

and taking it up a notch each different level

So but I gotta say maybe, you know, the favorite

one would always be where they do like the evil

doppelganger Voltron, you know So it was like

Voltron versus Voltron, you know, it was like

oh which one is which which was like a standard

80s staple storyline The Robies, gotta go with

the Robies. Anybody who comes down in a coffin

as an entrance, that to me says, hey, I'm here,

notice me, you know? Lothar is my favorite character

because he was... Each character had their very,

very own wonderful personality. There was something

of all of us in all of them, and there's something

in them of all of us. It's just a wonderful world.

But Lotor was conflicted, and that's why I liked

him, and we made him that way as much as possible.

A brilliant mind, a dashing soul, and yet with

a bent toward... the bad side, the dark side.

So he was sort of that fellow you love to hate.

I think he was my favorite because he probably

was the most representative of conflicted souls

in the real world. An exciting part of the entire

series was the tension between Allura and Lotor.

I mean it was just incredible that it turned

out so well. And everybody wanted to see a Lothar

episode because he was such a lovable guy to

hate. And he wanted a Laura's Body band. One

of the best things about the original classic

Voltron Defender of the Universe had to be the

character voices. I mean, you had a who's who

of 80s voice superstars in Peter Cullen, Jack

Angel. Michael Bell. I mean, we hear these voices

now, and I know for myself and a lot of other

fans, they'll be watching something completely

different and go, hey, that's Keith. That's the

voice of Keith or something. That's Lance. And

of course, Peter Cullen is the voice of God,

OK, to so many of us generation of 80s kids.

Actors portraying members of the Voltron team

entertained youngsters today at St. Louis Center.

The songs and skits sponsored by a local dentist

carry a very simple message. Proper dental care

now can prevent tooth decay later on. You can

catch the show's two final performances at the

mall tomorrow at 1 and again at 3 p .m. In 1985

we put together a live cast of Voltron characters.

We had Princess Laura, we had Commander Keith,

Pidge, and they took a tour across the country.

and they would fill up these malls. There's these

shots of 5 ,000 kids in Hawaii. It was unbelievable,

you know? And Keith was rocking the mall up there,

and Pidge was acting goofy, and they would walk

around and they would teach these kids, you know,

how to brush their teeth, right, and do all these

things. Well, you know, it's kind of funny now

that we're grown, but I remember back then, you

know, that was real, and to see Princess Alora

in the flesh before you was a magical moment

that you got to put up there with Santa Claus

and the Easter Bunny. I mean, it was just...

unbelievable for these kids, to think that these

characters had stepped out of the TV screen and

were now there in front of them. World Events,

the producers of the Voltron cartoon series,

wanted to do something good for a group of children.

You see, they wanted to make some magic happen

for the people responsible for the success of

their series. So, the cartoon producer and syndicator

joined forces with Eastern Airlines to provide

a plane to get this wish off the ground. Peter

Keith, vice president and executive producer

for World Events, explains what the contributions

of both companies were and part of the reason

why World Events became involved. The Voltron

Express, as it were, is taking about 35 kids

and their families on an L -1011 down to Disney

World tomorrow. And all of these stewards and

pilots and stewardesses from Eastern Airlines

have been kind enough to donate their time. So

it's an absolutely marvelous dream come true

for adults as well as kids. One of the great

thrills we had with Voltron was... Once the brand

was established and the show was established

there was a huge following of kids and we made

the decision that as people that had created

the show and seen the meaning what it was giving

to kids as we decided that we wanted to give

something back to the community. So we leased

an L -1011 with the help of Eastern Airlines

and we took 180 family and terminally ill kids

down to Disney World. And it was a blast. We

had Commander Keith on the plane along with Princess

Allura. The kids had a birthday party on the

plane. In fact, the plane got there down to Florida

before they were able to cut the cake. It happened

to be the last flight for this Eastern Airline

captain, so he made the decision on his own that

instead of landing at Disney World, He would

tour the southern coast of Florida until the

kids got done eating their birthday cake and

ice cream. So after that we flew into Florida.

The kids just had a ball at Disney World. It

was probably the most rewarding thing that we

ever did with the Voltron series is to see the

joy that happened with these kids in meeting

Princess Laura and Commander Keith. They just

had a ball and you know we heard from the parents

afterwards what a great time they had. That was

Ted's I mean Ted gave thanks to a lot of things

and he saw where You know, the company was making

a lot of money at the time, but the make -a -wish

has always been one of his, you know, he still

has that today and a lot of other key charities

that help kids. And he was very much in this

and when we got back some of the pictures and

some of the things that they were doing, they

went down to Florida and they had the cast. At

that time, some real characters dressed up like

the Voltron force and so forth, and the kids

just went nuts over that. And I think that was

perhaps one of our big highlights there in charities,

but Ted has always been in that direction, and

it's a very good attribute because I don't think

it's done that much. It's done because maybe

it's required, but Ted did it because he wanted

to. From days of long ago from uncharted regions

of the universe comes a legend The Voltron fans

have really been the ones who are bringing this

all back and when these studio executives or

people in charge of distribution see what this

alive and loyal fan base is doing, that's what

they want. Hollywood is all about, you know,

pre -sold properties and they want to know that

there's going to be a group of people that show

up and that just exemplifies Voltron. So one

of the things that happened was a while back...

Mark Costa, Ford Olman from NHL Entertainment,

they're big Voltron fans and they just called

up and said, you know, hey, we're looking to

explore the rights for a live action feature

film, which is just monumental as far as nothing

like this has ever been done where you put this

kind of action on screen. So now we have producer

Mark Gordon on board who did Saving Private Ryan

the day after tomorrow. So we're in really good

hands. We also have Pharrell Williams on board

as executive producer who's probably one of the

biggest Voltron fans ever So I think you're gonna

see with a live -action movie some some innovative

Moments that haven't been seen on screen before

but it's really early right now It's in development

and so many things can change but everything

that we're dealing with so far I think is gonna

be something really special. It's it's amazing.

You know, it's hard to believe that the show

could last that long. You know, and now that

it's, you know, the generation that grew up with

it is now going to be, you know, it's probably

going to introduce the DVDs to their kids. It'll

probably have a new broadcast life at some point.

And, you know, it could go up there with Lucy

and Mash, you know, and live forever. So what

we're exploring in the future as far as new products

with Voltron is to really come at it at a tiered

strategy. You have the super fans like myself,

guys my age, guys and gals our age who remember

Voltron from when they were a kid and they want

to relive those moments both on the DVD that

they're going to share with their kids now and

now there's a whole new generation that has been

raised on anime, on action series that in doing

any new series We actually have set the challenge

for ourselves that we're going to have to come

out with something so innovative and make as

big of an impact if not more than the original

Voltron. So really Voltron set the bar that we're

going to have to jump across ourselves. And these

kids that were raised on Power Rangers and everything

like that, I remember when I was exploring Power

Rangers, it was like, I just watched it just

to get that little tingle of Voltron. And now

being on the street and having to explain to

these kids, look, it's not Power Rangers. This

is Power Rangers daddy, OK? This came out way

before, right? This is the DNA of Power Rangers.

So it's going to be an interesting time as far

as new series goes. And we're going to have to

break out of some of these mythos that we created

already. But I think overall you're going to

see these new events, these new series, as really

Voltron at the core, even if we do remix a little

bit and mash up some of the other elements. So

we're just hoping to please both new fans and

old fans alike. And I think we can do it. Something

has that lodestone appeal. It's gonna stay with

you forever, like a song that you haven't thought

of for 20 years, that a sight, a sound, a scent,

stimulates your imagination. Voltron had that

soul power that enabled it to stay hidden, dormant,

in our systems, and then something reminds us

of it. Paul Vitello and I actually tried to form

Voltron with two cars one night, and his got

the worst of it, I think. Voltron is part of

the pop culture. To Voltron someone, I've heard

kids say means to slice them, to crunch them.

So when Voltron was delivering the coup de grace

at the end of certain episodes, we made it mechanical.

He wasn't disemboweling anything as we see today.

But that was Voltroning someone. Eddie Murphy

in an interview said he was Voltron one time,

I remember. Chaka Khan held a Voltron on the

cover of Rolling Stone. Voltron was in Barron's

Forbes, Fortune, Time, everywhere. So I think

it was such... a difference. Voltron was different

because it wasn't just mechanics. It wasn't just

mindless destruction. It wasn't just a big powerful

man that's looking for the blue power crystal

and when he finds it that's the third part of

the episode because that's the denouement of

the epilogue's gonna come after that. It was

about people who were like us. They were extraordinary

and they're... with their accoutrement, with

their vehicles, their costumes, but their world

was like our world when you were 6 or 8 or even

16 or 32. So the soul enjoys and I think that's

the best part about Voltron as opposed to a lot

of other action -adventure genres. Its heart

is made up of thinking, feeling characters. From

uncharted regions of the universe Comes a legend

the legend of Voltron defender of the universe

This morning I I sent an email out to the supervisors

other supervisors in a studio where I work that

I was going to be doing a an interview today

and I'd be gone for a few hours in the middle

of the day and For Voltron because it's coming

out in a deluxe box set And so one of the supervisors

came to me and he said, you did Voltron? I said,

yeah. He said, God, that was my favorite show

when I was a kid. He said, the best Christmas

I ever had was when I got the big lion robot.

Things happened so fast it wasn't until the following

year that there was a toil deal in place and

merchandising but we started seeing the Nielsen

ratings and the reports and very soon it became

apparent that it was a hit and it was really

exciting. Every day I would go to Universal Studios,

MCA, Merchandising Corporation of America, was

handling, they were the licensed broker. They

dealt with all the paperwork, all the legal,

all the copyright, all the trademark, and every

day there'd be new suggested products, and I

would look at them and say, no, we really don't

need another one of those. Or this one's great,

but it's too short, too tall, too fat, too skinny.

I would go to Hong Kong, and I would look at

the manufacturing there. I would go to Macau,

where they manufactured, and I would talk to

the big... ten licensees on a weekly basis. And

as I said, part of my job at the time was to

go to Universal and look at all the toys that

were being submitted to us, all the licenses,

and decide what ones were good and what ones

weren't. And of course, it wasn't just all me.

We had lots of help and lots of very, very smart

souls. But we were always conscious of not to...

not to... Over license it licensing's grand you

make a lot of money And that's you can make more

Voltron's and make more wonderful shows that

can change the world a teeny bit But you have

to be careful not to just throw it at the wall

and see if it sticks Voltron was just like the

talk of the playground when we were younger I

mean the matchbox toys the diecast metals those

things were so heavy I mean you could kill somebody

with that thing And everybody had a piece of

it and you could all come together and share

and form Voltron much like the theme We had a

Voltron robot, a toy, and it was before there

were Voltron toys that were available in this

country. Franklin was saying, you know, that

first Christmas was such a huge success, but

there were no toys. But since they were existing

shows in Japan, there were the toys that were

marketed in Japan. And I think it was Bondi that

was the manufacturer. So there was an import

shop. in Little Tokyo here in Los Angeles. And

so my partner Gary and I went down, we had lunch,

we had sushi for lunch, and we went to this toy

store and bought the Five Lion Voltron and the

15 vehicles, the Go Lion and the Die Rugger.

So we had them on our video monitor in our main

studio. And so when we came in this one morning

after making the call to Franklin that we didn't

think we could... We might be a show short that

week. Our Voltron was gone, and there was a ransom

deliver five shows to Primor. And we did deliver

the five shows, and we did get the Voltron back.

But we had a lot of fun. Not a month goes by

that someone doesn't say, you're Peter Keith.

You did Voltron? I was Voltron when I was a kid.

I lived that show. I had the talking toothbrush,

the sheets, the pillowcases, and the list goes

on and on and on. And it's funny seeing someone

who's in their late 20s or even early 30s become

so animated. A stockbroker. a doctor, a policeman

giving you a ticket. Did you see the animation

come over their faces? When they hop back 20

-something years, you know the magic still lives.

And that's why I said earlier the hallmark of

Ultron was soul power. For a man who's 30 or

a woman who's 28 or 30 today, to still dip back...

20 years ago into their memory and have Voltron

light up their face is a privilege, such a luxury

to be able to see that. They found the secret

about the lions. They found some keys and the

lions. The three daring flyers took time out

for a 35 -city tour of Earth to visit children's

hospitals and to remind parents that Voltron

toys are in the stores just in time for Christmas.

The die -cast Voltron toy from Matchbox, a classic,

probably in the top. three of toys of all time.

I mean, that was so coveted. I mean, it was just

like, you know, gold to have this die -cast heavy.

The thing was heavy. I mean, that was metal,

you know? It was just unbelievable. And what

was great about it is no kid could quite beg

their parents to get the whole thing. $75. So

you'd each have a little piece. All right, so

on the playground everybody would come together

and You know Danny might have that one Kirby

might have that piece, you know, that's the only

way you could form it And you guys were like,

okay now what who gets to play with the Voltron?

So that is a classic toy There was one which

was a kind of like a flashlight with four legs

And you looked at it and it today's standards

Why was that even designed? And then you had

figurines, you had a lot of other different types

of things. I went with Ted with some of the big

boys there and we saw some of the things they

were doing and the metal castings. It was quite

an experience. I remember going to companies

like Tootsie Toy and going through some of the

things where we were seeing somehow the miniature

cars were made and so forth. And it was really

quite an experience to do that. And they had

to take our characters and develop it to toys.

And to do that process, they actually had to

make a sculptural three -dimension type of thing.

And you have to understand that those basic references

they got was not like today's digital rotating

type of wire frames we have. It all had to be

done with just sculpturing. So it was a lot of

coordination, but it really paid off. We had

sheets and pillowcases and all different kinds

of paraphernalia. It's hard to remember the full

line. But what's kind of interesting is, I mean,

as the years have gone by, when you see some

major motion pictures and you see Voltron products

in the background. It's very exciting. It comes

to you through your friends that might have gone

to see the movie and said, oh, I saw Voltron

sheets. Was that Voltron back there in big? Yes.

It was great stuff. So it was a very exciting

time. You can't target kids as consumers. You

have to target kids as sentient human beings

who are going to put you through the grist mill

of their mind. If it works and they also want

to buy a talking toothbrush or sheets and pillowcases

or a t -shirt, that's grand. But you can't treat

them as consumers. This is Stan Bush and you're

listening to All Things Transformers with TFG1

Mike and Steve Megatron. Tune in every two weeks

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