Voltron. It's craaaaaaaaptastic.

Recently I read an article about parody and satirical treatment of fairy tales, children's stories, etc, and how the current generation of children is actually seeing the parody/satire without ever being exposed to the source material. The article stopped short of examining the impact of the situation (it was, after all, doubling as a movie review of Shrek III in Time...and given that its focus pertained more to the film's admittedly loosely defined genre, it didn't, you know, really review much...of course, it WAS Time), but it did shed light on a fairly relevant issue in the arts and subsequently in academics. Since I came across the article while (whilst?) looking for secondary materials for my lit class, it struck me as a delightfully thought provoking bit which raised plenty of questions regarding the study of satire/parody/etc (a topic to delve into at another time. Maybe I'll throw something up on the Pedagogical Disaster).


Anyway, it got me thinking about older material (films, tv, texts) and their continuing quality/value today. Now, when it comes to the interests of my childhood, namely TV shows and cartoons, I'm a bit of a romantic. I own the Transformers (original animated) Movie, the G.I. Joe movie and a number of TV episodes of the same, and Mike and Liz where kind enough to get me the entire first season of He-Man on DVD (65 episodes!), all of which I have viewed numerous times because they kick ass. A lot of these shows and similar such things are kept alive by two distinct forces and a subsequent third, complementary one (though in some cases it stands by itself rather nicely): 1) DVD re-releases of the shows, 2) references, parodies, and kitschy merchandise (seen those Thundercats t-shirts? seriously.), and 2.5/3) our romantic (and thus heavily biased) memories of enjoying such things years ago.


There's nothing wrong with this. I still clap my hands and laugh like a child whenever Prince Adam turns into He-Man (come on! with the music and the sword and the bad animated lightning?!?! what's not to love!!). I also find bits of dialogue from the G.I. Joe Movie to be positively epic:


Roadblock: "I don't need to see clear, to fracture your rear!"


(later)


Cobra Commander: "I'll be your eyessss!" *pause as Roadblock picks him up. CC points where they need to go* "Ruuuun!"


As for the (Original) Transformers Movie: Robert Stack, Eric Idle, Orson Wells, Leonard Nimoy...need I say more? Plus, having taken place in 2005, it's now something of a historical period piece.

The bottom line is that this stuff is silly. All kinds of hella silly. But that's okay since it's still very entertaining and resonates nicely with my memories of childhood. Hooray.

But not everyone gets off so easy, I guess. I always enjoyed Thundercats, and it was fun to watch a few episodes, but I lost interest after a couple discs and broke off our brief but passionate Netflix relationship. Still, it was nice, and we had some good times, but TC didn't offer the kind of long term enjoyment and stability that I like out of my DVD...uh...serials.

So I decided to try something else. Unfortunately, that something else was Voltron.

Don't get me wrong, Voltron has, I think, always played a distant also-ran to most of the other early-to-mid Eighties fare, and now it's fairly clear why that is the case. I'm no expert, but I've watched some anime, both good and bad, and the cultural differences are actually very interesting to follow (in regards to character motivation, narrative structure and pacing, etc). I'll add that I am certain (and in some cases this is actually documented) that a lot of things change in translation. Fine. I am also familiar with concept of editing for content, and children's television in the early eighties was, if anything, known for the constant tension involving censorship and Standards and Practices, etc.

But come on.

There is no translation issue, here. There is no issue with narrative conventions. Oh no. Apparently, in the world of Standards and Practices, there is editing for content, then censorship, then Nazi book burning, and then, somewhere down the road, there is Voltron. I mean, grappling with an enemy over a sword, then abrupt cut to the next scene with a quick voice over about winning the fight? That's intense. That's, like, Batman and Robin intense. The show's introductory timeline doesn't make any sense. Nothing, in fact, makes any sense.

Except the theme song, which promptly embedded itself in my brain. It's delightful...and probably the reason the show was ever popular in the first place. Thinking back to circa 1984, I can definitely see why the complete incoherence of the plot didn't bother me. I was 3.

Giant robot+exciting theme song=solid gold.

Which brings me back (kind of) to the whole issue of parody vs. source material. In some cases, the parody is better, Voltron being one of those cases (Robot Chicken comes to mind, and Family Guy at some point, I think). And that is...crazy.

Anybody have more examples?