Priiiinnnnnnnnnnce PLANET! KA-ZOW!
Back in the early 70s, Prince Planet was an early piece of Japanese anime that was dubbed in English and shown daily on channel 44, a Chicago UHF station, which also aired the old Fleischer Popeye and Felix the Catcartoons. Watching Prince Planet is one of my few fond childhood television memories. I have very distinct recollections of sitting in front of my family's first (black and white) TV, drawing pictures on the coffee table while the show played. I'm pretty sure I drew pictures of Prince Planet, Dan Dynamo, and the other characters, but sadly, or perhaps gladly, none have survived. I'm going to guesstimate that I watched the show when I was around five or six years old. I might have been younger because I feel like I was watching the show during that grey area of childhood where the real and the imagined meld together. In my memory I'm not fighting alongside Prince Planet, but I vividly "recall" standing on those black, white, and grey "sets," watching the action.
What was strange about Prince Planet, especially in the pre-Internet and pre-Japanese anime import days, is that when I recollected the show later on, my friends thought I'd lost my mind. Throughout grade school I couldn't find anyone who remembered even hearing about the show. What? A boy from another planet with a magic pendant? A bat-winged villain with a buzzsaw wristwatch? A Martian warlock? Are you feeling okay, Dan?
Then in high school I signed up for German I for my language requirement, and made the acquaintance of a girl named Ramona. Ramona was cool. I think she was a second-generation German-American, and she was a geek-girl before there supposedly was such a thing. I remember her being into sci-fi and comics, which would explain why we got into a discussion about cartoons.
"Do you remember a cartoon called Prince Planet?" I asked her once.
Her eyes lit up.
"Yeah! He had that pendant, and his home planet would beam super-energy to him, and his archenemy would throw a buzzsaw watch, and..."
Then we chattered about Prince Planet, recollecting the stories, but not remembering the names of most of the characters. Again, these were the bad old days where we couldn't just type in "alien boy pendant magic buzzsaw watch" and have the history of some obscure Japanese cartoon laid out for us by pantsless individuals who spent their days researching and posting such BS. Discussing Prince Planet with Ramona was extremely validating. Why I never asked her out, I don't know.
Years later, when the Museum for Broadcast Communications was still in the Chicago Cultural Center building, I learned you could view videotapes of old local TV shows there. On a visit, Donna Kossy-who used to live up in Evanston-and I spent an afternoon loading up episodes of the Ray Rayner Show and Diver Dan, chortling at the bargain basement production values and wondering if the producers were either stoned or insane.
On a whim, I looked up Prince Planet and discovered they had a single episode. I suspect Donna must have wondered why my hands shook so and my eyes misted up. We watched the 25 minute episode-I can't recall which one. I swear, my hands were folded up and tucked under my chin like a teen debutante. I'm not one to seek solace in my childhood, but this was a happy moment in my adult life during a particularly bleak period.
When the Internet came to fruition in the mid-90s, especially where shopping for obscure nonsense is concerned, I did a Google search and found a site offering VHS tapes of the old show. Naturally, the idea of spending upwards of $200 on dozens of fifth-generation tapes-and during the dawn of DVDs-didn't sit well with me. Still, Mr. Dan Kelly just wanted a little taste, so I added it to my wish list page on the mrdankelly.com site (I really need to update that thing). By my next birthday, semibold got me the tape bearing the last few episodes. I spent an evening munching popcorn, thrilled to finally be reminded that the villain who dressed like a Victorian undertaker and threw the aforementioned buzzsaw watch was named Krag of Kragmire: Master of Misery (aka Gollen in the original cartoon). Krag's voice and appearance weren't as deep and dark as I remembered them being, but he's still plenty creepy.
I bring all this up because (even though I doubt this will affect or impress most of you) I'm thrilled to announce that the show's entire run is available on YouTube. Huzzah!
Now, after watching a few episodes you might wonder why I'm oodling so much over the show. It's not that Prince Planet was a great cartoon, but even at the time I knew that it was pretty out there in comparison with most of the after-school/Saturday morning dreck I watched (oh, how I long to get back the time I wasted watching Scooby-Doo). I'm not an intransigent believer that old stuff by its elderly nature is better than new stuff, but I do appreciate that old stuff was mostly created by individuals rather than manufactured by assembly line workers, giving it a more heft and charm. The cultural differences and time's distance has also made these old cartoons seem stranger, almost unearthly. Speaking of unearthliness, after watching the episode "Robot No. 9," I was struck at how many scenes were still imprinted on my memory-especially the title character's (a plastic robot that could assume any shape) creepy ghost appearance:
and its eventual stabbing/melting death (disguised as a train). Ick.
What really stands out, however, is the number of things you could NEVER get away with in an American kid's cartoon today.
Life-threatening situations:
Blowing off limbs (don't worry, Krag grows it back instantly, "Like a lizard," per Prince Planet, who doesn't seem to comprehend how regeneration actually works):
Bizarre and violent weapons. Check out the "Knifegun" that can slice through anything.
Or Mr. Malice's "Electronobolt Gun," which is fearsome enough to cause the prince to soil his pressure suit.
Meanwhile, archbastard Krag wasn't above injecting Bobby/Prince Planet with a little freeze solution while he tore the earth a new one:
Or choking the living shit out of him. Jesus Christ. To quote Sgt. Hatred, "What, did Henry Darger write this?"
Anyway, enjoy... or not. But let me know what you think. For a real mindfuck, watch "The Mystery of Organ", in which an organ possessed by Krag's artificial heart causes havoc on the ranch where Prince Planet lives under his earth identity "Bobby." Ever see an organ eat a cow? You will.
Postscript: I can't begin to describe how bizarre it was to see the following scene. The "camera" pans across a shelf of toys, revealing... quadruple amputee Rod Flanders?
