Toku Tuesday (#GHWP Live Tweet June 9, 2015)

10:30PM EST after #TrashTue

      It's Toku Tuesday! #TrashTue's first feature this week, Infra-Man, makes another Tuesday night perfect for some more Spectreman, and it's never difficult to pick a good pair of episodes.

This Tuesday's episodes:
Episode 7 - The Black Terror
Episode 8 - Duel Gokinosaurus

We're gonna get a big can of RAID, right? We're gonna get a really big can of RAID, right?! - Tom Servo, MST3K Exp517 Beginning of the End

Note: Anyone that sat in on one of the earlier #GHWP Spectreman showings may have seen episode 7 already. That night was wrought with link troubles and miscommunication thanks to the issue of episodes 5 and 6 being duplicates of the same show on YouTube (which I had to remedy from my own personal video collection) as well as the fact that I didn't know a thing about making YouTube playlists yet. Episode 7 was a last-second fill-in that night for the missing show, and we never got around to the second part of this story in episode 8. I still intend to go back and present episodes 5 and 6 again properly, but I want to give a little more time to justify another rerun.

      The Pollution G-Men are still in their early stages in this story, and they want to run some tests on the harmful effects of smog on human beings. Their primary subject, a man named Nakaya, after a nasty exposure to smog, suffers from a case so severe that he is deathly afraid of the dark.

Mommy!

     The supposed urgency Nakaya's condition presents is so panicking that even Overlord, never one to bother gathering a lot of facts from his ivory tower before making a corporate decree, wants Spectreman to transport Nakaya to Nebula Star to be dissected. No, Overlord doesn't say outright that Spectreman's all-powerful rulers plan to cut Nakaya up into pieces, but it's certainly implied in the fact that he wouldn't have a say in the matter and wouldn't be coming back to Earth. Spectreman commits his cardinal sin of the day and disobeys orders, but of course Overlord never really does follow through with that threat of destruction for insubordination. Little does anyone know that Nakaya's exposure to the smog was part of another plot of the mad Dr. Gori. It was Karas, dressed to the nines as always, who planted a weapon in Nakaya's lab that led to his condition, and chances are the weapon contained much more than simple toxic smoke.

Such a snappy dresser.

     While Rita, who has feelings for Nakaya, argues with George and the Pollution G-Men about taking Nakaya to her village for some fresh air instead of letting him suffer for science, Gori puts the rest of his plan into motion, mutating an average cockroach into the towering Gokinosaurus.

If only Glenn Manning had a pair of house shoes in his size.

     The story turns soap-opera in a hurry when Rita absconds with Nakaya in the night. Spectreman has his orders to deliver Nakaya to Nebula Star, but Karas once again sets his sights on Rita.

Apparently, every gorilla suffers from a King Kong complex... or Karas wants to know who does Rita's hair.

     Will Spectreman obey Overlord and rescue Nakaya from Gokinosaurus, only to transport Nakaya to Nebula Star against his will? Will Spectreman disobey Overlord and rescue Rita from Karas' clutches? Or will Spectreman just tell them all to get off his back once and for all and fly down to Cancun for the weekend? Find out Tuesday night on #GHWP's Midnight Spectreman Early Edition.

In between episodes, expect some more tokusatsu goodness as I present some more intro themes from the golden age of Japanese superheroes. This Midnight Spectreman Early Edition showcases intros that focus mainly on the creative genius and influence of the late master Shotaro Ishinomori with Toei's very first entries in their two most popular franchises, Himitsu Sentai GoRanger and Kamen Rider, as well as intros for Inazuman Flash, Denjin Zaborger, Kikaider, Kikaider 01, the first magical girl anime Sarutobi Ecchan, the live action Sailor Moon, and the original Japanese openings for Maguma Taishi (AKA Space Giants) and Kagaku Sentai Dynaman.  

      The 1970s were a boom for Japanese superheroes. Tsuburaya's Ultraman may deserve a lot of the credit for inspiring a surge in giant monsters and robots, but most production companies only offered one or two entries in the genre such as P Productions with Space Giants and Spectreman. For a brief moment in the early 1970s, even Toho got into the act with its own superheroes to meet the growing popular demand, first introducing Jet Jaguar in what was intended to be his own feature film, but lack of faith in his star power led to what would be known as Godzilla vs. Megalon. A month after Megalon was released in Japanese theaters, Toho debuted its direct television sequel, Ryuseu Ningen Zone (AKA Meteor Man Zone or Zone Fighter). Zone Fighter would take on a number of alien-controlled giant monsters every week and even faced off against the mighty King Ghidorah and Gigan, and Godzilla himself, officially a heroic monster, made a few guest appearances as Zone Fighter's most powerful ally.

     It was Toei Company Limited that would go on to flood the market in the 1970s and well into the 1980s with their immense catalog of Sentai (task force) and Henshin (transforming) heroes. They still continued to produce anime and movies such as a personal favorite of mine, Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds, and they also were responsible for cult classics such as Invasion of the Neptune Men, The Green Slime, and The Magic Serpent. They would become known best, however, through the annual television franchises of Sentai and Kamen Rider, and it was only natural that they also take on the television adaptations of the heavily Sentai/Henshin-influenced Sailor Moon.

     Shotaro Ishinomori, a name every tokusatsu fan should know by heart as the creator of Japan's first superhero team, Cyborg 009, as well as Japan's first android superhero, 8Man, set the Toei Henshin/Sentai hero formula into motion with the creation of Kamen Rider, GoRanger and Jak-Q Dengekitai. The Sentai formula would undergo a henshin of its own after a collaboration with Marvel Comics in the late 1970s added giant transforming robots to its hero arsenal following Toei's 1978 live-action Spider-Man adaptation--in which Spider-Man controlled a giant spacecraft called The Marveler that transformed into the giant fighting robot Leopardon--officially labeling its primary task force franchise Super Sentai in 1979. Ishinomori's human-sized transforming hero formula would remain intact with Kamen Rider, and he would go on to create a slew of other Henshin and Sentai heroes down the line as well as the first magical girl anime and another undoubted inspiration for Sailor Moon, Sarutobi Ecchan.

     Dynaman just might look familiar to anyone that grew up in the early 1980s with cable. It stands as the very first Super Sentai series to be shown in the United States, a decade before Saban adapted the franchise into the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Dynaman aired on the fledgling USA Network's Night Flight as well as Nickelodeon's Special Delivery weekend matinee movie slot, but, unlike Spectreman, the Japanese script for Dynaman was thrown out completely and dubbed in English with comedy in the vein of Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? Why do I bring up the history of Dynaman? Well, this series was my second in-depth exposure to Japanese superheroes and has almost as big a place in my heart as Spectreman, and I intend to add some Dynaman episodes to the #GHWP viewing slot in the near future. The stories were funny and unforgettable as well as the costuming. Although so many of their shows are formulaic, the fact that Toei manages to remain original and imaginative with its character designs and make-up year after year is a testament to their talent.

     But hey, August Ragone is the guy to ask about the full story. My background and the little introduction I have detailed here aren't even a drop in the bucket compared to the man's knowledge of the genres. No one deserves more respect for knowing the material, so much so that I'm tempted to ask him to proofread and sign off on what I've written here. We're just having fun here with the live tweeting, but there are plenty of serious places to go for additional information if one is inspired to look for it.

     Overlord commands you tune in to #GHWP Tuesday night after #TrashTue for this tour of the grand history of Japanese superheroes. The fun starts at 10:30PM EST and will be over with a little time to spare for the east coast feed of @midnight featuring the RiffTrax crew.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3tVGZUMIrDVRwkc6oa-EuzW-Q1bpjWXt