Classic Anime, Old School Fandom
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So really without Fred Ladd, we wouldn't have anime OP's. That I did not know about.Drew_Sutton wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 9:41 am Safe to say that Fred was one of those foundational blocks that helped put a lot of us onto a path of anime fandom.
I think one of my favorite pieces of anime trivia that I remember hearing is that when Tetsuwan Atom aired in Japan, it didn't really feature opening credits and when Ladd was getting it ready for production here in the States, knew that wouldn't fly. So he got a theme song together and added it to the show for broadcast. No big deal. Well, in some fashion, it made it's way back to Japan, and on subsequent airings, Atom used a theme into with a song based off the American one.
Drew_Sutton wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 6:50 pm I don't know about that - I don't know a whole lot about Japanese television of the 1960s in general, so I don't know how prevalent the concept of opening or closing themes were, say, compared to US television which was using them in the 50s. I also don't know which anime, in 1963, '64, or even into '65 featured OP/ED themes and if the did have them, did they occur between Atom's original broadcast in 1963 and when it started re-running with the opening.
Great write up, as expected, by Mike.usamimi wrote: Mike Toole has a great article about Ladd, and also muses that adding a lyrical theme song might be something that Ladd had inadvertently started: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/featur ... dd/.176221
It's interesting to think about, given that there wasn't really a precedent set yet!
So what Mike says is that Ladd did the lyrics and the song was already present but the turn around was much quicker than re-runs - an update in the original broadcast! Very cool! While I knew Ladd was involved in other anime after Astro Boy, I DID NOT know he was involved in the G-Force dub of Gatchaman; I spent a lot of Saturday afternoons catching that on Cartoon Network for a couple years in the mid-90s. Or early attempts at Sailor Moon adaptation.Perhaps most momentously, Ladd listened to Tatsuo Takai's cheerful instrumental march that opened each episode of Tetsuwan Atom and immediately decided that the song should have lyrics; after all, kids loved to sing along to their favorite songs. Songwriter Don Rockwell was brought in to write the words to Astro Boy, and when Dr. Tezuka visited New York to meet with Ladd and the NBC team, he was astonished to hear the catchy words—and promptly brought the idea straight back to Japan, where Tetsuwan Atom also had lyrics added to the opener starting with episode six.
lol, a day in the life of Mike Toole.I didn't manage to rouse his ire at that “Dubs that Time Forgot” panel (I seem to recall running some clips from Puss n' Boots, but I spoke highly of his dub then, and still do now), but I did get him going at one of his panels. As he regaled the audience about his Gigantor adaptation, I couldn't help but let out a childish giggle at “Dick Strong,” his name for the character Kenji Murasame. Just like that, he was jabbing a finger at me and exuberantly explaining that “Dick” was a perfectly good name, and that the slang term my filthy little mind was thinking of didn't come into play until years later. Wow, the man was not shy about defending his work!