I am slowly going into nostalgia mode, and may evoke some memories in people who were kids when Doordarshan was the single channel on TV, and when there was a serial called 'Giant Robot' that would come on TV. Nowadays, there are such a lot of cartoon channels, but at that time, there was this show among the few that would be coming on TV which was of interest specifically to children (along with Spiderman, and a few others). From what I recall, it used to come in the late afternoon. This is actually a very old serial, which was created in Japan in the late 60's, became a craze in the US in the 70's and then was recycled here in India by Doordarshan in the 80's. But all this does not matter really, nobody cares whether this was recycled or not. There was the thrill of watching it, and it used to get tense when you had to go somewhere (parental pressure or something else unavoidable), and how am I going to be able to miss this episode, and wait for the next episode ?
When the time would come to watch it, all other activity would cease, including playing out and being with friends (I mean, you could still be with friends, but watching the TV for this cartoon).
Now I that remember it, you would not catch anybody of this generation dead watching it. It was not glitzy, the effects were not great, animation was no big deal, and the plot was laughable, but who cares. If you really want to read in details about Giant Robot, then refer to Wikipedia.
So what was it about? It was about this boy called Johnny Sokko who, through a complicated sequence of events, came into control of a giant robot that was capable of flying, and firing a large number of different types of weapons (I remember the laser that would come out of its eyes). Why does this boy need a robot ? Well, because ever since he got control of this robot (using his watch as a controller), he became a member of a group called the Unicorn.
Unicorn in turn was fighting to save the earth from the clutches of a group called the Gargoyle (commanded by an alien emperor called Guillotine). Gargoyle has a number of members, and are responsible for creating monsters that would rampage on earth.
If you want to watch some clips of Giant Robot, then watch it on YouTube
I wonder how many people were really interested in the story of this serial? I for one primarily watched it because
- It had a large robot that could fly and do a number of destructive things
- There was usually a battle involving some monster
- It had tension, with usually the robot managing to save things in the end
If you are interested in this series, you can buy them from Amazon:
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
TV show Giant Robot: Real fun for kids
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
i was 7-8 yrs then... nostalgia... wish i could go back for those days for at least one day!
thanks!
-swathi
I used to love this serial i was studying 2nd standard back then. I even used to draw giant robot and cut it out in paper and fly it out of my school bus ... gone are those days
Post a Comment