Summer Talking Meme #3

[thisbluespirit]

I had such nice questions for this, but then it turned out I couldn't write the answers once summer really got going. However, it's now Not Summer, so...

For a_phoenixdragon What show did you watch obsessively as a kid?

My first reaction was Dungeons & Dragons and while that would be true, I probably got far more obsessed with that when it was repeated when I was a teenager. However, one childhood obsession was with the serialised French-Japanese cartoon The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Basically, Cities of Gold was a year out of my life - I think I was around 9 or 10? I think everybody in my class was obsessed with it, too. When my best friend had to go into hospital, she made me promise faithfully to write to her what happened in the next episode* (and then she watched it in hospital anyway, the ungrateful thing). Even my Mum registered the fact that we watched a TV series about someone called Esteban.

While there were other serialised cartoons at that time, there weren't many, not like this (and for some reason they were almost all adaptations of literary classics with animals instead of people) so this was something special.


It had an Exciting Intro along with the best sing-a-long theme song!

"Mysterious Cities of Gold Full 80's TV Intro" (Watch on YouTube)

I had terrible trouble with some show I was watching more recently because it started off in a way that reminded me of this - I think it was the intro to B5 S1? I kept winding up singing the theme song of this instead as a result.

(You can also sing along with the outro, too.)


It also had an adult character called Mendoza (who was Interestingly Ambiguous) and a flying Golden Condor! It had shipwrecks and mysteries and people searching for their lost families! It had secret treasure to be found! An incomprehensibly indestructible baddy!** And aliens! (Um, yes. Really. I'm not sure what that was about.) Anyway, it was awesome and one of those things I wouldn't risk watching as an adult just in case I found flaws and spoiled the memories. But, yeah, Esteban, Zia and Tao - and Philip Schofield in the Broom Cupboard, of course. *nods*

Anyway, someone made this beautiful vid for it which I recommend to anyone curious; it's perfect and all the things I remember it being.

Mackerel Skies from Andraste on Vimeo.

(password: esteban; vidpost here.


And then in unexpected developments, they finally made S2 in 2012, so a new generation can have their own Cities of Gold. ♥

* Yes, once upon a time there was no internet, or at least not available to use and not for watching TV on, and relying on your parents to bother to waste precious VHS tape space on children's shows (or trusting them to set the timer) was impossible. Amazing, isn't it?

** I mean, to the point where even at 9/10, I noticed that he really didn't stay dead, despite being perfectly human. (As far as we knew.)

Comments

[eve11]

Oh neat! Looks like it has some of the same kinds of sensibilities as eg, Avatar? I forwarded the link on to my sister; her kids might like it :)

[thisbluespirit]

Aw. :-) And I really don't know - I haven't watched it since 1987 and I've never watched Avatar. But I did hear some good things about the 2012 version, though I don't know if there's an English dub yet? Hopefully...

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes, Mysterious Cities. Mendoza was definitely the best thing in it. I always wanted to know more about him. Everybody at school seemed to watch it, which I guess must have been pretty rare, as usually families tended to be either CBBC or CITV. I daren't watch it again, but there are many happy memories! D&D as well, obviously. I don't remember B5 having any theme music triggers, but such things don't work the same for everybody!

[thisbluespirit]

Yes! It really was event TV - I don't remember many other things from my childhood being quite like that.

Mendoza was definitely great. Not that I've watched it since 1987, but I'm sure he was.

Okay, it's not the theme music, it's the two intros. I kept expecting it to go "It is the Sixteenth Century..." The other series intros don't have the same similarity. LIsten to one and then the other here. It's not the same, but... :-D

[pedanther]

Oh, man, me too. Both the being obsessed with it when I was around 10, and the not wanting to go back now in case I can't see the magic through adult eyes.

(My brother, on the other hand, bought the DVDs the moment they were available. I don't know if he's watched them, though, or if he's saving them to introduce to his kids when they're old enough.)

That's a really nice vid.

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I see what you mean! "It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind... from all over the world, great ships sailed west to conquer the New World."

Okay, B5/MC crossover! Sheridan flying a golden condor, accompanied by Ivanova and Garibaldi. "Help" given by Kosh, with the Shadows out to sabotage their quest. Dare you. ;)

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

Yes! So much so that I actually have Mysterious Cities of Gold on DVD, bought for me by my brother in a fit of nostalgia for our mutual childhood obsession! I've only rewatched a tiny fraction, for the nostalgia - took me right back!

[liadt]

Yay, 'Mysterious Cities of Gold'! I think all school kids were obsessed with it because there were only two kid's TV channels and a stupidly catchy theme tune (I have a dodgy taped version on mp3). I'm not sure if I ever saw the end though - it went on forever. Do they still have kid shows that have a story you have to see through to the end these day? There were loads of them in the 80's. I've heard good reports from re-watchers of it.

Heh, I didn't mind that cartoons had the humans replaced by animals. I preferred it!

[robot-mel.livejournal.com]

I also loved Mysterious Cities of Gold. I guess I'm just a sucker for a long story arc. I loved how it started so historical and ended with the giant gold bird flying over central America. (Which had been in the theme song since the beginning but we had to watch the whole series before they got it!) And I may have had a mini crush on Philip Scofield ;)

[thisbluespirit]

It is! I recced it once before and I believe we had a very similar conversation then. :-)

So, for next time, you should definitely find out whether or not your brother has watched it.

[thisbluespirit]

It does seem to have had the same effect on a lot of us who were around at the time! :-)

[thisbluespirit]

I used to have a dodgy taped version on an actual tape! I recorded it off the TV at the time with a tape recorder held up to the speaker. I am an ancient dinosaur of a person. :lol:

I don't know about cartoons at the moment - I think this one was pretty much an anime, really, and there are loads of those still around, but mainstream cartoons - I don't know, I think the 80s and 90s were the glory era for them.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes! It was a great one for hooking everyone in.

I think everybody had a crush on Philip Schofield back then? Even my granny did. :lol:

[john_amend_all]

Sinclair, surely, if it's the S1 intro?

You may just have set something off; your post made me wonder how the concept of Storytime might be applied to Bab5. Sheridan and Ulkesh in Jack and the Beanstalk?

[liadt]

You'll be telling me you used to take photos of the TV next and only half the screen came out on the picture;)

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, yes, exactly!

Hmm, given that both B5 and Cities of Gold are kind of cross-cultural, I think you should have three different races represented there, rather than all humans. :-)

[thisbluespirit]

Nope! ;-p

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Ohh, I may have to look into this cartoon!! I had quite a few when I was kid that I loved dearly...when you said Dungeons and Dragons, I SQUEED, OMG!!

*HUGS*

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

It should be Sinclair in season one, it's true, but somehow flying a golden condor just seems more of a Sheridan thing!

And I see your "Jack & The Beanstalk", and raise you one Londo and G'Kar in a remake of "The Odd Couple". ;)

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Fair enough! Sheridan, Delenn and Na'Toth, then. Kosh is still there in the Mendoza role, and perhaps Vir can be one of his bumbling associates.

I wrote some of it.

[john_amend_all]

Ivanova: In came the ogre, as he did before, and said:

Ulkesh: [Breathing noises] Fum.

Ivanova: Fum? Is that all you're going to give us? I suppose it's better than nothing. Or 'Zog'. Anyway, when Jack heard the terrible rhyme...

At an incoherent protest from one of the watching toddlers, Ivanova set the storybook down and looked up. A plump cherub was hovering above Kosh's encounter romper suit.

"Not terrible," Baby Kosh said. "Efficient."

"Terrible as in frightening, not as in bad." Not waiting to see if the baby Vorlon had an answer, Ivanova turned back to her book.

Lyta: Nonsense, my dear. It must be the smell of that lurker you ate yesterday.

Re: I wrote some of it.

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Heh. Clever!

[thisbluespirit]

Dungeons and Dragons was also wonderful! It was my first thought on seeing this question, and then I remembered Cities of Gold. But I loved D&D so much; it was the best 80s cartoon as far as I'm concerned!

(I used to have a D&D icon but I don't any more, so I can't use it, but imagine me using it here.)

♥