¡Rábanos Radiactivos! ... es no. 2114

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2114^th Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3562, November 17, 2005.
Golden State Colonial Convalescent Hospital, 10830 Oxnard Street, North Hollywood, California 91606-5098.
Telephone: hospital(818) 763-8247; personal (818) 506-3159 * eMail:fredpatten@earthlink.net

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Last Thursday evening, instead of coming to the LASFS as usual, Michael Burlake brought me to the Glendale Central Public Library for a rare special event (the only thing that would take me away from a LASFS meeting):

Thursday November 10th * 7:00 pm
ASIFA-Hollywood presents

KIMBA THE WHITE LION
40th Anniversary Party
A tribute to Osamu Tezuka's "Jungulu Taitei Leo"

This year, 2005, marks the 40th Anniversary of KIMBA, The White Lion, the U.S. version of Osamu Tezuka's Jungulu Taitei Leo. Fred Ladd was recording the Pilot Film in New York City on November 9, 1965, when -suddenly!- all the lights went OUT! Says Ladd, "It was the day of the awful POWER FAILURE in New York! We had to stop recording, and return the next day, November 10, to complete the English dub".

So, on November 10th 2005, 40 years to the day after Ladd completed his version "The Birth Of Kimba", ASIFA-Hollywood (The International Animated Film Society) will sponsor a 40th Anniversary Celebration, produced by Fred Ladd, in the Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard Street, Glendale at 7 PM. We'll be showing that historic 1/2-hour program in its entirety. Guest panelists will be famous animator Sadao Miyamoto (alumnus of Tezuka's Mushi Production,) Jared Cook, translator & interpreter for Tezuka himself, plus Hollywood animator-and-Kimba-expert Shawn Keller, and Mrs. Sonia Owens, original voice-cast member from that classic series (flying in from her home in New Hampshire!)

Tickets are $6 for ASIFA-Hollywood members, $8 for non-members. This event will be THE DEFINITIVE REVIEW of the famous KIMBA Series, and a frank look at charges made even today that Disney's "The Lion King" was inspired by Osamu Tezuka's "KIMBA, The White Lion,".seen on U.S. television 30 years earlier.

Exclusive merchandise will be sold! Come Early - Seating is limited!

Thursday November 10th * 7:00 pm
Glendale Central Library
222 E. Harvard Street
Glendale, CA

We got in free on my standing as the author of the Kimba history being sold in the "exclusive merchandise". (I was not one of the featured guests because we could not be sure my health would permit me to attend. In fact, up until about noon on Thursday when it became definite that it would not rain that evening, it looked like I would not be able to leave the hospital because of the impossibility of keeping me dry while transferring me & my wheelchair from buildings into a vehicle in the rain.) There were only about forty attendees (the library's auditorium was barely half-filled), but they included many real Kimba fanatics including three more of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization's founders (Mark Merlino, Wendell Washer and Robin Leyden) who I haven't seen in ... well, I guess we were all at the C/FO's 25^th anniversary in 2002, but we have not been together regularly since a few years after the club started in 1977. Several other C/FOers from the 1980s and early '90s were also present, as was Rob Powell. Fred Ladd, the main speaker, announced that the record for devotion had to be held by Craig Andersen, the self-proclaimed World's Greatest Kimba Fan, who came with his wife from Baltimore for the event.

(It turned out to be extremely fortunate that Andersen was present because the program's main event, the screening of the Kimba pilot episode, almost failed when the video tape that Ladd had brought jammed in the library's projector. Andersen had his own DVD copy of it with him, so that was shown to save the evening.)

There was one no-show on the program, anyway. Shawn Keller had the flu and did not come. But there were plenty of others present to speak on what ex-Disney animator Keller was expected to confirm; Disney's knowledge of the 1960s Kimba while it was issuing press releases claiming that The Lion King was its own completely original story and that none of its Lion King production staff had ever heard of Kimba or its creator Osamu Tezuka (world-famous as "the Walt Disney of Japan"). I have (or the UCRiverside Library now has) photographs from C/FO meetings in the 1970s, when Kimba episodes were regularly shown, where Mark Kausler, who has a Story credit on The Lion King, was a regular attendee. Plenty of the people who worked on The Lion King have publicly confirmed their knowledge of Kimba during the decade since the big controversy at the time of The Lion King's release has died down, though the Disney organization still maintains the accuracy of its press releases.

ASIFA-Hollywood representative Margaret Kerry (the 1950s rotoscope model for Tinker Bell and the photographed "living lips" of Clutch Cargo) introduced Fred Ladd, who told his stories of how he and NBC Enterprises (not the NBC network) worked with Tezuka's Mushi Production Co. in Tokyo to produce a program that would be acceptable to the American as well as the Japanese public; and how he & his team of voice actors (who had previously Americanized Astro Boy) created the American dub. After the troublesome screening of the pilot episode, Sonia Owens, the only member of the voice cast still ambulatory, told stories about the dubbing sessions, mainly about the technical differences in voice dubbing between the 1960s & today. Sadao Miyamoto, speaking through translator Jared Cook, spoke about the early years of Mushi Pro; and Cook, who was a personal translator for Tezuka and his later Tezuka Productions, told about what a great artist but an incompetent businessman Tezuka had been. By this time it was after 9:00 p.m. and the Glendale Library staff began shutting down the building for the night, so we hastily adjourned. I was asked for one autograph on the Kimba the White Lion 34-page history booklet that was the main item of the "exclusive merchandise" on sale (which is included in the DVD boxed set of all 52 episodes being released in a couple of weeks).

This was my first opportunity to see my "How Kimba Came To Be" article in print in what will probably be its final version. I am unhappy about a credit stating that it was first published in the C/FO's fanzine in 1991. It was 1981, and that first version contained many errors and lacked the history of the 1960s TV series from 1981 to the present, especially the 1994-'95 Kimba - Lion King controversy. This 2005 boxed set booklet is the first publication of the extensively revised, corrected and expanded article, not just a reprint of the first draft. It is also now an attractive little full-color booklet, published with the cooperation of & with art supplied by Tezuka Production Co. in Tokyo. It justifies all the revisions that I kept making to the original article over two decades, in the hope that it would finally reach a wider and more serious & academic readership than the hundred or so C/FO members who got Fanta's Zine #6 in 1981.

ASIFA members were given the first issue of the brand-new ASIFA 64-page magazine, Cartoons; The International Journal of Animation #1, Summer 2005. This is beautifully published in full color on heavy glossy paper, edited by Chris Robinson in Ottawa and published by John Libbey in London (but printed in Rawang, Selangor). Libbey is the publisher I mentioned in ˇRR! a few years ago who retitled my article about the development of anime interest in the U.S. & Canada as "Anime in the United States" because "everybody knows Canada is really just part of the United States". ASIFA has published an animation magazine off & on since the 1960s when it could get somebody to do the work and finance it. The only one before this that lasted for any time was published in Hungary from 1973 to 1977, when Hungary's Communist government was lavishly supporting the arts; but it was full of portentous articles about Eastern European animation. ASIFA-Hollywood seldom mentions the Association's other chapters, so Cartoons is informative. I had not known that Antran Manoogian, the ebullient president of ASIFA-Hollywood (currently freelancing because Disney laid him off because he is not a CGI animator), is also vice-president for North America. ASIFA's president is Noureddin Zarrenkelk of ASIFA-Iran in Tehran; and there is a "Secretary-General", Vesna Dovnikovic of ASIFA-Croatia in Zagreb. There are currently 27 ASIFA chapters, 20 national and 7 in the U.S.A. (Those besides Hollywood are in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, NYC, "ASIFA-Northwest" split between Portland and Seattle, and San Francisco.) I had also not known that, as an ASIFA member, I am entitled to free admission to the international animation festivals in Zagreb, Hiroshima and Espinho. (The week-long 29^th "Cinanima" festival in Espinho was last week.) Unfortunately, while Cartoons looks beautiful, most of the animators willing to take the time to write for it are still of the Eastern European mind-set whether in East Europe or North America, more interested in Culturally Significant fine-art films produced by individual animators for film festivals than in "commercial animation" made for public release theatrically or on TV. There is one good article on Tex Avery's Screwy Squirrel cartoons for MGM in the 1940s, and an informative review of the Disney North American productions of Hayao Miyazaki's features. I was amused by a scathing critical review of academic animation criticism as "numbing exercises in pedantic glossarhea" that I consider pretty numbingly pedantic itself. A review of a German documentary movie, Muratti and Sarotti: The History of German Animation 1920-1960, makes me want to see it for its information about and samples of how the German animation industry was affected by the enforced "Nazi Esthetic" of the 1930s & early '40s, and the Communist domination of East Germany from 1945 to the end of the film's coverage.

On Saturday, Michael Burlake took me to the November Cinema Anime meeting. No new anime series were started this month, but we completed Last Exile and the first "book" of The 12 Kingdoms. Kamichu! continues to present an intriguing view of Shinto beliefs. The neighborhood of Yurie, the shy middle-schoolgirl who has become a god(dess) but she has not yet figured out what kind, is mysteriously stricken by bad luck. Yurie and her school friends discover that a well-meaning poverty god has moved in, so everybody is having bad luck which makes them poor. Yurie and the other god figure out a friendly accommodation to everyone's benefit. This is certainly different from the usual TV anime formula, exemplified in Bleach which we also saw an episode of, where any supernatural problems are caused by sadistically evil demons and are solved with maximum violence. I have enjoyed The 12 Kingdoms, which bombed in Japan because it is a slow "educational" drama illustrating Chinese ancient mythology (natural disasters are a sign that Heaven has withdrawn its blessing from the reigning monarch; kings have kirin (a mythological animal) as spiritual advisors, and so forth). Cinema Anime had been showing the very popular Last Exile for over a year; we completed the 26-episode series with the three-episode grand climax all at once. And I only discovered an ongoing error in the final episode. The boy-protagonist's name has been consistently given in the subtitles and credits as Claus Valka, which has been reasonable enough since all the characters have European-sounding names like Alvis Hamilton, Mullin Shetland, Tatiana Wisla, Delphine Eracles, etc. But in the final episode we learn that Claus's family name is taken from the famous historical character Hamilcar Valca. Oops! I know of only one famous man named Hamilcar (well, two; there is Amilcare Ponchielli), and that is Hamilcar Barca. The notorious Japanese inability to distinguish between "b" and "v", and "l" and "r", strikes again. I will give the American anime producers the benefit of the doubt and assume that they started translating the katakana character names before they learned in the final episode that the main character's name should be "Barca", and that it was too late to change all the "Valca" spellings by then; rather than that none of the American translators recognized the name of the famous Carthaginian general who almost conquered Rome.

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

De Jueves #1452 - (Moffatt) If my drivers could use the LASFS' Handicapped Parking Space, I would not need LASFen to donate one of the regular parking spaces to me each month. We are entitled to use the Handicapped space, but I am not the only LASFan with a Handicapped Parking placard. The Handicapped space is usually taken by the time my drivers get me to Freehafer Hall. ## Emily in Corpse Bride's being poisoned is a main plot point, since it sets up what villainous Barkis Bittern intends to do to Victoria Everglot after/if he weds her. ## Rube Goldberg's machines depending upon living creatures performing certain actions at a certain time sounds like the plot logic in Disney's Chicken Little. It is very nice when you have the Cartoonist/Story Writers on your side; but (speaking as a reader/spectator) it looks stupid for the protagonist to gamble everything on such a string of unlikely coincidences occurring as his winning strategy.

Vanamonde #652 - (Hertz) I dimly remember that when Drury's Advise and Consent was published in the 1960s, there was considerable discussion in fandom about slightly futuristic military and political thrillers as s-f: Fail-Safe, Seven Days in May, and lots more. I mentioned the 1916 boys'-adventure novel I had about the Imperial German invasion of the U.S., about Our Boys' heroic fighting defense of Pittsburgh, although the cover illustration shows der Kaiser's Huns marching past Independence Hall which is in Philadelphia. What mainstream novels since the 1960s fall into this category? We have just mentioned the modern market for vampire/werewolf romances which are considered more mainstream fiction than fantasy/horror genre fiction by the public.

An Asterisk Is A Phil Castora Title With Astigmatism - (Cantor) I am amused by your comments on Golden Ages because I just wrote something essentially identical about the state of Furry fan fiction, in a Furry review to be published sometime next year: "It's said that nobody recognizes a Golden Age until it is over. That seems to be the case with Furry fan fiction. For roughly a dozen years from 1990 to 2002, there was a flood of short stories in Furry fanzines like Yarf!, PawPrints Fanzine, FurryPhile, Mythagoras, Morphic Tales, Zoomorphica and many others. During the latter half of this Golden Age, hundreds of stories were published on the Internet instead of in fanzines. The Miavir's Treasure Chest of Assorted Furryness website included links to over 2,000 stories at its height. Alas, most of the fanzines have long since ceased publication, and the online stories have disappeared from the Internet. The Miavir website itself has not been updated since 2003." ## Yes, ˇRR! is much more legible this week. Thanks for your perseverance in fixing the Gestetner. ## Where a wheelchair ramp for the front building would be stored is a problem that we discussed. I have already talked about my lack of space at the hospital, and my drivers have enough work fitting my wheelchair into their vehicles without adding a wheelchair ramp as well. There was general agreement that the LASFS would not want to assume the responsibility for storing a ramp for me at Freehafer Hall permanently. Considering how little I would want to use the front building if I cannot fit into the Library anyway, it seems much easier to just ask someone to go into the LASFS Library for me when I want to check out a book, or find out if the Library has it. ## For those who care, all the patients at Golden State Convalescent Hospital were recently given pneumonia shots, and promised flu shots as soon as the hospital receives the vaccine.

Godzillla Verses #62 - (DeChancie) The pre-title credits prologue to Rover Dangerfield, skimming over the nighttime desert and then suddenly seeing the lights of Las Vegas come over the horizon, is about the only favorable thing I remember about that deservedly-forgotten animated feature. (Another waste of good animation that sank a struggling young studio, although it had the beneficial result of freeing Jeff Smith to create his monumental Bone graphic novel.) ## I assume that Jack Gaughan did not use aniline dyes much because most of his original cover paintings that I saw were painted in permanent acrylics. His 1962 "Dragon Masters" cover came at the end of the period when the s-f publishers kept original cover art and donated it to the Worldcons for their auctions. After that, the artists got their art back after publication and could resell it themselves, which probably motivated them to use longer-lasting media to increase their resale value. ## Quality certainly does sell when it is something like Pixar's features like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. But you do need a good ad campaign, too; otherwise you get movies like the critically-acclaimed and popular with the few people who saw them but box-office disasters like Cats Don't Dance and The Iron Giant. ## Plot/character bibles are always (well, usually...) interesting, whether for novel series or TV series. Ted Johnstone certainly revved up his Sense of Wonder when he got a copy of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. bible (to write the novels for Ace Books), and spent several weeks raving about details that had not been used in any TV episodes yet. ("Did you know that Napoleon Solo is divorced!? They haven't mentioned that anywhere; I'll bet that everybody assumes that he's single and was never married! The bible doesn't say what THRUSH stands for, at all; I can make up the definition for the acronym!")

I Remember Ithaca - (Gold) Thanks for the new pants you have been buying me. I chose dark colors. ## Are those the historic Kazakhs, or Jayne Gallion's roleplaying nomadic barbarian raiders? It may be amusing (depending upon what you find amusing) to compare the traditional stereotypes of Kazakhs with the views of modern Kazakhstan on the official website of Kazakhstan's president. For a wider view of Central Asia, take a look at the Wikipedia entries for Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, the Chuvash Republic, and surrounding areas. They aren't nomads any more. ## I did not expect you to translate the entire webpage on Tsukuyomi Moon Phase. You had asked for how Hazuki's name is written in Japanese, and the webpage does make that clear. ## If Margrave Manor was a mile square without any bathrooms, then those in it (I will not say "inhabitants" since they were nomads) might have to walk up to a half-mile to find a window to do it out of. ## Jim Groat once drew a cartoon of a Pernese dragon in a Star Trek shirt "going Between where no dragon has gone Between before".

Fish Out of Water #144 - (Helgesen) "ISBN number" is probably a necessary redundancy, since "ISB number" would be too prone to misunderstanding. ## How long has it been since "curate" was an ecclesial office of the Catholic Church?