online community focused on sharing and reminiscing about video, audio, and images that stir our memories of the past – old television, theme songs, commercials, print advertisements, the sights and sounds you remember
A number of viewers asked us to post Tobor the 8th Man, and this is one I may have to rely on your memory for. I’m not sure if it was before my time, or just wasn’t shown in my area, but it clearly stuck with a lot of kids who watched it.
The show was the American version of Japan’s 8 Man, about a murdered detective whose mind is placed into a powerful robot body. In the U.S. version, he became Tobor, “robot” spelled backward, fighting crime with super speed and futuristic powers.
It was black-and-white, early anime, and definitely had that 1960s imported-cartoon feel. Were you one of the kids who watched Tobor the 8th Man?
Speed Racer was one of those cartoons that felt different the second it came on. The theme song hit, the Mach 5 took off, and suddenly we were watching cliffs, crashes, secret buttons, masked racers, gangsters, and more danger than most Saturday morning cartoons dared to show.
The show began in Japan as Mach GoGoGo in 1967 before becoming Speed Racer for American audiences. Most of us didn’t know we were watching anime back then. We just knew it didn’t feel like Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, or the usual superhero cartoons.
Compared to American cartoons of the time, Speed Racer was faster, stranger, and more dramatic. There were revenge plots, family secrets, real danger, and Racer X lurking around like something out of a spy movie. The animation could be limited, but the style made up for it with speed lines, dramatic close-ups, wild crashes, and that nonstop rapid-fire dialogue.
And of course, there was the Mach 5. What kid didn’t want a car with buttons that could jump, saw through trees, go underwater, and somehow survive every impossible race?
Looking back, Speed Racer was a lot of kids’ first introduction to anime, even if we didn’t have that word yet. It was loud, weird, exciting, and unforgettable.
