Astro Boy (1980 TV Series) - Broadcast

Broadcast

There are two different English language dubs. The first was coordinated by Tezuka Productions and NTV and dubbed in the USA in 1982, which aired in Australia beginning in 1983. It had a very limited release in the U.S., where broadcasts were limited to syndication in a few markets, such as the Philadelphia-Wilmington area where it aired at 10:30am weekdays in 1986 on what was then WTGI—channel 61. This is the version that was later released on DVD in both Australia and the United States (see third paragraph).

The second English dub was heavily-edited and redubbed in Canada in 1985, solely for broadcast there. In the Canadian version, most of the characters had different names from their American counterparts. Due to laws which required a specific amount of Canadian content, the Canadian version also featured a pre-title sequence which recapped Astro's origin, and an epilogue where Astro would give a brief report about each episode's adventure to a computer named Geronimo. Astro's report would always contain a minor error about the story, and a narrator would encourage the viewers to find Astro's mistake, and compare answers with their friends.

The aforementioned first dub of the 1980 series has since been released on DVD by Madman Entertainment and Manga Entertainment, although there are differences between the Madman and Manga Entertainment sets. Madman's set contains more deleted scenes, as well as the first two episodes, unedited (in Japanese with English subtitles). The Manga Entertainment set has a newly-edited Japanese language track to go with the U.S. version of the first episode. As of March 2012, the Manga set is now out of print.