Marine Boy - History

History

The program concept was developed by Terebi Doga, (aka Japan Tele-Cartoons or JTC), in Japan in 1965, originally known as Dolphin Prince (ドルフィン王子 - Dorufin Ôji). Produced as a short experimental trial series of only 3 episodes and filmed in black and white, Dolphin Prince aired on Fuji TV on Sundays at 7.30pm between 4 April and 18 April 1965. The episodes featured young Dolphin Prince, his mermaid friend Neptuna and Dr. Mariner, with stories entitled "Secret Of The Red Vortex", "Call Of The Sea" and "Attack Of The Sea-Star People". It was a well-received experiment and Terebi Doga prepared to produce a full series follow-up, although this time they decided that their program would be produced in color in order to maximise the potential of the production, both artistically and commercially.

Although color television was introduced to the US in 1965, Japan had been transmitting some programs in color since 1960, however, not all Japanese studios had invested in the conversion of their operations to color. To complicate matters, not all the networks were interested in buying expensive color film series which were considered "vehicles" for selling commercial airtime, especially programs aimed primarily at children. Some broadcasters, (such as NHK, TBS, NET, Yomiuri, etc.), had embraced color as the emerging and more engaging format, but others such as Fuji TV were unwilling to buy or co-finance color programming without a guarantee of commercial return or sponsored support. Fuji TV had broadcast the popular color series Jungle Emperor (ジャングル大帝 - Janguru Taitei) in 1965, but this would not have been filmed in color at all without the pre-sale of the series to US distributor NBC Films for broadcast in the US as Kimba The White Lion, (on the NBC Network which, at the time, insisted that it be supplied color programming by its distributors, the network using color as a promotional tool to attract both sponsors and viewers alike).

Terebi Doga, wishing to further explore their Dolphin Prince concept via a full color version, returned to Fuji TV, expecting that the network would happily buy an expanded version of their original monochrome pilot series. Fuji, however, declined to buy into the project, happy as they were with the ratings they were achieving with their current Thursday night black and white anime series Harris' Whirlwind (ハリスの旋風 - Harisu no Kaze). Undeterred, Terebi Doga found external sponsorship from Matsushita Company, (later to be known as National Panasonic Matsushita), and sold their new version of Dolphin Prince to rival TBS Network. Character names were altered, (changing 'Dolphin Prince' to 'Marine Kid' and 'Neptuna' to 'Neptina'), characters were added and concepts expanded. In order to distance the new series from the original trial episodes, the series was re-titled Hang On! Marine Kid (がんばれ!マリンキッド - Ganbare! Marin Kiddo) and aired on Thursdays at 7.00pm between 6 October and 29 December 1966. Despite Toei Doga's high hopes, the scheduling of Hang On! Marine Kid was a ratings disaster for TBS, slotted as it was directly in opposition to the ever popular Harris' Whirlwind, which was still airing on Fuji TV at 7.00pm. Hang On! Marine Kid was cancelled after its first batch of 13 episodes and not re-newed.

Despite its cancellation, Hang On! Marine Kid was promoted for sale by Japanese program seller K.Fujita, who in turn attracted the attention of producer Stanley R. Jaffe representing US distributor Seven Arts Television, which later merged into Warner Bros./Seven Arts. Jaffe expressed interest in re-packaging the pre-existing series and expanding it with newly-animated episodes for the English-speaking market, with two provisos. Firstly, the series needed to run for 78 episodes to ensure the program had substantial shelf-life and value for money to stations buying it. Secondly, it was stipulated that the Japanese language version could not be aired in Japan before the English language version had aired first-run in the US and sold to international broadcasters. With the deal agreed, Terebi Doga launched production again, preparing the elements of both Dolphin Prince, (the 3 monochrome episodes re-worked and re-shot in color), and the 13 completed episodes of Hang On! Marine Kid for use in the new series, as well as gearing up to producing approximately 65 more new episodes as required to produce the a complete 78 episode run. Scripts and storyboards were prepared in both English and Japanese and with a fast turnaround in the production process, the episodes were delivered to Zavala-Riss Productions in the US for English dubbing (the unit that also dubbed Speed Racer, featuring the same voice actor cast).

By the end of production, two distinct versions had been produced:
- one for the US and foreign markets which would be known as Marine Boy
- one for Japan as Undersea Boy Marine (海底少年マリン - Kaitei Shônen Marin).

As per the terms of the agreement Marine Boy was first run as a syndicated program throughout the US and in international markets from late 1967 onwards. Ironically, the Japanese version of the series was eventually sold to Fuji TV and aired on Mondays at 6pm between 31 January 1969 and 22 September 1969, with only the first 36 episodes broadcast. It was later bought by Nippon TV, all 78 episodes airing Monday to Friday 5.00pm between 11 May to 2 September 1971.