The Phoenix.
As a kid, I was in love with The Phoenix on Battle Of The Planets (1978-1980), the American adaptation of the Japanese animation that was Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (1972-1974).
The Phoenix was also capable of transforming into the nearly invincible fiery Phoenix. The G-5, as The Phoenix was also known, apart from being an agile instrument of war and defense, also carried four other vehicles: the G-4 (Keyop's Space Buggy), G-3 (Princess' Sonic Bike), G-2 (Jason's Space Mobile) and G-1 (Mark's Sonic Jet). Musings Of A Sci-Fi Fanatic has invested some fairly significant coverage of Battle Of The Planets and those respective vehicles here and here.
Incredibly The Phoenix, piloted by Tiny Harper, from episode to episode, seemed incredibly pliable thanks to the terrific animation by Tatsunoko Productions.
Utilizing a polaroid instant camera as a kiddo I took many terrible images of The Phoenix and its assorted warehoused vehicles. For whatever reason I wanted to have these pictures on my wall since finding an actual poster of any of it was unachievable without the existence of the Internet.
Thanks to this blog those days are over. Though, it must be said, aside from a few scrapes, they were mostly wonderful days.
Great to see your love of Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets is still alive and strong. When I first saw this show as a kid, I was so fascinated by the Phoenix transformation. It was one of the elements of the show that I never forgot, even if I did eventually forget the name of the show. Whenever I told people about this old cartoon I saw as a kid where the spaceship turned into a huge flaming bird... well people thought I was nuts. It wasn't until the early 00's that I was finally vindicated and re-discovered "Battle of the Planets".
ReplyDelete