Swollen Pickles

For some reason this afternoon I started singing "Cities of Gold", my own interpretation of the "Mysterious Cities of Gold" theme song. Raise your hand if you watched Cities of Gold as a kid... Cities of Gold was one of my favorite cartoons from the 80's. It was set in the 1500's and followed the adventures of a little Spanish kid called Esteban. Esteban hooked up with a little group and joined the search for one of the Seven Cities of Gold in the hope that he'd find his father there.

The show was a little like Indiana Jones with a few science fiction elements thrown in for good measure. The series was produced in 1982-83 and ran for a total of 39 episodes.

Check out the opening theme. Watching it causes me to regress to a five year old version of myself.

When I was looking up Cities of Gold I found out that a movie version is potentially in the works. Apparently Movie Plus Group acquired the rights to the story from NHK in 2007 and announced that they would be producing a full length feature film based on the original story. , with the intention of looking at a sequel if the film proved successful. The film was supposedly going to enter production in 2008, but I'm not sure whether or not that eventuated. Further details can probably be found here, although I can't confirm that, as I don't speak French.

Three new seasons of 26 episodes each are also rumored to be in progress, with production supposedly beginning in late 2009, with the first season set to hit the screen in 2011.

Something I didn't realise until yesterday was that the people behind Cities of Gold are the same people that brought the world Ulysses 31. Ulysses 31 was another cartoon from the very early 1980's. It borrowed heavily from Homer's Odysseus, or basically just supplanted that story into the 31st century. The post-it not version of the plot goes something like this. Ulysses angers the gods by killing the giant Cyclops, which he did to save some kids. As punishment, Zeus freezes the crew of Ulysses ship, the Odyssey. The only way that Ulysses can save his crew and return home to Earth is by finding the Kingdom of Hades.

Ulysses 31 only ran for 26 episodes, but they were all quality! :p

Check out the Ulysses 31 opening theme...

Thank you for joining me on this trip down memory lane. If you want to check out more theme songs, go read up my "Top 10 TV show theme songs that will change your life: Part 1" and "Top 10 TV show theme songs that will change your life: Part 2".

Raise your hand if you remember the 1980's cartoon Silverhawks... Even though it wasn't the longest running series in history, it still occupies a special place in my heart. As a young fella, I wanted to be able to sprout metal wings and fly. Amateur psychologists can make of that what they will.

For those unfamiliar with Silverhawks first hit TV screens in 1986, and developed by Rankin/Bass as a "space" equivalent of the mega-hit ThunderCats. The series focused on a small band of space police called... SilverHawks. The SilverHawks were a group of part bionic, part human heroes fighting crime and the evil forces of space crime boss MonStar and a whole bunch of far out crazy creatures and bad guys.

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Want to see the most awesome government produced video of all time? Check out this little nugget. One part education, two parts Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and two parts Beetles Yellow Submarine. I'd imagine that if you read your Learner Driver Handbook whilst on acid*, this is what you would see. Potentially boring stuff has never looked so groovy.

It makes me want to get my license all over again so that I can cruise around Technicolor License Town.

* I'm not speaking from experience, just based on what I've seen on TV.
** Yes, I know I posted this the other day, but it was in a massive list and I think this deserves a post of its own.