Island Life by David Slack

I haven't done the google/wikipedia thing, but I suspect that the absence of Gigantor (the space age robot - he's. at. your command! Gigantor the space age robot, he's a-a-a-at your command... Giga-a-a-a-ntor!) from our screens is also related to the lack of other Japanese fare such as Kimba the White Lion (Who's the king in deepest darkest africa...) and Speed Racer (Here he comes, here comes speed Racer, he's a demon on wheels. He's a demon & he's gonna be chasing after someone...).

I liked Gigantor too, but found the latter two somwhat cloying.

Bigger than big, taller than tall... Gigantor!

If I had the capacity to retain something useful instead of years & years of obscure TV themes to shows that I mostly didn't like anyway, I might have made something of myself.

Bigger than big, taller than tall... Gigantor!

If I had the capacity to retain something useful instead of years & years of obscure TV themes to shows that I mostly didn't like anyway, I might have made something of myself.

Which totally shows your age. I found some Gigantor on the torrents and then at the video shop and pitched it to the kids as proto-anime. Jimmy was reasonably impressed.

But I'll blame the pylons.

They're imposing and eerie to an adult's eyes, but to a child's they're just impossibly vast and other-worldly.

Martin Phillipps from the Chills once drew a lovely illustration called 'Machines Crossing' (I think it was published in the first Jesus on a Stick comic) which depicted a kid peering out the back of a car travelling through Central Otago, with pylons spanning into the distance.

Which totally shows your age

I make no secret of mine. Andrew remains looking youthful because of his full head of hair. Bastard. Bet he had no pylons outside his house.

pitched it to the kids as proto-anime

Which it totally is!

Andrew remains looking youthful because of his full head of hair

No-one can remember what its original colour was though. I was thinking of dying it dark brown for my 40th - but after a grilling from the pharmacy person, the process sounded too hard.

Now my 50th is approaching (a few years yet though), I'm wondering if hair dye technology has advanced.

Back on topic - I watched Gigantor in Britain, I believe it was on a Saturday morning just before Thunderbirds, which was then followed by Ron Ely as Tarzan (two themes to that one I remember - they changed it between season).

Kimba & Speed Racer did not make my acquaintance until I came here. The lion King totally ripped Kimba off BTW.

Kimba the White Lion

Wasn't it Simba?

Whichever name, Disney's Lion King was (IMHO) a complete rip-off. (And by 'rip-off' I mean 'homage'; lest the PA legal team be worried)

Wasn't it Simba?

Which was the Lion King? Simba or Kimba? The White Lion was the other.

But the villain was the dead father's brother, who had a scar too.

D'oh!

It was Simba in Lion King, not the other way around ...

Another lovely post, Mr Slack...

And thanks so much for including Erica Lloyd's doco -- absolutely bloody brilliant!

As a lad, I used to climb the pylon in the park at Green Bay. I could get pretty high too -- looking down on the tiny ant-like people who walked beneath me, and who would sometimes shout up that they were going to call the police...

"...a good, honest, toiling son of the soil."

Saved you from being a horny-handed one too, I reckon.

Reminds me, I owe you beer or ten still for chopping down that tree for us, and elegantly bopping it away with your shoulder as the trunk fell.

HAd quite forgotten about Gigantor till now

A quick check on the Gigantor show he looked less like a pylon and more like a oil can and was Japanese in origin "Iron Man#28" from 1958 cartoon and adapted for the West in about 1964. Even more surprising there is a new seies coming called Gigantor G3.

gigantor incl all 52 episodes on DVD etc.

Back in the day my parents used to dutifully trot me off to church with them of a sunday eve and I'd sit for the first few years listen to the guy in the suit and kind of try to take it in 'cos the stories were quite good. After a while it came to pass that the guy in the suit started to say things I didn't agree with and that led to my acquaintance with the flanshaw rd school pylon. There were great swings and slides right under the wires and when it had been dry all day it was sweet because they didn't make the buzzing humming burn your head apart with supernatural powers noise they do when wet. So I wouldn't play there as the sound just freaked me out. I wanted to climb it though, it was big, huge even. I also had this paranoia about them falling on me when the buzz of the lines was going hard. Luckily the good folk at either the school or the power company had raised a stalag13 (No one has ever successfully escaped from Stalag13!) worthy fence around the pylon and the first handful of barbed wire convinced me mine would be a dream incomplete.

here are some links to EMF and ELF research portals, a metastudy including NZ reseach and a US site with a general overview.

they all seem to be from an anti stance. it seems health effects are diverse, which is not unusual for chronic exposure to low level toxins, but the diversity of cited effects makes it more difficult to clearly identify a causal relationship. i expect power companys in the US at least would've been prime targets for large law suits if clear effects could be shown and i'm not sure many such suits have been successful.

you might say that just being chronically exposed to something thats oppressively ugly or gives you the creeps can have similar health effects, but i don't know. i think they look amazing but i wouldn't want to live under one.