Dynaman

Dynaman was a series that ran during the "Night Flight" block on the USA Network. The original show (Scientific Task Force Dynaman) from Japan is kept mostly intact, but the crew at "Night Flight" (including nearly all the members of "Kids in The Hall") added English dubbing to the show (think Mystery Science Theater 3000 if they completely muted the soundtrack of the movie and made a new plot to go along with the action). It's an absolutely hilarious parody.

Despite being an obvious parody, the action in this show is still really fun. Some of the best scenes from Scientific Task Force have been edited into the shows and placed to 80's rock music. Where else can you guys in rubber suits fight to "Hip to Be Square" or "Rebel Yell"?

The fight scenes were recut together by someone with a great sense of timing as they play like music videos, and amazingly, despite all the parody dialogue, it's so well done you have to take the fights seriously.

A real cult classic of a show. It has to been seen to believe how well it was pulled off. It's a shame only six episodes were made (plus a "Dynaman Convention" show). If this show aired today (or during the "Power Rangers" craze), it would have been a massive hit.

Episodes 1&2 also aired in syndication and Nickelodeon as a standalone "pilot", which is where I remember the show from.

This is an English-language import from Japan. What makes Dynaman so special is that it is one of the many Super Sentai series, featuring a team of five heroes, who combine their vehicles to form a titanic mecha-hero. That's right, this is a Power Rangers show!!!!!!! Airing in America as part of Night Flight(that lovable show that used to come on the USA Network), Dynaman is an unedited version. Dating back to the early 1970s, the Sentai shows were revamped each season, featuring a different team, with different vehicles and bots. Much like Ultraman and Kamen Rider, the Sentai/Rangers maintained huge popularity over the years. Dynaman just happened to be the latest show of the time. I wish Saban Entertainment would utilize this formula, instead of "Americanizing" each Ranger season.

Dynaman is a fun show, and Power Rangers fans should seek out copies of Dynaman.

This series broadcast in 1988 as part of a show called Nightflight on the USA network.

It's a dubbing of a japanese 70's Sentai series (from an earlier season of the same show that would become the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers).

The plot sets five young orphans, a silly robot and wise a doctor who can turn into the colorful Dynamen, and save the city every week from a bunch of mutant invaders. This usually involved fighting the villain in front of Mt. Fuji, then he would grow to giant size, then they would call on the giant robot Dynaship, fight some more, almost get beaten, then cut the monter in half with their sword (every week!)

The dubbing was done VERY tongue-in-cheek, with many jokes inserted about how bad the special effects were ("Let's release the fake-looking models!" and all the characters given silly names and personalities.

The series featured a lot of 80's rock music, and was just plain FUN to watch.

Before the show went off the air Nightflight broadcast a Dynaman convention, parodying the Star Trek craze, pretending Dynaman was the most popular series out there with millions of fans. It ended with them opening the Dynaman vault.

This is one of the great movies of the 80s in MY collection that I think about all the time.

Back on Television in the 1980s there was a crazy show called Dynaman. I only saw two shows which was the Last Adventures of Spunky the Wonder Squid and the Seven Brides of Lucky Pierre. Dynaman was before the Power Rangers. Both episodes that I have seen on the USA Network years ago are insane. They are incredibly silly and has so much bad dialouge and great 80s songs. The show is good if you like martial arts and monsters. If you are able to see these please do as you are seeing a classic series!

While it wouldn't be possible to produce a show today, with the voice talent speaking in stereotypical Japanese accents (along with conspicuously stereotypical British and NYC Jewish charicatures (even pre-South Park, no one is safe), once one puts this in context as a product of its time, the short, 6-episode run of this show bears an overabundance of jokes that truly demand repeat viewings to catch even half of. Not all episodes are up to the laughing-milk-thru-your-nostrils standards as, say, "The Seven Brides of Lucky Pierre", but even its weakest episode is maybe too subversive to ever expect a show like this on any network to this day. But I caught episodes (and taped them religiously) starting in early 1988 on USA Network's Night Flight, then saw the first two episodes air once on Nickelodeon, and even as late as the mid-'90s caught Night Flight airing on Seattle's NBC affiliate and if I was lucky, a half-hour of DYNAMAN might be aired as part of it.

If you like Mystery Science Theatre 3000's meta-commentary and obscure pop culture references, you get it all here, too, in the ridiculously improvised English voiceovers that have no relation to the original dialogue from the Japanese show the footage comes from.

Kids and parents were cheated years later when "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" came from later seasons of the same Japanese show, with an American for the scenes out of costume, but the show was a cynical sugar rush of spastic action and merchandising. DYNAMAN, though, remains at least as quotable as James Cameron's ALIENS. Any time I'd see a clip from Power Rangers, I'd lament the missed opportunity that no one ever exclaims, "HEY!! It's a giant frog!! And he's all covered with swollen M&Ms!", or at least, "Hip-hip hooray!! We're orphans!"

Not for another 10 years or so, would I notice in the credits, that 4/5 of Kids In The Hall are credited with writing, and Mark McKinney is even the voice of Dyna Blue!

I suspected it was the totally incongruous pop music used in the action scenes that kept this show from getting past its 6th episode. It was probably just too oddball to find a network to do more than test it on audiences. It's not a show you can fold laundry to, you have to be there with it to catch most of the jokes (and, admittedly, some of them go by too quickly or in some cases, the recording sounds muffled (especially in the Flipper episode). This is a far, far better show than Power Rangers could ever be, and it's a shame this didn't find the success that the latter got.

Fragments of badly dubbed broadcasts are occasionally on YouTube... until they get pulled. Find some. Watch with friends. Then listen to your new Patrick Swayze album.