Originally transmitted in Japan as two series of 26 episodes, this was changed to three series of 13 episodes when transmitted in the UK. The final 13 episodes (the second half of series 2) were never translated into English, until Fabulours Films translated them for DVD release in 2002.
Made with an ensemble cast and on low budget. Sets are clearly recycled from episode to episode, and the supporting cast can be the King one episode, a demon the next, and a gambler in the one after that.
The UK DVD release, cross-promoted by Channel Four whilst they showed the original cult English Language Dub in the early 2000s, consisted of 13 DVDs of the very same 39 original late 1970s dubbed episodes. Confusingly, this DVD release version had each disc with 3 episodes of the 39 UK Dub in original UK broadcast order, followed by 1 episode of the skipped batch of episodes. For example the original version of the fifth skipped episode, that was much later in the series run, that didn't receive an original dubbed episode, was the 4th "bonus" episode on disc 5. If you were to follow the entire run in original order, you would have to double back to the DVD 4th episodes to fill in the gaps.
This TV series is adapted from "Journey to the West", is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.