Japanese Cyborgs and Cuban Revolutionaries: On the Trail of Tobor the 8th Man, part 2

 continued from part 1

Tailoring the series was an arduous task. Loops of film, 10 to 15 seconds in length, were cut by editor-director Gonzalo Rodriguez, who was responsible for marking the second workprint with a grease pencil, indicating where and how the episode should be sectioned. Once marked, the print was handed over to the husband and wife editing team of Rene and Gloria Gutierrez who would execute the actual cutting. A fully sectioned episode would result in as many as 280 pieces of film, each of which was then taped at the ends to be used by the actors performing the dubbing. The numbered loops were threaded one at a time onto two of the facility’s projectors, simultaneously by 18-year old Jose Nickse and Jose “Cheo” Ibarra, a ferocious Cuban counter-revolutionary who had participated in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and continued to carry a gun wrapped in a newspaper to work with him every day.

To assist the actors’ attempts to match their lines to that of their cartoon counterparts on-screen, the original Japanese audio track, residing as an optical stripe on the film loop being projected, was piped into the actors’ headphones. In this way, the English-speaking actors could attempt to match the rhythms and cadences of the Japanese actors on the original audio recordings. 

Sound engineers Henry Lopez and chain-smoking Manuel Sole recorded the new dialogue onto 16mm magnetic film, an audio format that matched the format of the celluloid film. As each looping session produced successful recordings of dialogue read by the actors, the Gutierrezes would painstakingly reassemble the sections of magnetic audio against a workprint of film (of an episode).

After the audio tracks of the new English dialogue had been pieced together, editor Rodriguez and dubbing supervisor, Manny San Fernando, would thread the workprint and the 16mm magnetic film containing the new audio into the facility’s Movieola, “…sliding the sound back and forth; adjusting to fit the action.”

After aligning the new audio track, it was combined with the original 8-Man music and effects (M&E) tracks to produce the finished audio. “A ‘safety’ or back-up of the sound was made onto 1/4 inch tape with a synch-pulse,” remembers Henry Lopez. Then “…the 16mm audio ‘mix down’ was sent to the lab and transferred to optical negative and combined with the negative of the actual episode, creating a composite.” It is from this composite that multiple 16mm prints of each episode of the series were struck and delivered to the television stations for broadcast.

Each episode was reviewed and edited by Manny San Fernando, Sr, removing any scenes of graphic toon violence or death that while permissible in Japan would have raised the hackles of U.S. censors. San Fernando also found himself editing gingerly (wherever possible) around scenes in which Japanese ideograms, or kanji, were displayed prominently on street signs and building placards. This was done to minimize potential confusion to American viewers who wouldn’t know that the animation was of Japanese origin. When kanji couldn’t be avoided in a scene, the ensuing explanation would often be one of unintended hilarity.

For instance, in the episode, “The Light That Burned,” Copri script man Reuben Guberman simply wrote a line of narration that explains the unavoidable appearance of Japanese kanji as “…fancy initials…”. To Guberman, it was as good an explanation as any.

This and other attempts to explain away the Japanese writing that permeates the series border on the absurd. Like many dubbing gaffs, these evasions must have sounded as awkward and amusing to the dubbers then as is does to us now.  However, these obstacles never slowed Copri’s energetic writer.

Reuben Guberman, a self-described “fat Jewish maverick” and native New Yorker who dabbled in everything from managing a newspaper to hosting Miami radio shows “Bagels for Breakfast” and “Mensa on the Air” at station WEDR, in 1964 was looking for something interesting to challenge him, when he discovered Miami’s dubbing scene and sold Prinz on his gifts as a writer of copy.

Using only the rough plot outlines provided by the Japanese and the main character names created by Fernandez in New York, Guberman went to work scripting the action and formulating the names of future 8^th Man characters. The villains, many of whom were members of the sinister organization Intercrime, ended up with some amusing monikers: Evil Jaw, Ice Finger, Dr. Spectra, Mr. Browbeat, Cold Knuckle, etc. These names were often derivations of the original Japanese names such as that of Baron Stormy (i.e. Baron Typhoon in the original).

Ruby, as he was affectionately known by his fellow cast and crew mates, would sit in his darkened garage for countless hours running the episodes on a 16mm projector, scene after scene, forward, then in reverse, then forward again in order to create dialogue for 8^th Man. “We really had nothing to work from. So, all the lines came from my head. I just made them up to support the story or whatever the action was,” remembered Guberman.

“Ruby was a machine,” states Copri colleague Mark Harris in admiration. “He was amazing with the rate he would turn-out the scripts; he worked very hard on the loops, matching his dialogue to the labials.” With Guberman’s scripts being turned out at a breakneck pace, the English language version of 8^th Man now needed a cast and a dubbing director. 

For the lead role of Tobor the 8^th Man, acting producer Gene Prinz had already hired radio journeyman Jerry Berke from station WGBS in Miami and intended to delegate the rest of the casting to a dubbing director, once he’d selected one.

One evening at a Miami dinner theater, Prinz happened to see a performance directed by Frank Schuller and clearly liked what he saw. He left a business card asking Schuller to contact him.

"I called Gene and he asked me if I had ever directed any dubbing before and I told him ‘No, but that I was interested,” recalls Schuller, who like most of the cast members he would eventually assemble to put English into the mouths of 8^th Man’s characters, was a jobbing actor always looking for the next gig, when he wasn’t working.

Directing the 8^th Man dub would mean extra money. Although, there was precious little of that to go around, as it turned out. The 8^th Man dub would be produced on the meagerest of budgets.

As soon as Schuller had signed on as director, he began approaching people in his personal network to fill the roles. “I brought in some of the other actors that I knew from community theater,” states Schuller.

He hired actress and dancer Sandy Warshaw to voice the parts of Jenny Heartsweet and Skip Pepper. “Frank told me…you’re a dancer and dubbing has a lot to do with rhythm. I think that you will be able to pick it up immediately,” says Warshaw recalling her conversation with Schuller. Local instructor of radio production, Bob Gaynor, was given the role of Chief Fumblethumbs. Other cast members hired by Schuller to provide various support voices included chief radio announcer at Miami Beach’s WKAT, Arnie Warren, and actors Jack Metzger and Mark Harris. Even script man Reuben Guberman was dragooned into the dubbing studio on occasion. “Ruby had that gravelly voice,” said Mark Harris; perfect for villains.

Dubbing 8^th Man was non-union work, and as a result, some of the actors being solicited for roles, declined to audition. Florida was and is a right-to-work state and without union contracts, ABC Films and Copri could avoid paying union scale wages. The actors who performed the dubbing were paid a minimum rate of $5.00 per session and a dollar a loop, thereafter. Conversely, director Schuller was paid by the reel. The majority of in-house staff was salaried. Sound engineer, Henry Lopez, who started at Copri as an office boy, earned only $30.00 per month. “And I had to have a car!” he exclaims.

“Some of the actors were better at dubbing than others,” says Schuller and presumably could earn more per session. Guberman, when asked about his looping efforts, made no bones about the fact that he “…was considered one of the best.” Once a script had been finished, “…we could complete (the dubbing of) maybe one episode a day; maybe more,” remembers Schuller.

The non-union status of the work also meant that no credit would be given to anybody involved for anything. The opening and closing of each 8^th Man episode would contain no credits at all, with the exception of a single line during the closing stating that the series had been distributed by ABC Films. That suited Schuller just fine as he (and others) were quite concerned about the punitive threats constantly tossed around by local union mouthpieces should any of them be caught working scab jobs like the dubbing of 8^th Man. Their union pensions and health care were on the line.

While the cast and crew worked for low wages on the dub, the producers decided the series opening would have to be changed. The original Japanese title sequence was deemed unusable. The same went for the Japanese theme song. So, the purse strings were loosened, slightly, and a modest allocation made for new animation and scoring. “It was one of the few luxuries we were afforded on this,” stated Guberman.

It is unknown if the U.S. animators who animated the new title sequence were supplied with much reference material in order to match the appearance of the Japanese artwork, but the final result was sloppy and bore little resemblance to the original TCJ animation. Similarly, the newly composed theme also set quite a different tone. And not a good one.

Instead of Hagiwara’s exciting, pulsing march, the new theme was a dumbed-down ditty crafted to appeal to children. The composition, written in all likelihood by the talented Win Sharples, is pedestrian at best. It’s tempo saps the energy of the subject matter and renders the exact opposite effect the Japanese intended; that the series should appeal to adults as well as kids. The new 8^th Man theme is very similar in structure to John Strauss’ 1961 comedic theme for NBC’s “Car 54, Where Are You?”. The Saturday-morning mindset in the West was that cartoons were for kids, despite every effort by Disney, Fleischer and their peers to elevate animation to a respected art form.

Sidebar: The identity of U.S. animation outfit that produced the new main title cannot be confirmed, completely. The appearance of a Hal Seeger Productions’ title card in the leaders of surviving 8^th Man film prints is a strong indicator that Seeger’s shop did the work. This isn’t surprising since Seeger did a lot of commercial animation for ABC Films and Hal Seeger, himself, admits the job was offered to him. However, both Seeger and long-time employee Lenny Bird deny creating this particular sequence. They claim that when ABC Films brought them the job, they were too busy to accept it.

Furthermore, Seeger’s former animation department head, Myron Waldman, also stated that 8^th Man is not familiar to him and that he “…would have remembered anything that bad.” In spite of all the protests and denials, all indications are that Seeger’s shop did the work and they are now, in hindsight, simply embarrassed by it.

In his later years, Reuben Guberman, was convinced that animation maverick Ralph Bakshi had done the work. However, Bakshi, when contacted, also denied being involved stating “Didn't do it; haven't seen it.” The only other animation house to have been mentioned in association with 8^th Man at various times is Oriolo Film Studios. Known primarily for its work on The Mighty Hercules series and the rarely seen English dubs of Mushi Productions’ Ribbon no Kishi [ リボンの騎士 ] series (a.k.a. Princess Knight or Choppy and the Princess) and the Sino-American hybrid anime, Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero [ジョニイサイファー], Don Oriolo, the son of late animator Joe Oriolo, seems to “…vaguely remember some layout work for the 8th Man being done by (his) father…” but this claim is highly unlikely.

While a preponderance of the evidence points to Hal Seeger’s studio for the clumsy animation, and to Win Sharples as the new theme’s composer, the identities behind the U.S. 8^th Man title sequence remain formally ‘unconfirmed’.

 

As Copri completed the dubbing, trouble was brewing back in New York. When Plitt took the decision to have the series dubbed in Miami, he took with him all of the prep work done at Titra. “Rather than pay Screen Actors' Guild prices, which we HAD to charge in New York, Plitt ran to Florida. The trouble was that he kept the character names and concepts that others created. He stole the ideas,” says Ladd disgustedly.

That Plitt and ABC Films were determined to pinch pennies isn’t surprising. And if that meant moving the production to a right-to-work state like Florida to circumvent union pay scales, that is what they would do. And did.

Worse still, according to Ladd, was that Plitt “…sold Hank Booraem (programming director at WPIX) on the notion that the expert soundtrack work that Booraem knew and loved on Gigantor and the 8^th Man pilot would be the standard for the entire 8^th Man series!” As a result of Plitt’s bait & switch act, “…a very well-known feud of sorts developed between Booraem and Plitt.” Ladd recalls that“…Booraem claimed he had been deceived by Plitt and ABC Films, and that the dubbing of the series was amateurish.”

Furthermore, continues Ladd, “…when Plitt went to other stations to sell the series, including WPIX affiliate WGN in Chicago, he wouldn't show the buyers any of the episodes that had been produced in Florida at Gene Prinz’s ‘$1.98 School of Dubbing’. Rather he showed them only the pilot that Peter had made in New York. Naturally, the buyers thought they would be getting New York quality!”

Peter Fernandez concurs with Ladd stating that he had also heard that “the buyers weren’t too happy.” Of course, everybody at Copri was oblivious to the battle raging between producers and station programmers in New York and Chicago. What mattered to them was that the series was in the can and that more work was in the pipeline.

 

Sidebar: Fred Ladd, age 91 at the time of this writing, continues to have very strong feelings about 8^th Man, and he isn’t shy about expressing them whenever the subject arises, more than 50 years later.

He considers the original dub of the series to be a wasted opportunity; great potential marred by unskilled handling at Copri, and one that he wouldn’t have squandered, had the project been his. Ladd’s claim of involvement with 8^th Man, however, is contested by Peter Fernandez, who wrote and directed the pilot. 

“Fred was never involved. We were competitors at that time, and although we’re friends now, we didn’t work together on 8^th Man,” states Fernandez.

Ladd’s insistence regarding his involvement eventually softened over the course of our interviews, but maintains that he was kind of involved and alludes, vaguely, to the death of his then business partner as a reason for his lack of formal participation on the dub of the pilot.

 

Ladd also claims to have had first rights of refusal over many of the anime properties peddled in the U.S., and even makes a point in lectures of claiming to have turned down Speed Racer. Fernandez just chuckles and states he believes that Ladd is just embellishing or mis-remembering.

 

Whatever Ladd’s reasons are for claiming involvement with the 8^th Man dub, it cannot be doubted that he was much moved by series, and keeps in his memory many of the more esoteric details of the production recounted in this article.

His final word on the subject is that despite the level of success the series achieved in the U.S. and in other English speaking territories, the achievement would have been far greater had he and his team been allowed to direct the dub.

 

With new opening visuals and a new theme song, 8^th Man premiered on Tuesday, September 7, 1965 at 4:00 PM. On station WPIX in New York, from 4:00 PM – 4:30 PM, 8^th Man proceeded to wallop its competition. “We owned that time slot!” declared Guberman triumphantly. During the ratings hoopla, Jerry Berke, the voice of 8th Man himself, made a trip from Florida to the New York station to meet fans and sign autographs. Even the new theme song proved infectious and, according to Berke, was performed by pianist and songwriter Steve Lawrence, as a bit of kitsch on the Tonight Show (unverified). “It was a real kick!”

8^th Man

also played quite successfully in the Latino markets as El Octavo Hombre well into the 1970s. And while it is unconfirmed that Copri also produced the Spanish and Portuguese dubs of 8^th Man, it is certainly plausible, even likely, since Copri specialized in dubbing product into those languages for distribution in South and Central America.

As with the original Japanese version, the U.S. adaptation proved to be a success across age demographics. Reuben Guberman stated, “We were a big hit with college kids…who loved the James Bond and sci-fi elements of show.” Even by the second quarter of 1966, the ARB ratings for 8^th Man on WPIX in New York alone was pulling an 11 share (28%), clobbering The Mike Douglas Show, the midday movie and The Cisco Kid. 8^th Man’s popularity in the U.S. even resulted in some small scale merchandising efforts, including an 8th Man Halloween costume manufactured by Ben Cooper, Inc.

Unfortunately, by the mid-1970s, 8^th Man had all but vanished from the television airwaves. The black & white animation kept it from being a viable property in the era of color programming. ABC Films ceased operations in 1973 and its library became an asset of WorldVision, whose holdings now reside under the umbrella of Paramount Television and ultimately Viacom. Currently, Paramount Television’s licensing division reports that it no longer holds any licenses to the 8^th Man property. It can be assumed that after ABC Films Inc.’s holdings were transferred to WorldVision 30 years ago, the broadcast license for the series was allowed to expire, with all rights reverting back to the Japanese.

In the 1980s, with the explosion of the home video market, 8^th Man episodes, considered by some to be public domain, turned-up occasionally on cassette under variant titles, including a release that came with a free package of microwave popcorn (i.e. “Kiddy Popcorn Classics” released by NAV, Inc. in 1988).

Sidebar: For reasons unknown, the television programming publications of the 1960s, including T.V. Guide, never managed to list the series’ title correctly. 8^th Man, the correct title, is referred to indifferently as Eighth Man, Tobor the Eighth Man and The Fantastic Eighth Man. As a result, subsequent home video marketing efforts use any one of a number of title variations that are apt to cause confusion.

 

 Then, in the early 1990s, 20 of the original English-dubbed episodes were released in a four volume VHS set by Video Rarities, struck from surviving 16mm prints. And in dealer rooms of sci-fi and comic book conventions across America, 8th Man episodes continued to be a staple of bootleg tape dealers for many years. Even today, despite its age, 8^th Man continues to be manifested in various guises.

It has been argued that the inspiration for the 1973 ABC-distributed series, The Six Million Dollar Man, starring Lee Majors, was indeed 8^th Man. According to Fred Ladd, “there's no question that the bionic man idea was spun-off of 8^th Man. That concept came from novelist Martin Caidin, my one-time neighbor who mentored me a little in the making of my animated feature Pinocchio in Outer Space.” Caidin authored the novel Cyborg in 1972 upon which The Six Million Dollar Man television series is based. It just proves that no idea or script goes un-recycled in Hollywood.

In fact, due to the story’s staying power, 8-Man received the big screen treatment in 1992 when it was produced as a live action film, starring actor Kai Shishido in the title role. In 1993, the adventure continued in an original animated video (i.e. OAV) entitled 8-Man After.

Again, in 1997, Fred Ladd, still smitten by the idea of “a robot that can cry…” attempted to resuscitate interest in the original 8^th Man series with the idea of colorizing it. He “…pitched the idea to Bert Cohen at WorldVision. Cohen initiated an in-house search for the 8^th Man negatives and discovered that many of them had disappeared from WorldVision’s storage.” recalls Ladd. However, Cohen’s interest had been piqued and Ladd initiated discussions in Tokyo with the TBS programming and legal departments.

“Programming noted that TBS was running the show from time to time in the middle of the night.” states Ladd, mainly due to the retrograde nature of the animation and the ubiquitous chain smoking exhibited by the characters.

Unfortunately, “…when all was said and done, TBS decided it was better to invest in new programming than colorize old shows with problematic scenes,” concludes Ladd, regretfully.

Today in Japan, the original 8-Man remains a late night staple and continues to generate profits for licensees in the form of action figures, OAVs and home video releases. 8-Man period collectibles, including vinyl toys and original record album releases fetch exorbitant sums on Yahoo Japan’s auction

site.

After TCJ Animation’s initial success with 8-Man and Tetsujin-28 go, it went on to produce such anime classics as Yûsei Shônen Papî [ 遊星少年パピィ] (i.e. Prince Planet), and Yûsei Kamen [遊星仮面] (i.e. Asteroid Mask or Planet Mask).

In 1973, TCJ underwent a name change to Aiken (or Eiken) [エイケン] and continued to produce television cartoon series such as Garasu no Kamen [ガラスの仮面] (i.e. Glass Mask) and Ginga Patororu PJ [銀河パトロールＰＪ] (a.k.a Galactic Patrol PJ). One of its more recent efforts was the 1996 anime Kiko-chan Sumairu [きこちゃんすまいる] (i.e. Kiko-chan’s Smile) produced for TBS.

However, none of these later efforts had quite the impact that 8-Man did, and that may explain why (at the time of this writing), 8-Man may still be seen on television in Japan; one of the few black & white cartoon series to have survived long past its expected shelf-life.

Epilogue:

 The deadlines on a monthly comic book or weekly animation series can be brutal with so much riding on the creators’ abilities to produce on-time and on-budget.

Original 8-Man manga artist, Jirô Kuwata, near the end of 8-Man’s run, suffered what can only be described as a mental breakdown from overwork and stress. With the intention of committing suicide, he was arrested for carrying a gun, a very serious offense in Japan, and jailed. The scandal ended his tenure on the 8-Man manga and with Shônen Magazine, and the last chapter/issue of 8-Man would be completed by other artists on Kuwata’s staff. The last installment in the story did not see publication until 1992.

Kuwata eventually recovered, developed a rich spiritual life, and resumed his career as an illustrator producing some of the original Urutora Sebun [ウルトラセブン] (i.e. Ultra Seven) manga and the recently re-discovered Batman comics called Batto-Manga! [ハードカバー] (i.e. Bat-Manga!). He died in 2020 at age 85.

After the 8-Man manga and anime ended, writer Kazumasa Hirai went on to create the popular Urufu Gai [ウルフガイ] (i.e. Wolf Guy) and Genma Wars [幻魔大戦シリーズ]. He died in 2015.

8-Man theme song vocalist Shigeru Katsumi, whose real name was Seiya Tsumura (津村誠也), had a number of additional hits during the 1960s. However, by 1975, he was suffering from dramatic personal and professional reversals.

In a rage, Katsumi strangled his mistress with a rope and stuffed her corpse into the boot of his car. He was arrested and charged with capital murder. Toshiba EMI, his recording label, scandalized by the ghastly event, dropped him immediately. His recordings were then subsequently destroyed in the company’s attempts to erase all evidence that the singer had ever been associated with it.

After serving seven years of a ten years sentence for the killing, he was paroled and lived in relative obscurity until his death in 2013.

Unlike many of the original Japanese creators and producers of the 8-Man manga and anime, most of the cast and crew at Copri in the U.S. saw their work on the 8^th Man cartoon series as a job and little more. “I needed a new car; a VW Beetle,” recalls Arnie Warren, “…and I made enough to buy the Beetle. Thanks, Tobor.” 

With the exceptions perhaps of Jerry Berke, for whom 8^th Man is and has always been a source of delight and Reuben Guberman, who was equally proud of his work on 8^th Man and its ratings coup, the series is regarded in hindsight by most of those involved as a charming if somewhat crude effort. “I just couldn’t believe that this was the same 8^th Man we had worked on. I just don’t remember it looking so primitive,” exclaims Henry Lopez after viewing a few episodes for the first time in over 30 years.

The staff and crew of Copri in the years following 8^th Man would also produce English dubs of Prince Planet and W3 [ワンダースリー] (a.k.a. The Amazing 3), as well as the live-action kaijû, Jaianto Robo [ジャイアントロボ] (a.k.a. Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot), in addition to hundreds of theatrical feature films and shorts from all over the world for which none of them ever got credit.

To add insult to injury, various animation historians, stumped since the early 1980s for accurate data about the 8^th Man dub (due to the absence of any credits whatsoever), often attribute the work to other actors, other directors and other production outfits.

Copri International Films, Inc. eventually closed shop in the early 1970s. Many members of 8^th Man’s cast and crew continued to dub at Copri until the end, adapting some of Japan’s classic cartoon series for western audiences, helping to pave the way for modern anime.

Reuben Guberman, after a long career writing for film and television, returned to his stomping grounds in the northeast and eventually went on to become a sales manager for a pharmaceutical firm where he authored several books about management. He passed away in 2000 from lung cancer at age 74.

Mark Harris would direct the dubs of The Amazing 3 and Prince Planet series (in which he also voiced the Dan Dynamo character), leaving in 1967 to pursue other work. He passed in 2001 at his vacation home in Utah.

Manny San Fernando, Sr would go on to direct the dub for American International Pictures (AIP) series Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot as well as an unseen English dub of Toho’s epic fantasy Nippon Tanjô [日本誕生] retitled The Three Treasures for Seven Arts. He also wrote and acted in several K. Gordon Murray movies including Savages From Hell (a.k.a. Big Enough, Old Enough) and La Momia Azteca Contra el Robot Humano (a.k.a. The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy). Manny, still in his early 60s, passed in 1982 following a heart attack.

Having acted in over 400 national commercials and television series including Cheers, Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, 8^th Man director, Frank Schuller, is now semi-retired in Los Angeles and enjoys a life of writing and traveling.

Jerry Berke, the man behind 8^th Man’s sonorous English voice, continues working in radio and currently lives in New Jersey. He’s on the internet and loves to hear from 8^th Man fans.

Sandy Warshaw, who went on to voice Diana Worthy in Prince Planet, continued to act, direct, and dance, and recently taught theater at Miami Dade Community College.

Bob Gaynor never did any more dubbing after 8^th Man and continued his teaching career until his retirement from Miami Lakes Technical Institute, where super-achieving students in radio broadcasting are bestowed with The Bob Gaynor Special Talent Award. He passed away in 2013 at age 84.

Arnie Warren, after buying his Volkswagon with his 8^th Man earnings, provided the voice of Warlock in Prince Planet and later established himself as a successful radio personality and author. He passed at age 73 in 2008.

Copri’s Raul Corvison and Manuel Sole are both deceased, and attempts to locate technicians Jose Ibarra, Gonzalo Rodriguez and the Gutierrezes have been unsuccessful. Former projectionist Jose Nickse entered the priesthood and became a long-serving pastor at St. Brendan’s Catholic Church in Miami, until his death in December 2002. Father Nickse had fond memories of his days at Copri and still delights in recalling Cuban actor Oswaldo Calvo dubbing the voice of Mr. Magoo cartoons in Spanish.

Sound engineer, Henry Lopez, who was only 18 years old when he helped to engineer the sound for 8^th Man at Copri, also recorded and mixed the sound for Prince Planet and The Amazing 3, plus dozens of features and shorts. Henry left Copri in 1968 to work for the prestigious Criteria Studios and continues working today as an independent soundman in film in Florida.

Former Copri president, Gene Prinz, still resides in Florida with his family and spends much of his time doing business abroad as the proprietor of one of the world’s largest teak plantations.

ABC Films’ Henry ‘Hank’ Plitt later acquired the ABC Theater chain, and rebranded it as Plitt Theaters, Inc., which eventually became part of the Cineplex Odeon Corporation. Plitt passed away in 1993 and is now remembered chiefly for his involvement in the capture of Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher during WWII.

8^th Man pilot director, Peter Fernandez, would achieve legendary status with his iconic dubs of Kaitei Shônen Marine [海底少年マリン] (i.e. Marine Boy) in 1966 and Speed Racer in 1967. Starting in the late 1990s, Peter served as director for the Cartoon Network’s Courage the Cowardly Dog series. In 2008, Peter made a cameo appearance as a race announcer in the Wachowski’s feature film adaptation of Speed Racer. He passed at age 83 in 2010 from lung cancer. All efforts to locate his pilot dub of 8^th Man have been unsuccessful.

An amusing postscript to Peter’s long career… he is mentioned by name in director-turned-author Quentin Tarantino in his 2021 novelization of his feature film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as having dubbed the fictional Italian westerns made by fictional actor, Rick Dalton. Tarantino certainly knows his Hollywood minutia as Peter did in fact write and direct the 1967 English dub of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, which catapulted television actor Clint Eastwood into movie super-stardom.

Fred Ladd produced the monumentally successful dub of Mushi Productions’ Jangaru Taitei [ジャングル大帝] rechristened Kimba the White Lion for U.S. syndication in 1966. In keeping with his anime heritage, he served as a creative consultant for the U.S. version of Bishôjo Senshi Sêrâ Mûn [美少女戦士セーラームーン公式ホームページ] (a.k.a. Sailor Moon), continued to license the classic Gigantor series, and until the decade of the aughts made frequent convention appearances around the country as the honorary grandfather and champion of anime in the western hemisphere. He passed at age 94 in 2021.

To those whose efforts sparked the imaginations of kids around the world, and who helped to inspire Robo Cop, The Six Million Dollar Man, Holmes and Yo-Yo, Now and Again, and other genre fare, we salute you.

 

Special thanks to: Kay Arnold, Ralph Bakshi, Rey Baumel, Jerry Berke, Lenny Bird, Hendrik "Hank" Booraem IV, Paul B. Brown, Catherine “Bobbie” Byers, Jo Chen, Richard Chiaro, David Clevinger, Jr., George DeVries, Peter Fernandez, Kazuhiko Fujita, Kazumi Fujita, Bob Gaynor, Hal Golden, Reuben and Tammy Guberman, Mark Harris, Jason Hofius, Glen Johnson, Fred Ladd, Matthew King, Kelly Patrick Lannan, Shu-Min Liang, David Lomazoff, Henry Lopez, Don Markstein, Christian Martel, Dave Merrill, Jack Metzger, Paul Nagel, Kurt Nagle, Father Jose Nickse, Yoshiko Ochiai, Don Oriolo, Corrine Orr, Neil Patrick, Gene Prinz, Manny San Fernando, Jr., Frank Schuller, Hal Seeger, Winston Sharples, Jr., Eiko Shu, Myron Waldman, Arnie Warren, Sandy Warshaw and Kiyoshi Yamamoto.