The Ultimate Double Feature.

During the time that Hanna-Barbera produced their "Superstars 10" movies, they also produced two other made-for-TV films, neither of which starred any of their classic characters. These were "Ultraman: The Adventure Begins," and "Rock Odyssey." I saw these last night back to back on YouTube as sort of an online double feature, hence the title of this thread.

And now my thoughts about them:

"Ultraman: The Adventure Begins," AKA "Ultraman USA," was an animated version of the live action Japanese sci-fi show. But here, instead of just one Ultraman, there were two Ultramen, and an Ultrawoman. Talk about equal opportunity! I watched in complete awe as this trio defeated and saved the world from three monsters in less than 90 minutes. The last one, shown during the climax, was the result of a lab experiment gone horribly wrong. Now, although this was an H-B production, the animation was done in a traditional anime style, since it was a joint effort between H-B and Tsubaraya. But it also had similar plot elements of the studio's superhero cartoons of the '60's. The opening titles were in English, but the closing ones were in Japanese. Since I don't speak the language fluently, I had a problem deciphering the symbols. If I ever see this movie again, I'll call for an interpreter. But overall, I was very pleased.

"Rock Odyssey. I knew a great deal about this film, even before I saw it. It took H-B an unusually long time to film it, as production began in 1981. When it was eventually completed, it was only shown at private screenings. After seeing it, I understood why. The overall film was rather graphic, and thus, was never shown on national TV, like the studio planned. Also, I found the animation to be reminiscent of that for "Yellow Submarine." In fact, the Beatles were drawn in exactly the same way as they were for that one. Other legends seen in this film were Elvis and Hendrix. And the talking jukebox only added to the bizarre nature.

So while I wasn't totally disappointed by "Rock Odyssey," I had no trouble seeing how truly different it was from other H-B cartoons.

Trivia Question 10: Where did the Ultraforce have their headquarters?

Answer: Mount Rushmore.

I caught parts of "Ultraman: The Adventure Begins" on my local independent tv station. First Hanna-Barbera-produced anime I ever saw.
The US English language version starred the voices of Michael Lembeck as Scott Masterson, Chad Everett as Chuck Gavin, and Adrienne Barbeau as Beth O'Brien who all can turn into giant Ultra People to battle bad guy monsters.

The movie was released on VHS tape.

Scatman Crothers did the rhyming narration for "Rock Odyssey" as the only spoken dialogue for the whole movie. The songs performed were not sung by the original artists. The plot had a young woman looking for romance in various time periods with the songs suggesting the time and mood in her search. The movie was commissioned by the ABC television network as an animated tv movie special but the subject matter, particularly images from the Vietnam War, was indeed deemed too graphic for tv broadcast. Never aired or released on home video. The YouTube version had Spanish language captions (currently removed) so the film may have been broadcast in Europe and South America but I am not sure.