September 1, 1978: "Battle of the Planets" Premieres

Left to right: Princess, Tiny, Keyop, Jason, Mark

September 1, 1978: Battle of the Planets -- sometimes incorrectly called G-Force, after the name of the team in it -- premieres in syndication on U.S. TV. It was a redubbing of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, a Japanese cartoon that had premiered in 1972. Of the 105 episodes of that series, 85 were adapted and aired over the next year and a half.

Knowing where the money was, the American producers, led by Sandy Frank, chose a title that echoed that of Star Wars, and made it look as much like Star Wars as possible, including introducing 7-Zark-7, a robot expositioner who looked a lot like R2-D2, and sounded a lot like C-3PO.

G-Force were ordinary teenagers, all of them orphans, except for Keyop, an artificial lifeform. They were students by day, heroes by night. And if the later cartoons Captain Planet & the Planeteers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Sailor Moon (the latter 2 also being Japanese imports) now sound like ripoffs, that's not my fault.

Some of the voices were familiar:

* Los Angeles disc jockey Casey Kasem, who voiced Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo franchise, Alex Cabot on Josie and the Pussycats, and the Super Friends' version of Robin, was Mark, the team leader and tactician. In his civilian guise, he wore a shirt with the number 1 on it. But, like all 5 of them, his costume resembled a bird, including a helmet with birds' eyes on the front. His was an eagle.

* Ronnie Schell, Duke Slater on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., was Jason, the team's leading weapons expert. He was impulsive, a bit of a hothead, like Johnny Storm/the Human Torch in The Fantastic Four, but he respected the chain of command: Anderson, then Mark, then the rest of the team. He wore a shirt with the number 2 on it, and his bird was a condor.

* Janet Waldo, whose repertoire included Josie, Judy Jetson and Penelope Pitstop, was Princess. The only female member of the team, her expertise was electronics and demolition, making her similar to the later character of Nikki Franco on the TV show V.I.P.

"Princess" is clearly a nickname, and her real name is never revealed. Although it was never explicitly stated that she and Mark were in a relationship, the dialogue suggests that they were close, which, alone, was enough to contradict the Japanese original, where Ken, the Mark equivalent, was, to use an American expression, "married to the job." She wore a shirt with the number 3 on it, and her bird was a swan.

* Alan Young, Wilbur on Mister Ed, was both Keyop and 7-Zark-7. Keyop was an artificial lifeform, who appeared to be the youngest and the smallest of the kids, and also had the least self-confidence. He was the team's reconnaissance expert. He wore a shirt with the number 4 on it, and his bird was a swallow.

* Alan Dinehart was Tiny Harper, and also Security Chief Anderson. Dinehart had mainly been a writer and/or a producer of TV shows until this point, including with Young on The Alan Young Show. Tiny, the only 1 of the 5 whose last name was ever mentioned, was the tech wizard of the show, equivalent to Scotty on Star Trek, Barney Collier on Mission: Impossible, or Kato on The Green Hornet. But he also had a bit of a gruff demeanor, and yet was intelligent enough to be trusted to be the team's pilot, like Ben Grimm/The Thing of the Fantastic Four. He wore a shirt with the number 5 on it, and his bird was an owl.

Anderson was G-Force's boss, equivalent to M in the James Bond films, the unseen voice that gave Jim Phelps the missions in Mission: Impossible, the Chief of CONTROL on Get Smart, or Oscar Goldman on The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman.

Mark and Jason are said to be 18 years old, Tiny 17, Princess 16 (making any relationship with Mark a little sketchy), and Keyop 11.

The G-Force members stay in contact through a wrist-band communicator device, which also serves as a way for them to change or "transmute" instantly from their civilian clothes into their G-Force uniforms, and back again. At one point, Princess, in civilian clothes, lost a shoe, and, in a nod to the Cinderella story, without the shoe, as part of a complete outfit, she could not transmute into her G-Force costume.

Other weapons seen displayed by various team members include Mark's sonic boomerang, a bird-shaped boomerang with razor-sharp wings; Jason's and Tiny's multi-purpose gadget guns, which can be outfitted with grappling hook and line, drill bits, etc.; and Keyop's and Princess's yo-yo bombs, which could be used as bolas, darts, and explosive devices. Other weapons include feathers with a sharpened steel quill that could be used as deadly throwing darts, and mini-grenades shaped like ball bearings with spike studs.

The G-Force team themselves would use a combination of martial arts skills, ninja-like weapons, and their "cerebonic" powers to dispatch hordes of enemy soldiers and overcome other obstacles. Their bird-like costumes include wing-like capes that could fan out and function nearly identically to parachutes and/or wingsuits, enabling the G-Force members to, if not quite "fly," then to drift or glide down to safety from heights that would otherwise prove fatal.

The main ship of the G-Force team was, in keeping with the bird theme, called the Phoenix, which could carry, transport, and deploy 4 smaller vehicles, each operated by one team member:

* A futuristic race car with various hidden weapons, driven by Jason, and concealed within the Phoenix's nosecone.

* The "galacti-cycle," a futuristic motorcycle ridden by Princess, stored within the left-wing capsule of the Phoenix.

* Keyop's "Space Bubble," an all-terrain, tank-like vehicle capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), as well as being a submersible craft, held in the right storage capsule of the Phoenix.

* And a futuristic jet fighter that Mark piloted, stored in the top rear section of the Phoenix command island structure, and which used its tail fin to make up the center tail fin of the Phoenix.

* Tiny was assigned to pilot the Phoenix rather than one of the detachable craft.

The Phoenix

A regularly featured plot device was the transformation of the Phoenix into a flaming bird-shaped craft able to handle virtually any exceptional situation for a brief period by essentially turning itself into pure energy, called the Fiery Phoenix. How the occupants were protected was never explained.

The Phoenix's primary weapon was a supply of rockets called "TBX missiles" in the series. It also occasionally flaunted a powerful solar-powered energy blaster, although the team had the misfortune of choosing very cloudy days to use it.

Keye Luke, who played all kinds of Asian roles in his long career, voiced Zoltar, who, like Darth Vader, turned out not to be in charge of the villainous activities, but most people (myself included) forgot this. Zoltar would receive his orders directly from a being he would refer to as the Luminous One. This being would appear as a ghost-like, disembodied, floating head. Who, or what, this being actually was, was never explained in any detail throughout the series.

There were significant differences from the Japanese original. A literal translation of the script would have led to showing more violence, and even deaths, than a U.S. children's show would have been allowed to show. The original version also included Japanese profanities, and these had to be edited out in English.

Indeed, there was a rumor that explained why Keyop, originally known in Japan as Jinpei, had a bizarre verbal tic of stuttering, chirping, and burbling every time he started to speak: Supposedly, it was done because the original character used a lot of profanity, and that Keyop's excess mouth motion would cover up deleting the words. This was not true: Jinpei rarely, if ever, used profanity. The in-story explanation for Keyop's unique manner of speech is that he is an artificial life form, with a speech impediment because of slightly defective genetic engineering.

Keye Luke died in 1991, Alan Dinehart in 1992, Casey Kasem in 2014, and Alan Young and Janet Waldo in 2016. As of September 1, 2022, Sandy Frank and Ronnie Schell are still alive.

A live-action Japanese version bombed in 2013. As of 2022, filmmaking brothers Joe and Anthony Russo were planning a new live-action version.

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September 1, 1978 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Seattle Mariners, 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. Paul Mitchell outpitched Catfish Hunter, ending a streak of 6 straight decisions won for him, a big reason why the Yankees had closed the gap on the Red Sox. Mickey Rivers hit doubles, but the only other Yankee baserunners were Thurman Munson and Lou Piniella with singles, and Reggie Jackson and Chris Chambliss each with a walk.

* The New York Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Dusty Baker singled Steve Garvey home with the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning. This made a winning pitcher of Terry Forster in relief of Doug Rau, and a losing pitcher of Kevin Kobel, after Jerry Koosman pitched 11 innings.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. So the Yankees lost no ground in their attempt to come back from 14 games behind the Red Sox. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a groundout.

* The Baltimore Orioles swept a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox, 3-0 and 9-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Over the 2 games, Eddie Murray went 2-for-7 with a home run and 4 RBIs.

* The California Angels beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-4 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates swept a doubleheader from the Atlanta Braves, 8-3 and 3-0 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell went 3-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs in the opener, then got the nightcap off. In that game, Bruce Kison (7 2/3rds innings) and Kent Tekulve combined on a 3-hit shutout.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Astros, 14-11 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. J.R. Richard started for the Astros, but didn't get out of the 4th inning, giving up 3 home runs, 1 to once and future Yankee Bobby Murcer. Mike Krukow didn't get out of the 2nd inning, but the Cubs won the game, anyway.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-4 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Don Money hit 2 home runs. Robin Yount went 1-for-4 with an RBI. Rookie Paul Molitor went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Rod Carew drew a walk as a pinch-hitter.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Pete Rose went 2-for-5. Johnny Bench went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Lou Brock went 1-for-4.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-2 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 0-for-4.

* The Montreal Expos beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Sam Mejías singled Larry Parrish home with the winning run in the top of the 12th inning, ruining a great complete game for Randy Jones, and making a winning pitcher of Mike Garman in relief of Ross Grimsley Jr.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Steve Carlton used to tell his Phillies teammates, "It's Win Day" when he started. Not this time: He gave up a home run to Jack Clark in the 8th to lose it. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3 with a walk.