Friday is Artificial Life Form Day No. 4

This week it’s Frankenstein Junior. Frankenstein Junior came out in 1966 and was another of the massive amount of cartoons put out by Hanna Barbera. Much like the ‘Flintstones’ resembled the popular ‘Honeymooners’, Frankenstein Junior resembled Gigantor, which I wrote about last week. Hanna Barbera was kind of known for taking something that was a good/popular show and capitalizing on it with their own cartoon based loosely on that show.

When you hear the name Frankenstein Junior you might think this would be the offspring of Mary Shelley’s famous reincarnated character. Not so. Frankenstein Junior is a completely automated life form. He is a 30ft tall robot created by Professor Conroy and his son Buzz. Buzz actually controls Frankenstein Junior using his power ring. Frank Jr. could only do what Buzz wanted him to do, although occasionally he would do things, like rescue Buzz, on his own free will.

Besides being super big Frank Jr. had super strength, could fly, energy beams he could emit from his hands, hidden compartments in his body and stretch his limbs out. See? Doesn’t he sound a bit like Gigantor? Well I guess he sounds a little bit like Dynomutt too. Guess Hanna Barbera wasn’t above stealing ideas from itself.

Frank Jr. and Buzz would fight crime where ever it reared its ugly head. But alas the show was short run with only 18 episodes produced. That’s ok, even with such a limited amount of episodes Frank Jr. was able to stay around for about 3 decades. Not a bad return on their investment.

Next week moving back to the world of Japanese Anime, I’ll be looking at Astro Boy.