Godzilla (TV series)


 * This article is about the TV series. For the title character, see Godzilla.

Godzilla is an American animated adventure television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for NBC's Saturday morning children's programming. It ran from 1978 to 1979, airing 26 episodes that spanned two seasons. It is based on the Godzilla film series produced by Japanese film studio Toho.

A team of scientists consisting of Doctor Darien, Brock Borden, and their leader, Captain Majors, travel aboard their boat, the Calico. They always manage to run into a monster, and when that happens, Carl uses a special handheld signal to call on Godzilla for help. It's unexplained why he does this, but it may have something to do with them babysitting his apparent relation, Godzooky, although the team usually places Godzooky under the guardianship of Quinn's younger brother, Pete.

Development
Jack Kirby had been hired by Hanna-Barbera to successfully sell their second Fantastic Four cartoon (after the first one in 1967), but Marvel Comics decided to go with DaPatie-Freleng Enterprises instead, so a trade was made with DePatie-Freleng for Godzilla, along with Doug Wildey, too. Marvel Comics was in fact publishing Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 1977. The trade may have been possible due to the fact that executive producer Joseph Barbera, a Godzilla fan, was a friend of Hank Saperstein of United Productions of America, who was the American distributor of Toho's films.

According to Joseph Barbera, Standards and Practices wouldn't allow Godzilla to be depicted as his common destructive self, so they had to find a middle ground, hence the addition of Godzooky, who provided comic relief as the "occasional fool" to lighten the mood, Godzooky had a "sort of father-son relationship" with Godzilla, similar to the relationships seen in Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and Jonny Quest. Not seen in the series, but detailed in promotional material, Godzilla helped the team after they saved Godzooky from a coral reef.

Duane Poole and Dick Robbins developed the series, with the former seeing Jonny Quest as an inspiration. There was excitement at the studio as the series was more action than comedy. They looked for a unique style to Godzilla so kids wouldn't confuse it with Scooby-Doo.

Music
The music was composed by Hoyt Curtin, credited as musical director, with musical supervision from Paul DeKorte.

Cast

 * Ted Cassidy as Godzilla
 * Jeff David as Captain Carl Majors
 * Brenda Thompson as Doctor Quinn Darien
 * Hilly Hicks as Brock Borden
 * Al Eisenmann as Pete Darien
 * Don Messick as Godzooky

Legacy
Hanna-Barbera's Godzilla was the first animated series based on the franchise, predating Godzilla: The Series from 1998, and Godzilla Singular Point from 2021.

In response to the Y2K hype in 1999, Cartoon Network created a short – "Godzilla vs. the Y2K Bug" – in which the Calico is attacked by a giant personified, talking Y2K Bug. The Godzilla calling device turns out to be useless this time, as Captain Majors forgot to update the embedded microchip.