Showing posts with label Keye Luke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Keye Luke. Show all posts

Monday, May 10, 2021

Captain's Theatre: Asian Avengers AMAZING CHAN AND THE CHAN CLAN

What was the connection between the animated Amazing Chan and the 1940s Charlie Chan films?
Keye Luke, who was the voice of Charlie in the cartoon also played "Number One Son" Lee Chan in eight films of the 1930a/40s series!
When Warner Oland (seen above with Luke) died, Luke left the series.
His character wasn't recast, but replaced by "Number Two Son" Jimmy Chan and "Number Three Son" Tommy Chan!
Luke returned for the final two films, playing opposite Roland Winters as Charlie...despite the fact Roland was two years younger then Keye!
As for "The Case of the Missing Chan Child": Only Tommy, out of all the named Chan movie siblings is part of the Chan family in the cartoon, and he's a totally-different personality than the movie kid!
In an example of Six Degrees of Pop Culture Separation, Keye was also the original on-screen Kato in the two 1940s Green Hornet movie serials!
A constant guest star on TV of the 1950s and 60s (including Star Trek), he had ongoing voice roles on several other cartoons including Space Ghost (Brak) and Battle of the Planets (Zoltar)!
To Baby Boomers, though, he'll always be remembered as blind monk Master Po who trained Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine) in the 1970s TV series Kung Fu and appeared in flashbacks in almost every episode to impart wisdom to his ex-student, who would then use it to kick butt!
What's the connection between Amazing Chan, The Archies and The Amazing Spider-Man?
A singer/musician named Ron Dante!
The kids in Amazing Chan were also musicians, with the older kids performing a song in every episode as the "Chan Clan"!

Ron Dante supplied the lead singer's voice, just as he did on The Archies cartoons!
Dante was also the lead singer on the Amazing Spider-Man lp album/cassette From Beyond the Grave (1972), which we posted HERE!
And, finally, "Who was the Amazing Chan voice performer who won an Academy Award?"
Jodie Foster, who voiced tomboy Anne Chan!
Politically-Correct Note: Initially, the entire Chan family were voiced by Asian-American performers, but most of the youngsters had thick accents and their roles were recast with a mix of more experienced Asian-Americans and a couple of white performers, including Foster.
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Friday, May 7, 2021

Captain's Library & Theatre: Asian Avengers AMAZING CHAN AND THE CHAN CLAN "Hot Ice Cream Man" Conclusion

...visiting a museum, legendary detective Charlie Chan and his family become witnesses to a baffling robbery of jewels from an exhibit.
When a ransom note demands $100,000 for the jewels' return, Lord Buckley hires Charlie to lay a trap at the ransom drop-off.
The impetuous kids want to help their dad, and, in separate groups, proceed to the site, with each group laying a trap...without telling the others!
As they used to say in TV Guide listings, "Hilarity Ensues!" as the kids trap each other!
However, they do notice an ice-cream truck in the park...at midnight...and theorize the thief is using it as "cover"...
"I would've gotten away with it, if not for that mob of kids...and the world's smartest living detective!"
Yeah, the show's basically Scooby Doo, Where Are You? with more than double the amount of kids, a less obtrusive dog, and the smartest guy in any room, Charlie Chan!

Doesn't the show's credit sequence have a "Scooby Doo" vibe?
Remember we mentioned there were differences between the comic and the aired episode?

No "Chan Van" (though it's in the credits above)!
No explanation as to how the kids set up their traps!
And we don't get to see how Chan recovered the jewels!
Want More?
The Hidden Connection between the cartoon and the 1940s Charlie Chan movies!
The Case of the Missing Chan Child!
The Hidden Connection Between Chan Clan, the Archies, and...Spider-Man???
And, the Chan Clan voice actor who became an Oscar winner!
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Monday, May 3, 2021

Captain's Library: Asian Avengers AMAZING CHAN AND THE CHAN CLAN "Hot Ice Cream Man" Part 1

TV series with Asian characters in the title role are a rarity.
American tv series starring Asian actors playing those characters are even rarer!
Before the current Kung Fu reboot/updating on The CW, there were less than a dozen, and the second one ever was an animated cartoon!*
Here's the never-reprinted first issue of the Gold Key comic based on the cartoon...
Writer Mark Evanier and artist Warren Tufts adapted the pilot episode "The Crown Jewel Caper" into a book-length comic tale on an incredibly-tight deadline, using an early script and storyboards.
As you'll see on Friday, there were some interesting alterations in the final aired version...

*The first series with an Asian performer as the title character, 1951's Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, about an art gallery owner/amateur sleuth starring the legendary Anna May Wong, is long-lost with all videotapes and kinescopes destroyed during a legal dispute over the defunct DuMont network's assets.
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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Kato, Kato, and, oh yes, Kato!

 While Bruce Lee's TV Kato is the best-known version to today's audience...
...he wasn't the first.
When the radio show debuted in 1936, the character was described in early episodes as Britt Reid's "Japanese valet" and became Britt's "Fillipino valet" in 1938...long before Pearl Harbor.
Japanese-American Tokutaro Hayashi/Raymond Toyo (above) initially played the character until 1942, when he, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.
There are rumors he was sent (as were many other Japanese-Americans) to an internment camp, but no conclusive answer has ever been found.
In an audio version of "white guy playing Asian", he was followed by Rollon Parker, Michael Tolan, and Paul Carnagie.
When The Green Hornet came to the big screen in movie serials in 1940 and 1941, Chinese-American Keye Luke handled the role, which was now defined as Britt's "Korean valet"!
Kato, as portrayed in both the serials and radio show, was the technical genius behind the high-powered auto, the Black Beauty, as well as being the developer of the Hornet's main weapon, a gas gun, and the knockout gas it used.
He even designs the Hornet's mask and insignia!
(It's never explained on the TV series who created the car, weaponry, and mask.)
The radio/movie Kato knew some judo and karate, but usually acted as backup to the Hornet, who tended to go into situations alone and would then have to be rescued from whatever deathtrap the villains had ensnared him in.
The radio/movie serial Kato would also use the gas gun or gas grenades against enemies.
Very much unlike the TV series where Kato would enter first and leave last, silently lurking around the Hornet, keeping watch on their opponents, as well as kicking multiple butts with gung fu when required.
And TV's Kato never used the Hornet's gas gun, but he did use the Hornet Sting sonic weapon once, to blast a door open.)
Depending on the situation, the serial and radio Hornet and Kato would both drive the Black Beauty.
In the TV series the Hornet never got behind the wheel, though he did operate the Black Beauty by remote control in one episode!
On radio and in the movies, there were references to Britt saving Kato's life several years earlier, as well as an adventure where they encountered a rare and lethal giant green hornet, which gave the hero the name of his alter-ego.
On TV there was no explanation as to how or why Britt recruited Kato to be not just a valet/cook, but to work with him battling evil.
We hope you've enjoyed our look at Kato, one of the best-known, yet least-known, sidekicks in popular media!
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