On the Trail of Tobor the 8th Man, part 2

Sound engineers Henry Lopez and chain-smoking Manuel Sole recorded
the new dialogue onto 16mm magnetic film, an audio format that matched the format of the celluloid film. As each looping session produced successful recordings of
dialogue read by the actors, the Gutierrezes would painstakingly reassemble the sections of magnetic audio against
a workprint of film (of an episode).

After the audio tracks of the
new English dialogue had been pieced together, editor Rodriguez and dubbing supervisor, Manny San Fernando,
would thread the workprint and the 16mm magnetic film containing the new audio into the
facility’s Movieola, “…sliding the sound back and forth; adjusting to fit the
action.”

After aligning the new audio
track, it was combined with the original 8-Man
music and effects (M&E) tracks to produce the finished audio. “A ‘safety’ or back-up of the sound was
made onto 1/4 inch tape with a synch-pulse,” remembers Henry Lopez.
Then “…the 16mm audio ‘mix
down’ was sent to the lab and transferred to optical negative and combined with
the negative of the actual episode, creating a composite.” It is from this composite that multiple
16mm prints of each episode of the series were struck and delivered to the
television stations for broadcast.

Each episode was reviewed
and edited by Manny San Fernando, Sr, removing any scenes
of graphic violence that while permissible in Japan would have
raised the hackles of U.S. censors. San
Fernando also found himself editing gingerly (wherever possible) around scenes
in which Japanese ideograms, or kanji, were displayed prominently on street
signs and building placards. This was
done to minimize potential confusion to American viewers who wouldn’t know that
the animation was of Japanese origin. When
kanji couldn’t be avoided in a scene, the ensuing explanation would often be
one of unintended hilarity.

For instance, in the episode, “The Light That Burned,” Copri script man Reuben Guberman simply wrote a line of narration
that explains the unavoidable appearance of Japanese kanji as “…fancy
initials…”. To Guberman, it was as
good an explanation as any.

This and other attempts to explain
away the Japanese writing that permeates the series border on the absurd. Like many dubbing gaffs, these evasions
must have sounded as awkward and amusing
to the dubbers then as is does to us now.  However, these obstacles never slowed Copri’s
energetic writer.

Reuben Guberman, a self-described
“fat Jewish maverick” and native New Yorker who dabbled in everything from managing a newspaper to hosting Miami radio shows “Bagels
for Breakfast” and “Mensa on the Air” at station
WEDR, in 1964 was looking
for something interesting to
challenge him, when he discovered Miami’s dubbing scene and sold Prinz on his
gifts as a writer of copy.

Using only the rough plot outlines
provided by the Japanese and the main character names created by Fernandez in
New York, Guberman went to work scripting the action and formulating the names
of future 8^th Man characters. The villains, many of whom were members of
the sinister organization Intercrime, ended up with some amusing monikers: Evil Jaw, Ice Finger, Dr. Spectra, Mr. Browbeat, Cold Knuckle, etc. These names were often derivations of the
original Japanese names such as that of Baron Stormy (i.e. Baron Typhoon in the
original).

Ruby, as he was
affectionately known by his fellow
cast and crew mates, would sit in his darkened garage for countless hours
running the episodes on a 16mm projector, scene after scene, forward, then in reverse,
then forward again in order to
create dialogue for 8^th Man.
“We really had nothing to work from. So, all the lines came from my head. I just made them up to support the story
or whatever the action was,” remembered Guberman.

“Ruby was a machine,” states
Copri colleague Mark Harris in admiration. “He
was amazing with the rate he would turn-out the scripts; he worked
very hard on the loops, matching his dialogue to the labials.” With Guberman’s scripts
being turned out at a
breakneck pace, the English language
version of 8^th Man now needed a cast and a dubbing director. 

For the lead role of Tobor the 8^th Man, acting producer
Gene Prinz had already hired radio
journeyman Jerry Berke from station WGBS in Miami and intended to delegate the
rest of the casting to a dubbing director, once he’d selected one.

One evening at a Miami dinner
theater, Prinz happened
to see a performance directed
by Frank Schuller and clearly liked what he saw. He left a business card asking Schuller to contact him.

I called Gene and he asked me if
I had ever directed any dubbing before and I told him ‘No, but that I was
interested,” recalls Schuller, who like most of the cast members he would eventually assemble to put English into the
mouths of 8^th Man’s characters, was a jobbing actor always looking for
the next gig, when he wasn’t
working.

Directing the 8^th Man dub would mean extra
money. Although, there was precious
little of that to go around, as it turned out.
The 8^th Man dub
would be produced on the meagerest of budgets.

As soon as Schuller
had signed on as director,
he began approaching people in his personal
network to fill the roles. “I brought
in some of the other actors that I knew from community theater,” states
Schuller.

He hired actress and dancer
Sandy Warshaw to voice the parts of
Jenny Heartsweet and her kid brother, Skip Pepper. “Frank
told me…you’re a dancer and dubbing has a lot to do with rhythm.
I think that you will be able to pick it up immediately,” says Warshaw
recalling her conversation with Schuller. Local
instructor of radio production, Bob Gaynor, was given the role of Chief Fumblethumbs. Other cast members
hired by Schuller included chief
radio announcer at Miami Beach’s WKAT, Arnie Warren, and actors Jack Metzger
and Mark Harris. Even script man
Reuben Guberman was press-ganged into the dubbing studio
on occasion. “Ruby had that gravelly voice,”
said Mark Harris; perfect for
villains.

Dubbing 8^th Man was non-union work, and as a result,
some of the actors
being solicited for roles, declined
to audition. Florida
was and is a right-to-work state and without
union contracts, ABC Films and Copri could avoid paying union scale
wages. The actors who performed the
dubbing were paid a minimum rate of $5.00 per session and a dollar a loop,
thereafter. Conversely, director
Schuller was paid by the reel. The
majority of in-house staff was salaried. Sound engineer, Henry Lopez, who started
at Copri as an office boy, earned only $30.00 per month. “And I had to have a car!” he exclaims.

“Some of the actors were
better at dubbing than others,” says Schuller and presumably could earn more per session. Guberman,
when asked about
his looping efforts,
made no bones about the fact that he “…was considered one of the best.” Once a script
had been finished, “…we could complete
(the dubbing of) maybe one episode a day; maybe
more,” remembers Schuller.

The non-union status of the work
also meant that no credit would be given to anybody involved. The openings and closings of each 8^th Man episode would contain
no credits at all, with the exception
of a single line during
the closing sequence stating
that the series had been distributed by ABC Films.
That suited Schuller
just fine as he (and others) were quite concerned about the punitive
threats constantly tossed around by local union mouthpieces should
any of them be caught
working scab jobs like the dubbing of 8^th Man. Their union pensions and health care were on the line.

While the cast worked for low wages supplying the new audio, the producers decided the series opening would
have to be changed. The original
Japanese title sequence was deemed unusable.
The same went for the Japanese
theme song. So, the purse strings were loosened, slightly, and a modest
allocation made for new animation and scoring. “It was one of the few luxuries we were
afforded on this,” stated Guberman.

It is unknown if the U.S.
animators who animated the new title sequence were supplied with much reference material
in order to match the appearance of the Japanese
artwork, but the final result was sloppy and bore only a passing resemblance to
the original TCJ animation.
Similarly, the newly composed theme also set quite a different tone. 

Instead of Hagiwara’s exciting, pulsing march, the new theme was a dumbed-down ditty crafted to appeal to
children. The composition, written in
all likelihood by the talented Win Sharples, who started scoring animation features and shorts in the late 1930s with the Max Fleischer studio in New York before partnering with Hal Seeger in the late 1950s.  He is probably best remembered for the music for King Features Syndicate TV cartoons including Popeye and Tennessee Tuxedo.

Unfortunately, his new 8th Man theme is one of his lesser efforts, and is very similar in structure and tempo to John Strauss’ 1961 comedic theme for NBC’s “Car 54, Where Are You?”, which completely undermines the action and the original intent of the TCJ animators. The
Saturday-morning mindset in the West was that cartoons were for kids, despite
every effort by Disney, Fleischer and their peers to elevate animation to a
respected art form.

Sidebar: The identity of U.S. animation outfit that produced
the new main title cannot be
confirmed, completely. The appearance
of a Hal Seeger Productions’ title card in the leaders
of surviving 8^th Man film prints is a strong indicator
that Seeger’s shop did the work. This isn’t surprising since Seeger did a
lot of commercial animation for ABC Films and Hal Seeger, himself, admits the
job was offered to him. However, both
Seeger and long-time employee Lenny Bird deny creating this particular
sequence. They claim that when ABC
Films brought them the job, they were too busy to accept it.

Hal Seeger

Furthermore, Seeger’s former
animation department head, Myron Waldman, also stated
that 8^th Man is
not familiar to him and that he “…would have remembered anything that
bad.” In spite of all the protests
and denials, all indications are that Seeger’s shop did the work and they are
now, in hindsight, simply embarrassed by it.

Reuben Guberman was convinced that animation maverick Ralph Bakshi, of “Fritz the Cat” and “Lord of the Rings” fame, had done the work.  However, Bakshi also denied being involved “Didn’t do it; haven’t seen it.” The only other animation house to have
been mentioned in association with 8^th
Man at various times is Oriolo Film Studios. Known primarily for its work
on The Mighty Hercules series and the rarely seen English
dubs of Mushi Productions’ Ribbon no Kishi [ リボンの騎士 ] series (a.k.a. Princess Knight or Choppy and the Princess) and the Sino-American hybrid
anime, Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero [ジョニイサイファー], Don
Oriolo, the son of late animator Joe Oriolo, seems to “…vaguely remember
some layout work for the 8th Man being
done by (his) father…” but this claim is highly unlikely.

While a preponderance of the evidence
points to Hal Seeger’s studio for the clumsy animation, and to Winston “Win” Sharples as the new theme’s composer, the identities behind the U.S. 8^th Man title sequence remain
formally ‘unconfirmed’.

As Copri completed the dubbing, trouble
was brewing back in New York. When Plitt took the decision to have the series
dubbed in Miami, he took with him all of the prep work done at Titra. “Rather than pay Screen Actors’ Guild
prices, which we HAD to
charge in New York, Plitt ran to Florida. The
trouble was that he kept the character names and concepts that others created. He stole the ideas,” says Ladd
disgustedly.

That Plitt and ABC Films were
determined to pinch pennies isn’t surprising.
And if that meant moving the production to a right-to-work state like
Florida to circumvent union pay scales, that is what they would do. And did.

Worse still, according to Ladd, was that Plitt “…sold Hank Booraem (programming director at WPIX) on the notion
that the expert soundtrack work that Booraem
knew and loved on
Gigantor and the 8^th Man pilot would be the standard for the entire 8^th Man series!” As a result of Plitt’s bait & switch
act, “…a very well-known feud of sorts developed between Booraem and Plitt.” Ladd recalls that“…Booraem claimed he had been deceived by Plitt and
ABC Films, and that the dubbing of the series was amateurish.”

Furthermore, continues Ladd,
“…when Plitt went to other stations to sell the series, including WPIX affiliate WGN in Chicago,
he wouldn’t show the buyers
any of the episodes that had
been produced in Florida at Gene Prinz’s ‘$1.98 School of Dubbing’. Rather he showed them only the pilot that
Peter had made in New York. Naturally,
the buyers thought they would be getting New York quality!”

Peter Fernandez concurs with Ladd
stating that he had also heard that “the buyers weren’t too happy.” Of course, everybody at Copri was
oblivious to the battle raging between producers and station programmers in New York and Chicago. What mattered to them was that the series
was in the can and that more work was in the pipeline.

Sidebar: Fred Ladd, age 91 at the
time of this writing, continues to have very strong feelings about 8^th Man, and he isn’t shy
about expressing them whenever the subject arises, more than 50 years later.

He considers the original
dub of the series to be a wasted opportunity;
great potential marred by unskilled
handling at Copri, and one that he wouldn’t
have squandered, had the project been his. Ladd’s
claim of involvement with 8^th Man, however, is
contested by Peter Fernandez, who wrote and directed the pilot. 

“Fred was never involved. We were competitors at that time, and
although we’re friends now, we didn’t work together on 8^th Man,” states Fernandez.

Ladd’s insistence regarding
his involvement eventually softened over the course of our interviews, but maintains that he was kind of
involved and alludes, vaguely, to the death of his then business partner as a reason
for his lack of formal
participation on the dub of the pilot.

Ladd also claims to have had first rights of refusal over many of the anime properties peddled in the U.S.,
and even makes a point in lectures of claiming to have turned down Speed Racer. Fernandez just chuckles and states he believes that Ladd is just embellishing or mis-remembering.

Whatever Ladd’s reasons are
for claiming involvement with the 8^th
Man dub, it cannot be doubted that
he was much moved by series, and keeps in his memory many of the more esoteric
details of the production recounted in this article.

His final word on the subject is that despite the level of success the
series achieved in the U.S. and in other English speaking territories, the achievement would have
been far greater had he and his team been allowed to direct the dub.

With new opening visuals and a
new theme song, 8^th Man premiered
on Tuesday, September 7, 1965 at 4:00 PM. On
station WPIX in New York, from 4:00 PM – 4:30 PM, 8^th Man proceeded to wallop its competition. “We owned that time slot!” declared
Guberman triumphantly. During the
ratings hoopla, Jerry Berke, the voice of 8th Man himself, made a trip from
Florida to the New York station to meet fans and sign autographs. Even the new theme song proved infectious
and, according to Berke, was performed by pianist and songwriter Steve
Lawrence, as a bit of kitsch on the Tonight Show (unverified). “It was a real kick!”

8^th Man also played quite successfully in the Latino markets as El
Octavo Hombre well into the 1970s. And while it is unconfirmed that Copri also produced the Spanish and Portuguese dubs of 8^th Man, it is certainly
plausible, even likely,
since Copri specialized in dubbing product
into those languages for distribution in South and Central America.

As with the original
Japanese version, the U.S. adaptation
proved to be a success across age demographics. Reuben
Guberman stated, “We were a big hit with college
kids…who loved the James
Bond and sci-fi elements of show.” Even
by the second quarter of 1966, the ARB ratings for 8^th Man on WPIX in New
York alone was pulling an 11
share (28%), clobbering The Mike Douglas Show, the midday
movie and The Cisco Kid. 8^th Man’s popularity in the
U.S. even resulted in some small scale merchandising efforts, including an 8th Man Halloween costume manufactured
by Ben Cooper, Inc.

Unfortunately, by the mid-1970s, 8^th Man had
all but vanished from the
television airwaves. The black &
white animation kept it from being a viable property in the era of color
programming. ABC Films ceased operations in 1973 and its library became an
asset of WorldVision, whose holdings now reside under the umbrella of Paramount Television and ultimately Viacom.
Currently, Paramount Television’s licensing
division reports that it no longer holds any licenses to the 8^th Man property. It can be assumed that after ABC Films
Inc.’s holdings were transferred to WorldVision 30 years ago, the broadcast license for the series was allowed to expire, with all rights reverting back to the
Japanese.

In the 1980s, with the explosion of the home video market,
8^th Man episodes, considered by some to be public domain,
turned-up occasionally on cassette under variant titles, including a release
that came with a free package of microwave popcorn (i.e. “Kiddy Popcorn
Classics” released by NAV, Inc. in 1988).

Sidebar: For reasons unknown, the
television programming publications of the 1960s, including T.V. Guide, never managed to list the series’ title
correctly. 8^th Man, the correct
title, is referred
to indifferently as Eighth Man, Tobor the Eighth Man and The
Fantastic Eighth Man. As a
result, subsequent home video marketing efforts use any one of a number of title variations that are apt to cause
confusion.

 Then, in the early 1990s, 20
of the original English-dubbed episodes were released in a four volume
VHS set by Video Rarities,
struck from surviving 16mm prints. And in dealer rooms of sci-fi and comic book conventions across
America, 8th Man episodes continued to be a staple
of bootleg tape dealers for many years.
Even today, despite
its age, 8^th Man continues to be manifested in
various guises.

It has been argued that the inspiration for the 1973 ABC-distributed series,
The Six Million Dollar
Man, starring Lee Majors, was indeed 8^th Man. According to
Fred Ladd, “there’s no question that the bionic
man idea was spun-off of 8^th Man. That concept came from novelist Martin Caidin,
my one-time neighbor
who mentored me a little in
the making of my animated feature Pinocchio in Outer Space.” Caidin authored the novel Cyborg
in 1972 upon which The Six Million Dollar Man television
series is based. It just proves that
no idea or script goes un-recycled in Hollywood.

In fact,
due to the story’s staying
power, 8-Man received the big
screen treatment in 1992 when it was produced as a live action film, starring actor Kai Shishido in the title
role. In 1993, the adventure continued in an original
animated video (i.e. OAV)
entitled 8-Man After.

Again, in 1997, Fred Ladd, still smitten by the idea of “a robot
that can cry…” attempted to resuscitate interest in the original 8^th Man series with the idea
of colorizing it. He “…pitched the
idea to Bert Cohen at WorldVision. Cohen
initiated an in-house search for the 8^th
Man negatives and discovered that many of them had disappeared from
WorldVision’s storage.” recalls Ladd. However,
Cohen’s interest had been piqued and Ladd initiated discussions in Tokyo with
the TBS programming and legal departments.

“Programming noted that TBS was running the show from time to time in the middle
of the night.” states Ladd, mainly due to the retrograde nature of the animation and the ubiquitous chain smoking exhibited
by the characters.

Unfortunately, “…when
all was said and done,
TBS decided it was better
to invest in new
programming than colorize old shows with problematic scenes,” concludes Ladd, regretfully. 

Today in Japan, the original
8-Man
remains a late night staple and continues to generate profits for licensees in the form of action figures, OAVs and home video releases.
8-Man period collectibles,
including vinyl toys and original record album releases fetch exorbitant sums
on Yahoo Japan’s auction

site.

After TCJ Animation’s initial
success with 8-Man
and Tetsujin-28 go, it went on to produce such anime classics as Yûsei
Shônen Papî [ 遊星少年パピィ] (i.e. Prince Planet), and Yûsei
Kamen [遊星仮面] (i.e. Asteroid Mask or Planet
Mask).

In
1973, TCJ underwent a name change to Aiken (or Eiken) [エイケン] and continued to produce television cartoon series such as Garasu
no Kamen [ガラスの仮面] (i.e. Glass Mask) and Ginga
Patororu PJ [銀河パトロールＰＪ] (a.k.a Galactic
Patrol PJ). One of its more
recent efforts was the 1996 anime Kiko-chan Sumairu [きこちゃんすまいる] (i.e. Kiko-chan’s Smile) produced for TBS.

However, none of these
later efforts had quite the
impact that 8-Man did, and that
may explain why (at the time of this writing), 8-Man may still be seen
on television in Japan; one of the few black & white
cartoon series to have survived
long past its expected shelf-life.

Epilogue:

The deadlines on a monthly comic book or weekly animation series can be brutal with so much riding on the creators’ abilities to produce on-time and on-budget.

Original 8-Man manga artist,
Jirô Kuwata, near the end of 8-Man’s run, suffered what can
only be described as a mental breakdown from overwork and stress. With the intention of committing suicide,
he was arrested for carrying
a gun, a very serious
offense in Japan, and jailed. The
scandal ended his tenure on the 8-Man manga
and with Shônen Magazine, and the last chapter/issue of 8-Man would be completed by other artists on Kuwata’s staff. The last installment in the story did not
see publication until 1992.

Kuwata eventually recovered, developed a rich spiritual
life, and resumed
his career as an
illustrator producing some
of the original
Urutora Sebun [ウルトラセブン] (i.e. Ultra Seven) manga and the recently re-discovered Batman comics called
Batto-Manga! [ハードカバー] (i.e. Bat-Manga!). He died in 2020 at age 85.

After the 8-Man manga and anime ended, writer Kazumasa Hirai, who had also been ground down by the extreme schedule went on to create the popular manga series Urufu Gai [ウルフガイ] (i.e. Wolf Guy) and Genma Wars [幻魔大戦シリーズ]. He died in 2015.

8-Man theme song vocalist Shigeru
Katsumi, whose real name was Seiya Tsumura
(津村誠也), had a number
of additional hits during the 1960s. However,
by 1975, he was suffering from dramatic personal and
professional reversals.

In a rage, Katsumi strangled his
mistress with a rope and stuffed her corpse into the boot of his car. He was arrested and charged with capital
murder. Toshiba EMI, his recording
label, scandalized by the ghastly event, dropped him immediately. His recordings were then subsequently
destroyed in the company’s attempts to erase all evidence that the singer had
ever been associated with it.

After serving seven years of a ten
years sentence for the killing, he was paroled and lived in relative obscurity
until his death in 2013.

Unlike many of the original
Japanese creators and producers of the 8-Man
manga and anime, most of the cast and crew at Copri in the U.S. saw their
work on the 8^th Man cartoon
series as a job and little more. “I
needed a new car; a VW Beetle,” recalls Arnie Warren, “…and I made enough to
buy the Beetle. Thanks, Tobor.” 

With the exceptions perhaps
of Jerry Berke, for whom 8^th
Man is and has always been a source of delight and Reuben Guberman, who was
equally proud of his work on 8^th Man and
its ratings coup, the series is regarded in hindsight by most of those involved
as a charming if somewhat crude effort. “I
just couldn’t believe that this was the same 8^th Man we had worked on. I just don’t remember it looking so primitive,” exclaimed Henry Lopez after viewing a few
episodes for the first time in over 30 years.

The
staff and crew of Copri in the years following 8^th Man would
also produce English dubs of Prince Planet and W3 [ワンダースリー] (a.k.a. The Amazing 3), as well as the live-action kaijû, Jaianto Robo [ジャイアントロボ] (a.k.a. Johnny Sokko and His Flying
Robot), in addition to hundreds of theatrical feature films and
shorts from all over the world for which none of them ever got credit.

To add insult to injury, various
animation historians, stumped since the early 1980s for accurate data about the
8^th Man dub (due to the
absence of any credits whatsoever), often attribute the work to other actors,
other directors and other production outfits.

Copri International Films, Inc. eventually closed
shop in the early 1970s.
Many members of 8^th Man’s cast and crew
continued to dub at Copri until the end, adapting some of Japan’s classic
cartoon series for western audiences, helping to pave the way for modern anime.

Reuben Guberman, after a long
career writing for film and television, returned to his stomping grounds in the
northeast and eventually went on to become a sales manager for a pharmaceutical
firm where he authored several books about management. He passed away in 2000 from lung cancer at age 74.

Mark Harris would direct the dubs
of The
Amazing 3 and Prince Planet series (in which he
also voiced the Dan Dynamo character), eventually leaving in 1967 to pursue other work. He passed in 2001 at his vacation home in
Utah.

Manny
San Fernando, Sr would go on to direct the dub for American International
Pictures (AIP) series Johnny Sokko
and His Flying Robot as well as an unseen English
dub of Toho’s epic fantasy Nippon Tanjô [日本誕生] retitled The Three Treasures for Seven Arts. He also wrote and acted in several K.
Gordon Murray movies including Savages From Hell (a.k.a. Big
Enough, Old Enough) and La Momia Azteca Contra el Robot Humano (a.k.a.
The Robot vs
the Aztec Mummy). Manny, still in his early 60s, passed in 1982 following a heart attack.

Having acted in over 400 national
commercials and television series including Cheers, Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, 8^th Man director,
Frank Schuller, is now semi-retired in Los Angeles and enjoys a life of writing
and traveling.

Jerry Berke, the man behind 8^th Man’s sonorous English
voice, continues working
in radio and currently lives
in New Jersey. He’s on the internet
and loves to hear from 8^th Man
fans.

Sandy Warshaw, who went on to voice Diana Worthy in Prince
Planet, continued to act, direct, and dance, and recently taught
theater at Miami Dade Community College.

Bob Gaynor never did any more dubbing after 8^th Man and continued his teaching career until his retirement from Miami
Lakes Technical Institute, where super-achieving students in radio broadcasting are bestowed with The Bob Gaynor Special Talent Award. He passed away in 2013 at age 84.

Arnie Warren, after buying
his Volkswagon with his
8^th Man earnings, provided
the voice of Warlock
in Prince Planet and
later established himself
as a successful radio personality and author. He passed at age 73 in 2008.

Copri’s Raul Corvison and
Manuel Sole are both deceased, and attempts to locate technicians Jose Ibarra,
Gonzalo Rodriguez and the Gutierrezes have been unsuccessful. Former
projectionist Jose Nickse entered the priesthood and became a long-serving
pastor at St. Brendan’s Catholic Church in Miami, until his death in December
2002. Father Nickse had fond memories
of his days at Copri
and still delights
in recalling Cuban actor Oswaldo Calvo dubbing the
voice of Mr. Magoo cartoons in
Spanish.

Sound engineer, Henry Lopez,
who was only 18 years old when he helped
to engineer the sound for 8^th Man at Copri,
also recorded and mixed the sound for Prince Planet and The Amazing 3, plus
dozens of features and shorts. Henry
left Copri in 1968 to work for the prestigious
Criteria Studios and continues working
today as an independent soundman
in film in Florida.

Former Copri president, Gene
Prinz, still resides in Florida with his family and spends much of his time
doing business abroad as the proprietor of one of the world’s largest teak
plantations.

ABC Films’ Henry ‘Hank’ Plitt
later acquired the ABC Theater chain, and rebranded it as Plitt Theaters, Inc.,
which eventually became part of the Cineplex Odeon Corporation. Plitt passed
away in 1993 and is now remembered chiefly for his involvement in the capture
of Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher during WWII.

8^th Man pilot director, Peter
Fernandez, would achieve legendary status with his iconic dubs of Kaitei
Shônen Marine [海底少年マリン] (i.e. Marine Boy) in 1966 and Speed
Racer in 1967. Starting in
the late 1990s, Peter served as director for the Cartoon Network’s Courage the Cowardly
Dog series. In 2008, Peter
made a cameo appearance as a race announcer in the Wachowski’s feature film
adaptation of Speed Racer. He passed at age 83 in 2010 from lung
cancer. All efforts to locate his
pilot dub of 8^th Man have been unsuccessful.

An amusing postscript to Peter’s
long career… he is mentioned by name in director-turned-author Quentin
Tarantino’s 2021 novelization of his feature film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as
having dubbed the fictional Italian westerns made by fictional actor, Rick
Dalton. Tarantino certainly knows his
Hollywood minutia as Peter did in fact write
and direct the 1967 English
dub of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, which catapulted television actor Clint Eastwood into movie super-stardom.

Fred Ladd
produced the monumentally successful dub of Mushi Productions’ Jangaru
Taitei [ジャングル大帝] rechristened Kimba
the White Lion for U.S.
syndication in 1966. In keeping with his anime heritage, he served as a creative
consultant for the U.S. version of Bishôjo Senshi Sêrâ Mûn [美少女戦士セーラームーン公式ホームページ] (a.k.a. Sailor Moon), continued
to license the classic Gigantor series, and until the
decade of the aughts made frequent convention appearances around the country as
the honorary grandfather and champion of classic anime in the western hemisphere. He passed at age 94 in 2021.

To those whose efforts
sparked the imaginations of kids around the world, and who helped to inspire Robo
Cop, The Six Million Dollar Man, Holmes and Yo-Yo, Now and Again, Mann & Machine, Android Cop, and other genre fare, we salute you.