What is that old saying about everything old becoming new again? Apparently Hollywood is living by this motto.

Apparently 25th anniversaries are the time to dig up properties from the past and try to “modernize” them, usually to great failure. Being a child of the 1980′s cartoon boom, I am now getting to atch my childhood get massacred by people who think they can improve the properties.  The Transformers movies are a prime example of things going wrong, and don’t even get me started on that train wreck that was the G.I. Joe movie.

Now we’re up to the anniversaries of Voltron and ThunderCats, and, yep, here we go again.

I wasn’t a huge ThunderCats fanatic, so I skipped mentioning the news last week of a new “Anime style” series coming to Cartoon Network.  I rolled my eyes and moved along.  Now, according to Variety, Nicktoons has struck a deal for a new 26-episode run of half-hour cartoons called Voltron Force that will “revolve around an edgier, modernized robot”.

Don’t mind em … I’m just going to be crying in the corner for a minute.

The whole reason this is happening is that a live-action feature film stalled out multiple times, and so now the current rights holders, World Event Prods and Classic Media, have decided to relaunch the property as an animated series, and then make another run at doing a film.  Do a new series all you want, but why change the classic robot?  It still isn’t a bad looking design!

The only good news to come out of this is Mattel has been awarded the toy license, and in addition to doing items based on the new series, they will also release some items based on the classic property.  Okay, cool, I can get behind getting an all new shiny CLASSIC Voltron, but why or why do they have to modernize this thing?

Oh well, what ya gonna do?  At least I have classic episodes to watch should the mood hit me, and I can skip this new abomination.

Maybe the world just wanted to shake off the horrors of disco, but by golly 1980 was made of total awesomeness when it came to pop culture.

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the release of The Empire Strikes Back (the second or fifth Star Wars film depending on how you want to look at it).  Yesterday U.S. time was also the 30th anniversary of Pacman being released in Japan, while not the first video game, it was the first to enter true mainstream acceptance.  Coming up in July will mark the 30th anniversary of the first Gundam model going on sale, and while not hugely known in America, that franchise has gone on to sell 400 million model kits world wide.

Did someone just flip a switch at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1st, 1980 and declare it the year of awesome?  Not only that, but a good chunk of the decade went on to be pretty spectacular for the world of pop culture (where my heart obviously resides).  The first year of the 1980′s was just packed with iconic and famous films such as Caddyshack, Raging Bull, The Elephant Man, Fame, Private Benjamin, Xanadu … just seeing if you were paying attention.  There is no denying it was a pretty stellar year for film, though.

I think I shall try to ignore the fact that all of this is making me feel old, and I remember seeing The Empire Strikes Back nine times in the theater …

Carl Macek is not a name I expect any of my regular readers to know, but if you have ever watched any Japanese Anime in North America, you owe him a debt of gratitude.

Mr. Macek passed away this past Saturday of a heart attack at the age of 58.  Over his career, Mr. Macek was a figure of much controversy because of his dubbing of Anime, but as he once said at a convention panel, “All Anime is dubbed.”

The reason, despite the arguments over the years, that he was so important because he was responsible for Robotech, an Anime series that aired on American television in 1985 and is considered one of the corner stones of what launched the popularity of the medium in this country. The series was put together from the contents of three Japanese series (The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA) due to the fact that American stations required a show to be 65 episodes (13 weeks, five episodes per week), meaning they could cycle through it four times per year.  The three series were in no related to one another, but Mr. Macek was able to string together a unified narrative in a matter of weeks when he learned that he couldn’t air them as separate works like he hoped.

After Robotech, he worked with John K. to form Spumco which eventually went on to sell Ren & Stimpy to Nickelodeon, and to form Streamline Pictures which introduced America to Anime movies such as Akira and Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro.  The latter two films are considered milestone works in the genre, and once again helped to propel the fandom forward in the United States.

Unlike other obituary pieces I have written on this site, I knew Mr. Macek and had several dealings with him over the years.  I never found him to be anything other than professional and gracious.  One of my fondest memories of him happened in a St. Louis animation gallery where we just happened to stumble into one another while we were both attending a conference.  I had returned to the gallery to finish purchasing a cel, and he was talking to the gallery owner about possibly carrying some of the animation cels from his vast archive.  The gallery owner seemed to be not that interested, and to actually not be a hundred percent sure who Mr. Macek was.  After a few moments of the gallery owner being rather rude to be honest, Mr. Macek turned to me even though he and I had done nothing more than to nod to one another, and he goes, “Sean, are my cels legitimate and quality?” referring to several cels I had bought from him over the years.  I confirmed that they were, and the owner seemed at a loss as a paying customer had just confirmed this man was on the up and up when he had been rude to him before.  Mr. Macek and I shared a good laugh the next day on the conference floor.

My original exposure to Anime happened in the 1970′s with Battle of the Planets (Science Ninja Team Gatchaman in Japan), but I knew the moment I saw Robotech on television in 1985 that things were about to change in the United States for the art form.  I was thrilled when I met Mr. Macek a few years later, and I am even more thrilled that he and I had the opportunity to work together a few times.

So, the next time you sit down and watch Dragonball Z, Naruto, Bleach or any of the other dozens of Anime currently on American television, smile, and say a quiet “Thank you, Mr. Macek.”  I know I do.