BRIGHT BULB SCREENINGS, Free Screenings Every Second Thursday of the Month @ The Rotunda (4014 Walnut, Philly)
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Early Kaiju Series ULTRA Q Marathon! Three Hours of Big Monster Mayhem!
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Produced in 1966, ULTRA Q was the first TV series created by Eiji Tsuburaya, the co-creator of GODZILLA and special effect genius behind numerous Toho Studios kaiju classics. ULTRA Q was originally planned as a TWILIGHT ZONE-style anthology series but the Tokyo Broadcasting System's polling showed that audiences had a strong craving for the sort of giant monsters they were seeing on movie screens. Tsuburaya's relationship with Toho gave him access to the props and costumes of past feature films, allowing ULTRA Q to re-purpose and alter previous big screen beasts, including Godzilla himself, given a horn and renamed “Gomess” in the series debut.
ULTRA Q follows a trio, a woman reporter (Hiroku Sikuri, Akiko from ULTRAMAN) and two aviators, as they're sent to investigate various giant monsters causing havoc in self-contained half-hour tales. The series would last 28 episodes and run through 1967.
Shot in gorgeous black-and-white, ULTRA Q got the ball rolling for the TV kaiju genre but it would be Eiji Tsuburaya's follow-up, ULTRAMAN that would induct U.S. children into a legion of fans for Japanese giant monster imports. While ULTRAMAN became a sensation in U.S. TV syndication, ULTRA Q never found distribution beyond Japan and would be unseen by U.S. audiences until its restoration in the early 2000s, allowing American audiences to experience the heady birth of TV kaiju, whose audience continues to grow to gargantuan proportions to this day.
Admission is FREE
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