Umeboshi Denka

Aired: 1969

A TV anime produced by Tokyo Movie (now TMS Entertainment) and Studio Zero, with animation handled by A Production. Based on the manga by Fujiko Fujio (Fujiko F. Fujio) serialized in Shogakukan's grade-school magazines Yoiko and Yochien as well as Weekly Shonen Sunday. Broadcast on TBS every Tuesday at 18:00 from April 1 to September 23, 1969 in 26 half-hour installments (52 segments at 15 minutes each). After his home planet Ume-Boshi explodes, the young prince Denka (voiced by Kazuko Sugiyama), the King (voiced by Isamu Tanonaka), and their robot butler Gonsuke (voiced by Sandayu Dokumamushi) flee to Earth and move in with the family of a Japanese boy, Taro Nakamura (voiced by Minori Matsushima), where their daily missteps become the source of slapstick comedy. Produced in monochrome for budget reasons, it stands alongside Perman and Obake no Q-Taro in the lineage of Fujiko's children's SF home-comedy anime adaptations. (C)Fujiko Pro / Shogakukan