Monkey 1979
Kansas Eiffel
Monkey eats many of the peaches, which have taken millennia to ripen, becomes immortal and runs amok. Having earned the ire of Heaven and being beaten in a challenge by an omniscient, mighty, but benevolent, cloud-dwelling Buddha (釈迦如来, Shakanyorai), Monkey is imprisoned for 500 years under a mountain in order to learn patience.
A dragon, Yu Lung (玉龍, Gyokuryū), who was set free by Guanyin after being sentenced to death, eats Tripitaka's horse. On discovering that the horse was tasked with carrying Tripitaka, it assumes the horse's shape to carry the monk on his journey. Later in the story he occasionally assumes human form to assist his new master, although he is still always referred to as "Horse".
Monkey can also change form, for instance into a hornet. In Episode 3, The Great Journey Begins, Monkey transforms into a girl to trick Pigsy. Monkey's other magic powers include: summoning a cloud upon which he can fly; his use of the magic wishing staff which he can shrink and grow at will and from time to time, when shrunk, store in his ear, and which he uses as a weapon; and the ability to conjure monkey warriors by blowing on hairs plucked from his chest.
The pilgrims face many perils and antagonists both human, such as Emperor Taizong of Tang (太宗皇帝, Taisōkōtei) and supernatural. Monkey, Sandy, and Pigsy are often called upon to battle demons, monsters, and bandits, despite Tripitaka's constant call for peace. Many episodes also feature some moral lesson, usually based upon Buddhist and/or Confucianist, Taoist philosophies, which are elucidated by the narrator at the end of various scenes.
Two 26-episode seasons ran in Japan: the first season ran from October 1978 to April 1979, and the second one from November 1979 to May 1980, with screenwriters including Mamoru Sasaki, Isao Okishima, Tetsurō Abe, Kei Tasaka, James Miki, Motomu Furuta, Hiroichi Fuse, Yū Tagami, and Fumio Ishimori.
Saiyūki was dubbed into English from 1979, with dialogue written by David Weir. The dubbed version was broadcast under the name Monkey and broadcast in the United Kingdom by the British Broadcasting Corporation,[6] in New Zealand by Television New Zealand[7] and in Australia by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Only 39 of the original 52 episodes were originally dubbed and broadcast by the BBC: all 26 of series 1 and 13 of series 2. In 2004, the remaining 13 episodes were dubbed by Fabulous Films Ltd using the original voice acting cast, following a successful release of the English-dubbed series on VHS and DVD; later, these newly dubbed episodes were broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK.A Spanish-dubbed version of Monkey aired in Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic in the early 1980s. While the BBC-dubbed Monkey never received a broadcast in the United States, the original Japanese-language version, Saiyūki, was shown on local Japanese-language television stations in California and Hawaii in the early 1980s.
Half of series 2 was not originally dubbed into English, but was dubbed later in 2004 with as much of the original cast as possible. The translation and voicing of the subsequent English voice dub is less erudite and humorous than the original effort; and includes some swear words that feel out of place in the context of the original. The voice of Pigsy is slurred in parts - perhaps reflecting the age and health of the voice actor decades later.[8][9]
The album became one of the group's highest-charting releases, staying at #1 on the Oricon chart for a total of eight weeks from January through March 1979 (it was unseated for most of January by the Japanese release of Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture), and it was ultimately the #1 LP for 1979. For the second series, the ending theme of "Gandhara" was replaced with "Holy and Bright", which was released on 1 October 1979 (the two sides of the single featured a Japanese-language version on one side and an English-language version on the other).
In the UK, BBC Records released "Gandhara" as a single in 1979 (RESL 66), with both "The Birth of the Odyssey" and "Monkey Magic" on the B-side.[10] The single reached #56 on the UK Singles Chart, eventually spending a total of seven weeks on the chart.[11] A second BBC single was released in 1980 (RESL 81), this time featuring an edited version of "Monkey Magic", along with "Gandhara" and "Thank You Baby", but this single failed to chart.[12] The BBC releases of "Gandhara" have one verse sung in Japanese and the other in English. BBC Records also released the Magic Monkey album under the simplified title of Monkey (REB 384) in 1980 but it failed to chart.
Monkey is considered a cult classic in countries where it has been shown, reaching as far as South America.[7] Among the features that have contributed to its cult appeal are the theme song, the dubbed dialogue spoken in a variety of over-the-top "oriental" accents, the reasonably good synchronization of dubbing to the actors' original dialogue, the memorable battles which were for many Western youngsters their first exposure to Asian-style fantasy action sequences, and the fact that the young priest Tripitaka was played by a woman, despite being male.[13][14]
Strange how potent cheap music can be. Like a whiff of Blue Stratos on the night air, all it takes is a few bars of a chirpy novelty hit and there we are, forty years ago, dripping extruded ice cream product on the vinyl seats of a Morris Marina while the rain falls on a pebbled beach. Year by year, these are the songs that have soundtracked our lives.
I bought my first single in 1979, and it was not a disco record. I did not like disco in 1979. If I had heard about the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago in July of that year I would probably have approved (but I suspect John Craven did not mention it). Organised by shock jock Steve Dahl, the night - supposedly a promotion for the White Sox baseball team - involved disco records being thrown onto the pitch and blown up with actual explosives. The audience later had to be dispersed by riot police.
Another thing I liked in 1979 was a Japanese TV adaptation of the sixteenth century Chinese novel Journey to the West. Which sounds terribly erudite until you realise I am describing Monkey, a goofy adventure show featuring a monkey-man with Noddy Holder sideburns, dubbed into English by a cast including Manuel from Fawlty Towers. Monkey was blessed with one of the all-time great theme tunes, a piece of disco-rock (by the Japanese band Godiego) that summarises the myth of Sun Wukong - Monkey King and spirit of anarchy - in inventive broken English:
Ever seen Detroit Rock City? I called someone a "greasy disco ball" the other day (jokingly? maybe?) and remembered that I had gotten this perfect specimen of an insult from that movie. Anyway, the rock-vs.-disco thread throughout the film makes it feel relevant to this conversation.
Dahl had been a DJ at a station that had fired him when it decided to veer away from rock towards disco, and he consequently held a grudge against the whole genre. I can see the event now for what it largely was - an adolescent, vindictive spasm with nasty undertones of racism and misogyny - but at 10 years old, I was not the target audience for disco. I was not down Studio 54 with a head full of cocaine and trousers full of urge, strutting to a 4/4 beat with the Manhattan demi-monde. I lived in the Home Counties, and was usually to be found in the school library arguing about how many hit points a goblin had. I liked precisely Dahl\u2019s kind of music: that first single I bought was Queen\u2019s \u2018Don\u2019t Stop Me Now\u2019, a pristine piece of middle-of-the-road album-oriented rock. Although also, to be fair, a banger.
(It's hard to describe how happy the end of the second verse makes me. It\u2019s the incredibly awkward addition of the word \u2018west\u2019 at the end of the line: the lyrics and tune make the \u2018kindly priest\u2019 and \u2018pilgrimage\u2019 a perfectly scannable and almost acceptable rhyme, but then \u2018west\u2019 is squeezed in an tremendous hurry before the chorus crashes upon us, causing the whole thing to jolt and stumble before it takes off again. Amazing work.)
So here we have a small boy who thought he didn\u2019t like disco while loving the disco-inflected Monkey theme. This apparent paradox is explained by one critical fact: disco was everywhere in 1979, and I was already internalising the hipster imperative of sneering in the presence of the popular. (For the same reason, I would shortly ditch Rainbow and AC/DC for Adam and The Ants and The Tubeway Army.)
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