Did you know that Ultraman duked it out with Godzilla on Japanese T.V. in 1966? It's true! Well, kinda...
What actually happened for the tenth episode of
Ultraman is that Tsuburaya Productions took the Godzilla suit from
Godzilla vs. the Thing/Mothra vs. Godzilla and attached it to the Godzilla head from
Monster Zero/Invasion of Astro Monster, put a big dino frill around his neck and called him Jiras! Jiras gets a few licks in, but ultimately suffers a (bloody (!)) defeat at the hands of Ultraman.
This particular Jiras was made by Bandai in 1995. I found it on ebay after searching for a Jiras at G-Fest and coming up empty-handed. He just arrived in the mail today! By the way, Godzilla would return to the small screen in another show called
Zone Fighter, produced by Toho. This meant that other Toho monsters would make appearances on
Zone Fighter, such as King Ghidorah and Gigan. Their inclusion is a commentary on how television "changed the game" forever for giant monster movies. Whether it changed the game for good is another story. Anyway, enjoy Jiras--a unique sidebar to Godzilla's biography!
The Dino Frill must have slowed Godzilla down. As tough as Ultraman is there is no way he could defeat Godzilla in less than three minutes. I call for a rematch at Monster Island. The winner gets to eat Don King.
ReplyDeleteThe frill definitely was a factor earlier in the fight. Very non-aerodynamic. The astute observer will also notice that Jiras' atomic breath is much skinnier than Godzilla's normal blue plume-o'-destruction.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the card at Monster Island could be: Jiras vs. Ultraman, followed by the Main Event: Godzilla vs. Gamera... And perhaps earlier you could have Peter Jackson's King Kong vs. Toho's King Kong with Mighty Joe Young as guest referee!
Hello Fellow G-fest fan..Alex Merdich with AWM studio productions Here in Columbiana Ohio
ReplyDeletejust wanted to give you a shout out and say that im counting down the days to the next g-fest..look for me in the dealer room !!! Go Browns!!