Voltron

You know what I watched was crazy.

I don't know if you guys know Voltron.

I'm wearing my Voltron shirt right now.

It was a Japanese anime that they brought here and changed the entire, but they changed the entire storyline.

Like the story is not the same story that was goal line.

This is crazy.

This

is the original Voltron.

Like, you were eating well in the late 70s if you were a fan of science fiction.

And so this would continue to get two more sequels after that under the banner of Star Blazers and still have the opportunity to run between the entire into 1979 and leading into the 80s, which on top of that, led to a lot more imported titles, like so much so in the form of Voltron, Defender of the Universe, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, G-Force, the localized version of Transformers, Ultimate Muscle, and of course Robotech.

Robotech is definitely one where...

I don't necessarily...

Well,

and then the next year, that's when you had, you know, Voltron hit and Robotech and all that.

Right.

And so that's where you really started having your big anime explosion occur.

And these all came with toys.

You could go see the Robotech toys in the store.

You could see Voltron.

And everybody had their favorite Voltron that they wanted.

As I've mentioned several times on the podcast, I'm a huge anime fan and really my love for anime really developed in the mid nineties or so.

Like as a kid in the eighties, uh, there was Voltron.

That was probably my first introduction to anime, but it really developed in the mid nineties when, uh, I got cable.

My parents got cable at that point.

So he's poor.

This is Voltron.

How do they do this and then also Voltron?

Go, go, go, go, Voltron.

Intro song.

I remember Voltron

was kind of the shit, though.

Remember Hank? Let's see.

From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe, comes a legend.

The legend of Voltron, defender of the universe.

Peter Cullen's distinctive voice had quickly become unforgettable.

And that was only going to grow the same year that Voltron came out.

But before we get to that, Colin also lent his announcing voice to yet another 1980s defining cartoon.

On Rainbow Bright, Cullen provided the voices of Murky Dismal, Monstro Merc, Sky Dancer, and was the narrator of the show.

Speaking of movies, the mid-80s were a busy time for Peter Cullen and theatrical releases.

Besides the Transformers the movie, Cullen also appeared in the Rainbow Bright film from 1985, the My Little Pony movie, King Kong Lives, and the G.I. Joe movie.

is how emotional I get at hearing the news that they have left this mortal coil.

And the news that we got late in the evening, August 26th, but more so the morning of August 27th, 2026, Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime, the voice of Eeyore, the voice of the narrator on Voltron, the original Voltron animated series from 1984.

He was the voice of the Knight automated roving robot for one episode in Knight Rider, the original Knight Rider series in 1982.

He would then come back to reprise Carr and in the 2008 reboot series continuation series actually the interesting thing about that is car in that series actually was the knight automated roving robot because in that series in the nbc 2008 series both kit and car had transformation capabilities.

I had no idea that Rayearth was actually going to play into the title, because sometimes that doesn't always happen in anime.

Or I thought it was going to be something like when the three rune gods go together and form Voltron.

Oh,

yeah, then that's

I mean, there was a moment after Transformers where he didn't want to do any kind of animation action violence work.

He was in Voltron, too.

He did a lot of the... 80s voices, a lot of them that you wouldn't necessarily know right offhand.

But Optimus Prime, I'll always remember from the first three miniseries.