When my cable company finally got Nickelodeon in the 80’s, one of the shows on it was a translated anime series with French credits. Still maintaining a fanbase to this day, Hulu is now carrying the show, so let’s begin the search for El Durado with The Mysterious Cities of Gold, episode 1.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
This video may not work outside the US. Sorry. I would also like to know why I can get the fullscreen at my Vodpod page, but not in the embedded file. (Or for that matter why WordPress isn’t working with Hulu directly.)
The best info I could find was a disputed Wikipedia entry and this site and I couldn’t find the fanpage I used to have a link to (if it still exists), so my data may be incorrect on this one.
(l-r) Tao, Estaban, and Zia
A co-production by DIC France and Studio Perot, Taiyo no ko Esteban was translate into English (among other languages) as The Mysterious Cities of Gold, which explains the credits being in French (why they didn’t translate the credits is beyond me). It tells the tale of Esteban, an orphan child in Spain (circa 1532), who appears to have the ability to call forth the sun, and break up a cloudy day. The people of the village in Spain believes in this powers and in the first episode are more than willing to force the poor boy to end the rain so they can begin sailing to the New World.
There may be more to his story, however, and a navigator named Mendoza (who rescued Esteban as a baby) believes he may have come from El Dorado, the infamous (most likely mythical) city of gold. (Gold plated, maybe. I doubt that, even if you could find enough of it, gold itself would make for decent building material.) So throughout the series, Mendoza also uses the boy, but to find the city.
Good guy? Bad guy? Even he's not sure.
Although more cruel villains will make their appearance in the series, Mendoza himself isn’t always a bad guy. There are times he actually helps the kids out, but he’s still pretty self-interested when it comes to finding the cities. He is joined by the obligatory comic relief, Sancho and Pedro. It’s been years since I’ve seen the series, but at least one reviewer found them very annoying. Then again, I tend to like characters many others don’t.
None of this matters to Esteban. He just wants to be a normal kid, living in the monastery he was brought up in after being rescued from a sinking ship. He wears a medallion around his neck that he was found with (Mendoza having actually stolen part of it during the rescue–I never said he wasn’t a jerk), which become important during the series. When Mendoza tells him that his father may still be alive (after the pastor who raised him just died–OK, a big jerk), it becomes the boy’s mission to find him. Besides, traveling to the New World will get him away from the townspeople who will gladly risk his life to work on their tans.
Wouldn't you trust them with your investement?
In later episodes, he will be joined by the two other kids in the credits. We see Zia in brief moments in this episode. She is from the New World, and only wants to go home. Later episodes will introduce Tao, a local in the South American area where the rest of this series takes place. He is the last of a group of natives with rather advanced technology for the time period, including the Golden Condor seen in the credits, a flying vehicle (I don’t recall it having weapons) that serves as the kids transport in later episodes. As a kid, seeing the Condor was my favorite part. It was a real cool looking machine.
The voice acting is well done (even if the dialog occasionally goes into “Speed Racer mode” to keep up with the mouth movements), including the lady narrator, and the theme is one that takes up residence in your head for a long time to come. The music fits the series well, including the background music for the show. Haim Saban and Shuki Levi (yes the people later responsible for the Power Rangers franchise) could usually come up with some good music. (We’ll just ignore the Dragonball Z theme song, since no English dub ever gave us a decent DBZ open.) The theme uses a Spanish tone, and the kids’ singing the refrain adds a great touch.
Well, so much for the "Kitty Hawk" controversy.
I don’t remember the history lesson being in the episodes, although TV.Com says it was always there. It looks kind of dated, but this show did come out in the 80’s. They actually told the kids that the girls were drugged and killed? I wonder what “Parents groups” thought of that? Additionally, Mendoza and the idiots got everyone drunk and one of the bar patrons mentions beer by name. You weren’t supposed to do that, although I don’t know why. It’s not like kids didn’t see their drunk (not necessarily alcoholic, mind you) uncle at every family gathering.
There is a reason that this show maintains a decent fanbase to this day. The characters are interesting, the visuals stunning, and the music is perfect. The series is also out on DVD and I would recommend it, especially if you can’t watch the Hulu webcast.
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