B-Sides: Gamera Is the Friend of Children Everywhere
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Many classic movie monsters have had songs written about them. Few have a theme song that announces their triumphant appearance in the movie itself. Even fewer have theme songs performed by a chorus of children. Gamera is such a monster.
A giant flying, fire-breathing turtle with a fetish for young boys; Gamera was conceived by Daiei in 1965 as their answer to Toho’s Godzilla. Much like the “King of the Monsters”, Gamera would soon perform an about face and become a staunch defender of the human race in sequels even more kid-friendly than Godzilla’s most juvenile outings.
The Gamera movies are some of the strangest kiddy monster movies even made. Unapologetically kiddy, yet peppered with surprisingly violent moments of spurting geysers of monster blood and daikaiju dismemberment, not to mention the adolescent protagonists constantly being threatened with grievous bodily harm by alien invaders and man-eating monsters.
These kids need a hero, and that hero is Gamera, the “friend of children everywhere”. The kids love him so much they got together to sing a song about how much they love him.
Contrary to what “Mystery Science Theater 3000” would have you believe, the lyrics to the Gamera song do not go as follows:
Gamera is really neat,
Gamera is filled with meat,
We’ve been eating Gamera!
Shell, feet, eyes, brain, claws, breath scales, fun!
All true, but not the proper translation.
This weekend’s B-Sides will provide you with the proper subtitles to the catchy children’s choir Gamera song performed as their turtle savior escorts a pair of innocent Earth children flying in a UFO through outer space in a scene from Gamera vs. Guiron.
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Categorized:B-Sides
