Mysterious Cities of Gold
History of the Show (back to main page)
Mitsuro Kaneko (MK Productions) wanted to make an
animated series which was based on a book by Scott
O'Dell, called 'The King's Fifth'. It was a book that detailed
how the Spanish stripped the 'New World' of all its riches.
Mitsuro approached Jean Chapolin (DIC Audiovisuel) to
help write and produce the show, which was one of the first
French / Japanese Co-Productions. They secured financial
backing from NHK (a large Japanese Public Television
Company) and DIC Audiovisuel, but they still needed more
funding for the show. So a small outfit in Luxemburg, called
'CLT', stepped in and became the third partner.
NHK weren't known for animation series, but instead
educational shows. Therefore NHK wanted to put a
documentary at the end of each episode detailing real
events in history to fulfil this criteria.
This had an affect on the show, as they tried to tie in
each episode with a historical event. The show
evolved, and the 'The King's Fifth' was used more as
reference guide.
The production team had decided that the show must
be a work of quality which would enable it to be easily
exported overseas. They used a European style of
animation to help to export the show (rather than using
the traditional style of Japanese animation).
Bernard Deyries was hired as the French Director, who stamped his mark on the show with the
use of vibrant colours and detailed backgrounds. He was also involved in the creation and style of
music with Shuki Levy and Haim Saban, who composed the music for the show. Shuki has been
involved in creating the music of many famous animated shows (eg. Ulysses 31 and Inspector
Gadget).
Studio Pierrot was hired to do the animation, as they could create good action scenes with less
cells. The team concentrated on character design and artwork. The Incas and Mayans were
chosen as they wanted to base the story on an ancient civilisation. Japanese history wasn't
chosen as most children in Japan already knew the stories surrounding that era.
It was decided that 3 main characters would be needed, otherwise the story would be too
balanced with 2 characters and there would be no conflict to engage the viewers. On top of this, it
was decided that each of the 3 main characters should come from different civilisations to each
other. The civilisation that Tao came from varied from language to language. In the English
Language version, Tao came from Hiva, but in the French/Japanese versions he came from Mu.
But the Japanese felt something was missing so requested that an ambiguous character was
added to the show, who was both good and bad. That character was Mendoza. Also Mendoza,
Sancho and Pedro were added to give the story more depth and realism.
The production wanted to concentrate on the view of the world from the eyes of children, which
was the quest to find the fathers of 2 of the children, rather than finding the Mysterious Cities of
Gold. The Japanese initially based the mechanical machines on designs of the 17th Century, but
the French team decided that it would catch children imaginations more if they were based on
machines of the future.
39 episodes of MCoG were created, which tied in with the length of the Japanese schools term. It
was initially broadcast by NHK in Japan where it attracted moderate viewing figures. This has
been attributed to NHK not being known for animated series and that the Japanese scripts lacked
depth (unlike the French and English versions).
But CLT found it difficult to get anyone else to buy the
show. This was due to the fact that the show was 1 big
story, rather than 39 individual episodes. Eventually it
was forced onto French TV and it was welcomed with
critical acclaim.
They had planned further series of the show. The 2nd
series would have seen the children fly north past
Alaska and onto Northern Japan, where they would find
the 2nd City of Gold. Also we would have found out that
Esteban's father had survived and his body had been
badly burnt. For the 3rd series they had planned to take the series to Indonesia and Thailand.
From here they would have ended up in Europe and North Africa. But the issue with funding and
the take up of the show affected its future and any further series were shelved.
Eventually the show caught the attention of the BBC & Nickelodeon, who commissioned an
English Language version of the show. Howard Ryshpan was hired to be the director and it was
decided that the voice actors should come from Canada, as this was a neutral accent for both the
USA and the UK (understood by both).
Howard had in his mind that the three main characters of the show (Esteban, Zia and Tao) should
be voiced by children, as he felt that adults pretending to sound like children sounded false. But at
that time it was unusual to hire children and most parts were voiced by adults. So pupils at the
Montreal Children's Theatre School were invited to audition for the parts.
It took approximately a day to voice a single episode. The crew decided that they didn't want the
voice actors to memorise their lines. The reason was they didn't want their voice coaches (their
parents) putting their own spin on the how they should pronounce their lines. So they were shown
the original version in French (as they were French Canadians) and then have a trial run reading it
in English. When recording an episode they would show the episode (on a 16mm magnetic track)
with the script scrolling across the top of the screen, which was trying to match the lip sync of the
original animation.
The scripts for the show were adapted from the French version, by Kelly Rickard and Howard
Ryshpan. Kelly was better known as the voice on the opening and closing credits. However,
Howard may have been the Director of the English Language version, but became more famous
for supplying the voice of Mendoza. This wasn't intentional and instead happened by pure
accident. Howard and Doug Parry (Recording Engineer) had to put forward 4 auditions for each
voice to the producers in France. Their first choice, and 3 other possibilities (no names were
given, just the audio).
After another late night the both found that they were short of one of the voices for Mendoza (one
of the 3 other possibilities). So Howard recorded the missing audition to make up the numbers and
sent the dialogue off. But instead of choosing their recommendation the French producers chose
Howard to voice Mendoza.
Shiraz Adam was chosen as the voice of Esteban,
which surprised him as he was thought that Adrian
Knight (who played Tao) would get the part of Esteban,
as he believed that he was the better actor. Shiraz had
played a number of small parts previously, such as
Belle and Sebastian and at the time of recording the
show he was 10 years old. His inexperience showed
when he found it difficult keeping up with the lines as
they scrolled across the screen and they had to keep
re-recording the lines.
Shiraz did very little preparation for the part and instead based his performance on the French
version he knew and watched. He tried to ad lib in a few places, but was told to stick to the script.
It was only years later when he stumbled across a discussion group, about the MCoG, that he
discovered how popular the show was still today.
Janice Chaiklson was chosen as the voice of Zia and was 12/13 years old at the time. She had
worked with Howard Ryshpan in the past (and did in the future). She was surprised that they were
given no time to learn their lines and that they had to read the script that scrolled across the
screen with the video of the show. It scrolled so fast that Janice found that she had trouble trying
to get much emotion into the voice of Zia. Janice used to get frustrated with Shiraz keep fluffing
his lines as they kept having to re-record them over and over again.
Adrian Knight was chosen as the voice of Tao, who had been involved in the Ulysses 31 and 'Belle
and Sebastian'. He originally went for the part of Esteban, but was offered Tao. He found it was a
lot of work for him at the time, 08:30 start and only 30 minutes for lunch. He had no idea that
MCoG would become so big. He still does voice work today. For the DVD release Shiraz, Janice,
Adrian and Howard teamed up to recreate a scene from the show.
The show has become one of the most successful cartoons of the 1980's and seems to be just as
popular today. But that isn't the end of the story. For years there have been legal wrangling on
who owns the rights of the show and eventually Jean Chalopin secured the rights.
This has meant that in 2008 the entire MCoG series (English Language version) could be
released on DVD by Fabulous Films. Not only that, his company has started producing a new 3D
animated feature film based on the events of the 39 episodes. Also they have been talking about
creating the 2nd series of the MCoG.
Mysterious Cities of Gold
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Video
Mysterious Cities of Gold
Episodes
Series 1 (1982)
1. Esteban, Child Of The Sun
2. Crossing The Atlantic
3. Heroes Again
4. Adrift On The Endless Sea
5. The Abduction Of Zia
6. The Ship Solaris
7. Secret Of The Solaris
8. The New Continent
9. The End Of The Solaris
10. Secret Of The Temple
11. Messengers Of The Region
12. Secret Of The Medallions
13. Mystery Of The Parents
14. Esteban's Medallion
15. The Subterranean Secret
16. The Urubus
17. The Great Condor
18. Maiden Flight Of The Great Condor
19. The Nazca Plateau
20. The Spaniards' Cannon
21. The Amazons
22. The Mirror Of The Moon
23.The Jade Mask
24. The Manuscript
25. The Lake Of Gold
26. The Swamps
27. The Doors Of Night
28. The Forest Of Statues
29. The Burning Shield
30. The Escape
31. The Village Of The New Sun
32. Attack Of The Olmecs
33. The Reunion
34. Revolt Of The Mayas
35. The Olmec Machine
36. Aerial Pursuit
37. The City Of Gold
38. The Great Legacy
39. End Of The City Of Gold
Mysterious Cities of Gold
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