Longshot- anyone ever watch Mysterious Cities of Gold?

Scout · Post by **Scout** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 9:35 am

So, ages back in the US when Nickelodian was a brand-new and developing channel... along with 'You can't do that on television' and 'Pinwheel playhouse', a marvelous series of semi-anime-looking stuff came up called "The Mysterious Cities of Gold".

I found a snip on it while messing in you tube today, and wound up ordering a set of dvds from the developer.

Anyone else remember the series? Or anything else from the early days of Nickelodian (besides the really annoying theme song)?

For Brit toon lovers out there- fun things- it was probably the first time we kids here in the US ever got to see King Rollo, Danger Mouse and then some strange series by Thames that I can't recall the name of. Had kids trying to escape from creatures that looked like plastic garbage bags with strings of seaweed attached to them. They went up and down wells iirc.

Yay for the stuff we ran home from school to see!

optimusskids · Post by **optimusskids** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 10:13 am

Yes i remember that when it was on uk TV if i remember rightly it was originally a french series

Esteban & the Golden Condor

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 10:56 am

I remember mainly thinking the Conquadistadors were well cool. I possibly missed the point.

Mirage had a big thing about it, IIRC.

Lambda prime · Post by **Lambda prime** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 3:13 pm

I remember a part where some trolls/goblins were driving a machine and later on they got vapourised by a bright white light.

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 4:11 pm

From what I remember, went a bit downhill after they blew up the Solaris, which wasn't that far off the start. Did watch more-or-less the whole thing when it was shown weekdays when I was a kid. Probably still got the last episode on tape somewhere...

Decent WP page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterious_cities_of_gold

If you speak French I think there's an official (original script) DVD release; otherwise, they're all translations and for English I got the impression there were only bootlegs of varying quality done from tape -- where'd you find a developer?

It's one of those shows I might download a couple of eps to reacquaint myself with at some point, but probably wouldn't have much interest in the whole thing.

http://www.mysteriouscitiesofgold.com/frames.htm

^ The theme music certainly brings back a few memories...

edit:

If you're interested, apparently there are MCdO figures --

http://www.lescitesdor.com/goodies/goodies.html

And there are people still trying to put together a sequel (been in the works for a few years, currently trying to get funding, if I'm reading right...)

http://www.lescitesdor.com/actualite/mco2/mco2.html

Scout · Post by **Scout** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 11:09 pm

Wow, I had no idea there were many merchandising things for it too. I think I'll just stick with the toon though. The Hasbro ponies, Transformers, Elfquest and G-Force already take the rest of what I have. I can't afford another collection!

The dvd set I'm getting is coming from this fella-
http://home.comcast.net/~skutt/mcog.html

I tried doing a search on Ebay out of curiosity to see if disks were ever made and if they were available. Found just one seller, but then after seeing the price I thought I should do just a touch more research. After googling the title, it brought up that guy's page.

If you liked the series, one of the cut scenes he has at the bottom of the page is really enchanting for early 80's animation special effects. It's the scene with the ship and the golden butterflies.

Some of those late 70's early 80's animations were way ahead of the game in special effects. They were doing things on celluloid that look identical or better at times than the cg stuff we have today. Always impressed by how meticulously the line artists were able to move the characters as well.

I know what MPeg is, but the rest of what he talks about is over my head- haven't had any experience with it. Whatever it is, it sounds good and sounds like it'll play on my dvd player. I'd have bought the French ones - I can understand French pretty well, but they won't play here without reformatting which is pretty expensive where it is available.

Should be interesting to see it again after 25 years or so, I don't think I understood the role of the conquistadors much as a kid, and gotta say I can't stand anything about the explorer Christopher Columbus now as an adult.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:09 am

Cool, I remember that site -- he's not a developer, but by all accounts the sets are the best around and he's not doing it for the cash. What price'd he quote?

Originally posted by Scout
they won't play here without reformatting which is pretty expensive where it is available.

I can walk you through how to do it if you've got a reasonably recent PC and a DVD writer (or at minimum a DVD-ROM for grabbing the source and a CD writer for output -- you can get a couple of hours of very watchable cartoon onto a regular CDR with KVCD templates.)

Scout · Post by **Scout** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:35 am

It was $35.00, which included the mailing and whatever jacket art he put on the outside. Seemed reasonable for 39 episodes.
It still amazes me how many side websites you know about and are familiar with. You must really enjoy the technology sector.

I can walk you through how to do it

If you have time at some point, that'd be fantastic! Doesn't have to be right away if you're busy with other site stuff.

My computer is a Dell XPS400 with media center. It's got a couple of drives on it- the top one only plays dvds but the bottom does recording.
Must say- it's a bit fidgety for a new computer - I've had to reinstall the OS twice now and it continuously has trouble with the optical mouse and occasionally the keyboard. :\ I can't ever leave anything on it without backing it up because it's gone to blue screen twice and wouldn't boot. Even if this one does play dvds... I swear the best computer I ever had for reliability was the apple 2c.

As for disc stuff, I have lots of Pal dvds I brought home from Ireland. They do play on the little multiregion dvd player we have at my folks' house, but it's wearing out and it'd be nice to have them transferred so I can play them from my other player here where I live. I also have the recordable dvds that go to the computer readily available- courtesy of the fear of blue screen. (Really- it's worse than hearing the chimes of death from the Performa in university while working on my term paper.)

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:07 am

I've just got a memory for trivia that interests me.

If you've got a TV that can play a PAL signal and a DVD burner, that's no problem for anything that'll fit into ~4.5Gb -- just get rid of the region coding with DVD Decrypter and burn the result back onto a DVD-R. Should be able to find the former at http://www.doom9.net and CDBurnerXP will handle the writing if you don't already have decent software for.

Re-encoding (PAL-->NTSC) is a lot more intensive, though it generally gives much better results than NTSC-->PAL; I'll stick a tutorial and possibly a software pack together at some point, but it'll definitely take a while. Briefly: DVD Decrypter, VirtualDub-MPEG2 with AC-3 ACM and Huffyuv or a not-too-lossy codec, possibly RazorLame, a fair amount of harddrive space for temp files, TMPGenc (ideally a modded version) with KVCD templates, DGPulldown, DVDAuthorGUI.

(There are probably some shortcuts in there, depending on how much you want to fit on a disc -- DGPulldown might work on demuxed VOBs.)

Scout · Post by **Scout** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:43 am

That'd be really great Denyer, cheers! No worry about time - I'm currently taking the epitome research class to my master degree in El.Ed, so my to-do list is growing by leaps and bounds. It'll be great when you can teach me how, but no need to rush at all.

the_escaflowne_2k · Post by **the_escaflowne_2k** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:15 pm

I remember it fondly, only found the one city before it was ended didnt they? Im surprised it wasnt repeated at any point on Sky, what with other shows of the same time like Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors were being re-run on Fox Kids.
In my first year of uni me and a mate had a long conversation revolving around "ood do you remember that other show, y'know the one with thing and stuff" which started off with remebering 'Cities of Gold.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:59 pm

Originally posted by Denyer
I've just got a memory for trivia that interests me.

I thought you were kinda the Internet Primus.

Seriously, though, you know too much stuff. Start forgetting some of it so the rest of us can have some knowledge

SHOCKERS · Post by **SHOCKERS** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:32 pm

cities of gold rocked!I seem to remember the title sequences and theme tune were pretty cool too. God knows when it last aired in the UK.

slartibartfast · Post by **slartibartfast** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:37 pm

cities of gold rocked!I seem to remember the title sequences and theme tune were pretty cool too.

i'll second that =)

and i'll raise you a golden condor and the fantastic video sequence at the end of each episode about "what is was really like back then"

... i'll even throw in esteban, who looked cool as long as he didn't move... or talk... or smile...

SHOCKERS · Post by **SHOCKERS** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:43 pm

Originally posted by slartibartfast

... i'll even throw in esteban, who looked cool as long as he didn't move... or talk... or smile...

...like he was some sort of bronzed,spider-monkey-human,hybrid.......

slartibartfast · Post by **slartibartfast** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:53 pm

... sorry, i meant "tao" ... but yea, that's him !

edit :

it's scary how much he looks like ronaldinho...

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:10 pm

Anyone remember the Hurricanes? That had to be the most insulting cartoon this side of World War 2... The Brazilian lad who played without boots... The Tokyo Typhoons, who played in karate outfits... The American who wasn't a goalkeeper but was good...

SHOCKERS · Post by **SHOCKERS** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:44 pm

don't forget their tricked-out tour bus....

StoneCold Skywarp · Post by **StoneCold Skywarp** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:56 pm

I d/led the series a couple of months ago and fired them on a couple DVDs (thank God for DivX DVD players)

The series really does end on a total and utter NOTHING! Like so many cartoons of it's time. Though, the artwork is really nice for the most part & it's great to look back at a 39 episode cartoon that had a coherent story running right the way through it.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:01 pm

I considered finding the last episode of Gummi Bears (at least the last one that aired on the Disney Show when we were kids) to see if the "yes, there are others out there, now the machine burns" ambivalent ending was as compelling as I remember, but grabbed the first series and couldn't get through more than a couple of eps... maybe with much alcohol and group watching...