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 T-Shirts - NONE Mysterious Cities of Gold DVDs Region 2 (Europe) - Mysterious Cities of     Gold DVDs Region 1 (USA) - Mysterious Cities of     Gold DVDs Mysterious Cities of Gold 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 Images (click to enlarge) © JedisParadise.com Toys & Gifts T-Shirts Bargain DVDs