Saturday, January 10, 2015

Boomerang Italy Premieres the New "Ispettore Gadget" on February 16, 2015 at 19:00

And we're back! I'm beginning to realize it is not humanly possible for me to feature properly every bit of news popping up these days (as I'm busier than I was during Christmas and already behind), but I'll try to race through some of them. Here's one about another country/channel joining the broadcast lineup, namely Boomerang Italy. According to the Italian news site tvblog.it:

L'Ispettore Gadget, la nuova serie in prima tv da febbraio su Boomerang 
(...) Per le nuove generazioni arriva l'occasione di conoscere il personaggio che ha segnato l'infanzia dei bambini degli anni '80 e '90. La novità è l'arrivo del remake realizzato da DHX Media, in Cgi, in onda dal 16 febbraio tutti i giorni dal lunedì al venerdì alle 19.00 su Boomerang.

In English:

Inspector Gadget, the new series in TV premiere from February on Boomerang 
(...) For the new generations, get the chance to learn about the character that marked the childhood of children of the 80s and 90s. The news is the arrival of the remake by DHX Media, in CGI, airing from February 16 every day from Monday to Friday at 19.00 on Boomerang.

So now you know, all you hundreds of Italian Gadget fans undoubtedly reading this. Hey, anyone think they'll get Cristina D'Avena to sing a new Italian theme tune? The one she did in 1993 for the original series seems to have caught on pretty well...



6 comments:

  1. I am Italian and I have to say that the Opening by Cristina D'Avena was a SECOND opening in Italy because of Mediaset channel has bought the rights to broadcast by RAI in the 90's. The ORIGINAL FIRST theme song opening was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C1aXAvIvXg Also the full cast of voice actors was changed when the series comes to Mediaset. The first one is impossible to find, but I remind it really well. Aniway I am quite excited and I hope that the new series will have good voice actors, I'll be happy to see again even the second cast ( more younger that the first) because they were good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment. :) I did know about Cristina D'Avena's version not being the first Italian theme song - it's from 1993, so of course it was for a relaunch in Italy, rather than the first airing. (I actually considered writing "a relaunch of the original series" in the post, and go a bit more in-depth, but decided against it since the 1993 song was only a side note here.)

      I did NOT know, however, that Mediaset completely redid the dubbing as well as the theme song when they aquired the broadcast rights from RAI 1... that's very interesting to learn. I had assumed before that they only changed the song. I mean, why go through the work of dubbing the entire series anew when all the episodes were already dubbed? It sounds a bit crazy... but I guess it had to do with licencing and copyrights, and to make the new version of the series completely their own.

      By the way, a note about the YouTube version you link to of the original RAI 1 theme song (as well as other online versions I've seen): The video part of it is actually not Italian; i. e. not recorded from RAI Uno in the 80s, as one would expect. In the video you link to, it has been sourced from an old Canadian TVrip of the series (you can tell by the "C" logo in the upper left corner, this is the Canadian channel CH). This makes me wonder two things...
      1. Does no video of the intro sequence from RAI 1 exist anywhere online? How rare is it really?
      2. Where does the AUDIO from the original RAI 1 theme song come from, when there's apparently no video from RAI 1 available? Very mysterious...

      (Final sidenote: I find it interesting that the original RAI 1 theme is based directly on the French theme song, rather than the original English-language one. Since "Inspector Gadget" was distributed in both English and French-language versions right from the start in 1983, it varied whether other countries would dub the series from English or French. RAI 1 in Italy clearly based their dubbing on the French version.)

      Delete
    2. For first thanks for your reply and sorry for my bad english. Well unfortunatly the origina video of the first opening is really hard to find, in the 80's Italians used to record the audio with an audio recorder for tapes, "ordinary people" had the VCR in the 90's and then only a few lucky will have to possess before others ; read "rich people" XD. That's the story. I was not rich so my family bought our first VCR in 1992. I used to record the opening just on audio tapes before. In the 90's Mediaset aquired the original series, all the rights, and then decided to redo all the dubbing with a different cast ,most famous for the era. For Example Penny was voiced by Elisabetta Spinelli, known as Usagi, the protagonist of Sailor Moon, again a blonde girl with tails ;). If you are curious about that I can tell you something more about.

      Delete
    3. Hi again, and sorry for my late reply here (this happens a lot with me, admittedly), as I've been a bit preoccupied lately.

      Also, thanks for your own reply. :) Your info about audio recorders and VCRs in Italy during the 80s seems to explain a lot, actually. This very likely is the reason why no video is available of the RAI 1 "Ispettore Gadget" airings.

      One question: when you said you "used to record the opening just on audio tapes before", how did this work exactly? Was this some kind of advanced audio recorder which you could plug into the TV, or did you simply place a tape recorder near the television set to record the theme song as it was playing? The audio in the YouTube videos I've seen has very low quality, so I'm guessing perhaps the latter alternative was what people did.

      "If you are curious about that I can tell you something more about."

      Curious about the 90s dubbing, you mean? Or something else? Anyway, sure, go ahead. :) It's always fun to hear trivia about the series. :)

      Delete
  2. Hello! About your question the answer is that " simply place a tape recorder near the television set to record the theme song as it was playing" XD. " Curious about the 90s dubbing, you mean?" Yes, this is the page with all the italian cast of the old were the names are different! Penny was SOPHIE, we used to call the characters with FRENCH names the FIRST TIME . :) And the new dubbing ( in the same page belowe) with the amercan names, just in case you are interested : http://www.antoniogenna.net/doppiaggio/anim/lispettoregadget.htm
    Bye,

    Vanessa.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. RE: "...simply place a tape recorder near the television set to record the theme song as it was playing"
      I suspected that was the case, yeah. :P It does explain why the audio quality of the videos with the Italian RAI I theme sounds so crappy.

      "Penny was SOPHIE, we used to call the characters with FRENCH names the FIRST TIME . :) And the new dubbing ( in the same page belowe) with the amercan names..."
      That's quite interesting. It means that the first dubbing by RAI Uno was based on the French-language version of the series (with the theme song clearly adapted from the French theme with lyrics throughout); whereas the Mediaset dubbing from 1993 was likely based on the original English-language version, since the characters have their English names. It seems the Mediaset dubbing still prevails in Italy today; but it's worth mentioning that Cristina D'Avena's theme song was replaced by an Italian version of the original, English-language Shuki Levy theme for the Fox Kids airings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbCJC5N1oB0

      Delete