Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The Amazing Chan And The Chan Clan:

This is an old article pending revision.

There are several different detective characters that are well known. One of them is "Sherlock Holmes" set in The United Kingdom in the 19th century era and is written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Another one was "Dixon Hill" set in The United States during the 1920s and the 1930s and was based on "Sam Spade", which was written by BLANKEY BLANK. He would later appear in the educational comedic series "Between The Lions", as "Sam Spud". There was also another series starring Charlie Chan which is set in Hawaii about an investigator that is Chinese. However, most of the actors in the films are Japanese. The original writer and creator for this detective's adventures is Earl Derr Biggers.


There was a series called The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan that is an animated series that aired on 1972. It was produced and animated by Hanna-Barbera productions and ran for 16 episodes and was about what many 1970s HB shows were about: a group of kids performing in a band. The band's name was The Chan Clan, which are the children of Charlie Chan, or "The Amazing Chan". He is called that, or just by "Mr. Chan", possibly due to copyrighting technicalities, but was credited afterwards as Charlie Chan. Charlie Chan had become an extremely controversial character in the earlier live action movies because despite the majority of the cast being Asian and African American characters, some audiences began protesting that the characters were unfair stereotypes. However, in this animated series, his personality is toned down and appears as a very laid back and calm and extremely wise person. Remember that the animated series "The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan" aired decades after said movies, when some of the offense had gone down at least slightly.


Not all of the characters appear to have been featured. The cast of the characters for the animated series is Jodie Foster as Anne Chan, Gene Andrusco as Flip Chan, Stephen Wong as Stanley Chan, Michael Morgan as Scooter Chan, John Gunn and Michael Takamoto as Tom Chan, Cherlylene Lee as Mimi and Suzie, Virginia Ann Lee as Suzie, Leslie Juwai as Mimi, Brian Tochi as Alan Chan, Debbie Jue and Beverly Kushida as Nancy Chan, and Robert Ito as Henry Chan. Don Messick played Chu Chu. He is known for voicing dog characters. Keye Luke played The Amazing Mr. Chan, who was an actor for Charlie Chan live action movies as "Number One Son" Lee Chan.

The titles for the 16 episodes were (mostly being "capers") "The Crown Jewel Caper", "To Catch A Pitcher", "Will The Real Charlie Chan Please Stand Up?", "The Phantom Sea Thief", "Eve Of The Idol", "The Fat Lady Caper", "Captain Kidd's Doubloons", "The Bronze Idol", "Double Trouble", "The Great Illusion Caper", "The Mummy's Tomb", "The Mardi Gras Caper", "The Gypsy Caper", "The Greek Caper", "White Elephant", and "Scotland Yard". That just about wraps it up for the animated series. Perhaps you have seen some of the earlier films, or the animated series. Not much has been made in animation after one short season (usually considered two, depending on who is second-run-syndicating the epiosdes. However, even if this is considered two seasons most of the time, all of the episodes aired during the fall of 1972). More could have been made involving Charlie Chan, or perhaps not. What do you think about all of this?

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