Curse At The Gold Monkey

[greenguy]

Anyone have a good copy of the Universal butchered together telemovie Curse At The Gold Monkey? It was made in the heyday of the studio cobbling together telemovies from the various short lived TV series, in this case from Tales Of The Gold Monkey. I have a several generation down from the original dub, but I'm looking to upgrade.

From my original 1980's recordings, many with commercials I have episodes of the below series to trade:

Galactica: 1980
The Greatest American Hero
Hardcastle & McCormick
The A-Team
Riptide
Knight Rider
Airwolf
MacGyver
Blue Thunder
Automan
Starman
Shadow Chasers

[Fandor]

I have the copy that the proprietor of Goldmonkey.com was flogging about 10 years back. It's decent, but definitely not 1st generation. I kinda doubt it's any better than what you already have. Sadly, severe weather caused a power outage when I had my VCR set to record CURSE from a broadcast on WOR back around 1993.

[Fandor]

BTW, just for clarity's sake (in case you ever try to locate the film via internet search), the actual title is Curse AT the Gold Monkey.

[greenguy]

Originally Posted by Fandor

BTW, just for clarity's sake (in case you ever try to locate the film via internet search), the actual title is Curse AT the Gold Monkey.

Hey, thanks! I did not realize I wrote "of" instead of "at", my post has been corrected.

Been there with the severe weather many times, considering I don't think this played often that's too bad that the bad weather picked that time to roll through.

I did not obtain my copy from GM.com, but that doesn't mean our copies aren't from the same dub. I don't think any of Gold Monkey's recordings were from originals at all, but were from other sources.

Here's two example's of mine. The smearing can be seen the best on the title. Jack actually doesn't look too bad in this, but the picture in person is worse.

[Fandor]

Okay, maybe my copy of CURSE is better than yours. Still nowhere near to great, but definitely a few steps up the generational chain. No smearing to the image in the title credits for sure. Here's a link to a bunch of TOTGM ephemera I've posted to YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGiUd_8BEtM
The CURSE title sequence starts around 14:36. Take a look at it, and see what you think.

[greenguy]

Originally Posted by Fandor

Okay, maybe my copy of CURSE is better than yours. Still nowhere near to great, but definitely a few steps up the generational chain. No smearing to the image in the title credits for sure. Here's a link to a bunch of TOTGM ephemera I've posted to YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGiUd_8BEtM
The CURSE title sequence starts around 14:36. Take a look at it, and see what you think.

Yep, your copy does look better than mine.

Some great clips you have there, a few I've never seen before. I totally forgot about the series airing on USA Network. I have some of those, plus a few that TV Land aired that I remember recording on the Super VHS format.

[Videoranger007]

I have a near perfect quality copy, has Japanese subtitles though.

[greenguy]

Originally Posted by Videoranger007

I have a near perfect quality copy, has Japanese subtitles though.

Really?

I didn't realize it had a release in Japan on any sort of format.

I know there Japanese Laserdisc releases of Airwolf, Knight Rider, and Street Hawk. All of those have Japanese subs, I have all but the KR LD's. A Gold Monkey release slipped past me.

[Videoranger007]

Originally Posted by greenguy

Really?

I didn't realize it had a release in Japan on any sort of format.

I know there Japanese Laserdisc releases of Airwolf, Knight Rider, and Street Hawk. All of those have Japanese subs, I have all but the KR LD's. A Gold Monkey release slipped past me.

Im assuming its a rip from a Japanese VHS release. Judging by the few picture rolls and the picture is a bit softer looking than what a laser disc would look like. Overall its great quality though, better than anything else floating around. Just the subtitles are the biggest problem if thats something that bothers you.

Surprisingly a large amount of obscure US Televsion and Made for TV films were released on VHS in Japan. Thats how I also got the complete series and the TV film of "The Master" in excellent quality. I also have the Street Hawk made for tv film on Japanese VHS.

[greenguy]

Originally Posted by Videoranger007

Im assuming its a rip from a Japanese VHS release. Judging by the few picture rolls and the picture is a bit softer looking than what a laser disc would look like. Overall its great quality though, better than anything else floating around. Just the subtitles are the biggest problem if thats something that bothers you.

Surprisingly a large amount of obscure US Televsion and Made for TV films were released on VHS in Japan. Thats how I also got the complete series and the TV film of "The Master" in excellent quality. I also have the Street Hawk made for tv film on Japanese VHS.

Okay I gotcha. I never ran into too many actual Japanese VHS tapes. I've owned the old Airwolf releases on Japanese VHS, and seen the Knight Rider tapes. I had NO idea The Master was released on VHS in Japan! No, the subtitles don't bother me. I know quite a bit of U.S. TV had been released over there, but I'm sure I'm not even aware of 1/4 of what came out.

Do you know of any good Japanese VHS release database? There are a couple sites for laserdiscs, but I've never ran across one that include Japan released tapes.

[Videoranger007]

Unfortunately there are not really any sites available. Id suggest browsing yahoo japan auctions under the English language mode every so often, really the best way to gather info on what has been released. Theres a ton of obscure television series and films and 9 times out of 10 it will be in English language with Japanese subs. The only programs Ive ever seen dubbed into Japanese are animated series.

[greenguy]

Thanks for the tip!

I've already found a Japanese Airwolf VHS not in my collection.

[MacLeaper]

I don't really have much to add to this conversation, other than to say that it's nice to see other fans of these 1980s series. I like a lot of these shows, both longer-lived ones and short-lived one season wonders. Tales of the Gold Monkey definitely could have run longer- that's a fun show. I recently watched the whole series on DVD; the first few episodes seemed to be slow in really grabbing my attention, but I warmed up to the show as it progressed and the episodes got better and better! GoldMonkey.com is by far the best (and probably the only ) Web site I've seen for the show.
Thanks for the tips here about the Japanese VHS releases. Yes, I've noticed too that Japan had a number of my favorite shows that got LaserDisc or VHS releases- including some shows that had zero media releases in North America.

[greenguy]

Patricia at Gold Monkey.com has been responsible for keeping the show alive for years. She's been around since 1996, two years longer than my own site devoted to The Greatest American Hero. Not too many TV series sites that existed back in the 90's are still around now.

Glad to see others still like watching the series like I do. I agree, it should have ran longer than one season.

[RetroTVNitekatt]

So other than the Japanese copy, did a better one ever turn up?