Back when I was into kaiju and dinosaurs decades ago, I was a rather unhappy camper because I wasn't able to see the complete version of "Destroy All Monsters" (1968). It was broadcast on one of the local channels on Saturday night, and I figure it was probably because my father just had to see "Hockey Night In Canada". The pouting disappeared in pretty short order though and the 1970s, 1980s and so on passed by without incident.
Well, last night, I finally got to see the grand Battle Royale or the "Avengers: Endgame" version of all those Toho monsters including Godzilla go into the ultimate knock-down-drag-out against King Ghidorah. Of course, watching this over half a century later meant that the kiddy glee and bouncing about had long been eliminated from my system but it was still fun to see the gang fight it out with even Minilla tying the final bow on this present. And may I say, although I barely know anything about Gorosaurus, that was one nasty drop-kick he landed on the King. You go, Gorosaurus!👍
All that though got me thinking about Daiei Film's own cute monster, Gamera, every Japanese child's favourite gigantic turtle. Now here was a kaiju who was so beloved and famous that he could earn a couple of songs on his behalf in the 1960s: "Gamera no Uta"（ガメラの歌）and "Gamera March" (ガメラマーチ).
I had been wondering if his fame got him another song, and sure enough, it didn't take long before I found "Bokura no Gamera" (Our Gamera) which was used on the big lug's 6th entry "Gamera vs. Jiger"（ガメラ対大魔獣ジャイガー）in March 1970. Both it and "Gamera March" were featured so I guess Daiei was following the James Bond formula of having the original overall theme along with the official theme song of the movie.
Although the same duo behind the proud military "Gamera March", lyricist Hidemasa Nagata（永田秀雄）and composer Kenjiro Hirose（廣瀬健次郎）, was behind "Bokura no Gamera", the song itself was styled more along the Club Tropicana Latin of "Gamera no Uta". Cocktails for Gamera! Mind you, the song was sung by the Daiei Jidou Gasshodan（大映児童合唱団...The Daiei Children's Chorus） so definitely no cocktails for them. The chorus also sang "Gamera March" and I found out via the director for one of the movies that unlike some of the other kids' choruses that had been popular back in the day, there was nothing official about the Daiei Jidou Gasshodan, they were just some kids wrangled together from the neighbourhood and brought together behind the mike. Maybe they got some free passes to "Gamera vs. Jiger" or they were given Gamera figures to play with.
I am also a long-time fan of Godzilla! Although as a kid I was confused by Raymond Burr in Godzilla 1985! According to him, Godzilla was searching for something, but sadly we never got to find out what that something was! However, to make up for that, Godzilla 1985 did feature the Super X, and that was cool, but Godzilla falling into a volcano was very disturbing for a 2nd grader! The original Japanese version from 1984 was better than the shorter Americanized version. But, the older Godzilla films were a lot more fun.
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