Scientific Squadron Dynaman

March 1, 2009 7:00 PM

USA Night Flight presents Dynaman. 1980s. "Plot -- The Jashinka empire (Combination of the Japanese words for 'evil,' (Jashin) and 'evolution' (Shinka) as an English Word as evilution ) rises from the depths of the Earth to conquer the world. To stop them, Dr. Yumeno assembles five inventors to his laboratory, Yumeno Invention Laboratory and gives them the power to become Dynamen. Each member has their own goal, but as the Scientific Squadron Dynaman, they are united to stop the Jashinka empire in their tracks." There is also a flying octopus.
posted by vronsky (18 comments total)

Hells yes, Dynaman!

"I want to be Dyna Shore!"
posted by lekvar at 8:03 PM on March 1, 2009

Let me see if I can remember this line...

"What do you give a fifty foot tall atomic dolphin?"

"DEATH!"
posted by eriko at 8:28 PM on March 1, 2009

Ah, Night Flight. So many long, sleepless nights. Thanks for the memories!
posted by chairface at 9:41 PM on March 1, 2009

Five good looking youths from all walks of life!
Wushi, their reader, is Dyna Red!
Yuba, able to leap tall trees, is Dyna Black!
Frankie, the Human Outboard Motor, is Dyna Blue!
Cowboy, the slow-thinking weapons expert, is Dyna Yellow!
and their main squeeze, Sloe Gin, is Dyna Pink!

I did that from memory, without actually looking at any of the links. I worry about myself sometimes.

"She could be anywhere!" "OK, let's split up, and cover ALL OF JAPAN!"
posted by dragstroke at 10:18 PM on March 1, 2009

Interesting.. so this is, what, a spoof of the show that power rangers was based on?
posted by empath at 10:33 PM on March 1, 2009

It is a spoof, but more importantly, it is a spoof from Night Flight. If you came of age in the eighties, Night Flight was the best thing on television ever.

Previous Night Flight post.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:08 PM on March 1, 2009

...and we have watches!
posted by Spatch at 5:41 AM on March 2, 2009

I vaguely remember Night Flight. I was still in single digits when it was on, but my parents never enforced a bedtime if it wasn't a school night, so I would often stay up really late on weekends watching the random craziness that was 1980s late night cable. I also remember it coming back in the early 90s as a 30 minute or so syndicated show that would run really late on the non-network-affiliated station, but all that show really did was play videos. It sucks that nothing like that can exist now in the focus-grouped and micromanaged world of modern television.
posted by DecemberBoy at 6:20 AM on March 2, 2009

December Boy - I own 1-12 (I need to order the rest) of these Night Flight dvd's. Highly recommended, and only 5 bucks each :)
posted by vronsky at 9:02 AM on March 2, 2009

Super Sentai:

In every Sentai series, the fight between good and evil is illustrated, with the good side winning most of the time. The basic premise of the series is that a group of five (in some cases fewer) people gain special powers (magical or technological), wear colored outfits, and use advanced weapons and martial arts skills to battle powerful beings from other planets and/or dimensions threatening to take over the Earth...

The first Sentai series, Himitsu Sentai Goranger, was created by the late Shotaro Ishinomori, creator of Kamen Rider and Cyborg 009 in 1975.
posted by P.o.B. at 9:08 AM on March 2, 2009

I was just thinking about this show the other day. How it just came out of nowhere on Night Flight, and was damn hilarious.
posted by gcbv at 9:37 AM on March 2, 2009

oh man, Night Flight was like a total oasis for me back inna day. I grew up in a small town in the central part of California and there was nothing around that was edgy or cool.

Stumbling on Night Flight was a god-send. I told all my friends about it and we'd stay up late and watch it.

And I totally agree with upthread sentiments about "nothing on like that now". I guess it's because everything is like that now. I miss the secret-ness of it, I guess.

What's weirder still is I find myself even saying things like "nothing on like that now" is starting to sound dated. The word on is, for me, anyway, almost obsolete now.

It's more like that there's nothing that's "off". It's as if people have to turn "off", not the content. It's 24/7 now.

this is definitely the part where someone born in 1986 leads me gently off-stage and subtly signals for a nice, hydrating glass of water is brought to me.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 9:55 AM on March 2, 2009

December Boy - I own 1-12 (I need to order the rest) of these Night Flight dvd's. Highly recommended, and only 5 bucks each :)

Awesome! I ordered the 8 DVD set. That's 16 hours, complete with vintage 80s commercials! I love shit like that. Thanks for the link.
posted by DecemberBoy at 10:37 AM on March 2, 2009

There is a seller on Ioffer who has a collection of 125 (!) hours of night flight available for a mere $59.99. Mind blowing. The same seller also has New Wave Theatre.
posted by Listener_T at 12:39 PM on March 2, 2009

I am honestly tempted Listener_T. As great as the texan set is, and it does an admirable job of conveying a sense, or simulacrum of, the experience of watching NIght Flight early '80s, it really only scratches the surface of the greatness that was Night Flight with Pat Prescott.

Here are some nf videos I have found on youtube -- Hard Woman, Yolanda, you lean, Adventures in Success, J-Men Forever, and Way Back (baritone guitar, harmonica, vocals: John Sebastian
rickenbacker 12strings, vocals: Roger McGuinn).
vocals: Ronnie Spector

I'll post more as I find them.
posted by vronsky at 4:30 PM on March 2, 2009

Bill Kopp's Mr. Gloom

Devo - It Takes A Worried Man

Johnny Lydon & Afrika Bambaataa: World Destruction-

Fishbone - Party at Ground Zero

Pleasure of Love
posted by vronsky at 4:45 PM on March 2, 2009

Nam June Paik and Shigeko Kubota

Chinese Nightingale

Howie Mandel -- (scroll to 1:50)

Wonderin'

Kate Bush: Watching You Without Me
posted by vronsky at 5:29 PM on March 2, 2009

I remember when I was about 8 or 9, my Dad stumbed onto Night Flight's Dynaman late one night, and midway through he decided to tape a chunk of it to show me in the morning. Although I was steeped in giant robot culture from hours spent watching Transformers/Gobots/Voltron, it was like nothing I'd ever seen before! I didn't really get a lot of the humor, but the voiceovers were broad enough to seem funny to a third grader. I wasn't familiar with most of the music either, but I could tell that it was pretty cool, eclectic stuff. For the better part of the next month, I watched and re-watched that same 8-minute snippet of VHS, and showed it to friends, some of whom "got" it and most of whom didn't. I forgot about it up until a few years ago, when I stumbled on some of these same Dynaman vids on Youtube, and I realized that in many ways, the last 20 years of my life has been all about making sense of everything that was encoded in that tiny bit of Dynaman.

Thank you Dynaman, for making me an ironic hipster dork.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:03 AM on March 4, 2009