The 65 Episodes of Maple Town

[mwest1980]

As research for my planned blog, I uncovered a mystery that I hope to solve.  When Maple Town was exported to the United States, the plan was to run the show in syndication as 65-episodes.

Before I continue, I need to explain for non-Americans what I just described.  In the USA, syndication is a practice of selling a show, not to one exclusive network, but to individual TV stations to do with as they wish.  This practice is rarer today because of cable, satellite and streaming.  The TV Tropes Wiki has more information about syndication.  A 65-episode series (like an animated one) is the standard practice for both reruns and first run series, allowing the whole series to be shown over 13 weeks (about 3 months) provided that one episode runs during Monday through Friday.

Maple Town was originally intended to run in syndication and its early US broadcasts in 1987 did this.  I watched it on WNYW in New York City back in 1987.  It then moved to Nickelodeon where it ran until 1993 with all 52 episodes never being shown.

So here is my question - since Maple Town only had 52 episodes total, where were the remaining 13 episodes going to come from? 

Were new episodes going to be animated for the USA?  This was done with Voltron.

Was the Maple Town movie from 1986 going to be turned into a US TV episode?

Were the distributors planning to dub and edit in episodes from Palm Town?

Personally, I have suspected the third one - the distributors (Saban) may have planned to dub episodes of Palm Town and use editing to explain how Patty goes to Palm Town.  This was done with Robotech; Carl Macek did not have enough episodes from Super Dimension Fortress Macross for the required 65 episodes so he took two unrelated anime, Super Dimension Armored Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada, to edit into Robotech.

Unfortunately, this is just a theory.  If anyone can expand on my theory or offer definitive proof of what was going to happen, I'd appreciate it. 

[asdf12345]

I've never heard of the show having 65 episodes, where did you hear that at?

I think around the 80's was the time where some (or most) cartoons were mainly merchandise driven, and that sometimes the success of said merchandise would help determine how long the show would run. Good example would be Thundercats.

I don't know much about the remaining 13 episodes but I imagine they would have been made if Maple Town was more successful, and were just syndicated mainly for an estimate number

[mwest1980]

The Wikipedia entry on Maple Town -

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_Town


It's listed under the "broadcast history" section and the sources cited seem to be the Advertising Age trade journal.

That's where this came from.

[Philip]

Most likely the last batch of episodes would have been adapted from Palm Town. I don't think they would have commissioned new episodes to be made, unless the show/toyline had been super popular. One of the main reasons the franchise was brought over in the first place was probably that it was cheap to do so.

There wouldn't have been any need to change the original storyline, but maybe they would have if they didn't want to take focus away from the Maple Town setting in favor of a new one. They could easily say Patty just went to visit her aunt in Palm Town for summer vacation. The characters very rarely go to school in that series (maybe like two episodes?), and Patty didn't spend many episodes training to be a nurse either.

There were no plans to bring the Palm Town toyline to the US, and two Palm Town playsets had already been repurposed for the US toyline. Tonka was going to release the Lamb Sheep figure in 1989, as a completely different character (a nursery school teacher), but toyline was cancelled before that could happen. However, the Saban dub didn't seem all that concerned with following the toyline anyway (and it's not like they could change anything in the animation), except that they used the same character names where applicable.

[mwest1980]

Jun 25, 2018 7:26:14 GMT -5 Philip said:

Most likely the last batch of episodes would have been adapted from Palm Town. I don't think they would have commissioned new episodes to be made, unless the show/toyline had been super popular. One of the main reasons the franchise was brought over in the first place was probably that it was cheap to do so.

There wouldn't have been any need to change the original storyline, but maybe they would have if they didn't want to take focus away from the Maple Town setting in favor of a new one. They could easily say Patty just went to visit her aunt in Palm Town for summer vacation. The characters very rarely go to school in that series (maybe like two episodes?), and Patty didn't spend many episodes training to be a nurse either.

There were no plans to bring the Palm Town toyline to the US, and two Palm Town playsets had already been repurposed for the US toyline. Tonka was going to release the Lamb Sheep figure in 1989, as a completely different character (a nursery school teacher), but toyline was cancelled before that could happen. However, the Saban dub didn't seem all that concerned with following the toyline anyway (and it's not like they could change anything in the animation), except that they used the same character names where applicable.

Phillip, I do agree that this was the most likely option for the dubbers; this was done with Robotech.

As I discussed elsewhere on this forum, I have reason to believe that all 52 episodes of Maple Town were dubbed into English for the planned syndication run in the USA and Canada. 

The source of this theory was an individual who contacted me years ago on YouTube.  He was Canadian and claimed to have seen the remaining episodes of Maple Town that did not run on Nickelodeon in the USA.  He also claimed these episodes did NOT have the Mrs. Maple segments.  Unfortunately, I have since lost contact with this person and have no way to verify this information.

Presently, a syndication company called Kushner-Locke holds the TV rights to Maple Town and has 39 episodes available.  What has become of the remaining dubbed episodes (if they do exist) is anyone's guess.  I have also tried to contact both Rebecca Forstadt (Patty Rabbit's English voice) and Edie Mirman (Miss Deer) to ask them about recording dialogue for all the episodes - they did not respond.  So unless they do or some other Canadians come forward to verify the above information, it will remain yet another unsolved mystery around Maple Town's English dub. 

[Philip]

Now that's interesting! Good to know which company owns the rights to the English dub. The fact that their site states 39 episodes suggests to me that these are all the English dubbed episodes that exist. Surely if they bought the rights, they would have received everything that was available.

Unless somehow a Canadian network managed to get the rights to the remaining episodes and produced their own English dub of it? I think that's extremely unlikely, but interesting to think about nonetheless. The lack of a Mrs. Maple segment would imply a different adaptation style compared to Saban's. Maybe it would even have kept the Japanese background music intact.

Most likely the Canadian person who contacted you is mistaken. It's very easy to misremember and confuse things, especially from when you were very young. Sadly, I don't expect the voice actors either to remember 30 years later how many episodes they did for a cartoon which was likely one among many. Keep digging though! You never know when you find something.

There are two episodes of Maple Town I assumed wouldn't have been adapted to English because of their subject matter. But there is an English title for one of them (16. "The Spirit of Twin Peaks"), so who knows. Out of the 39 episodes, we only have titles for 32, right?

[mwest1980]

"The Spirit of Twin Peaks" episode doesn't ring a bell as it's not on the bootleg DVD I got online of English dubbed episodes.

A Canadian television network showing episodes that did not air in syndication or on Nickelodeon in the USA may not be so far-fetched. When a licensee or network pays for rights to air a TV show (especially a foreign one), they have considerable control over when episodes get aired. In rare cases, new episodes may actually air in a foreign country rather than the series' native country! (TV Tropes calls that "Short Run in Peru" - tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShortRunInPeru). It is possible that a Canadian network did broadcast these remaining episodes without Mrs. Maple.

As for these episodes lacking Mrs. Maple, that might make sense too. Phillip, I don't know if you ever watched the English dubs but her role became less important as more episodes aired. Early on, the character talked a lot and tied her anecdote into the episode of what Patty Rabbit, Bobby Bear, etc. deal with. The later episodes make her role more brief; Mrs. Maple would briefly summarize what to expect in the episode.

Unfortunately, my whole theory is based on the secondhand account of one Canadian person. Unless some other individuals can verify this, it remains just a theory. I have put out a call on my blog, the Maple Town Compendium, for anyone with into to come forward. Phillip, would you know of any other Canadians on this board who might know more?

I am going to try later this week to attempt contacting Rebecca Forstadt again. I don't want to come off as a creepy stalker to her so I'll be polite as I can.

[Philip]

I can definitely believe that Canada aired episodes that the US didn't. But if all 52 episodes were dubbed by Saban, then surely Kushner-Locke would have all of them if they received the rights to the dub? Yet their site states 39 episodes.

Looking over the English episode list, I notice the last two known episodes are #38 and #39 of the Japanese version. I suppose then the logical conclusion is that all of episodes 1-39 exist in English. Possibly some could have been left out of the US broadcast, but aired in Canada?

Episode 16 is called "The God of Mt. Rabbit" in the original version, and Patty visibly prays in it. Even if they changed "god" to "spirit", the religious connotations would still very much be there. Episode 34 features an alcoholic father who yells at his daughter, and even if he never hits her she is clearly intimidated by him. I have a hard time seeing Saban adapting this episode in particular, but perhaps they did. And perhaps it was still withheld from airing in the US because they couldn't tone it down enough.

I unfortunately don't know anyone from Canada who could've watched it back then. Hopefully someone will turn up who can remember it though. Good questions to ask would be if they remember watching episodes in English without the Mrs. Maple lady, and if they can remember the plots of any of these episodes. Particularly if they can remember any episodes with a gray rabbit aunt with glasses, and Patty leaving Maple Town together with this aunt. Those are things that might stick out in people's memory if they watched it.

I wish you luck in reaching Rebecca Forstadt!

[Petran79]

They did something similar with Hutch the Honeybee at that time where they combined episodes from both the 90 episodes original and the 26 episode sequel in a 65 episode mix, while also editing out the drama and violence and completely changing the finale. What is worse, they exported that version to Europe too.

Though probably they would have found issues in continuity, adding Palm town characters in Maple Town and vice versa, though Palm Town made it easy for them by the visit of maple town characters in palm town and vice versa.

Palm town compared to maple town is 80 years ahead in technology too!