Star Fleet

Star Fleet (Ｘボンバー Ekkusu Bonbā) is a marionette tokusatsu TV series. It was created by manga master Go Nagai, and produced by Cosmo Productions and Jin Productions.

Dubbing History
X-Bomber, as the series was originally known, was retitled Star Fleet for the English language dub produced by Leah Productions. Apart from the character name changes, there was relatively little changed from the original Japanese version in terms of story and editing. A reportedly damaged soundtrack necessitated a new soundtrack composed by Paul Bliss. The overly-literal translations provided by the Japanese studio were adapted by American writer Michael Sloan (who would later go on to create the popular TV series The Master and The Equalizer).

The English dub aired on ITV from October 23, 1982 to April 16, 1983. Whereas the show failed in its native Japan, it managed to become a sleeper-hit in the UK due to it dealing with topics not common in Television at the time. The show was popular enough that there were plans for the UK Licensee to finance the original studio to do a second season, with those plans only to fall with the news that the puppets and sets were mostly destroyed in a warehouse fire. The dub of show also managed to gain the attention of Queen artist Brian May, who did his own cover of the English theme with Eddie Van Halen in his 1983 solo-album Star Fleet Project.