When I was a lad, before they rolled out the cable networks to the country where I spent my youth wreaking havok and destruction ‘pon unsuspecting mailboxes, we had to watch our weekday afternoon cartoons on something called “UHF” channels. Now, they were notrious for having….not so strong signals. In my area, we had channels 5, 43, 45 and 54. 5 and 43 came in well enough, and 54 was OK, but tended to run stuff for old people. Channel 45 was the weak little sister to the others, and unfortunately, it was also the one that carried Robotech. So, things like Invids and Veritech mecha mean very little to me, and I couldn’t pick Roy Fokker or Rick Hunter out of a lineup to save my life. Luckily for today’s kids, they have cable, DVDs and more. And sometime soon, they’ll be able to live the same soap opera my friends and wife did in their youth’ ’cause Cartoon Network’s got the broadcast rights to all 85 original Robotech eps. Ah, to be young again…

Following its 24/7 expansion last week, A.D. Vision’s The Anime Network announced yesterday it has acquired the anime series Robotech. Under the terms of the deal The Anime Network has the exclusive broadcast rights to all 85 episodes of the Harmony Gold series. Considered a pivotal series in the US, Robotech introduced anime to new audience, when it launched here in 1985. At the end of last year AD Films, also a division of A.D. Vision, announced plans to release Robotech Remastered: Extended Edition, a digitally remastered, picture and audio, DVD edition of the anime series. The first act of the Robotech adventure, Macross Saga (episodes 1-12), a two disc set featuring scenes cut from the original broadcast version of the series and a new opening and closing sequence, was released this past January, 2004. Volume 2 debuted in March and Volume 3 is slated for release May 18, 2004.

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