Line #18 Trivia/UltraQ


1	* CutShort: Due to ExecutiveMeddling seeking to pave the way for ''Series/{{Ultraman}}'' as soon as possible, the series ended on an unimpressive (though not terrible) note despite its popularity.
2	* FollowTheLeader
3	** Considered by western fans to be this to ''Series/{{The Outer Limits\|1963}}'' or ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone\|1959}}'', but a better comparison is found in ''Franchise/{{Quatermass}}''. Which makes it funnier that the unaired English dub was made by the producers of ''The Twilight Zone'', and acquired by the producers of ''The Outer Limits''. Ironically, in Japan, ''Ultra Q'''s popularity helped to boost the ratings of its American counterparts.
4	** Also, it was the popularity of the ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' franchise that led to the giant monsters taking center stage and the ''Franchise/UltraSeries'' that followed being all about heroes vs. kaiju. Creator/EijiTsuburaya didn't want it to be this way at first, but was talked into including more kaiju by ExecutiveMeddling.
5	* HeyItsThatSound: Gorgos' roars are those of Franchise/{{Godzilla}} and [[Film/KingKongVsGodzilla King Kong]], while Namegon's roar is that of Film/{{Varan\|TheUnbelievable}}.
6	* ProductionPosse: Most of the people who worked on this show were members of Tsuburaya's Creator/{{Toho}} SFX team. Most of them, and many of the writers, directors, and the like would also work on ''Series/{{Ultraman}}'' and ''Series/UltraSeven''.
7	* PropRecycling: Many of the kaiju suits were recycled from Creator/{{Toho}} as Creator/EijiTsuburaya owned the suits.
8	** The first monster, Gomess, was quite clearly a repurposed Godzilla suit (specifically the ''Film/MothraVsGodzilla'' suit) while Litra was Rodan (specifically the puppet used for Rodan's flight scenes in ''Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster'').
9	** Goro the giant monkey was simply the King Kong suit from ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla'' with a tail.
10	** The Kai Dragon was made from [[Film/{{Atragon}} Manda]].
11	** Litra was remade into Larugeus, and was in turn reused as the Giant Condor from ''Film/EbirahHorrorOfTheDeep''.
12	** [[Film/FrankensteinConquersTheWorld Baragon]] was made into Pagos.
13	** Sudar was the Giant Octopus prop used in ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla'' when Kong fights it (Toho used live octopuses for the non-fighting scenes).
14	** Todola was made out of Maguma from ''Film/{{Gorath}}''.
15	** Several of the suits were reused for ''Series/{{Ultraman}}''. Baragon[=/=]Pagos was remade into Neronga, Magular, and Gabora, Peter was remade into Gesura, Kemur and Ragon's appearances were reused, Peguila and Garamon became Chandler and Pigmon respectively, and the Cicada Man was modified into Alien Baltan.
16	* OutOfOrder: All of the episodes are sporadically ordered compared to their filmed order. For example "Mammoth Flower" was the First episode filmed but the fourth one aired. A lot of the times you can actually tell roughly when a episode was filmed by two factors. One if it doesn't involve a giant monster because they where less frequent until TBS force them to focus on more monsters and two if Professor Ichinotani is in it who was phased out in the later filmed episodes.
17	* ScheduleSlip: The 28th and final episode "Open Up!" was delayed for many months, due to the premiere of ''Series/{{Ultraman}}''.
18	* ShortLivedBigImpact: Despite only running for 27 episodes from January 2 to July 3 in 1966, ''Series/UltraQ'' was one of the most popular television series of its day and continues to influence Japanese popular culture, including spawning the even bigger hit ''Series/{{Ultraman}}'' and the rest of the ''Franchise/UltraSeries''.
19	* UnfinishedEpisode:
20	** A number of episodes of ''Series/{{Ultraman}}'' were made from unused ''Series/UltraQ'' scripts, notably "Oil S.O.S.", which had a manta-like creature named Clapton instead of Pestar as seen in ''Ultraman''.
21	** The intended series finale would have featured a villainous bird-like alien named Bemlar trying to conquer Earth. The Bemlar character would later be recycled as the first concept for Ultraman.
22	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
23	** The original draft for the series was called ''[=WoO=]'', starring a comical, bug-eyed alien named Woo who befriended a news reporter named Joji Akita, but had to fight monsters and avoid the armed forces who saw him as a threat. The alien's name was recycled for a monster in ''Series/{{Ultraman}}'' and the concept was revived in 2006 with ''Series/BioPlanetWoo''.
24	** Series/{{Ultraman}} was originally going to be in an ''Ultra Q'' episode, where he was going to be an alien villain, instead of a superhero. More specifically, he was to be a bird-like warlord called Bemlar, and when work began on ''Ultraman'', they recycled Bemlar as the first concept for Ultraman.
25	** Eiji Tsuburaya wanted episodes where monsters from earlier ones would fight each other, but the show ended before he could ever get around to that.
26	*** Among these concepts were Peter vs. Pagos, Pagos vs Garamon (Kemur would have appeared in either of these episodes aiding the antagonist monster), M1 and the Cicada Man vs. Gorgos and Goro vs. Garamon.
27	** Jun was originally meant to own a flying car while Dr. Ichinotani was supposed to narrate the beginning and the end of each episode a la Creator/RodSerling. The former was dropped in favor of the character being a pilot while the latter was replaced with a disembodied narrator (Koji Ishizaka) as Tsuburaya felt they were too derivative and ruined audience immersion.
28	** The ape-like artificial lifeform M1 from "The Underground Super Express Goes West" was originally going to be accompanied by an M2, which would have been an insectoid lifeform instead.
29	** The ''Series/{{Ultraman}}'' episode "Oil S.O.S." was originally written for this series, the monster was originally a giant stingray-like creature called Clapton. Ultimately, the Clapton prop was repurposed into Bostang and Clapton was replaced with Pestar.
30	** Maverick Ultra Series director Akio Jissoji pitched an idea for an episode featuring a {{Baku}}-based kaiju for this series, but nothing ultimately came out of it at the time. Years later, Jissoji would revisit his idea in ''Series/UltramanTiga'' with the episode "Dream" and the monster Bakugon.
31	** There were plans to air English-language episodes of ''Ultra Q'' on American television, but they ultimately never came to be, and the only episode that can be found dubbed is the third episode "The Gift from Space". The rest were feared to be lost for decades until Creator/{{MGM}} discovered them in their archives. No word on release plans though.
32	* WorkingTitle: ''Unbalance''. The name change came from the popularity of the term "Ultra" in Japan due to a well-known gymnastic maneuver called the Ultra-C that was used by gymnasts at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Context Trivia / UltraQ