The Mysteries of Maple Town Part 4

And now we come to the final part of the mysteries surrounding the North American broadcast of Maple Town.


What was the plan for the original proposed 65-episode run of Maple Town for US television?
My sources tell me that when Maple Town was exported to the US television market, there were plans to turn it into a 65-episode package for television syndication.  How was Saban and the Maltese Companies (they handled the North American dub) planning to even fill a 65-episode requirement?  Keep in mind that Maple Town had 52 episodes total, about 13 episode short of that above mentioned 65.


Before we continue, I will need to explain syndication to any non-American readers out there.  (My thanks to the TV Tropes page for this explanation!)  Because of the fact that television in the United States operates, syndication is a uniquely American design though some other countries have similar concepts.  

Anyway, when a television show is sold for broadcast, it is usually to a single network, be it broadcast, cable or satellite; said channel will broadcast that show exclusively and at a designated time.  When syndication is done, a show is sold to multiple independent television stations to do with as they wish.  When I say syndication, my fellow Americans will think of second-run syndication or off-network syndication; this is when a show that has already broadcast on a network and reruns of it air in syndication.  That's one kind of syndication.  There's also first-run syndication which was done with many cartoons of the 1980s such as He-Man, She-Ra, Transformers, Inspector Gadget, etc.  Yes, the original plan for Maple Town was to run it in first-run syndication; it did initially before moving over to Nickelodeon where it ran until 1993.

That's the long and short of it.  The above link to TV Tropes has more details on syndication and how it works.

As I said before, Maple Town broadcasted in "barter" syndication in the USA.  "Barter" syndication is where the episode is given for free to the network and allows the holder of the show to have more control over when it is aired.  This is contrast to "cash" syndication where the independent network is given total control over the show such as what episodes air and what time it airs.  In order to air in syndication, at least 65 episodes are needed mainly for animated series.  That's why most of the cartoons I mentioned above are that long.

But that still brings us back to our main question - how was this planned 65-episode dubbing of Maple Town going to work?

I have formulated a theory as to how they'd have stretched Maple Town into a 65-episode run.  It's possible that some episodes of the sequel Palm Town were going to be dubbed and edited to fill in the 65 episodes.  That may not be so far-fetched.  Carl Macek did this with Robotech.  He originally wanted to make the anime Super Dimension Fortress Macross into Robotech, but he didn't have enough episodes requires for syndication so he took two more series, Super Dimension Armored Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada, and carefully edited them into the required 65 episodes.  Of course, my above theory can't be proven unless someone out there can verify it.

On one final note, my sources tell me that television rights to the English Maple Town dub is presently held by the Kushner-Locke Company, which holds 39 episodes.

That's it for now, readers.  Any information or comments should be added below in the comments or sent to mapletown(at)gmx(dot)com.

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