The Origin of TV Station Stories? Dobinson's Odyssey 'The Great Alley Channel Chaos' / Starting a TV Station Part 3

Starting a TV Station was the title under which I wrote two articles covering two stories from "Doraemon" about opening a TV station.

These two stories were drawn within a span of about a year and a half.
"Nobitaro Appears on TV" (February 1974 issue)
"Nobi Broadcasting Association" (October 1975 issue)

Since both works shared the same theme and had very similar developments in terms of content, one of them was not included in the Tentomushi Comics collection.

The two articles are as follows.

And, two and a half years before "Nobitaro Appears on TV," there actually exists a work that serves as the source material for the story about building a TV station. It is a story called "Dobinson's Odyssey" titled "The Great Alley Channel Chaos".

In this article, I will focus on that work.

"Dobinson's Odyssey" 'The Great Alley Channel Chaos'
"Kodomo no Hikari" July 1971 issue

"Dobinson's Odyssey" is a relatively minor work, and since I haven't covered it in the Fujiko F Note before, I will first briefly explain its overview.

"Dobinson's Odyssey" was written for two years starting from the January 1971 issue of the monthly magazine "Kodomo no Hikari," published by Ie no Hikari Association, which is famous for serializing "Kiteretsu Daihyakka." A total of 24 stories were produced.

It is a story about a young alien boy named Dobinson who gets into an accident in space and drifts to Earth. It is a play on the title "Robinson Crusoe", which Fujiko F-sensei loved since he was a child.

Dobinson grew up on a planet with advanced science called Planet Pod, and he assumes that Earthlings are people with a backward civilization. To Earthlings, he is a cheeky boy, but in reality, he is a child who gets crushed by the desire to return home quickly whenever he remembers his mom and dad.

Dobinson's partner is the Robot (Robot Boat) he boarded when the accident occurred. And then there is Masao-kun and his mom and dad, with whom Dobinson ends up staying. Note that Masao's surname could not be confirmed in the work.

The work depicts Dobinson's struggles to somehow escape from Earth, as well as the chaos caused by his inventions and belongings that utilize the advanced science of Planet Pod.

With that introduction out of the way, let's take a closer look at this work.

Masao's family and Dobinson are watching TV together as a family. It gets late at night, and Masao and his family go to sleep, but Dobinson continues to watch TV. However, in the middle of the night, the broadcast ends. In this era, TV stations would shut down late at night.

When the screen turns to static, Dobinson tries to go to sleep, but footage of Dobinson's mom and dad suddenly starts playing. This work is the 7th episode of "Dobinson's Odyssey," but this is the first appearance of his mom and dad.

Mom and Dad are searching the universe for Dobinson, and they say they are constantly sending out radio waves as part of their search. To reply to the broadcast, they rush to have Robot build a camera, but they cannot build a camera that can transmit strong radio waves using Earth parts.

While this is happening, Mom says, 'Don't lose hope because the Space Patrol is looking for you,' and the broadcast ends. Facing the TV, which has returned to static, Dobinsonsheds tears and says, 'Mom...'He is still just a child who wants to be pampered by his parents.

Then, the next morning. The makeshift camera Robot built is left sitting in front of the TV. Masao, who wakes up groggy, sits in front of the camera, and his actions—scratching around his belly button and being pulled by his ear by his mom to hurry up and go to school—arebroadcast on the TVs of neighboring houses.

Masao, who was mortified after hearing about it at school, comes home and demands to know what's going on with Dobinson, who explains that the camera's radio waves reached the neighborhood. To Dobinson, the camera is a failure, but Masao gets the idea touse this camera to start a broadcasting station and air programs.

Dobinson isn't excited, saying, 'I got bored of playing broadcasting station in kindergarten,' but when Masao suggests, 'If we get sponsors, we'll make money,so we can buy a good camera,' Dobinson and Robot immediately change their minds and agree, saying, 'Let's do it!'

This is the introduction leading up to starting the TV stationFrom here, the story unfolds with finding sponsors and program meetings, but since it uses almost the same material as the two later 'Doraemon' broadcasting station works, I will cover those points.

First, finding sponsors. In 'Nobita Broadcasting Association', they also went around the shopping district looking for sponsors, but they didn't find any right away. In this work, conversely, they successfully acquire sponsors. They go around selling one time slot (30–60 minutes) for the bargain price of 100 yen.

By the way, in the two 'Doraemon' works, they think about what kind of program to make, and then realize they need money, so they recruit sponsors. The order of events is reversed.

Next, Masao and Dobinson and the others discuss the crucial broadcast content. The ideas that come up here are as follows.

・Drama → Too difficult
・Quiz show → Reluctant to give out prize money
・Cooking show → Just film Mom making food

These kinds of programming meetings are also scenes that appear in later 'Doraemon' episodes.

The first program, 'Tonight's Menu', begins broadcasting. However, Mom hasn't started preparing dinner yet. When they urge her to hurry up and make it, she says there is leftover curry from last night and miso soup from lunch, and takes it easy.

Furthermore, not knowing she is being broadcast on TV, she says something selfish about the neighbor's husband who went fishing, saying, 'If he catches any, he'll give us two or three, right?' The neighbor, who heard that remark, visits and apologizes, saying, 'I didn't catch a single one today.'.

The trope of airing one's dirty laundry on a cooking show was carried over directly into 'Nobitaro Appears on TV'.

Then, the sponsor of the first time slot, the owner of the Nikawaya Liquor Store appears and complains about the commercial not being aired sooner. The attention-seeking owner then proceeds to promote his shop himself, but he starts talking at length about the history of the store since it opened and just won't stop. As expected, the reputation in the neighborhood is terrible.

Masao tells him to finish the commercial, but he retorts, It's my business how I use the time I bought. This pattern of a vocal sponsor interfering with the program is also carried over directly into the two 'Doraemon' works.

Next to appear are the wife and daughter of the 'Tempura-do Clock Shop'. This parent and child also say, 'This is time I bought!' and start the daughter's piano solo. This also has a bad reputation, and the protest calls won't stop ringing.

Finally, the neighborhood children, unable to stand it any longer, gather at Masao's house and all try to sell themselves to be used. Then, they all start their own performances—'Rakugo,' 'singing,' 'magic tricks,' and 'ballet'—at the same time, and the area in front of the camera falls into total chaos.

This uproar is also used in the punchline of 'Nobitaro Appears on TV'.

This work goes one step further from there. Masao's mother scolds him for making a racket in the house, telling him to 'do your homework instead of just playing around.' With this, the broadcast is canceled, but the fishmonger, who has already paid the sponsorship fee, calls to protest, saying, 'Aren't you going to broadcast it?'

So, Dobinson points the camera at Masao, who is doing his homework, and tries to broadcast an educational program called 'Today's Homework'. The work ends with Masao panicking and saying, 'Stop it!'

The episode of using homework explanations as a key content for the program is also reused in 'Nobitaro Appears on TV'.

To summarize so far...

'The Great Alley Channel Chaos' (July '71 issue) → 'Nobitaro Appears on TV' (February '74 issue) → 'Nobita Broadcasting Association' (October '75 issue)

The same theme of children 'opening a TV station' is depicted. Among these, the gags and structure used in the first 'Dobinson's Castaway Chronicles' have greatly influenced the content of the two later Doraemon works.

Specifically,
1. Program planning meetings, 2. Sponsor interference in the program, 3. Cooking show gags and homework show gags, 4. A large number of attention-seeking children rushing in

are points that appeared in Dobinson's Castaway Chronicles and were remade as-is in Doraemon.

A unique point of this work is that the reason for starting the TV station was that Dobinson built the camera out of his feelings for his mom and dad. It can be said that this is a development unique to 'Dobinson's Castaway Chronicles,' which sometimes drifts with nostalgia.

The plan was to go back even further in time in this article and introduce another work that depicts the same theme, but this article has become too long, so I would like to leave it here for now.

I am analyzing Fujiko works, from major to minor ones.