Read more about Monkey (Monkey Magic) at: Wikipedia

Official Site: Nippon Television

Monkey is the dubbed English language version of the Japanese television series , based on the classic sixteenth century Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. It was originally produced by Nippon Television (NTV) and International Television Films in association with NHK.

The series ran for two seasons of 26 episodes each. The first season ran from October 1978 to April 1979. The second season ran from November 1979 to May 1980. Both seasons had footage shot on location in north-west China and Inner Mongolia.

The show is unusual in that it was performed by Japanese actors in China and then dubbed into English. The English language version was produced by the BBC and broadcast in the United Kingdom in November 1979, and in Australia in May 1981. The script for the dubbed dialogue was written by David Weir. It ran for only 39 episodes, because at the discretion of the BBC select episodes were not dubbed for the original run. These remaining episodes were dubbed by Fabulous Films Ltd in early 2004 by the original actors following a successful release of the English dubbed series on VHS and DVD. The missing 13 episodes were shown on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on 8 September 2004.

Besides Australia and the UK, Monkey has also aired in New Zealand and is available on DVD. Monkey has not been screened in the United States, although Saiyūki was screened on a local Japanese-language TV station in California during the early 1980s. Saiyuki also aired in Hawaii around the same time, although the version that was aired was neither dubbed nor subtitled.

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