Remember the days when the favorite cartoons of kids were G.I. Joe, the Transformers, the Carebears, Looney Tunes, etc.? Well, that's just that. American cartoons were rampant those days. It was the typical saturday morning line-up. Some of these also graced the daily line-up of shows. Some are even made to movies, like He-Man, Bravestar and the ever popular Ghostbusters. It was a time when cartoons were just cartoons. I guess your thinking anime was not yet introduced in that time around.

Actually, anime and its influence was already present at that time in Philippine TV. It's just that we don't notice it because of two reasons: We haven't grasped the idea of anime yet, and that the anime that we are watching is coming from an american title.

There have been many animes that were being shown back in those days. Since at that time we have no idea on what anime looks like, we tend to see it as normal cartoons. I can't recall all of those animes that were shown at that time but I do remember one. It was Candy Candy, and it was IBC 13 who aired it. It was a story of a young girl struggling with her life, and by an enormous set of circumstances, finds the one she truly loves...blah blah blah....you know how that story goes. Viewers of that show (like me) have already noticed its difference with american cartoons with respect to animation, drawing and theme but since no one has the idea of anime yet, all regarded it as a simple cartoon that has a different style.

Some of the anime that was shown back in those days have american titles, and because of that we thought that they were american cartoons. An example is Voltron(GoLion in Japan). The story is about 5 people trying to protect the universe from evil forces with the help of a big mecha that was formed from 5 mecha lions. It was also first aired in IBC 13. An american TV network(Hanna Barbera, if my memory is correct) bought the rights to that anime, and it was this network that also supplied the english dubbing for the anime. Peter Keefe was the executive producer; he was also responsible for some of the successful cartoons, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.