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"The biggest problem with Zark was in how little they established his character; a character that was never meant to be there at all. So little was ever explained about Zark that it was never clear what he actually did..."

---from the article

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Unfortunately for U.S. kids in the 1970's, the original cartoon was considered too violent, "demanding" that some parts were edited out completely. Trouble is: the whole point to Gatchaman was its teenage, PG-13 edge, making it hard to translate for a G-rated audience. So much was edited, in fact, that they had very little of the actual cartoon left! So entered 7-Zark-7; a little robot that would narrate the story, filling in the blanks at some parts, and simply acting like a comedy relief time-filler in others. Oh, he also had a little dog --robotic, of course-- called 1-Rover-1.

Like other bad characters on this list, it didn't help that Zark was most often animated via the exact same animation clips, repeated over and over. There would be a close-up shot of his lights flashing (supposedly in sync with his voice, even though they rarely were), a shot of him looking at his view screen (which rarely ever changed its view!), and the typical shot of him "flying" to his control panel just two yards away (talk about pointless ways to fill empty space in a cartoon!).

The biggest problem with Zark was in how clear it was that he was never meant to be there at all. So little was ever explained about Zark that it was never clear what he actually did. He supposedly watched over the G-force team, but...did he? They'd get into a jam, and Zark would offer little more than an "Oh dear," or they'd need a warning of some kind, and Zark wouldn't warn them. Why? Because he never did in the original story; that's why. As I said; he was just filler. Pointless purposeless filler.

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