I had the Red Baron set, bought at the local WalMart, and watched a couple of episodes, but never got back to it and lost it in a move (with a few other dvds).  It was okay, but it wasn't as fun as Johnny Sokko, to my tastes.  Never saw Iron King.

I saw Johnny Sokko and Ultraman (the original series) on Channel 44, Chicago, at my grandparent's house, in the late70s/dawn of the 80s.  Weekday afternoons were heavily Japanese, with Speed Racer and then Ultraman on M, W, F and Johnny Sokko Tu and Th.  They also showed the Marvel Super Heroes cartoons then.  That same channel also used to show Star Blazers (Space Battleship Yamato), on the weekend.  Ultraman was okay, but the episodes always had a sameness to them, which got old quickly.  Johnny Sokko had a bit more variety and was goofy fun.  as an adult, I appreciate the goofiness even more and have watched the whole series.  Like the organizational stuff (loved that the UNICORN regional branches wore culturally stereotyped clothing that matched the region, like Tyrolean hats, in Switzerland) and the Giant Robot and Monster fights were pretty good.

Doug Rice, the comic book artist, turned me onto Kamen Rider, though I had already heard of the earlier hero Gekko Kamen, which was featured in a 1960s tv series and manga.  I had asked him about his designs for Mark Skaw's new Manhunter costume and mask, in the 1980s series and he said from that and the Super Sentai shows (and the Metal Hero and similar tokusatsu shows).  Luckily, there was a bootleg video at the same show and I picked up Kamen Rider Z-O, which was relatively recent (a movie special) and a compilation of Kamen Rider X episodes (I should have also grabbed one of the Kamen Rider V3 tapes he had).  I enjoyed the heck out of Kamen Rider X.  Z-O had nice effects and look good, but the story was kind of dull and it took a while for anything exciting to happen.  The earlier stuff got down to business right away.

From there, I saw an ad in The Comic Buyer's Guide classified section for someone selling that stuff and bought a tape of the last 4 episodes of Kamen Rider Blax RX, which featured the hero teamed up with all of the previous Riders, against the main villains.  That was pretty damn awesome.  I then bought a Kamen Rider Black tape from the same guy (Damon Foster, who contributed articles to Draculina magazine and did the fanzines Oriental Cinema and Heroes on Film, through Draculina), with the first 4 episodes.  Loved that stuff.  I have since gotten digital downloads of all of the Kamen Rider series up through Black RX, plus the specials and movies, through Kamen Rider J.  Haven't watched it all, since I acquired them recently, but really want to watch the original through X, at least key episodes, and all of Black and Black RX.  Also acquired some of the early Sentai/Super Sentai shows (GoRangers, JAKQ, Battle Fever J) and Jetman (since it homaged Gatchaman).  The older stuff, I find, is more serious in presentation, but with more entertaining goofiness than the stuff from the 80s...though it depends on the show.  Early 70s material, up through mid-70s tends to be more fun, to me.

Black and Black RX have good central stories, especially with Shadow Moon, to make it interesting.

I gave the Power Rangers a try, when they debuted, but it was so dumb, in the American segments that I couldn't stomach whole episodes just to see the Japanese fight choreography.  Plus, by that point the cheesy stuff had gotten institutionalized, in Japan.  Jetman would have made a better start (and they pitched it, earlier, but were rejected); but, there you go.  Of course, I was in my 20s, when it debuted; so, I wasn't the target audience.  I had high hopes for Masker Rider, when it was announced, until I saw what they did with it and decided it was better to watch the originals, even without subtitles or speaking the language.  The stuff I have now has fan-made subtitles.

I kind of find the Toei shows, especially those initiated by Shotaro Ishinomori, to be more entertaining than Tsuburaya's stuff.  I have watched at least the debut episodes of the Ultra series, up through Ultraman 80 (on Youtube, on the Shout Factory channel) and had seen the Hanna-Barbera Ultraman cartoon and an episode or two of Ultraman:  Towards the Future.  The stuff was fine; but, the earlier stuff seemed a bit more entertaining, even as the effects were better, later.  Maybe its the enthusiasm they had for what they were doing, compared to later. 

While I've always appreciated Ultraman, it always seemed to struggle finding it's own identity when compared to Sentai or Kamen Rider. My favorite iteration has always been Denkou Choujin Gridman/Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad (which recently got a second life as an anime series by Gainax). It's kind of a hodge-podge of Sentai mech combinations, 90's cyberpunk, and Ultraman thrown into a blender (the American adaptation even had Tim Curry voicing the bad guy)

When it comes to Toku, I generally tend to prefer the "off-the-beaten-path" stuff like Dennou Keisatsu Cybercop, Blue Swat, Tomica Hero Rescue Fire, or even Kodai Shōjo Doguchan. I just love the craftsmanship that goes into this type of stuff. While I flip-flop loving the newer Sentai and Kamen Rider shows (sometimes they can be so godawful, but then you have to remind yourself that they're intended for children), you really can't beat the classics.

Brought home the complete Kung-Fu (1972) box set yesterday and watched the pilot, it's a show that's been on my radar for a very long time. Thought the pilot was excellent and I'm looking forward to seeing more

I remember watching the pilot film, then the first season of the tv show, which is excellent. It got a little repetitive by the third season.

David Chow, who did the fight choreography (and played the bounty hunter, who fights Caine, in the climax), also did choreography and fought the lead in another tv martial arts pilot film, Men of the Dragon, starring Jared Martin and Robert Ito, as well as Katie Saylor, as Martin's sister, who is kidnapped by the villain, played by Joseph Wiseman (Dr No). Mostly swipes from Enter the Dragon, but still entertaining.



Martin and Saylor also worked together on the short-lived sci-fi series, Fantastic Journey.

I saw the tv movie they did, with Brandon Lee, who is supposed to be Caine's son.  I then saw the pilot for the Kung Fu, The Legend Continues series (part of that whole Hercules/Tekwar bloc of programming) and it was okay, but nowhere near as good as the original.  Carradine is supposed to be the grandson or great-grandson of the original Caine.  The actor who played his son was also the guy who voiced Gambit, on the X-Men cartoon.

Lot of people never knew that Keye Luke, who played the blind Master Po, had been the original screen Kato, in the Green Hornet movie serials.  The actor portraying the Green Hornet changed between serials, but they kept Keye Luke on it.  He was also Number 1 Son, in the Charlie Chan films (some of them) and starred in The Phantom of Chinatown, where he got to portray a real Asian detective, not a white actor in yellowface.  He was also the voice of Zoltar in the Sandy Frank redub of Gatchaman, known as Battle of the Planets.

I think you could count Michael Mann and Chuck Adamson's Crime Story as another pioneer, as they had a continuity across episodes, an showcased both sides of the coin, between Dennis Farina and the Major Crimes Unit and Anthony Dennison, as Ray Luca, the up and coming crime boss. Luca and his motivations got a lot of attention, which isn't surprising as that is the same team that produced Heat (based on Mann's tv pilot film, LA Takedown, with Adamson's experiences as a basis, further developed into Heat). Crime Story took inspiration from Joseph Waumbaugh's Police Story, an anthology series (which also served for pilots for other police shows, like Police Woman) and from Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz mini-series (also an inspiration for Tom Tykwer's Babylon Berlin).