Forget the giant turtle, that's Alan Oppenheimer!

This morning I had the TV all to myself, so I watched "Gammera The Invincible."
In the early days of Japan's kaiju eiga (monster movie) production, American film distributors would take the original Japanese films and tack on specially filmed scenes with U.S. actors. These scenes almost always provide additional expository information, I guess because the American distributors thought domestic audiences would have trouble following the "complex" plotting of the Japanese films: Jet with atom bombs crashes in arctic, explosion awakens sleeping giant turtle, angry giant turtle attacks Japan.
Hmmm... Perhaps that plot seemed more complex 40 years or so ago.
"Gammera The Invincible" is the Americanized version of "Daikaiju Gamera" (note the unexplained difference in spelling) the 1965 classic from Daiei Film Studios.
I have watched enough Japanese cinema to recognize familiar faces, so I was not surprised to see Bokuzen Hidari -- Yohei from "Shichinin no Samurai (Seven Samurai)" -- in "Gammera the Invincible" portraying an old man taken aback by the vision of a giant turtle flying around. I would remember Hidari's bushy eyebrows anywhere!
However, I was surprised to see veteran American character actor Alan Oppenheimer as Dr. Contrare, an expert used in the Americanized scenes to explain the likelihood that a slumbering, giant turtle could be awakened to terrorize Japan.
Oppenheimer is one of those actors who has appeared in COUNTLESS American television shows -- everything from "Get Smart" to "Gilmore Girls."
Judging from his entry in the Internet Movie Database, Oppenheimer NEVER takes a vacation. He is on television almost continuously in a variety of roles.
What's more, Oppenheimer has provided hundreds of cartoon voices for 40 years, portraying Mighty Mouse, Skeletor and Ming the Merciless.
Apart from the giant flying turtle, Oppenheimer might be the most famous star of "Gammera The Invincible," much to my surprise.