(With apologizes for being late due to needing to complete important homework.)
If there's one thing the animated adaptations of Osamu Tezuka's work, especially the 1950's adaptation of Astro Boy taught Japan, it's that if you take a popular manga and turn it into an anime, you get a popular anime as well. Indeed, anime and manga tend to be thought of as one continuous thing that shares and shares alike, and many manga and Japanese novels tend to be adapted into anime as well. As the top children's manga of the time, it made sense that Doraemon would make this transition, too.
There was a brief false start in 1973, one that was so disliked that it only adapted a few chapters before dying in a fire, literally! The second adaptation, however, one that premiered in 1979, was much more successful. The 1979 anime made it across various countries as well, meaning our boy Doraemon got to see some real exposure.
As a side note, many companies tried to bring the 1979 anime over to America as well, all with minimal success, and all because of one problem: Shizuka in the bath. See, the attempts came around the time when anime was really starting to break out thanks to Toonami's airing of Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, and many others. And, as our countless entries of No Girls Allowed! are any indication, cowardly American animators don't know what to do with a naked little girl other than panic. (Should've just done what Miyazaki did with Totoro, which we'll get to eventually...)
So, let's round up some notable Shizuka scenes from this period of time...
Exhibit A: The first Shizuka scene from the 1979 anime, an x-ray camera is used to take a picture of her. That would explain her vastly simplified anatomy.