Saturday Supercade | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Genre | Anthology Comedy |
Written by |
|
Directed by |
|
Voices of |
|
Composers | |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 2 |
No. of episodes | 26 (97 segments) |
Production | |
Executive producers | |
Running time | 32-43 minutes (10-13 in every segment) |
Production company | Ruby-Spears Enterprises |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | September 17, 1983 – December 1, 1984 |
Saturday Supercade is an American animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions. It ran for two seasons on CBS. [1]
Each episode is composed of several shorter segments featuring video game characters from the golden age of arcade video games. [2]
The segments included:
Pitfall! and Q*bert rotated weekly while the other three were weekly.
During the second season, Q*bert (now weekly) and Donkey Kong remained while the Frogger, Pitfall! and Donkey Kong Jr. segments were replaced by shorts featuring:
Frogger (voiced by Bob Sarlatte) is an ace reporter of the swamp who works at The Swamp Gazette. He and his friends Shellshock "Shelly" Turtle (voiced by Marvin Kaplan) and Fanny Frog (voiced by B.J. Ward) go out in search of crazy stories (sometimes about human behavior) to publish in the newspaper. Frogger also has to deal with his gruff boss and editor-in-chief Tex Toadwalker (voiced by Ted Field Sr.). As in the game, he often has an encounter with an alligator or gets flattened by a passing car. Unlike the game, Shelly revives Frogger using an ordinary air pump.
Donkey Kong (voiced by Soupy Sales) has escaped from the circus. He is on the loose and Mario (voiced by Peter Cullen) and Pauline (voiced by Judy Strangis) are chasing the ape. As with the original game, Donkey Kong will often grab Pauline and Mario has to save her. Plots typically centered on them encountering crime with the villains conning the slow-witted Donkey Kong into doing their work and Mario and Pauline exposing the truth. After Mario and Pauline reveal the truth to Donkey Kong, the three of them team up to stop the antagonists' plans followed by Donkey Kong evading Mario and Pauline again.
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Written by | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | "Mississippi Madness" | Duane Poole and Tom Swale | September 17, 1983 |
2 | 2 | "Gorilla Gangster" | Gary Greenfield | September 24, 1983 |
3 | 3 | "Banana Bikers" | Michael Maurer | October 1, 1983 |
4 | 4 | "The Incredible Shrinking Ape" | Mark Jones, Michael Maurer, and Richard Merwin | October 8, 1983 |
5 | 5 | "Movie Mania" | Cliff Ruby and Elana Lesser | October 15, 1983 |
6 | 6 | "Gorilla My Dreams" | Gordon Kent, Jack Enyart, Michael Maurer, and Richard Merwin | October 22, 1983 |
7 | 7 | "Little Orphan Apey" | Unknown | October 29, 1983 |
8 | 8 | "Circus Daze" | Duane Poole, Michael Maurer, Richard Merwin, Tom Dagenais, and Tom Swale | November 5, 1983 |
9 | 9 | "The Great Ape Escape" | Richard Merwin | November 12, 1983 |
10 | 10 | "Apey and the Snowbeast" | Unknown | November 19, 1983 |
11 | 11 | "How Much is That Gorilla in the Window?" | Michael Brown | November 26, 1983 |
12 | 12 | "Private Donkey Kong" | Unknown | December 3, 1983 |
13 | 13 | "Get Along, Little Apey" | Michael Maurer and Richard Merwin | December 10, 1983 |
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Written by | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|---|
14 | 1 | "Sir Donkey Kong" | Unknown | September 8, 1984 |
15 | 2 | "The Pale Whale" | Unknown | September 15, 1984 |
16 | 3 | "El Donkey Kong" | Matt Uitz | September 22, 1984 |
17 | 4 | "New Wave Ape" | Richard Murphy | September 29, 1984 |
18 | 5 | "Greenhouse Gorilla" | James Diamond | October 6, 1984 |
19 | 6 | "Hairy Parent" | Sheryl Scarborough | October 13, 1984 |
Pitfall Harry (voiced by Robert Ridgely), his niece Rhonda (voiced by Noelle North), and their cowardly pet Quickclaw the Mountain Lion (voiced by Kenneth Mars) explore jungles for hidden treasures, having many different adventures along the way. Quickclaw and Rhonda later appeared in Pitfall II: Lost Caverns and Super Pitfall .
No. | Title | Written by | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "Pitfall's Panda Puzzle" | Unknown | September 17, 1983 |
2 | "Amazon Jungle Bungle" | Unknown | September 24, 1983 |
3 | "Raiders of the Lost Shark" | Jack Hanrahan | October 8, 1983 |
4 | "Tibetan Treasure Trouble" | Unknown | October 22, 1983 |
5 | "Masked Menace Mess" | Kayte Kuch | November 5, 1983 |
6 | "The Saber Tooth Goof" | Unknown | November 19, 1983 |
7 | "Pyramid Panic" | Unknown | December 3, 1983 |
In a 1950s-inspired world set in the town of Q*Berg, a teenage fur-covered creature named Q*bert (voiced by Billy Bowles), his girlfriend Q*Tee (voiced by Robbie Lee), his brother Q*Bit (voiced by Dick Beals), and his friends Q*Ball (voiced by Frank Welker), Q*Val (voiced by Robbie Lee), and Q*Mongus (voiced by Frank Welker) must deal with the resident bullies Coily, Ugg and Wrongway (all three voiced by Frank Welker), and Coily's girlfriend Viper (voiced by Julie McWhirter). As with the video game, the segment features "block-hopping" scenes, "swearing" bubbles, and occasional flying discs from the original game. New to the cartoon was Q*bert's use of "slippy-doos", a black ball projectile which he loaded and fired through his nose, producing an oil slick wherever the balls splattered. Slick and Sam (both voiced by Frank Welker) are also featured.
Season 1 (1989)
Season 2 (1990)
Donkey Kong Jr. (voiced by Frank Welker) is sad to find that his father has run away from Mario and the circus. He befriends a greaser nicknamed "Bones" (voiced by Bart Braverman) who has a motorcycle and offers to help Junior by finding his dad together. Donkey Kong Jr's catchphrase is "Monkey muscle!", which he tells to himself and Bones to inspire self-confidence. Bones often serves as the voice of reason when Donkey Kong Jr. bites off more than he can chew.
Joey Kangaroo (voiced by David Mendenhall), his mother "K.O." Katy Kangaroo (voiced by Mea Martineau), and Sidney Squirrel (voiced by Marvin Kaplan) must stop the Monkeybiz Gang members Bingo, Bango, Bongo, and Fred (all four voiced by Pat Fraley and Frank Welker), four meddlesome monkeys who are known from making trouble at the local zoo run by the zookeeper Mr. Friendly (voiced by Arthur Burghardt). The Monkeybiz Gang would cause trouble by trying to escape from the zoo and Katy would have to help keep them in line.
No. | Title | Written by | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "Trunkful of Trouble" | Gordon Kent and Paul Dini | September 8, 1984 |
2 | "Zoo for Hire" | Unknown | September 15, 1984 |
3 | "Bat's Incredible" | Jack Enyart | September 22, 1984 |
4 | "The White Squirrel of Dover" | Mel Gilden | September 29, 1984 |
5 | "The Birthday Party" | Unknown | October 6, 1984 |
6 | "Having a Ball" | Unknown | October 13, 1984 |
7 | "The Tail of the Cowardly Lion" | Maggie Ann Smith | October 20, 1984 |
8 | "It's Carnival Time" | Unknown | October 27, 1984 |
9 | "Lost and Found" | Ted Pedersen | November 3, 1984 |
10 | "Joey and the Bananastalk" | Unknown | November 10, 1984 |
11 | "Zoo's Who?" | Unknown | November 17, 1984 |
12 | "The Egg and Us" | Unknown | November 24, 1984 |
13 | "The Runaway Panda" | Unknown | December 1, 1984 |
Space Ace (voiced by Jim Piper) is the always smiling self-confident champion of the "Space Command", whereas when always "wimping out" to Dexter (voiced by Sparky Marcus) after being hit by the Infanto-Ray, he becomes clumsy and weak. With officer Kimberly (voiced by Nancy Cartwright), he works for Space Marshall Vaughn (voiced by Peter Renaday) to keep the peace in the universe. They fight the evil alien commander Borf (voiced by Arthur Burghardt) and keep him from invading Earth. Ace and Kim try to keep his 'wimping' situation secret and pretend that Dexter is Kim's little brother to Vaughn.
Again, as with Donkey Kong, Ruby-Spears took artistic license; in the video game, Dexter had certain chances to revert to Ace, his full-grown self, whereas in the cartoon the Ace/Dexter phases seemed to happen on their own and often at inconvenient times for the hero.
It was aired late night on Cartoon Network in the late 1990s, and segments have been shown between programs on Boomerang.[ citation needed ]
The Space Ace segments from the show occasionally appeared as filler in between shows on Boomerang and Toonami.[ citation needed ]
The series has become considered partially lost in recent years due to a lack of rereleases and rebroadcast. In 2010, Warner Archive announced via their Facebook page that Saturday Supercade would be released through their made-on-demand DVD program, but some segments may be cut due to rights issues. As of 2024, no further information has been released. [3]
In November 2015, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released The Best of Q*Bert on DVD in Region 1. The two-disc collection features 17 of the 19 episodes of the series. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively in the US via Amazon.com and their CreateSpace MOD program. [4]
A platformer is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels with uneven terrain and suspended platforms of varying height that require jumping and climbing to traverse. Other acrobatic maneuvers may factor into the gameplay, such as swinging from vines or grappling hooks, jumping off walls, gliding through the air, or bouncing from springboards or trampolines.
Donkey Kong, also shortened to DK, is a fictional gorilla character in the Donkey Kong and Mario franchise, created by Shigeru Miyamoto. The original Donkey Kong first appeared as the title character and antagonist of the eponymous 1981 game, a platformer by Nintendo, which would lead to the Donkey Kong series. The Donkey Kong Country series was launched in 1994 with a new Donkey Kong as the protagonist. This version of the character persists as the main one up to today. While the 1980s games' Donkey Kong and the modern Donkey Kong share the same name, the manual for Donkey Kong Country and subsequent games portray the former as Cranky Kong, the latter's grandfather, with the exception of Donkey Kong 64 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, in which Cranky is depicted as his father, alternatively portraying the modern Donkey Kong as the original Donkey Kong Jr. from the titular game. Donkey Kong is considered one of the most popular and iconic characters in video game history.
Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and published by Sega. In North America, it was distributed by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct five frogs to their homes by dodging traffic on a busy road, then crossing a river by jumping on floating logs and alligators.
Q*bert is an arcade video game developed and published for the North American market by Gottlieb in 1982. It is a 2D action game with puzzle elements that uses isometric graphics to create a pseudo-3D effect. The objective of each level in the game is to change every cube in a pyramid to a target color by making Q*bert, the on-screen character, hop on top of the cube while avoiding obstacles and enemies. Players use a joystick to control the character.
Pitfall! is a video game developed by David Crane for the Atari 2600 and released in 1982 by Activision. The player controls Pitfall Harry, who has a time limit of 20 minutes to seek treasure in a jungle. The game world is populated by enemies and hazards that variously cause the player to lose lives or points.
Donkey Kong Jr. is a 1982 arcade platform game that was released by Nintendo. It is the sequel to Donkey Kong, but with the roles reversed compared to its predecessor: Mario is now the villain and Donkey Kong Jr. is trying to save his kidnapped father. It first released in arcades and, over the course of the decade, was released for a variety of home platforms. The game's title is written out as Donkey Kong Junior in the North American arcade version and various conversions to non-Nintendo systems.
Space Ace is a LaserDisc video game produced by Bluth Group, Cinematronics and Advanced Microcomputer Systems. It was unveiled in October 1983, just four months after the Dragon's Lair game, followed by a limited release in December 1983 and then a wide release in Spring 1984. Like its predecessor, it featured film-quality animation played back from a LaserDisc.
The golden age of arcade video games was the period of rapid growth, technological development, and cultural influence of arcade video games from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The release of Space Invaders in 1978 led to a wave of shoot-'em-up games such as Galaxian and the vector graphics-based Asteroids in 1979, made possible by new computing technology that had greater power and lower costs. Arcade video games switched from black-and-white to color, with titles such as Frogger and Centipede taking advantage of the visual opportunities of bright palettes.
Donkey Kong is a 1981 arcade video game developed and published by Nintendo. As Mario, the player runs and jumps on platforms and climbs ladders to ascend a construction site and rescue Pauline from a giant gorilla, Donkey Kong. It is the first game in the Donkey Kong series and Mario's first appearance in a video game.
1982 was the peak year for the golden age of arcade video games as well as the second generation of video game consoles. Many games were released that would spawn franchises, or at least sequels, including Dig Dug, Pole Position, Mr. Do!, Zaxxon, Q*bert, Time Pilot and Pitfall! The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, for the third year in a row, while the year's best-selling home system was the Atari 2600. Additional video game consoles added to a crowded market, notably the ColecoVision and Atari 5200. Troubles at Atari late in the year triggered the video game crash of 1983.
Kangaroo is a four-screen platform game released as an arcade video game 1982 by Sun Electronics and distributed in North America by Atari, Inc. Kangaroo is one of the first arcade games similar in style to Donkey Kong without being a direct clone. The player takes the role of a boxing glove-wearing mother kangaroo who is trying to rescue her joey from fruit-throwing monkeys. Jumping is integral to the game, but there is no jump button. Instead, the player pushes up on the joystick—or up and diagonally—to leap. The arcade version of Kangaroo has visible glitches in the graphics, such as sprites briefly flickering.
Pac-Man is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and based on the Namco video game franchise of the same title. It premiered on ABC and ran for 44 episodes over two seasons from September 25, 1982, to November 5, 1983. It was the first cartoon based on a video game.
Electronic Games was the first dedicated video game magazine published in the United States and ran from October 15, 1981, to 1997 under different titles. It was co-founded by Bill Kunkel, Joyce Worley, and Arnie Katz.
Sparky Marcus is an American former actor.
Donkey Kong is a video game series and media franchise created by Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. The franchise follows the adventures of Donkey Kong, a large, powerful gorilla. Donkey Kong games include the original arcade game trilogy by Nintendo R&D1; the Donkey Kong Country series by Rare and Retro Studios; and the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series by Nintendo Software Technology. Various studios have developed spin-offs in genres such as edutainment, puzzle, racing, and rhythm. The franchise also incorporates animation, printed media, theme parks, and merchandise.
Mario is a Japanese multimedia franchise created by Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for video game company Nintendo, which produces and publishes its installments. Starring the titular Italian plumber Mario, it is primarily a video game franchise but has extended to other forms of media, including television series, comic books, a 1993 feature film, a 2023 animated film, and theme park attractions. The series' first installment was 1983's Mario Bros. even though Mario made his first appearance in 1981's arcade game Donkey Kong and had already been featured in several games of the Donkey Kong and Game & Watch series. The Mario games have been developed by a wide variety of developers, including Nintendo, Hudson Soft, and AlphaDream. Mario games have been released almost exclusively for Nintendo's various video game consoles and handhelds, from the third generation onward.
The 1980s was the second decade in the industry's history. It was a decade of highs and lows for video games. The decade began amidst a boom in the arcade video game business with the golden age of arcade video games, the Atari 2600's dominance of the home console market during the second generation of video game consoles, and the rising influence of home computers. However, an oversatuation of low quality games led to an implosion of the video game market that nearly destroyed the industry in North America. Most investors believed video games to be a fad that had since passed, up until Nintendo's success with its Nintendo Entertainment System revived interest in game consoles and led to a recovery of the home video game industry. In the remaining years of the decade, Sega ignites a console war with Nintendo, developers that had been affected by the crash experimented with PC games, and Nintendo released the Game Boy, which would become the best-selling handheld gaming device for the next two decades. Other consoles released in the decade included the Intellivision, ColecoVision, TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis.
Pauline is a character from the Donkey Kong and Mario video game franchises by Nintendo. She was created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and debuted in Donkey Kong (1981) as the girlfriend of Mario who must rescue her after she is kidnapped and held captive by Donkey Kong at the top of a large construction site.