Saturday Supercade
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saturday Supercade was an animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions. It ran for two seasons on CBS beginning in 1983. Each episode was comprised of several shorter segments featuring video game characters from the Golden Age of Arcade Games.
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[edit] Licensing issues
Presumably due to licensing issues with the various companies that licensed their games for the show, Saturday Supercade has never been officially released on VHS or DVD. However, the Space Ace segments from the show occasionally appear as filler on Boomerang.
[edit] Featured characters
The debut characters included:
- Frogger (from the Frogger arcade game). Marvin Kaplan voiced Shellshock the Turtle.
- Donkey Kong with Mario and Pauline (from the Donkey Kong arcade game), featuring Soupy Sales as the voice of Donkey Kong, and Peter Cullen as the voice of Mario.
- Q*bert with Coily, Ugg, Wrongway, Slick and Sam (from the Q*Bert arcade game)
- Donkey Kong, Jr. (from the Donkey Kong Jr. arcade game). Frank Welker voiced the title character, while Bart Braverman voiced his pal Bones.
- Pitfall Harry with his pet mountain lion Quickclaw and his niece Rhonda (from the Pitfall! and Pitfall II: Lost Caverns console games). the cartoon was simply called Pitfall!.
Pitfall and Q-Bert rotated weekly while the other three were weekly.
During the second season, Q-Bert (now weekly) & Donkey Kong remained while the Frogger, Donkey Kong Jr. and Pitfall Harry segments were replaced by shorts featuring:
- Space Ace with Space Ace/Dexter (depending on his form), Kimberly, and Borf (from the Space Ace arcade game). Nancy Cartwright voiced Kimberly, Sparky Marcus voiced Dexter and Jim Piper voiced Space Ace.
- Kangaroo with friends and the "Monkey Business Gang" (from the Kangaroo arcade). Marvin Kaplan voiced Sidney Squirrel.
[edit] Story lines
- Q*Bert: In a 1950's inspired world, a teenage fur-covered creature named Q*Bert must deal with the resident bullies Coily, Ugg, and Wrongway, with his girlfriend Q-tee. Features both "block-hopping" scenes, "swearing" bubbles and occasional flying disc, all from the original game.
- Donkey Kong: Donkey Kong has escaped from the circus. He is on the lam, and Mario and Pauline, portrayed here as Mario's "niece", are chasing the ape. As with the original game, Donkey Kong will often grab Pauline and Mario has to save her. (It must be noted that Pauline's portrayal as Mario's niece is an original Ruby-Spears concept. It is not a part of Nintendo's official canon.)
- Donkey Kong Jr.: Donkey Kong Jr. is sad to find that his father is running from the circus and Mario, and that he can never see him. He meets a biker nicknamed "Bones" who has a motorcycle and offers to help Junior by finding his dad together. Donkey Kong Jr's usual saying is "Monkey muscle!", which he tells to himself and Bones to inspire self-confidence.
- Frogger: Frogger is an ace reporter of the swamp. He and his friends, Shellshock "Shelly" Turtle and Fanny Frog go out in search of crazy stories (sometimes about human behavior) to publish in the swamp's newspapers. (As in the game, he often gets flattened or has an encounter with an alligator)
- Pitfall Harry: Harry, Quick Claw, and his niece Rhonda explore jungles for hidden treasures, having many different adventures along the way.
- Space Ace: Space Ace/Dexter and his sister Kimberly must stop the evil alien commander Borf from invading Earth.
- Kangaroo: Joey Kangaroo and his mother must stop the four meddlesome monkeys (called the Monkeybiz Gang) from making trouble at the local zoo. An interesting note is that the monkeys' names are based on the names of the ghosts from Pac-Man.
[edit] External links
- Saturday Supercade appreciation at X-Entertainment
- Saturday Supercade at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- Saturday Supercade at the Internet Movie Database
- Q*Bert Cartoon Info Page at The Freakshow
