Saturday Supercade - The 1983 animated series

November 25, 2020

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Saturday Supercade is an animated television series produced between 1983 and 1984 for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions. In the United States, it aired for two seasons on CBS.

Each episode features characters from the golden age of arcade games, including Donkey Kong, Mario, Frogger (Frogger's frog) and Harry Pitfall (Pitfall's explorer!).

In Italy it was broadcast on Rai Due within Patatrac.

History

Each episode consists of several shorter segments featuring video game characters from the golden age of arcade video games.

The segments included:

Frogger (from the arcade game Frogger)

Donkey Kong with Mario and Pauline (from the arcade game Donkey Kong)

Donkey Kong Jr. (from the arcade game Donkey Kong Jr.)

Qbert with Coily, Ugg, Wrongway, Slick and Sam (from the arcade game Qbert)
Pitfall Harry with his pet mountain lion Quickclaw and his niece Rhonda (unlike the other arcade games, this segment is taken from the home console game Pitfall!). 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) and Donkey Kong remained while Frogger, Pitfall! and Donkey Kong Jr. were replaced by shorts with:

Kangaroo with friends and the “Monkey Business Gang” (from the arcade game Kangaroo).
Space Ace with Space Ace / Dexter (depending on its form), Kimberly and Borf (from the arcade game Space Ace).

Frogger

Frogger (voiced by Bob Sarlatte) is an ace swamp reporter who works on The Swamp Gazette. He and his friends Shellshock “Shelly” Turtle (voiced by Marvin Kaplan) and Fanny Frog (voiced by BJ Ward) go in search of crazy stories (sometimes about human behavior) to publish in the newspaper. Frogger also has to contend with his grumpy 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 is crushed by a passing car, but unlike the game, Shelly brings Frogger back to life, using a regular air pump.

Episodes

"The Ms. Fortune Story" (September 17, 1983)
"Spaced Out Frogs" (September 24, 1983)
"The Who Took Toadwalker Story" (October 1, 1983)
"Hydrofoil and go find" (October 8, 1983)
"The Great Scuba Scoop" (October 15, 1983)
"The Headline Hunters" (October 22, 1983)
"The Legs Croaker Story" (October 29, 1983)
"The mess of the blackboard" (November 5, 1983)
"Good Knight, Frogger" (November 12, 1983)
"Fake Me Out at the Ballgame" (November 19, 1983)
"I remember my mother" (November 26, 1983)
"Here today, busy tomorrow" (December 3, 1983)
"Hop-Along Frogger" (December 10, 1983)

Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong (voiced by Soupy Sales) escaped the circus. He's on the run and Mario (voiced by Peter Cullen) and Pauline (voiced by Judy Strangis) are chasing the monkey. As in the original game, Donkey Kong will often grab Pauline and Mario will have to save her. The storylines typically centered on them encountering crime with villains tricking the dull Donkey Kong into doing their job and Mario and Pauline exposing the truth. After Mario and Pauline reveal the truth to Donkey Kong, the three team up to stop the antagonists' plans, followed by Donkey Kong evading Mario and Pauline again.

Technical data

Original language English
Country United States
Network CBS
1st TV September 17, 1983 - August 24, 1985
Episodes 97 (complete) - 2 seasons
Relationship 1,33:1
Episode duration 30 min
Italian network Rai Due

Executive producers Joe Ruby, Ken Spears
Duration 30 minutes
Production company Ruby Spears Enterprises
Distributor World Vision Enterprises

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/