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Saturday Supercade: bringing video game characters to Saturday mornings - VIDEO

by Richard Keller, posted Oct 26th 2006 9:00AM

Donkey KongAh, the 1980's, the golden age for many things . . . pop music, hair bands, family sitcoms, and video games. However, it really wasn't a golden age for Saturday morning cartoons. By the time the mid-80's rolled around many of the cartoons on the air were stealing their material from shows that you would see on prime-time television (like the Happy Days gang traveling in time), or from children's toys.

Case in point was CBS's Saturday Supercade. Premiering in 1983 during the height of the video game era, Supercade featured characters from some of the most popular arcade games of the time. For instance, there were characters from Frogger, Donkey Kong (with Soupy Sales as the voice of the barrel throwing monkey), Q*Bert, and Space Ace. Amazingly, the show lasted two seasons on CBS.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) Supercade has never been released on DVD; most likely due to licensing issues with the various video game companies that gave permission for their characters to be on the show. However, you can still watch the introduction to the show, as well as the introductions to all of the segments within, courtesy of (who else) YouTube. Just click below to enjoy.

[By the way, thanks to our pal Wil Wheaton for the tip]

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jeff smith

Not that these are all ones I personally watched BUT:
Berenstein Bears 85-87 CBS
Care Bears 85-87 CBS
Dungeons and Dragons 83-87 CBS
Pac Man 82-85 ABC
Pound Puppies 86-88 ABC
Smurfs 81-90 NBC
Shirt Tales 82-85 NBC
Spider Man and his Amazing Friends 81-86 NBC

These are all Saturday morning cartoons in mid 80's Id say that's a pretty strong lineup.

October 26 2006 at 3:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Richard Keller

Jeff, first this was opinion, not fact. So there will be no retraction. Second, if you read the post I said Saturday morning cartoons not 80's cartoons in general. Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron, Robotech, etc. were not part of networks' Saturday morning schedules. I agree that the 80's were the heyday for the syndicated cartoon series.

October 26 2006 at 1:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jeff smith

Classic 80's cartoons...How could you say the 80's wasn't a golden era of cartoons? You obviously were too old or too young at the time. G.I. Joe, Transformers, Smurfs, Robotech, Thundercats, Voltron..must I go on...We 80's children demand a retraction of your statements!

October 26 2006 at 1:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mike Whalen

I remember being quite excited by the concept, but I honestly found them all boring. This is someone who was a kid back then and should have liked it, as much as I was into videogames, but alas, it was not to be. Don't know why.

October 26 2006 at 10:09 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Anthony

I disagree, im a child of the 80's and i lovedddd all my saturday morning cartoons!! in fact i find myself sneaking some in from time to time even now...lol

October 26 2006 at 9:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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