Saturday Supercade (partially lost Ruby-Spears animated series; 1983-1985)

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Saturday Supercade is an hour long cartoon series that premiered on CBS on September 17, 1983. It is a compilation show of various cartoon shorts based off popular video games at the time. Because of all the various copyright issues involving each of the video games this show is based off of, the show has not reaired since CBS last aired it on August 24, 1985, with the exception of the Space Ace shorts which aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang on various occasions. The rest of the show became lost, and for a while, very little of the show became available on the internet.

Many tape trading sites have been trading and selling two full episodes, and were the only two episodes fans had access to before we started seeing more of the show posted on the internet. One of the tapes were a full CBS Saturday Morning block from April 1984, and was uploaded on Myspleen and other torrent sites around 2005. The Saturday Supercade episode included Spaced-Out Frogs (Frogger), Gorilla My Dreams (Donkey Kong), Crazy Camp Creature (Q-bert), and The Teddy Bear Scare (Donkey Kong Jr.). It was, for a while, the only full episode of Saturday Supercade to be posted on the internet.

Some viewers had access to the second tape. Unlike the first tape, this one doesn't contain the original commercials. It wasn't posted on the internet until much later. The cartoon episodes included were Hyrdofoil & Seek (Frogger), Mississippi Madness (Donkey Kong), Masked Menace Mess (Pitfall), and Sheep Rustle Hustle (Donkey Kong Jr). The ending of the Dkjr episode was cut off as the tape transitioned into the Pac-man cartoon. Also, the included Pitfall episode is still, to this day, the only Pitfall episode available.

Eventually, at sometime around 2008 or so, an Ebay seller was selling 16mm film copies that contained episodes of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. The film copies were purchased by a cartoon collector, and the films were transferred to a bootleg DVD, of which, it was being sold on sites like iOffer. It is unknown where the main source of the films came from, but it featured a different set of credits that wasn't shown during it's CBS run, and were distributed by MCA TV... possibly an attempt at trying to show the cartoons in syndication. These films also remedied the missing ending to Sheep Rustle Hustle. The DK and Dkjr episodes were later posted on Youtube.

Featuring clips from unsurfaced episodes of Donkey Kong Jr. and Frogger

Around 2008, Crackle posted some Minisodes of most of the Q-bert episodes. This implies that Sony owns the rights to the Q-bert segments, which would make sense as Gottlieb, the developers of Q-bert, is owned by Sony. They were shortened versions of the Q-bert cartoons, and not the full episodes. There's still very little of the full versions on Youtube.

Youtube did eventually start to get a little bit more of the show. Unfortunately, some users, such as mlsgrant, were uploading incomplete episodes leading the rest of the episode unavailable. The advent of Youtube, did however, lead to Season 2 intros being posted for the first time. Clips from Kangaroo were posted, but we only got two incomplete episodes. There is still not a single full Kangaroo episode posted to this day. Even though there are some users that are holding full episodes in their archive, we're not likely going to see too much of the full show until we see it become commercially available.

In 2010, Warner Archive announced that they might release Saturday Supercade on DVD, but nothing has come out of it since. Most likely, because of all the copyright issues with the individual video game characters. Not to mention Sony seems to own the rights to the Q-bert segments going by the Minisodes.

Episodes

Bold indicates the full episode is available. Italics means an incomplete copy has surfaced but not the full episode.

Frogger

  1. The Ms. Fortune Story
  2. Spaced Out Frogs
  3. The Who-Took-Toadwalker Story
  4. Hydrofoil & Seek
  5. The Great Scuba Scoop 
  6. The Headline Hunters 
  7. The Legs Croaker Story 
  8. The Blackboard Bungle
  9. Good Knight, Frogger 
  10. Fake Me Out to the Ball Game
  11. I Remember Mummy 
  12. Here Today, Pawned Tomorrow
  13. Hop-Along Frogger

Donkey Kong

A decent amount of episodes are made available thanks to some 16mm film prints containing episodes of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. These episodes were sold on a bootleg DVD shortly afterwards.

  1. Mississippi Madness
  2. Gorilla Gangster 
  3. Banana Bikers 
  4. The Incredible Shrinking Ape
  5. Movie Mania
  6. Gorilla My Dreams
  7. Little Orphan Apey 
  8. Circus Daze
  9. The Great Ape Escape
  10. Apey and the Snowbeast 
  11. How Much is That Gorilla in the Window?
  12. Private Donkey Kong 
  13. Get Along Little Apey
  14. Sir Donkey Kong 
  15. The Pale Whale
  16. El Donkey Kong
  17. New Wave Ape
  18. Greenhouse Gorilla
  19. Hairy Parent

Q-bert

In 2008, Sony posted Minisodes of Q-bert online. Unfortunately, very little of the full episodes surfaced online.

Underlined means a Minisode version was uploaded. Underline and italics means that both the Minisode version and an incomplete copy of the original surfaced online.

  1. Disc Derby Fiasco
  2. The Great Q*Tee Contest
  3. Q*Bowl Rigamarole
  4. Crazy Camp Creature
  5. Thanksgiving for the Memories
  6. Dog Day Dilemma
  7. Take Me Out to the Q*Game 
  8. Noser P.I.
  9. Hook, Line, and Mermaid
  10. Q*Historic Days
  11. Q*bert's Monster Mix-Up
  12. Game Shoe Woe 
  13. The Wacky Q*Bot
  14. Q*Beat It
  15. Q*Urf's Up
  16. Little Green Noser
  17. Rebel Without a Q*Ause
  18. Looking For Miss Q*Right 
  19. The Goofy Ghostgetters 

Donkey Kong Jr.

This is perhaps the most complete Saturday Supercade segment available thanks to the 16mm Donkey Kong prints. Only four episodes remain missing.

  1. Trucknapper Caper 
  2. Sheep Rustle Hustle
  3. Rocky Mountain Monkey Business
  4. Magnificent 7-Year-Olds
  5. The Ventriloquist Caper 
  6. The Great Seal Steal
  7. The Jungle Boy Ploy
  8. Junior Meets Kid Dynamo
  9. Amazing Rollerskate Race
  10. A Christmas Story
  11. Gorilla Ghost
  12. Teddy Bear Scare
  13. Double or Nothing

Pitfall

Next to Kangaroo, this is the rarest of all the Saturday Supercade segments due to it's very short run.

  1. Pitfall's Panda Puzzle
  2. Amazon Jungle Bungle 
  3. Raiders of the Lost Shark 
  4. Tibetan Treasure Trouble 
  5. Masked Menace Mess
  6. The Sabretooth Goof 
  7. The Pyramid Panic 

Space Ace

This is the only Saturday Supercade segment to have all it's episodes fully available. This is thanks to Boomerang showing reruns on occasion.

  1. Cute Groots
  2. Cosmic Camp Catastrophe
  3. Dangerous Decoy
  4. Moon Missile Madness
  5. Perilous Partner
  6. Frozen in Fear
  7. Age Ray Riot
  8. Wanted: Dexter!
  9. Phantom Shuttle
  10. Spoiled Sports
  11. Calamity Kimmie
  12. Three-Ring Rampage
  13. Infanto Fury

Kangaroo

While there may be a full episode or two stashed in someone's collection of VHS tapes, there is still not a single complete episode posted online to this day.

  1. Trunkfull of Trouble
  2. Zoo for Hire
  3. Bat's Incredible
  4. The White Squirrel of Dover
  5. The Birthday Party
  6. Having a Ball 
  7. The Tail of the Cowardly Lion
  8. It's Carnival Time 
  9. Lost and Found
  10. Joey and the Beanstalk 
  11. Zoo's Who 
  12. The Egg and Us 
  13. The Runaway Panda