Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #8

Today's cartoon is Kidd Video. I actually watched this show as a kid even if I don't remember too much about it.



This show is about some kids who have a band and end up in a cartoon world. We start in live action as the cast wakes up. The girl, who is the girl character, wakes up. The leader, who is probably named Kidd Video, pumps his fist and yells "YEEAAAAAAAAAH!" The nerd has a monitor that uselessly flashes a message to wake up. He's probably the Professor character. There's a third guy who doesn't stand out, so I'm guessing he's the goofy character. The girl and leader get on a motorcycle and ride to some destination. The nerd and fourth character drive in a truck. Everybody is all happy and full of energy and a happy bouncy unthreatening theme plays.



They arrive at some storage place where they sing the theme. Kidd removes a cover from a mirror in the only attempt to make the place look unused. Kidd also has an intense face. If you saw a teen like that you would immediately decide to hide all knives. Kidd is the lead singer and guitar player, of course. Nerd slaps the keyboard a few times. Girl plays the drum cheerfully. Fourth guy plays bass.

The song, as far as I can tell - and if you've been following this blog you know I'm bad at this - is about some kid who is out of it because he or she listens to too much music or something. Videos and radios are the only thing that keeps them going. Sad, really.

Suddenly, bad stuff happen! The guy who greenlit this project decided it wasn't enough to have a teen band, so an evil fat cartoon character suddenly appears in the mirror. It's a prototype Dilbert boss! He laughs and pushes a button that sucks the band into the "Flipside."



So our heroes are now animated. The girl character shouts "Ay yi yi!", which means she's probably stuck with a terrible catchphrase for the series. They all realize that they're cartoons, which means that when they stare at their hands they disappear. Because cartoons are 2d, you see...awww, forget it. The band floats in crystals so the bad guy can laugh evilly at them. He threatens to make them play music for him....FOREVER! You can almost sense the "forever", say it yourself, and then laugh in disbelief when the cartoon actually says it with you.

However, the band is rescued by the thing I remember most about this cartoon. I mean who. The who in question is the eightiest fairy ever, wearing leg warmers and everything. Her special powers is to sneeze, which served as the deus ex machina for every episode. Her sneeze in the intro rescues the band who float to safety, while their car (CAR?! He stole the car?) turns into a super car. Which also floats.




The intro ends when girl asks what's going on, and the fairy tells them that she'll explain later. And that's it. I'm sure the first episode had the fairy explain what Flipside was about, and what the heck was the fairy doing before this all happened, but the intro stops here. It's as if the fairy has to remind these fools every week.


There's a pretty good nostalgia website called Kidd Video Flipside. I found this website when I was trying to remember what this show was called. Apparently the fairy's name is Glitter. The bad guy's name is Master Blaster. The intro left out the part about his henchmen being some cat characters. They're the Copy Cats and they bring bad vibes to all. Plus they're most likely the goofy kind of henchcats. The rest of the kids have names but if it weren't for the girl, they'd all be interchangeable. What? I'm just saying. You watch a bunch of cartoons and reach a different conclusion!


AND NOW! Rimmi wanted me to put more oomph* into this entry, so I'm going to watch the debut episode and give my thoughts.


* - May not be her actually words.


So the band is in their super car. They're riding around a loopy road as if it's a roller coaster. Glitter tells them that they're just going to luv Neon City. I guess when she said she'll explain later, she meant much later. The nerd complains about going home more than once, so he's obviously the homesick character. Nobody says it, but everybody has a screw you vibe. What the girl character, Carla does basically say is "Shut up and look at all the stuff!" Only more politely. Kidd looks at a volcano that spits out random bleeps and bloops. It's called Music Mountain. They ride around it without getting killed by the erupting notes.

Carla finishes a soda and pushes a button that makes a robot trash can pop out of some place in the car. The car is magic, you see. It eats the soda bottle while the character explain to each other that there's kids at Neon City who like music. So the Flipside is just going to be like real life, except with magic! Whee. The fourth kid is interrupted from his horrible song by an awesome scene where Mayor Leon of Neon City starts charging the car. Sadly, instead of a headbutt, the Mayor stops and the band crashes trying to avoid him.

The car is flipped over and the mayor yells something incoherent at the band. The band tries to ask Glitter to translate, but she's gone. They somehow conclude that she was thrown from the car, which is impossible. However, she has and uses this opportunity to reveal her special power, the sneeze. The first sneeze of the series gives her the ability to lift the Kiddmobile (that's what it's called) and turn it over. Later she explains her powers, and apparently she's allergic to a lot of things. The writers were really hedging their bets with that line. Kidd tells her to kick back while they clean up the mobile, but she takes it literally and spins into another mess.

Nerdy Wiz says that the crash somehow turned on the tape recorder. All the tape recorders I had made you push down two buttons until you felt a click. They slow down the mayor's language and are shocked to see how old he is. (Wait, this is a video recorder too? I guess they're using the cartoon rules of video cameras being everywhere.) On the video he explains that the Master Blaster somehow caused them to accelerate which ages them. The Master Blaster did it because the Neonites didn't want to go to the Copy Cat's concert. Everyone except Wiz decides they have to help, even though they're, you know, just a band. Are band members just naturally inclined to get involved with things they just barely understand?

As they drive off to help, we see the Master Blaster's floating fortress, shaped like a gumdrop. The Copy Cats, who are all (that f word that bugs Lita when I use it), are singing All Night Long by Lionel Ritchie. I think he actually appeared on this show, so they didn't just rip him off here. Somehow the band deduces that the Copy Cats can't sing anything unless the Master Blaster steals a song for them. And here I was going to make fun of Lionel for being linked to the bad guys. The first set of commercials start as they decide to go to Neon City before taking on the Master Blaster.

The commercials end and we see some eighties era video effects as the Kiddmobile drives to Neon City. It made me wonder if youtube gave me the long video. The animators try to give Neon City a Jetsony future look. No Carla, it's not beautiful. They look at several book cases. The books are like the Addam's Family books that have literally meanings when you open them. Carla finds a book with a dancing neon figure. It sings about rocking down electric avenue. BASED ON THAT, they decide to go there. I admire the writers for not having the fairy sneeze to find the right book. Shows restraint.

A poster with the MB's face on it tells anybody listening to go to the concert to stop aging. Wiz says that that's it for the problem and decides to run for it. Kidd decides that the MB is lying. That's pretty cruel for a cartoon character to just make people age and then give them false hope to stop. The poster mentioned the word "higher", and so the band looks up and sees a clock going crazy. Wiz finds some doodad that causes the clock to spin fast, thus aging the population. He's left behind with Glitter while the other three go on to fight MB.

We meet the Copy Cats for the first time. They all have annoying voices, particularly the female. They're the goof-off type henchmen, who are vaguely rebellious but too scared to do anything. The MB sends them to capture the Kidds. His frustrated facepalm makes you wonder why he can't get better henchmen, but writers never have to answer those questions.

An elevator lowers and lets the Kidds into the floating fortress. They enter it and find a crystal ball next to their entrance. Inside is.... a Lionel Ritchie music video!!! This plays for over a minute and must have been the writer's favorite part. An eyeball camera with a speaker voiced by MB taunts them as they decide to break the bubble. Kidd puts on a bandana which gives him unlimited ammo but fails to help him and his friends to rescue Lionel. They are quickly captured by the cats.

Wiz tries to disconnect the whatever, but some more wires plug into it. He freaks out and cries that he's speeding up. Glitter tries to calm him down, but knows that he's a wimp. She says she'll get the others as we hit commercial break number 2.

When we get to the final third of the episode, MB explains his plan. He's going to slow down the Neonians until the stop, so he has a permanent audience for the Copy Cats. The writers leave out the pesky part why, which is why they earn the money and we just watch.

MB evilly watches the suckers enter the stadium for the music concert, but his orwellian machines alert him to Glitter's presence. He tries to get the Copy Cats to get her, even though they're next to useless and they can't fly. Glitter reaches the captured Kidds and they decide that the best plan is for her to go get Wiz. If she's just going to leave, why not get some pepper, too? A goofy chase happens when the eye camera tries to get her but only takes out one of the cats.

Meanwhile, the fourth kidd who has a name but I'm not using it just to be a jerk sings a song based on the musical property of the bars. Somehow this causes Carla and Kidd to decide that JUST THE RIGHT NOTE can shatter the bars. So they trick the Copy Cats into playing All Night Long. This breaks the bars. The cats sorta shrug this off and go to the concert.

So, big finish for the first episode. The trio try to rush the MB, who's got his hand on the switch. He sees them and pushes a button that walls up the place where they're standing. Meanwhile Wiz is aging and rushes to the band's aid with Glitter following. Wiz runs right up to the bubble and shatters it. This causes the magic tubes hooked up to the cats to disappear. No longer sounding like Lionel Ritchie, the crowd boos. MB is annoyed, but still goes for the switch. In rushes Wiz, who (YES!) headbutts the MB's chair. This causes random stuff to explode, and everything is made right. The clock goes back to normal, and so do the Neons. The episode ends with Kidd Video driving off and going to another cool place that Glitter mentioned. The cats escape into the fortress so they can capture the band on a later date.


There's your first episode. The MB is actually kind of menacing, so I guess the Copy Cats are suppose to balance that. The kid's fit into their stereotype roles, except for Ash, who I still can't figure out. I want to say he's the goofy one thanks to his dumb songs, but he doesn't really stand out. The band spends too much time standing around discussing stuff they shouldn't know yet. I guess they didn't want the fairy to spend all her time giving important exposition. I

Unless they get captured every week, I'm betting this is the closest the MB gets to beating the Kidds. That usually happens in the first episode because it tries to grab your attention before the show gets a little more routine as episodes compile. This was also a rather short episode. They didn't even spend that much time establishing much yet not much happened. I'm betting in later episodes the show starts in the middle of the plot so more stuff happens. Or not. They probably just go from town to town beating the MB and his latest scheme.






I hope you enjoyed this little recap.