Kidd Video

This was saturday morning's answer to MTV. Get a rock n roll band make them into cartoons, stop the villan that sent them there, and you have what has to be a cartoon show that helps symbolizes what the 80's were all about! music videos cartoon style! I wish they air reruns of this show, it was way cool when I remembered it, and now that the 80's are coming back, they should, if not, must bring it back on T.V. Maybe so another new generation of kids will enjoy this the same way we did almost 2 decades ago!

Kidd Video is an interesting 80's cartoon. An attempt to make a cartoon that would in return, spawn a real-life band, it would last two seasons, and sadly, may never be released on any home media.

The story of how this begins is told in the intro, as Kidd Video and his bandmates, Carla, Ash, and Whiz, decide to rehearse in a storage building, however, a weird mirror in the building activates, as an evil being named Master Blaster appears, and kidnaps the band and takes them to the Flipside, planning to make them his musical slaves forever. However, at the last minute, the band is saved by Glitter, a fairy dressed in 80's workout fashion and is able to gain super strength for a short time whenever she sneezes. Now, despite being able to go home, the band decides to explore Flipside, visiting cities and ending up thwarting the plans of Master Blaster and his minions, the Copy Cats.

A neat series, Kidd Video is the result of trying to make a cartoon that would, in return, spawn a new band (which sadly, only worked in the country of Israel, as the band's lone album, which is the cartoon's sountrack, was only released there). The adventures are fantastical, with a lot of crazy designs, and the music is great (although it is also one of the main reasons why this show may never see a DVD release, as it uses songs like Electric Avenue, Footloose, and The Safety Dance, as well as music videos for such songs as Hungry Like The Wolf, which would either need to be renegotiated or replaced, with the latter ending up being a bad idea due to some of the licensed music actually tying into some of the episodes as musical riddles the band uses to figure out how to stop Master Blaster).

This show, along with, "Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers," "Dungeon and Dragons," and "Pole Position," made the "must see," list for my sister and I. Don't go looking for anything deep and meaningful or any sort of anime meta-storyline here. It's just fun and great eye candy.

The basic premise is that a new wave-style teen garage band gets taken to another dimension - The Flipside - by an evil mastermind. (The show was better when Masterblaster didn't appear, really.) Over on the Flipside, the teens now appear to be animated (in a very mid-80's style) rather than flesh and blood people. The band teams up with an allergic fairy and they travel in this TARDIS-esque truck that now serves as a home base for their adventures. The plots basically focused of getting to gigs, adjusting to the oddness that was the Flipside, avoiding Masterblaster, and trying to get home.

Oh! They edited out the music videos clips in the home video releases. This is a crying shame. For those of us who didn't have cable Kidd Video showed us what we were listening to. I remember clips from Tears for Fears and Culture Club being featured into the episodes along with the young actors (not animated) putting on their own video at the end of the show.

If you didn't like the flash and dazzle of the '80's, don't bother with this show. If you liked the color and attitude of that decade, or have enough of sense of humor to at least heckle them, sit back and enjoy.

NOTE: CONTAINS INFO OF TWO SONG TITLE, FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED.

For me, this was one of the seminole kids' shows growing up. It had everything that a kid could want: energy, humour, talented actors, good music, and - best of all - fantasy. I mean, kids being able to travel to another dimension and get all these magical powers and be able to beat evil no matter what the odds were wherever they went ? Yep, it was definitely fun. My favourite songs from this show were " TLC " and " Video Romeo ". I highly recommend this series to anyone else, if only because it - despite criticisms of it - ten times better than even the best of some of the crud passing itself off as children's TV shows nowadays. So hats off to Robby Rist and the others' involved in the show. Clearly, you are smart enough to know quality work when it comes along to get involved in it.

No need to summarize the plot...that's already been done here.

Ok, granted, I don't really remember this show that well since, like most quality programs, it died out quickly and I don't think it was ever recycled through reruns. Nonetheless, I remember that it appealed to both my bizarre sense of humor and my love for music. Tons of off-the-wall humor and random scattered unidentifiable hilarious characters made this cartoon stand out among all the cutesy Saturday morning sludge of its time, and each episode was permeated with both original and popular 80s pop hits. I suppose this is a program you could either love, hate, or just not understand well enough to form an opinion. Regardless, it's doubtful you'll ever have an opportunity to see this show again even though it's one of the few cartoons of the '80s that could actually fit in with the countless cartoons out today that were obviously created while the cartoonists and writers were listening to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" or something along those lines.