Tales from the Flipside

From Video To Radio: Kidd Video from A Pre-Teen Perspective.

Before the Backstreet Boys, before N Sync, and even before New Kids on the Block there was a group of four kids who took the world by storm. Bryan Scott, Robbie Rist, Steve Alterman, and Gabrielle Bennett made up the pop band Kidd Video. Their brand of love ballads, and rocking songs were aimed at the pre-teen market. Boy howdy did they ever get the point across with their music. This article is set to explore the pre-teen pop phenominon that is Kidd Video.

Back in 1984 NBC started a little known cartoon show called Kidd Video which follows the adventures of a pop band who, through no fault of their own, gets sucked into a cartoon dimension called the Flipside. The kids go on all kinds of crazy adventures while trying to avoid Master Blaster and the Copy Cats. Their goal is to find their way out of the Flipside and back home.

Kidd Video (Voiced by Bryan Scott)

Bryan Scott's character Kidd Video is the appointed leader of the group who always managed to get the team out of every single scrape. Bryan was a musician in real life and played the lead guitar and sang vocals. I always had such a crush on Bryan that it wasn't even funny anymore and I was only 7 when the show started in 1984.

Wiz (Voiced by Robbie Rist)

I almost feel sorry for Robbie because he was type cast as one character.... Cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch. Then the fame of Kidd Video made him fall into the trappings that fame gives you. Robbie has said many times that money didn't always bring him happiness. He fell into a world of drug and alcohol addiction. Now Robbie is a keyboardist in another band and has done voice over work that includes Michaelangelo in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

Ash [Voiced by Steve Alterman]

Steve plays keyboards and saxaphone. His character Ash is a bit of a schmuck who almost went home to the real world but then he gave it up after he saw that his friends were not coming back.

Carla (Voiced by Gabrielle Bennett)

An interesting note that I've come across is that unlike the three guys in Kidd Video Gabrielle wasn't a musician in real life and had to fake playing the drums. Her character Carla was the drummer and vocalist in the band.

Glitter (Voiced by Cathy Cavadini)

Glitter is the analgisic fairy who comes up to the gang and sneezes them out of Master Blaster's grasp. She has been responsible for getting the gang out of every tight scrape that they seem to come across in the Flipside.

The Bad Guys.

No show would be complete without the bad guys and Kidd Video had several bad guys that were always trying to capture Kidd Video etal.

Master Blaster (Voiced By Peter Renaday)

Master Blaster rules the Flipside with an iron fist. He's the one who pulls Kidd Video into the Flipside and tries to turn them into his musical slaves.

The Copy Cats

The Copy Cats consisted of

She-Lion (Voiced by Susan Silo)

The Lovable but dimwitted She-Lion is the leader of the Cool Cats. She is pretty vain and almost always needs to "do her nails."

Fat Kat (Voiced by Marshall Efron)

Fat Kat always has a sandwich in his hand. Is true to his name and always a bit of a suck up to Master Blaster.

Kool Kitty (Voiced by Robert Towers)

Kool Kitty almost always wears sun glasses and tells the others to "take a nap."

Music Videos

At the end of every episode of Kidd Video there was a music video designed to promote the band in a positive light. The music videos were shot in real-life and were in very notable locations.

Kidd Video represents all that is good in the 80s and while some people hate this show for unknown reasons others such as myself wished that this show never ended. I hope that this gives some insight as to why the pre-teen and even the teen market go for things like this because it's the "flavour of the year."

Comments

I loved kidd video, one of the best toons ever.

This show is still awesome!

I still get a kick watching the intro. It defined the fun and excitement of Saturday mornings in 80's. Very fun cartoon. Is it me, or does Glitter look like the Wasp from the Avengers comicbooks?

So far, it seems to me that this article works as an info on the show since most people might not remember this series (I remember it myself). And I also remember very little about the episodes overall, except this one where there was a cake that regressed anyone who ate it to a toddler, the fact that the "regression" happened quickly seemed very trippy and odd to me.

please tell me you got the idea to do a kidd video from my article (best cartoons ever)
tell me that wasn't an awesome cartoon!!

Not at all. As I said in my comment prior, I feel Celeste's work is improving--it's much more organized than before. However, she seems to be in a rush to get as many of her articles up here as possible, without taking much time to flesh them out. If that's the standard everyone wants, fine. I just wanted to show Celeste what should could do with a little more work. The above took me about thirty minutes. Someone told me a while back that we need to support our new writers, not slam them. And, honestly, that's al my goal was. I may have gotten over zealous and written a semi-article, but I wanted to show Celeste the kind of work she could do if she put her mind to it and just took some more time. I'm a bit tired of clicking on an article and finding it to be a quick read that is more fluff than informative. Keep at it, Celeste. more power to you. I just hope you might hook onto a Bata-reader or two before submitting. I wated to show you possibility, not over-crticize. If you feel I've failed in that regard, I apologize.

It could use more elaboration, but I don't think she needed a second entire article as an example.

This article could use more researched text. It gives a taste of KIDD Video, but could stand more elaboration. Credit to you Celeste, things are improving, but this article still feels like a sandwhich with very little meat. In your conclusion you write:

"Kidd Video represents all that is good in the 80s and while some people hate this show for unknown reasons others such as myself wished that this show never ended."

I don't feel you've said enough to offer this conclusion--save the unknown reasons--Heh. Why do you wish this show never ended? Why did you like it so much? How does it represent all that's good in the 80's? Sure you mentioned a crush on KIDD himself, but that's all. Consider this collection of paragraphs:

Kidd Video was a half-hour Saturday morning cartoon airing on NBC from 1984 to 1986. The title sequence revealed the plot; Kidd Video and his band are kidnapped by a villain named Master Blaster--a reference to the popular stereos of the era--and transported to Master Blaster's home dimension: an animated world called The Flipside (LP's anyone?). The band is saved by Glitter a fairy with a self-super-strength-enducing sneeze. In fact to get out of trouble in some episodes the band actually spent time looking for irritants (e.g. chalk dust, pepper) to make Glitter sneeze and bring her super-strength into play and save the day.

The band spent each episode of the series either helping to free the denizens of the Flipside from Master Blaster's oppression, or trying to find a way back to reality, although the latter story arc wasn't really introduced until mid season.

Master Blaster flew around in "The Fortress" a giant jukebox with any evil gizmo inside it necessary to move the plot. Master Blaster tries to enslave KIDD Video and his crew on multiple occassions, and his henchmen are a group of anthropomorphic cats called The Copycats.

As any serious fan will tell you, the show was dominated by a MTV-esque, music video theme. Each episode featured at least one action sequence set to a popular song, and, in later episodes, the heroes would often distract their enemies by showing current music videos (e.g. clips from "All Night Long" (Lionel Richie); "Running With the Night" (Lionel Richie); "Electric Avenue" (Eddy Grant) all in the very first episode), and sneak off while the enemies were watching--This technique actually worked on my father once or twice (snicker). Each episode also ended with a live-action music video by Kidd Video and his band, the latter aptly named KIDD VIDEO as well.

The show was flooded with pop culture elements from the eighties: the characters often break danced to relax and rode on skateboards. Heck, one episode was devoted entirely to video games (Professor Maestro --episode 11). The visual style of the cartoon itself was heavily influenced by the more surreal videos showing on MTV at the time, and by album artwork of the era, especially Roger Dean's dreamy, other-worldly album covers for the progressive rockband Yes.

It should be noted that Lionel Richie was the only artist ever mentioned by name on the show. Also, when the episodes were later rebroadcast in syndication, all the videos and popular songs had to be removed to avoid paying royalties.

Now, given, this is a just a draft I've done here, but you'd be surprised the info you can learn just by taking the time to do a little research. I barely watched KIDD Video--in fact I think I hated the show (I wasn't into music at the time), but if I'm gonna write about something, I do my homework. Hope this helps. Knites.