Western Animation / Kidd Video

It's getting me going
It's keeping me moving on!
Hooked on my system,
I'm playing on and on!
People say I'm crazy,
'Cause I'm always on my own!
Hi-fi's around me,
Hi-tech just turns me on!
From my video to my radio!

— "Video to Radio", the series' opening theme

This cult favorite originally ran from 1984-85 on NBC and produced by DiC Entertainment and Saban Entertainment (with Cuckoo's Nest Studio in season 1). It involved a Garage Band who were brought to a very strange magical land called the Flip Side by the evil Master Blaster^note not to be confused with the Stevie Wonder song, especially considering it got airplay on this show, or the villain from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, or Blaster Master, for that matter. Master Blaster wishes to kidnap all the musicians from our world (it's never really explained why; perhaps he had hit upon the idea of using The Power of Rock for evil). The band escapes with the help of the good Fairy, Glitter, and the rest of the series involves them getting into adventures in every city and battling Master Blaster and his Copy Cats.

As with the Dungeons & Dragons (1983) series, they're also ostensibly looking for a way to get back to the real world... but not really. The fact that everyone in the Flip Side loves their music relieves the sting of Failure Is the Only Option.

Much, much more importantly, this series is remembered for being a truly glorious perfect storm of Rule of Cool, Deranged Animation, and The '80s. Mass quantities of The '80s.

The show was canceled for being too costly for NBC to produce.

Compare Jem. An extensive website, with episode guides, is maintained by Toolbot, who has also been kind enough to upload several episodes to YouTube. Which is good, because trying to describe the show is nothing compared to actually watching it.^note That, and until the problem with the music is resolved, there may not be a home video release for quite a while...

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Tropes appearing in Kidd Video include:

• Adventure Towns: A different week, a different town.
• Animesque: The intro for Season 1 and Season 2 as a whole have shades of this, as per the norm of DiC cartoons of the time.
• Art Evolution: Season 1 -> Season 2, as demonstrated here. Also counts as an Art Shift.
• Big Bad: Master Blaster, although he's rather incompetent.

• Band Toon: While not based on a real band, it otherwise fits the description to a "t".
• Cactus Person: Ash is turned into one of these when a plant monster takes over the Kiddmobile and emits a pollen that induces Transflormations (Carla is turned into a flower). Fortunately, the effects are undone by the end of the episode.
• Captain Obvious
  Master Blaster: They're getting away!
  Copycat: Thanks for the news flash, Your Obviousness.
• Cats Are Mean: Subverted. The Copy Cats are just Punch Clock Villains; Master Blaster is the real meanie.
• Cloud Cuckooland: The Flipside, a bizarre alternate dimension where nothing makes sense. As noted by the characters in the intro ("We look like..." "Cartoons!"), it doesn't look like a cartoon for the show - a cartoon really is how the Flipside and anyone in it looks.
• Cool Car: The bizarre tour bus that must have been designed as a tribute to Yellow Submarine. Somehow created out of a Subaru Brat.
• Cute Bruiser: Glitter gains super-strength (enough to toss buildings around), and other magical powers any time she sneezes.
• Depending on the Writer: The goals of Master Blaster fluctuated. At times, he wanted to take over the Flip Side, but other times, he just wanted to control its music. Sometimes, he tried to amass wealth. Then there were times where MB actively tried to recapture or eliminate Kidd Video.
• Deranged Animation: See page quote. Any questions? Somehow, it manages to get even more trippy come season 2.
• Disney Acid Sequence: The whole series, really. The page quote pretty much describes the series for you.

• Down the Rabbit Hole: As explained in the opening sequence, they were rehearsing in a storage room, when Master Blaster suddenly appears and brings them to the flipside, likely through the mirror that he appeared on.
• Eat the Camera: Absolute ending of "Grooveyard City" (which showed the "Ghostbusters" clip).
• The '80s: Oh God yes. Did we mention Glitter wears legwarmers?

• Expository Theme Tune: Complete with live action footage of the origin story.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Both ways. The gang can't get home, nor can the Master Blaster capture them, or we have no more show.
• Fairy Companion: Glitter, who guides them throughout the Flipside, and helps them (or tries to) with her powers.
• Fake Band: Inverted. The four main actors who played the heroes also sang and played the band's songs.
• For the Evulz: It's never explained why Master Blaster wanted to kidnap all the musicians from our world and send them to the Flip Side.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: The Copycats only wear jackets. (She-Lion, in addition, wears sandals)
• Ink-Suit Actor: Besides doing their own singing and playing their own instruments, the cast members also voice their animated versions.
• Insert Song: Action sequences tended to have songs, either original to the show or licensed music of the day, played over them. In the second season sometimes actual music videos would be shown, In-Universe to create a distraction so the band could escape a tricky situation.
• Interspecies Romance: The last episode, "Who's In the Kitchen With Dinah?", has the Master Blaster fall in love with a hippo-woman.
• Just Eat Gilligan: Carla screwed up their rescues more often than not but never got yelled at for it.
• Male Band, Female Singer: For two of the band's songs. "Turn Me Up" and "It's Over When the Phone Stops Ringing" have Carla on the vocals.
• Meaningful Name: Kidd Video, Whiz, Master Blaster, She-Lion, Kool Kitty. And those are just the recurring characters.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Inverted. The pirate captain is a parrot who carries a miniature human on his shoulder.
• Ode to Food: One episode begins with Whiz making a pizza and singing and dancing to celebrate the pizza. Unfortunately, he gets distracted and burns it.
• Ominous Floating Castle: The Master Blaster's lair is a cross between this and Air Borne Aircraft Carrier, although it mostly looks like a jukebox.
• The Power of Rock: The Flipside is basically an entire universe that runs on rock music.
• The Psycho Rangers: The Copy Cats, the enemy band to the Good Guys' band. Part Goldfish Poop Gang.
• Punch Clock Villains: The Copy Cats are only following Master Blaster's orders. Otherwise, they're not really evil.
• Race Lift: The live-action Carla is black, but her Flipside counterpart is white.
• Romantic Ride Sharing: The show's intro includes the live-action Kidd and Carla doing this. This being a 1980s Saturday morning cartoon, however, the romance is largely implied.
• Rule of Cool: The only excuse for the show's premise.
• Super-Strength: Making Glitter sneeze would, for some reason, give her a burst of incredible strength. A Deus ex Machina that was always used to get the kids out of life-threatening situations.
• Telephone Song: "It's Over When the Phone Stops Ringing".

• That Reminds Me of a Song: Using popular radio hits of the day, sometimes including snippets from the music videos.
• Title Theme Tune: One of the few western productions to play with this trope. The chorus has the line "from my video to my radio", while the second verse (which only appears in the full version of the song) has the line "this kidd is up a tree", but it never actually gives the full name of the show.
• Transflormation: One episode has Carla and Ash turned into plants — she turns into a flower, and he turns into a cactus.
• Trapped in Another World: The Flipside. They're trapped in it.
• Vocal Tag Team: All four band members got to sing on various songs, even though Kidd was signposted as the bandleader.
• Walking the Earth: Okay, they ride a bus-car-submarine-thing, and it's not the Earth, exactly, but the trope still applies.

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