Tooned In: Q*bert in “Thanksgiving For The Memories” (1983)

But first…Breaking News! As if I couldn’t enjoy Wrestle Me any more, in one of their recent episodes (reviewing Diesel vs. Taker and Austin vs. Vega at WrestleMania XII), they dropped a Raccoons reference! Now I won’t see Paul Bearer without thinking of The Pigs, and I must say, they did a near-spot-on imitation of Len Carlson’s Pig #3 voice. P.S. Scott, I hope those Raccoons DVDs arrived safely and are being enjoyed.

So quickie notes about MeTV’s Tis the Season for Toons so far…I welled up hearing the Taz-Mania opening again, and I am man enough to admit that. The running gag with Bushwhacker Bob and the mistletoe was the best. Sonic’s Christmas Blast…TIL that they tried to put Princess Sally and the Swatbots in the Adventures of Sonic canon. Apologizing for SatAM being canceled much? And never mind that Sally just amounted to standing around silently as a monument to fan service. As for Flintstone Family Christmas…why yes, had this been part of a 90s Flintstones series, Stoney would be remembered as fondly as Scrappy-Doo. As it was, after this we never see him again. He realized cavemen shouldn’t chronologically be able to celebrate Christmas and he probably Zack Morris Is Trashed himself.

And that brings us to Christmas Comes To Pacland, and…checks the internet…my, my, there are a lot of reviews/roastings of this special, aren’t there? Wouldn’t be very original of me as such, would it? Well, I’ll just leave it at this: Hanna-Barbera Santa is, as Mrs. Slocombe would say, weak as water. This is the second time he’s conceded his duties to one of the kooky creatures of HB Land: first, Fred and Barney, and now Pac-Man, who he claims to have never heard of. I call BS…surely Santa remembers legions of kids last Christmas cursing Pac’s name when they opened the home version of his game and plugged it into their Atari 2600s. Well, these same kids moved onto loving E.T. anyway, hope nothing like that happens for Christmas ‘83.

So what to tackle instead? If only there was some other ‘80s gaming icon’s take on an upcoming holiday…wait…Q, er, who’s that?

Yes, while ABC was having reasonable success with Pac-Man, over on CBS was Saturday Supercade. Ruby-Spears is close enough to Hanna-Barbera to count this as another case of them recycling their own ideas. Unlike Pac’s show, Supercade was an hour-long anthology of wacky adventures starring other video game characters: you had Frogger acting as a newspaper reporter; Pitfall Harry and his family exploring the wild; and the actual first animated series appearance of Mario in Donkey Kong’s cartoon, where he is reimagined to be Pauline’s uncle and the two chase the big ape around the world trying to get him back to the circus. The usual chicanery of Who Owns What will ensure that we’ll probably not get an official, true-to-the-original rerun or release anywhere.

Regardless, that brings us to another entry in the Saturday Supercade roster: Q*bert. I’ll assume that most of us have at least a passing knowledge as to who Q*bert is. If not, run, don’t walk, and get a copy of Creating Q*bert and Other Classic Video Arcade Games by Warren Davis. And I’ll be darned, there IS a DVD of his cartoons available on Amazon (released 10 years ago, apparently). In the meantime, I’ll provide the basics: Q*bert is a furry, round orange alien with an aardvark nose who enjoys hopping on a pyramid of cubes and changing their colors. He must avoid the purple snake Coily and his gang of monsters while doing so, and when he’s caught by one or bonked by bouncing balls, Q*bert drops @!#?@! Bombs. Anyway, one of said Q*bert cartoons is a Thanksgiving episode. Even better, because of course here we’re all about avoiding STDs*

* – that’s Skip Thanksgiving Disorder. And Jim Ross: “You know, me and Missy didn’t avoid any…” STOP.

Which brings us to THANKSGIVING FOR THE MEMORIES.

But first, seems whoever posted this decided to prank us by thinking we were about to watch Daffy Duck’s Thanks For Giving, and included some original commercials, mainly for Parker Brothers’ electronic games. Interestingly enough, PB also produced the home ports of Q*bert. There’s an electronic pool, and of the other game, the announcer tells us “This is Split Second.” Nonsense. I don’t see Tom Kennedy nor trivia questions with sets of three answers anywhere. Nor Monty Hall…but that’s in another 3 years.

So onto our feature. The idea of the Q*bert cartoons is not too different from the Smurfs nor the Pac-Man cartoon, in that it’s a community of creatures with a world that conforms to a certain shape or theme (here, squares/cubes, based on Q*bert’s affinity for jumping on cubes) and contains a variation of the English language filled with a certain verbal tic (“Smurf” for Smurfs; “Pac” and “chomp” for Pacland; and here, everything begins with “Q” or a “Q” sound). On top of all that, we have Happy Days Syndrome rear its head once again, because Q*Berg appears to be a combination of the ‘50s and ‘80s, where the game characters are reimagined as high school teenagers. Q*bert wears a Richie Cunningham-type letter jacket, while Coily and his friends have biker gang leather outfits like when the Fonz was still with the Falcons.

At Q*Burg High, a plus size Q*bert says in a Cookie Monster voice how much he loves Thanksgiving, because, in his words, “Yum yum!” Time for the Captain Lou Albano Memorial Scott Steiner Meme…it’s of course because…

Coily and Q*bert share turkey barbs as their teacher enters the class ready to talk about the first Thanksgiving, 350 years ago. Checks really quick…the first one was said to be 1621, meaning that the Q*bert universe actually takes place in the 1970s and complicates the matter of what pop culture they represent even further. Flash back to the Q-Pilgrims sailing on the Q-Flower, heading to the Q World where they’ll surely meet others who believe conspiracy theories involving pizza places and eating children. And in this version, there’s a competition where the young pilgrim who contributes most to the new settlement wins a Q-Horse and buggy. Q*bert and Coily cut card-carrying hero/villain promos about how they’ll do so. We also meet Coily’s girlfriend, a snake who talks like Mae West or Bernadette Peters. Interesting…say, I wonder what else this VA did…

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

There’s also a female Q-Person who is complaining in her valley girl voice about a lack of nightclubs or makeup salons. Timelines? What are those? And at this point I notice that Slick and Sam, the two green monsters, have been recast as Q*bert’s friends. Really, Ruby-Spears? You picked the TWO MOST ANNOYING ENEMIES IN THE ARCADE GAME to be on the good guys’ side? I haven’t really watched Saturday Supercade in a while, this would only make sense if Slick and Sam were the Gilligans of the bunch who mean well but mess things up and undo all the progress Q*bert and his friends make.

The gang meet the Noser Indians, who are about as true to life as you’d expect from an ‘80s cartoon. One Q-Person remarks they have nice bushes; luckily there was no attempt to make a Poc-Q-Hontas or female Indigenous Q-Person characters, or that comment would get really awkward. Their leader, Q-Eagle, promises to help the pilgrims, and we get them doing so as Coily and friends constantly attempt to sabotage their efforts, to varying degrees of success. For example, they steal the nails and ruin Q*bert’s log cabin, but in another scene their itching powder trick on Q-Cookie Monster just gives him the zoomies and helps him plow the fields faster. A year passes and it’s just said that they all prospered, not acknowledging death like Charlie Brown or even Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn’t. Anyway, the finalists in the horse-and-buggy contest are…surprise, surprise…Q*bert and Coily. The snake has one more plan to get ahead, as he stole a ball from Q*bit, ‘Bert’s kid brother, and uses it to trip Q*bert into a set of pies, which brings us to the cartoon’s habit of trying to include one pratfall or trap per episode that maddens Q*bert into doing his trademark gibberish swearing. One of Q*bert’s friends blame Q*bit, and this is enough to make him all “No one loves me, I’m running away from home!” Mrs. Slocombe, are you free?

When the Q-People discover Q*bit’s Dear John note, Ugg or Wrong Way is moved enough to out Coily, who agrees to help find him, albeit only to earn those Ryan Dowd Pennies in the Cup towards winning the horse. Of interest, the gang tries to cross a river and Coily complains it’s not shallow enough. Never mind that earlier, we saw him travel AND breathe under water while trying to mess with Q*bert’s fishing. Q*bert travels in the woods that randomly has giant pumpkins…and an angry Q-Bear. Did he have any cubs? Because then he’d be Papa Q. Bear! It was that deep cut full name, or a Winnie the Q pun. Anyway, we see that the big pumpkins were there to give Q*bert something to hop across, just like the game and complete with the arcade sound effects. He eventually defeats the bear by loading his nose with slimy “slippy doos,” which he fires at the animal. This is actually a remnant from the early stages of the game’s development, where Q*bert would be able to fire projectiles from his nose.

Soon, they find Q*bit hanging off a log. Quick, save him before he falls down and activates the pinball knocker on the bottom of the cliff! Coily’s girlfriend tells him to toss the rope, and he does so unironically. Not even as a dick move, he’s just that literal minded. In exchange, Q*bert just makes Coily into the rope and uses him to rescue Q*bit, who asks ‘Bert if he’s still mad. No! It wasn’t him, it was his friend, remember? As the gang leaves, Coily channels Jabberjaw by complaining that snakes get no respect. Vaguely down to the voice, because remember, Coily was voiced by Frank Welker.

One final last minute bit of drama, because it seems everything has been for naught as Q-boars apparently ate all the food. But Q-Eagle and his people have plenty to share with everyone, so it’s a happy end after all! (And I am writing this after watching the Ghosts Thanksgiving episode, and yes, Sasappis is part of the gag that you’d think about the holiday’s history being oversimplified) . Back to the present, the class wonders and argues about who won the horse and buggy. Was it Q*bert? Or Coily? And yes, there’s no attempt to differentiate the past versions of the characters with the present day ones.

The short ends on this video with interference as if it was a pirated telecast, and we go back to an advertisement for Charlie Brown and Bugs Bunny’s holiday specials, along with some more electronic handheld games.

Typical cornball Saturday Morning fare with little thought in story because kids were occupied with seeing their video game favorites. But at least Pac-Man’s Christmas didn’t pull drama out its rear end every other minute like this, I guess.