Kidd Video (originally in development as Hot Rocks) is an American Saturday morning live action/cartoon created by DIC Enterprises in association with Saban Productions. The series originally ran on NBC from 1984 to 1985. Reruns continued on the network until 1987 when CBS picked the show up. In the show, four teenagers are taken into a strange dimension called "the Flipside" and become cartoon characters, forced to fight the Master Blaster and his gang, the Copy Cats. The show included then-current music videos. Ownership of the series passed to Disney in 2001 when Disney acquired Fox Kids Worldwide, which also includes Saban Entertainment.

Premise

The title sequence explained the plot; Kidd Video and his band (Named Kidd, Carla, Ash, & Whiz) of the same name (played by live action performers in the first half of the title sequence) were practicing in a storage unit when an animated villain named the Master Blaster appeared, and transported them to the Master Blaster's home dimension, a cartoon world called the Flipside. The Master Blaster plans to use them as his musical slaves. They were rescued by a fairy named Glitter and subsequently spent each episode of the series either helping to free the denizens of the Flipside from the Master Blaster's rule, or trying to find a way back home to the real world. The show was dominated by an MTV-esque music video theme. Each episode featured at least one action sequence set to a popular song, and the heroes would often distract their enemies by showing current music videos and sneak off while the enemies were entranced. Each episode also ended with a live-action music video by Kidd Video. Other pop cultural current events featured heavily in the show as well: the characters often breakdanced to relax, rode on skateboards and one episode was devoted entirely to video games. The visual style of the cartoon itself was heavily influenced by the more surreal videos showing on MTV and by album artwork of the era by artists like Roger Dean. The band was created specifically for the show; they performed their own songs and they provided the voices for their cartoon counterparts. At the end of some episodes, the live action band would be shown once again performing a music video, such as "A Little TLC". The music videos produced by Kidd Video then became popular in Israel, which then produced fan merchandise such as coloring books and chocolate bars with images of the band.

Characters

List of episodes

Pilot (1984)

Season 1 (1984–85)

Season 2 (1985)

Cast

Voices

Music

The theme song, "Video to Radio", was written by frequent musical collaborators Haim Saban and Shuki Levy, who also contributed other songs to the show. The song "Time" was written by band member Bryan Scott. The song "A Little TLC" composed by Lynsey de Paul and Terry Britten and accompanying video was featured at the end of the first episode "To Beat the Band" and the end of the last episode "Who's in the Kitchen with Dinah?". Kidd Video released a vinyl album in Israel and the band reportedly toured there in 1987.

Home video

Six VHS tapes were released in the United States from DiC Video & Golden Books (with some only containing a single episode and others containing multiple episodes) and numerous Spanish-language tapes were available from Vídeo Peques under the Travelling Video line.