1981 11:00 on CBS: BLACKSTAR

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At 11 in the morning on CBS in 1981, you could find an... *interesting* little show that I can only assume was created by a committee of Time Traveling Marketing Executives at Filmation, BLACKSTAR.

Buck Rogers crash-lands on He-Man's planet (Eternia) and teams-up with characters from Thundarr and a small platoon of Smurfs so he can fight The Thundercats foe (Mum-Ra) for the other half of a magic sword, because there should always be a sword.

Or, in the words of the narration:

"John Blackstar, astronaut, is swept through a black hole, into an ancient alien universe. Trapped on the planet Sagar, Blackstar is rescued by the tiny Trobbit people. In turn, he joins their fight for freedom against the cruel Overlord, who rules by the might of the Powerstar. The Powerstar is split into the Powersword and the Starsword. And so with Starsword in hand, Blackstar, together with his allies, sets out to save the planet Sagar. This is his destiny".

In later years when I was watching this on VHS, every time the end of the narration came and he says "I am John Blackstar", I liked to follow it up with "...And I'm an alcoholic." HI, JOHN. "It's been one week since my last drink, the last time I saw a Trobbit, but I feel like I might lapse and..." and then the episode would start and it was all just hi drunken nightmare/fantasy, week after week.

Never had much use for this cartoon... sorry I don't know much more about it. It was on opposite two other shows that I liked a heck of a lot better, and it was on a channel that we didn't receive very well with our antenna :/

Although there were only 13 episodes produced (a single season), the reruns continued to air at 1:00 in 1982 and 1983.

Please leave your memories/opinions/thoughts in the comment below :)