1980's Saturday Morning Historical Preservation Society

At 10:00 on ABC in 1983, you'd find "Rubik The Amazing Cube" courtesy of the fine folks at Ruby-Spears. As is the case occasionally here at the SMHRS, once I started Googling to confirm or deny the information I knew about this show, I learned that I was WRONG. This is the second or third time I've had wrong information on something!

So first, let's start at the basics. The Early 80's were all about 3 things - Pac Man, MTV and The Rubik's Cube. The Rubik's Cube, for those who may not know for some weird reason, was a very popular cube-shaped puzzle with 36 squares of 6 different colors that could be rotated to create headaches and confusion.

So naturally, they made a cartoon about some Puerto Rican kids finding a magic one that could talk and help them with their daily conflicts while they helped the cube avoid being captured by the evil Gypsy Magician who would use the power of the cube to rule the world.

My INCORRECT INFORMATION on this cartoon was that the entire voice cast had been members of the popular Puerto Rican Boy Band "Menudo", along with Emanuel "Webster" Lewis as the voice of Rubik.


(Yeah, THOSE GUYS)

Ends up that Menudo only sang the theme song to the show, and the voice of Rubik was done by former Sweathog Ron "Horshack" Palillo from "Welcome Back Kotter" (a show that surprisingly holds up rather well after the passage of so much time).


Yeah, THAT GUY)

One story about this show that I've always heard that made me feel warm-n-fuzzy on the inside is that the Puerto Rican kids on this show wasn't some affirmative action, racial equality, diversification mandate from higher up; the show was pitched as specifically Puerto Rican in order to capitalize on the momentum of the popular "Menudo On ABC" segments. Instead of being forced to rework a character or characters in to ethnic roles for diversification sakes (which is why cartoons are so full of multi-racial casts that all act as white as a bag of mayonnaise & marshmallows), this show was *natural*.

I love that :)