This section starts us on CHANNEL #1.
We part with nice three character cover:a masked warrior, a giant transforming robot, and knight riding a insect. This is a nice cover – better then what Cythina Celeste Miller was planning for the cover.
On page inside with the “In Memorial” to the late Lou Scheimer of Filmation Studios, is an artist work that was originally plan to be the original cover to Season 3. It's pretty ugly.
Next is the credits for who is Spectrum Games workers and playtesters – even crediting the create of their new co-host. At the bottom is the copyright for the book with has a reference to the annoying lame bad guy that's been around since Season 1, Kraggor of “Galactic Heroes”.
After crediting all of their Kickstarter backers, we come to “our Local Listing” a.k.a CAH:S3's Table of Contents”. The title of this make laugh like a lunatic.
After this becomes a preface from Flint Dille, a writer who work for the cartoon studio in the 1980s. He worked on GI Joe, Transformers, The Inhumaniods, and The Visionaries) and has he say was caught in the “blast radius” of the following shows (Jem And the Holograms, Thundarr the Barbarian, & He-Man And The Master of the Universe.)
He aslo some clever ideas of how to make your cartoons of 1980s and how to modified it to fit in with the 1980s network's – as Mr Dille said – “incredibly politically correct anti-violence, pro-social world.”
Now, we finally enter CHANNEL #1. After a nice imagine kid getting his bowl of sugar-coated cereal and getting ready to watch Saturday morning cartoons. I get the Cartoon Mistress and her crew – a.k.a Cythina Celeste Miller and her heroic gang at Spectrum Games – from here (anything in brackets like these: [] – means I did some arrange of the words]]: “What you hold in your hands is the third edition of the Origins-nominated [[role-playing]] game that seeks to emulate the wham-bang fun and excitement of the action cartoons from the 1980s (or “retro-toons”, as we call them). If you aren’t familiar with the source material, we strongly recommend that you watch at least a handful of episodes before running or playing the game. We have even compiled a “recommended viewing” section later in this channel that should help you pick out a series to watch.
[CAH – meaning Cartoon Action Hour]] is not tied to one definitive setting. It is intended for use with virtually any cartoon-like setting imaginable, whether it’s one published by us or created by you and your group. The end result is that there is no limit to the types of settings (we call them “series”) you can explore with [CAH], so go nuts with it! We have included a selection of sample series seeds, starting on page 134, that you can use to jump right into the game with.
You may be wondering if [CAH] is a universal game. While it certainly is capable of accommodating a wide variety of genres, from commando military action to giant transforming robots (and everything in between), the game system is built from the ground up using “cartoon logic” as its foundation. [[“Real world]] logic” has no place here! This means that regardless of what genre you base a series on, you’re going to end up with a cartoony version of it. In other words, Cartoon Action Hour isn’t just a universal [role-playing] game adorned with retro-toon art… it’s a [role-playing] game that zeroes in on the source material and brings it to life on your tabletop.”
Next comes in something that was in Season 2. I give you the short summary of it when I can – if I can can't I let Spectrum Games do the work for me. Fair warning, one size doesn't not fit all – you can take some of things and your cartoon will feel in a 1980s cartoon.
- Cartoon Logic: Use of Rule of Cool was always in play.
- Clear Cut Morality: One side is good and the other side evil. No middle ground.
- Fast Past Action: I let Spectrum Games take this one: “The writers had roughly 20
- Good Guys Always Finished First: No matter the setbacks face in an episode, the good guys were ready to overcome it and kick the bad guys from their location to Tokyo, Japan.
- Innocent Fun: No angst in this series – everyone's bright-eye and chipper as a kid who drink 200 Mountain Dew in one day.
- Moral of The Story: To stop the Moral Guardians, studios add morals to their stories. Sometime they were subtle but usually they were more louder then a jet engine.
- Toned-Down: Back to Spectrum Games for this one — "There was no shortage of fighting in the retrotoons. No shortage whatsoever. However, if you look closely, you’ll see that the actual amount of violence was shockingly low. The gunfire invariably seemed to miss, the drivers or pilots always managed to jump out of vehicles before they exploded, blood apparently didn’t exist, and practically nobody died. Robots were popular adversaries, as the censors and parent groups didn’t gripe much when they were blown to smithereens.”
- Toy-Centric Nature: Let's not kid us – as we say on Merchandise-Driven page, most retro-cartoons are 22 to 30 minutes of selling us toys – action, vehicles, and playsets.
Now, it does what TV Tropes – dives into the TROPES! I use the TV Tropes for names when I can or I either me or Spectrum Game would do the word
- After-Show Messages
- Animal Companions: Smart dogs, hawks, cats, parrots, wolves, snakes, etc. very loyal to their characters – no matter if their master are good or bad.
- Annoying Comic Relief Characters
- Between-Season Characters Changes: I let Spectrum Games do this one – “Successful toy lines offered up a new batch of action figures each year. In order to capitalize on popular characters and to reduce the number of all-new characters added to the line, toy companies occasionally included new versions of existing characters. The new versions would usually just look different, but sometimes, they would have new action features/accessories that carried over into the next season of the associated
- Between-Season Show Characters: Back to Spectrum Games – “We’ve always been told that change is good, right? Well, that isn’t always the case in the retro-toons. Sometimes, a series would endure a dramatic alteration of format, tone or direction. This usually proved to be an unpopular move, but it happened nevertheless.”
- Bumbling Wizards/Gadgeteers: Wizards and gadgets are so absent-minded that they could mess up their own spells or can't find the correct gadget time to time.
- Can't Hit The Broadside of A Barn.
- Catchphrases and Battle Cries
- Creative Threats: Villains come with weird ways of doing in their enemies.
- Discolored Background Elements: Trap doors that are going to be a surprise to the hero isn't a surprise to the watchers.
- Escape Plans: Here's what Spectrum Games have to say on this – “he master villains may taste defeat in damn near every episode, but they’re pretty proficient at planning ahead so that they escape the heroes at the end of each episode.
- Ethnic Stereotypes: Back to Spectrum Games for this one – “Ethnic stereotypes were alive and well in the retro-toons – from the Australians running around talking about putting shrimp on the barbie and calling everyone “mate” to the Native Americans who were expert trackers and spoke of animal spirits all the time. To be fair, the more insulting stereotypes were usually left well enough alone, but not always…”
- Exploding Vehicles, Safe Pilots – Again, I let Spectrum Game hand this one, “Vehicles went “boom” in the retro-toons at an alarming rate. Seriously, it happened practically all the time. Don’t worry, though. The people operating them invariably managed to leap out unscathed at the last second. Those parachutes sure do come in handy.”
- Funny Ending
- Hayseed Heroes: No matter what world, one of the hero is going be rip-off of a Texas cowboy.
- Gimmicky Series Concepts: Robots that can transformers into vehicles, characters that ride on bags, rock stars that use a holograms – no gimmick went unused in the 1980s.
- Incompetents Villains: A series show one completely villain who would be a good picture for DUMB in the dictionary.
- Indirect Attacks: From Spectrum Games about this – “The retro-toon writers had to find ways around direct violence when scripting episodes in order to appease the censors and parent groups. They turned to indirect attacks such as cutting down a branch so that it falls down upon a villain,trapping him beneath it."
- Kid Characters: To bait the kids – the writers might had a kid or two to the heroes' side.
- Laser Proliferation: In cartoon sent in the present or the future, laser gun are the weapon of choice for both sides.
- Mantas: Sometime people use Catch Phrase to transform into a more heroic form.
- Mission Briefing: A very quick way of getting of setting up the plot of an episode to prevent the kiddies from getting bored out of their mind.
- No Death: No main characters on either side of the good and bad line will die during the series. Background characters are safe to kick the bucket. All bets are off once the series gets a movie.
- Nogging-Knockers: Good Guys Characters love knocking Bad Guys head together.
- Non-Organic Foes
- Overdramatic Line Delivery
- Punny Character Names
- Soft Landings: This is when the character lands in wheel barrow of hay, mud-pit, a pile of feathery pillows or a pool of water.
- Teamwork: Good guys work together to defeat the bad guys.
- Treacherous Underlings
- Voiceover Introduction: This when a voice over or a theme song plays giving the kids the idea of what's going down in the series.
