King Arthur & the Knights of Justice is a syndicated cartoon show that debuted in 1992. The premise involved the evil Queen Morgana and her cruel Warlord army, commanded by Lord Viper, trapping the legendary king and the knights of the round table in the Cave of Glass. When Guinevere, queen of Camelot is also captured by the Warlords, Merlin searches through time to find suitable replacements for the knights to rescue the queen. Does he find a hardcore team of military commandos? Nope. Instead he finds an Identical Stranger to King Arthur named Arthur King who is a quarterback for the New York Knights, a college football team along with 10 of his teammates and their equipment manager.The replacement knights are partially successful as they rescue Guinevere and hold back Morgana and the Warlords. Keeping their true identities a secret to all the citizens of Camelot (sans Merlin), the Knights must keep up the facade until they recover the 12 Keys of Truth, one for each knight that only they can initially touch. Once all of the keys were collected, the real knights would be freed and the team would be able to go back home. Too bad the show had No Ending (unless you count the one supplied by the Super Nintendo game).
Amusing Injuries: The Warlords suffer this regularly. But since they are creatures from stone whom Morgana can revive at any moment, this isn't as bad for them as it would be for anyone else.
Animal Motifs: Each Knight has an emblem beast to call upon in times of need. Several can be easily linked to the relevant Knight's personality.
Applied Phlebotinum: The Knights come to medieval England not knowing how to swing a sword or ride a horse, which is handily taken care of by their Transformation Sequence. No wonder the Warlords were always trying to sneak into Camelot and destroy the Round Table.
Arbitrary Skepticism: In the third episode, Darren laughs at a man claiming to have been attacked by a dragon. Even though he's been brought back in time by a wizard, gained knowledge of how to be a knight from a magic table, and seen a dragon jump out of Arthur's shield and come to life.
Art Evolution: Season 2's art is cleaner and clearer, if at the same time cheaper. Some design changes take place to: In season 1, Wally has brown eyes and Morgana black hair, while in season 2 Wally has green eyes and Morgana dark brown hair.
Attempted Rape: Season 2's first episode, "A Matter Of Honor", starts with an attempted gang rape of Katherine by a group of highwaymen. She is saved by Lord Chang, the leader of the new season's secondary villain group.
Big NO!: Morgana has a few of these, though once she did one merely to distract the Knights.
Bottomless Magazines: Whenever the Warlords lay siege on Camelot, there's a lot more axes, arrows, and boulders flying the castle's way a lot faster than logically would be possible. The Knights pulled a similar stunt themselves in "Assault On Castle Morgana".
By the Power of Grayskull!: "I am King Arthur..." "And we are the Knights of Justice! We pledge fairness to all, to protect the weak and vanquish the evil!"
Comic Book Adaptation: The story of the first two episodes was retold in three comic issues created by Marvel. Major changes include Guinevere's abduction being far less female-friendly, the Knights being decidedly less supportive of Arthur, Arthur being overly enthusiastic about his new role as hero, and Morgana considering her troops disposable.
Evil Laugh: Queen Morgana whenever she has a plan or when a plan goes into motion. Lord Viper and the Warlords if things seem to be going right.
Easy Amnesia: Part of the plot of "The Warlord Knight".
Evil Matriarch: Queen Morgana, who is the creator of most of her army (ánd her castle). Unlike many a villain, let alone an Evil Matriarch, Morgana is benign towards her creations.
Flight: Warlord Blackwing has wings and doubles as Morgana's scout and errand boy. In the second season, Slasher is also shown to be capable of flight. The Knights possess flight in as far as some of their emblem beasts can carry them. Flight is a plot point in the episode "The High Ground", wherein the Knights build small planes to get the advantage of the sky usually reserved to the Warlords due to Blackwing. Blackwing's inevitable attack on the planes seems to be fueled by more personal feelings than just a desire to keep the advantage.
Genre Savvy: To save some of his teammates from the Purple Horde, Arthur challenges their leader to single combat. The thinking is he wouldn't dare lose face by refusing a challenge to personal combat, and Arthur's thinking seems to come from an understanding of movie portrayals of Samurai honor. Nobody calls Arthur on using magic tricks to make it look like he has control over numerous animal spirits, either.
Gotta Catch Them All: The Keys of Truth. While they had to sacrifice the precious few they'd found in the first season finale, the Knights had actually found three more by the end of the second season.
Guns Are Useless: Subverted. Although slightly less numerous than the Knights and Warlords, part of the reason the Purple Horde are still a threat is the fact that they have cannons.
The High Queen: Queen Guinevere and the Lady of the Lake/Table.
Identical Stranger: King Arthur and Arthur King; Sir Lancelot and Lance. No one says anything about the other new Knights either, even with the ethnic diversity they represent.
MacGyvering: The Knights, particularly Tone and Breeze.
Meaningful Name: Lord Viper's got a snake motif going on and each Warlord is named after their weapon or the way to use them (give or take that Blackwing's got wings, but they're blue). The trope applies in two ways to the Knights. For one, several Knights also have a name that communicates their team purpose or power. Secondly, for some their 1990's names pretty much predicted they would one day be called to replace the Camelotian crew, 'Arthur King' being the most obvious.
Mooks: The non-identifiable Warlords. Subverted slightly in that while they are the disposable troops, they never are disposed of. That fate only befalls the identifiable Warlords.
Mr. Exposition: Merlin from time to time. Especially bad in the episode "The Dark Side" when he finds out Nilrem has been freed.
Near Villain Victory: The premise of the series is based around the fact that the villains have already won, and only cheating by getting some replacement Knights from another time period prevents their full victory. In addition to that, several episodes have the villains come very close to conquering Camelot.
Which ties in rather nicely with the idea behind the Arbitrary Headcount Limit in the game; if you take more than two guys exploring with you, Camelot's defenses are sure to be overrun in your absence.
No Honor Among Thieves: The alliance between Morgana's troops and Chang's troops was never a strong one. The episodes "Quest For The Book" and "The Cure" play into this.
Purple Is Powerful: The second season introduced us to the aptly-named Purple Horde, a group of samurai able to hold their own against the Knights and the Warlords at the same time. It helped that they invented cannons.
Toyless Toyline Character: Only a handful of toys were ever released, so most characters fall in this category. However, arguably many were set to receive a toy in the future. Merlin, Queen Morgana, the squires, and the female protagonists? Probably not.
Villain Decay: In the second season it became a semi-regular thing for the Warlords to be smashed into rocky debris upon being defeated by the Knights, something that happened not a single time in the first season.
On the other hand, Morgana became more involved in the various battles than she was in the first season.
Weapon of Choice: Each Knight, Viper, each Warlord, and each Purple Horde warrior had at least one. Several Warlords were even named after theirs.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Unlike the male characters, all recurring female characters have a different hair color. Notably, Lady Mary has blue hair when no one else has an unrealistic hair color.
You Have Failed Me: Subverted big time by both Queen Morgana and Lord Chang. Both rarely get angry about any failure from their troops (Morgana in particular will just create a new plan around the situation) and will jump into action to save them if necessary.
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