TVSquad

Ah, the 1980's, the golden age for many things . . . pop music, hair bands, family sitcoms, and video games. However, it really wasn't a golden age for Saturday morning cartoons. By the time the mid-80's rolled around many of the cartoons on the air were stealing their material from shows that you would see on prime-time television (like the Happy Days gang traveling in time), or from children's toys.

Case in point was CBS's Saturday Supercade. Premiering in 1983 during the height of the video game era, Supercade featured characters from some of the most popular arcade games of the time. For instance, there were characters from Frogger, Donkey Kong (with Soupy Sales as the voice of the barrel throwing monkey), Q*Bert, and Space Ace. Amazingly, the show lasted two seasons on CBS.

As a youngster of the greatest decade of all decades, the 1980's, I remember watching a game show where contestants played about a minute or two of the hottest video games of the time (Frogger, Pac-Man, Global Thermonuclear War) for cash and prizes. After watching the players performing quite badly on these games I though to myself  'Gee, video game competitions on television will never work.'

Apparently, the hormones racing through my teenage body hindered my opinion-making skills, because they are returning to television, and soon. Major League Gaming has announced an agreement with USA Network to air seven one-hour episodes during the holiday season. The episodes will cover MLG tournaments across the country, the playoffs in Chicago and the Las Vegas championships to be held in November.

I guess I need to start  honing my Pong skills.