Rubik, the Amazing Cube

Rubik, the Amazing Cube was a 1983 half-hour Saturday morning animated series based on the puzzle created by Ernő Rubik, produced by Ruby-Spears Enterprises and broadcast as part of The Pac-Man/Rubik, the Amazing Cube Hour block on ABC from September 10 to December 10, 1983 and continued reruns until September 1, 1984. The Rubik half hour was broadcast in reruns as a standalone series on ABC from May 4 to August 31, 1985.[1]

Rubik, the Amazing Cube
Written byTom Dagenais
Janis Diamond
Jack Enyart
Gary Greenfield
Mark Jones
Gordon Kent
Norman Maurer
Richard Merwin
Directed byJohn Kimball
Rudy Larriva
Norm McCabe
Voices ofRon Palillo
Michael Saucedo
Jennifer Fajardo
Michael Bell
Ángela Moya
Theme music composerDean Elliott
Opening themeMenudo
Country of originUnited States
Original language(s)English
No. of series1
No. of episodes13 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)Joe Ruby
Ken Spears
Producer(s)Mark Jones
Steven Werner
Running time30 minutes
Production company(s)Ruby-Spears Enterprises
DistributorWarner Bros. Television Distribution
Release
Original networkABC
Picture format4:3 SDTV
Original releaseSeptember 10 (1983-09-10) –
December 10, 1983 (1983-12-10)

The program featured a magic Rubik's Cube named Rubik who could fly through the air and had other special powers. Rubik could only come alive when the colored squares on his sides had been matched up.[2] The voice of Rubik, Ron Palillo, told TV Guide in 1983 that for the role, he spoke very slowly and then technicians sped up the tapes and raised the pitch. Palillo said Rubik's giggle was very different from the trademark laugh of Horshack, his character on the TV series Welcome Back, Kotter, and that it was pretty "for an inanimate object".[3]

Premise

Rubik had fallen out of the stagecoach of an evil magician, who became the main villain of the series. Rubik helped Carlos, Lisa, and Reynaldo Rodriguez, in foiling the magician’s attempts to recover Rubik. Once, Rubik was recovered by a detective who was a relative of the magician, but then decided the children should keep Rubik as the magician would use him for evil and selfish purposes.

Outside of the evil magician, episodes usually dealt with more normal adversaries, such as when the eldest son had run afoul of a bully who had thwarted his efforts to gain a potential girlfriend, while at the same time the bully was making himself appear decent to the girl. Rubik worked in secret to expose the bully’s true brutal personality in front of the girl.

For dramatic purposes, the cube was easily fully scrambled (such as by being dropped or grabbed by the family dog, and at least once Rubik scrambled himself) and usually solved quickly by the Rodriguez children, although in stressful circumstances it took them longer. When scrambled, Rubik can only be heard making low-key gibberish and sometime can be heard saying, "Help."

Cast

Additional voices: Jack DeLeon, Alan Dinehart, Laurie Faso, Takayo Fischer, Bob Holt, Tress MacNeille, Tysun McMullan, Neil Ross, John Stephenson, Janet Waldo, Alan Young

Theme music

In keeping with the Hispanic flavor of the show, the theme song was sung by Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. Featured in the song were Johnny Lozada, Ricky Melendez, Charlie Masso, Ray Reyes and Roy Rossello.

Episodes
No.TitleOriginal air date
1"Rubik, the Amazing Cube"September 10, 1983 (1983-09-10)
2"Back Packin' Rubik"September 17, 1983 (1983-09-17)
3"Rubik and the Buried Treasure"October 1, 1983 (1983-10-01)
4"Rubik and the Lucky Helmet"October 8, 1983 (1983-10-08)
5"Rubik and the Mysterious Man"October 15, 1983 (1983-10-15)
6"Rubik and the Pooch Nappers"October 22, 1983 (1983-10-22)
7"Rubik and the Science Fair"October 29, 1983 (1983-10-29)
8"Rubik in Wonderland"November 5, 1983 (1983-11-05)
9"Honolulu Rubik"September 24, 1983 (1983-09-24)
10"Rubik's First Christmas"November 19, 1983 (1983-11-19)
11"Saturday Night Rubik"November 26, 1983 (1983-11-26)
12"Super Power Lisa"December 3, 1983 (1983-12-03)
13"Time Machine Rubik[4]"December 10, 1983 (1983-12-10)
gollark: You're going to remove it from *all* of them? Why? That sounds really high-effort.
gollark: > actual future planning by governments etc.Hilarious!
gollark: Fascinating.
gollark: ~~I expect incompetent governments would have been about equally incompetent, subject to random variation.~~ Actually, with this and level of trust in governments there are probably long-term complex things here I have no idea about.
gollark: Maybe contact tracing would have been somewhat better with 2029 technology; there seems to be a lot of work on position/thing sensing using mobile devices' radios and such now, and by then it would probably have matured. (Yes, this is overly specific, but things)

References
  1. Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 -2003, The Shows M-Z (Volume 2) (2nd ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company. pp. 600, 691. ISBN 978-0786422562.
  2. Perlmutter, David (2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 519–520. ISBN 978-1538103739.
  3. "Palillo's Puzzled". TV Guide. 31 (45): 78. November 5, 1983. ISSN 0039-8543.
  4. "Rubik, the Amazing Cube Fan Site". Archived from the original on 2009-10-03.
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