September 1989 clips of the costumed King Koopa hosting Kool Kartoons and giving away prizes on the original Fox Kids Club. Koopa is of course a character in the Mario games, whose cartoon voice was later supplied by actors like Jack Black and Harvey Atkin. Spun off from the Super Mario Bros Super Show, King Koopa's Kool Kartoons was only broadcast on one Los Angeles TV station, and only for a few months in 1989. Koopa was played by two actors, starting with the one seen here, Chris Latta, the voice of Cobra Commander in the G.I. Joe animated series, Starscream in the first Transformers cartoons, and season one of the Simpsons featured him voicing Moe Szyslak and Mr. Burns. According to Wikipedia, "Partway through the series' production, Chris Latta was fired and replaced after a string of incidents occurred, including an altercation where Latta's own son was among the child audience." Latta is certainly offbeat here, heard at one point muttering to someone (presumably a child, but perhaps a stage hand) "What're you from Biafra?" We have NO IDEA what that was about, but it could certainly be taken a number of ways, most of them, um, troublesome....

EDIT: A post appeared online after we shared this link, from someone who says they worked on the show and remembers the "What're you from Biafra?" comment - according to the post, "There was an episode where he said he wanted kisses from his fans, and we dropped Hershey kisses on him. The audience, who was mostly African-American that day, stormed the stage. He fended them off with his scepter and said, live on TV, no delay, 'What're you from Biafra?'"

Anyway, despite a replacement host, the show was cancelled after the president of Disney, Michael Eisner allegedly told the head of 20th Century Fox that it "undermined the morals of its live, youthful audiences." The program, widely considered "lost media" (until BetaGems came along!), only ran from September to November, 1989. The BetaGems channel also has "10-16-89 King Koopa's Kool Kartoons, MORE longlost Mario Bros show!," "10-16-89 Super Mario Bros Super Show complete closing credits song," "1989 USA Cartoon Express & Nickelodeon Cartoons TV ad," "1989 Secret Saturday Cartoon Show, Karate Kid & Camp Candy," and "Cartoon Lost & Found: Adam West October 1989 pilot, complete show."

BetaGems are culled from an archive of over 1000 beta video tapes recorded from the early 1980s into the 1990s. Most feature live music performances broadcast on television in San Diego CA, though there are also rarely seen commercials, comedy clips, and other material that doesn't seem to be anywhere else on Youtube or online.

Most of the tapes were recorded on a Sony SL-HFT7 Super Beta Theater Hi-Fi Stereo - the same model was refurbished and is being used for these digital transfers and uploads. In rare occasions where a BetaGems clip does appear elsewhere, we're only uploading if our own beta master is better quality or contains material not seen previously. Much footage comes from public television and public access broadcasts that the taper, who worked for a local cable TV production company in the 1980s, monitored nightly for several years. Some of the programming is strictly regional, mostly from the San Diego area. This upload features materials protected by the Fair Use guidelines of Section 107 of the Copyright Act. All rights reserved to the copyright owners. To be used for research and archive purposes only, no commercial reproduction allowed.