Welcome back to Saturday Morning SuperstarsSaturday Morning Superstars, my weekly look back at the dead tradition of kids across the country parking their butts in front of the TV for hours on end while gulping down bowls of sugary cereal.
This week, I am focusing on a series that I think has largely been forgotten– Ruby-Spears’ Goldie Gold and Action Jack. The show centered on a wealthy heiress, Goldie Gold, whose parents had made their fortune by founding the newspaper, the Gold Street Journal. Goldie seemed to have limitless wealth (she is described as “the world’s richest girl” in the opening credits) as she frequently employed super high-tech gadgets (she always seemed to have the right gadget to fix any given problem) and traveled around in a gold airplane with a full-sized pool on top of it. (But… the air pressure… the wind velocity… that makes no sense!) Her car also flies.
Despite her extreme wealth, Goldie was down to earth and even hobnobbed with the homeless (specifically, a character named “Hobo Joe”). She spent her time traveling the globe on adventures, accompanied by “Action Jack” Travis, and her cocker spaniel, Nugget. Also popping up on the series was Jack’s boss, Sam Gritt. While Goldie and Jack were clearly boyfriend-girlfriend, things were kept pretty chaste for Saturday morning audiences.
Judy Strangis provided the voice for Goldie Gold, with Sonny Melendrez as Jack Travis, and Booker Bradshaw as Sam Gritt.
The series hailed from Ruby-Spears Enterprises, the folks behind The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Hour, and in fact, Goldie Gold aired after that series and was even plugged in the Plastic Man intro. While Goldie Gold wasn’t necessarily dark, it wasn’t as humorous as some Ruby-Spears shows like Fangface. It was closer in tone to the likes of the first season of Plastic Man, Thundarr the Barbarian, and Mr. T.
Comic book writer Steve Gerber (Howard the Duck, The Defenders) developed the series. Mark Evanier (Garfield and Friends, Groo the Wanderer), Martin Pasko (Superman), and Buzz Dixon (G.I. Joe) were among the writers, although the most frequent scripter was Cliff Ruby, who has written probably hundreds of animated shows and movies, often in collaboration with his wife, Elana Lesser (and that includes episodes of this series).
Goldie Gold and Action Jack only lasted for one season, comprised of 13 episodes on ABC in 1981. It was rerun for a few years after that, but I don’t believe it was ever syndicated. It did air at one point on Boomerang, however. Select episodes were released on VHS, but it has never been released on DVD/Blu-Ray/digital. But you can watch all 13 episodes on your tube another way. There was no licensing for this series as far as I can tell.
I mainly wanted to discuss this series because it was one of the few action cartoons of this era to star a female protagonist. There had been Hanna-Barbera’s Jana of the Jungle, but it was equally short-lived– it also only lasted for 13 episodes which aired in 1978. (I discovered Jana in the 80s when it was rerun on the USA Cartoon Express.)
Generally speaking, Saturday morning cartoons were kind of gender-neutral as they wanted all kids to watch them. But there were a few that seemed to skew more in one direction. I suspect that “Action Jack”s name was added to the title to appeal to more boys. But the more “girlie” cartoons tended to be cute. So Goldie Gold was unique in that it was a pretty straight action series.
This was also my cousin’s favorite cartoon. It just so happened that around the time that this cartoon aired, Mattel released Golden Dreams Barbie, who very much resembled Goldie Gold, so we spent a lot of time playing Goldie Gold with her Barbies and Kens.
Do you remember this cartoon? Have you ever even heard of it?
