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.
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. 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".
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[]
| Image | Character | USA | Mex |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Rubik | Ron Palillo | Jaime Vega |
|
Reynaldo Rodríguez | Michael Bell | Alfonso Obregón |
|
Carlos Rodríguez | Michael Saucedo | Rossy Aguirre |
|
Lisa Rodríguez | Jennifer Fajardo | |
|
Title | N/A |