While going through a stash of vintage Betamax videotapes in search of local band footage for the Youtube channel BetaGems, we found September 1989 clips of the costumed King Koopa hosting the controversial King Koopa's Kool Kartoons show and giving away prizes on the original Fox Kids Club programming bloc. 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 cartoon Super Mario Bros Super Show, the live action King Koopa's Kool Kartoons featured public domain cartoons introduced by a dinosaur and his pet rat. It 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. Perhaps it was best that this shortlived program was considered lost.

Despite a replacement host (who was reportedly heckled by angry Kids Club attendees as a "fake" and "imposter"), the show was cancelled a few weeks later, 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," only ran from September to November, 1989. We seem to have stumbled on footage rumored to no longer exist, with few other traces of it on the internet - enjoy!

We also found another piece of "lost media" that several internet sources claimed did not exist on videotape, so now there's a copy of Adam West's Cartoon Lost and Found on the internet for the first time. You can find several other YouTube videos talking ABOUT Cartoon Lost and Found, with a lot of theories as to why it seemed lost to time. But we can now offer the full intact broadcast, including intro bumper, thanks again to the BetaGems stash that continues to yield longlost video treasures.

This appears to be one of the most rare gems in the BetaGems stash, long rumored to not even exist on tape other than a short promo. The complete pilot (and only) episode was hosted by Adam West and broadcast October 15, 1989. West plays himself, dusting off old film reels as other characters come and go, screening dozens of clips from classic old cartoons and anime dubbed in English. The show was created by Herb Scannell, Spike Feresten, and Ken Walz. 

Featured 'toons include Japanese fave Astro Boy, Bob Clampett's animated version of Beany and Cecil, Clyde Crashcup and Leonardo, Cool McCool, Bob Kane's Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, Deputy Dawg, Felix the Cat, the Fox and the Crow, Gandy Goose, George of the Jungle, Gigantor, Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse, Snagglepuss, Speed Racer, Super Chicken, The Mighty Hercules, Tom Slick, Tom Terrific, and Top Cat. The BetaGems channel also has "Adam West, Burt Ward, Yvonne Craig 1987 interview clip," "Adam West 12-5-88 on Keaton's Batman casting," and "Alcoa-Goodyear Theater 3-28-60 'All in the Family' Adam West." 

The San Diego Reader acquired the 1980s beta videotape collection a few years ago, with clips frequently uploaded to the Local Video Jukebox. The tapes are still being inventoried and choice clips are uploaded weekly. Among the gems are 1980s episodes of a Cox Cable public access TV program called Club 33, which broadcast local bands performing on Friday nights at 7:30 pm on KCOX channel 33. Hosted by Bill “Hergon” Hergonson of KGB FM's morning show, produced by Jim Lee, and taped in the Cox studio then located behind Parkway Plaza, the show began as a 13 week experiment that proved so successful that it was renewed indefinitely. Groups featured on the one-hour program included recently reunited bands such as Manual Scan, N-E-1, and the Monroes, as well as long gone acts such as Laws of Motion, the Neat, Urban Umbrella, Victim, the Norm Norman Band, Opal, the Dynamics, the New Presidents (featuring the future frontman of Robert Vaughn & the Shadows), and a beer-soaked Beat Farmers performance that almost got the show closed down.

The Monroes episode opens with the host mocking them in the Cox parking lot for pulling up in a dilapidated car. “That was my 50 dollar Valiant,” says frontman Bob Monroe. “Ran great! DMV actually gave me the license plate, which was ‘50 BUCKS.’ I believe they [show producers] contacted us. A lot happening back then, not sure how contact with us was made." As for the very enthusiastic studio audience, he remembers “Some friends, lots of new faces, we were popular at that point.”

The Club 33 clip of garage legends Tell-Tale Hearts performing "Hey Tiger" hit 1200 views within days of uploading. "The band had only been together for less than half a year at that point," recalls Mike Stax, who currently fronts the Loons. "We'd just recorded a demo of four or five songs at Studio 517, which was a rehearsal space and sometimes an informal live music venue at 517 Fourth Avenue, in what's now the Gaslamp District, then just a rundown part of downtown. That demo was what we lip-synched to on the TV show."

Another episode features the late Country Dick Montana fronting a raucous Beat Farmers performance around a year after the band was founded. "It was at the old Cox building in El Cajon," recalls Jerry Raney. The band was required by Club 33 producers to tone down their usual R-rated set, so several audience requests had to be ignored. As Montana tells them “People’s jobs are at stake here, we can’t do certain songs.”

"We had to lip sync," recalls Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan's appearances. "The [TV production] students built the sets without our input, the first we saw them was when we arrived at the studio. We taped videos for all five songs on the Plan of Action EP, but we were only on three episodes." The Reader's beta stash also includes tapes of other local public access music shows of the 1980s, including the Neat miming to a track specifically recorded for their appearance on Pacific Videos.

Selections from the Beat Farmers episode, as well as clips of the Tell-Tale Hearts, the Monroes, and many others can be viewed on the Reader site and on the Youtube channel BetaGems.