More than just a Cube Fact on Rubiks.com

Rubik the Amazing Cube first aired on Saturday, September 10, 1983 on ABC TV. I was 10 years old. Rubik ran for only one season. But for that year, it was the show I waited all week to see. I think the Christmas episode and the one about The Mysterious Man were my favorites. I used to draw pictures of Rubik and make up funny stories for him in my head. The next September I waited eagerly all Saturday morning to see if Rubik would have new adventures in 1984. But Rubik was gone. I was really disappointed.

In 2007 Rubik the Amazing Cube is the kind of show people like me remember and have to pinch ourselves and say, "Was that real?" We tell other people about it and they can't believe such a thing ever existed. Then we start pinching ourselves agaain, thinking maybe the whole show was just a dream.

Recently I've watched all the episodes of Rubik the Amazing Cube over and over - so I know it's real - and I found that all the heart I knew as a kid is still there. Rubik is a loyal, protective, mischievous, little guy, who'd do anything for his friends. He's just plain good, though he often gets talked into things against his better judgement. I think Rubik's story is one worth retelling to a new generation of kids - all the young and the young at heart.

When I watch the show now, it's definitely a mid-80s Saturday morning cartoon, the kind they don't make anymore, from the wild plotlines to the standard sound effects. The good guys were good, and the bad guys were bad. The kids acted like kids and treated the adults with respect. The crime was always solved, the bad men went to jail, and friendship was held above all in the end. And now when I watch Rubik, I still get that magical feeling. And I'm somehow better for having seen these shows again. Everything that made me love Rubik is still there.

I also saw some funny moments, some sweet moments and some good animation in Rubik the Amazing Cube. When I started writing Rubik's Movie I chose a different overall situation for the characters. Since I had chosen to put them in a live-action world, I wanted their problems to be more realistic, but in my story I found things from almost every episode of the show that fit - even if it was as small as one line of dialogue.

As a child I found "Rubik and the Mysterious Man" to be the most compelling of all the episodes because it showed that Rubik had some sort of interesting past. So it is the source for the villain in Rubik's Movie - a greedy carnival ringmaster/magician who wants, once again, to control the powers of the magic cube which was once his slave. Rubik's friends, Carlos, Reynaldo and Lisa Rodriguez, and their dog Sparky all have the same basic personalities, and even Grandma Ria from "Rubik's First Christmas" plays an important role.

As for Rubik, I have found it to be more fun than anything to give him a lot of depth that he didn't get a chance to express on Saturday mornings. In Rubik's Movie, Rubik is less of a force to be reckoned with, more unsure of himself, as he tries to understand what he is capable of. In his non-cartoon world, I've chosen for Rubik to have more limited magical powers. In Rubik the Amazing Cube he was like a genie - able to do just whatever seemed necessary or convenient at the moment. However, in the interest of story and the development of other characters, in Rubik's Movie his powers are not so broad and far-reaching as to make him able to change shape or phase through walls or teleport his friends right to where they need to be or show them the future. In a 22 minute cartoon these "quick fixes" can help move things along, but they'd make a feature length movie hard to keep interesting. The focus in Rubik's Movie is on Rubik's personality and relationships rather than his powers. I think it also leaves room for Rubik to discover some of his abilities along the way.

On this site I've compiled a short collection of videos of some of my favorite moments which illustrate Rubik's personality and his relationship to his friends. Also contained are a few of Rubik's best "cartoony" moments. For a lot more about the show and its individual episodes, check out www.rubiktheamazingcube.com. Enjoy!