Spade Castle

Spade Castle (referred to as Spade Castle Stories in several sources during the show's initial run) is a Kuboian animated television series created by Judith Rose. It premiered in early 1988, with a second series airing in 1989. Two further series produced by Red Grape Studios were aired in 1997 and 1998. Because of its status as the first ever animated television series in Kuboia, it is fondly remembered and was repeated regularly until 2008.

Premise
The titular Spade Castle is a large castle where the Symbol family and some of their friends live. The show's main characters consist of four floating creatures that are shapted to French-suited playing card symbols; Club and his father King Spade, and Diamond and her mother Queen Heart - Diamond and Club are stepsiblings due to the marriage of their parents.

The show mostly focuses on the Symbol family and what they get up to in their spare time, which typically involves playing games with their friends in Spade Castle. Occasionally, the unnamed village that Spade Castle is located in is seen - it appears to be a mixture of a then-modern suburb and a fantasy village.

The first two series featured narration by the show's creator Judith Rose and had limited animation, with the show having a storybook-like feel. The third series abandons the narration in favour of having the characters talking. The first two series also had short segments at the end of each episode to fill up the runtime, such as "Club's Card Games" and "Who Is This?"

1988 series
When plans for the first Kuboian television channel went underway in the mid-1980s, two children's programmes were created to air in time for the channel's launch. A traditionally animated series called Space Castle, and a stop-motion series called Animal Barn.

According to show creator Judith Rose, Spade Castle was created on a very tight budget, and she was expected to have at least thirteen episodes finished by the end of 1987. In order to do this, the first series suffered from very limited and frequently looped animation and reuse of specific elements, such as the card games seen at the end of each episode.

The show premeierd on 10th January, 1988, with new episodes airing on Sunday mornings at 10:30a.m. A second series of twelve episodes was later aired in 1989.

1997 series
In late 1995, a third and fourth series of Space Castle entered production, being produced by Red Grape Studios. A majority of the producers of the original two series returned, with the new series being developed by Hollis Davies, who previously wrote several episodes for Ouraine. Unlike the first two series, the episodes of the third and fourth series had two segments per episode that ran for eleven minutes, which had much more fluid animation and featured the characters talking instead of there being narration. Rose and Davies hoped that the changes would bring new life to the show, which had been considered dated, whilst still maintaining its original charm.

The third series of Spade Castle premiered on Tiny Vision on 13th August, 1997. These episodes were later reran on KT from 1999 to 2008.

1988 series
The 1988 series of Spade Castle was released on VHS in six volumes from 1989 to 1992. The first four volumes had three episodes of series one each, whilst the fifth and sixth volumes had three episodes of series two. They were released in Kuboia through Vision Video and in United Kingdom through The Video Collection.

1997 series
The 1997 series of Spade Castle was released on VHS from 1999 to 2002, in a similar format to the 1988 series. It was released in five volumes, with each volume having two episodes (four segments) of the first series.

Later, from 2003 to 2005, three DVDs for the show were released, with each DVD having three episodes (six segments) - the first and second had episodes of series three whilst the third had episodes of series two.

Both series
Spade Castle: The Complete Duology, featuring every episode of both the 1988 and 1997 series, was released on DVD worldwide in April 2007.

International airings
In the United Kingdom, the 1988 series of Spade Castle ran on CITV from 1989. The 1997 series started airing on Milkshake! from 1999 until 2004, and also aired on Tiny Living round about the same time. Reruns were shown on Tiny Pop from 2004 to 2008.

In the United States, Spade Castle aired on Nick Jr. from 1989 to 1995. The 1997 series aired on Playhouse Disney from 2000 to 2002. In Canada, the 1997 series aired on TVOKids from 1998 to 2007.

The 1997 series aired on KRO and Jetix Play in the Netherlands, Super RTL in Germany and TF1 in France.

Merchandise
Books based on Spade Castle were published from 1989 up to the early 2000s. A sticker book and several colouring books were also released in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

A Europe-only educational video game based on the show, Spade Castle Playtime, was released for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation in May 1998.

A kiddie ride based on the show was manufactured in 1998.