Video Tape (TV series)

Video Tape is a Kuboian computer animated television series produced by Red Grape Studios and ComputerKit Animation. Created by Claudia Winkel, the show focuses on a group of characters living in a fantasy world that is shown through a television screen. It aired on Tiny Vision, with three series and seventy-eight episodes airing from 1997 to 1999. The show was the first television series in Kuboia to be animated fully with CGI.

Premise and structure
Video Tape is set in a vibrant fantasy world which supposedly takes place inside a VHS cassette tape.

Every episodes begins in a red void where nothing aside from a television set with a built-in video player can be seen. A cassette tape is suddenly inserted into the player, and the camera zooms into the television screen to showcase what is playing.

Episodes of Video Tape generally have very little in terms of plot, instead consisting of various recurring scenes and gags that are only loosely connected. In spite of this, almost every episode ends the same way; with Ruby the red marble going back to her cave to go to sleep.

The actual setting within the cassette tape appears to be an inhabited world filled with all type of creatures, some of which are human-like whilst others are not. The world itself is never given a name, although certain areas within the world are given names. Narration during the opening and closing sequence is provided by Wilhelmina Watson.

Rumble Cave residents
The Rumble Cave is located in the Red Desert. It is inhabited by mostly sentient objects.
 * Ruby is the show's most iconic character, and arguably the main protagonist, being the only one to appear in every episode. She is a sentient red marble who is allegedly the fastest and enduring thing in the fictional world. Though living in the dark Rumble Cave, she often likes to spend her days travelling round to all the different areas, occasionally imposing self-made challenges, such as getting to a certain place within a time limit. Although Ruby is incapable of talking, she can understand speech. If anything of particular interest is going on, she seems to prefer to just watch in the background, only interfering if she feels she has to. Though she cares for her friends, she seems to have trouble fitting in due to her inability to talk. She becomes a darker shade when angry or upset, and glows when in a happy mood.
 * Sapphire is Ruby's younger sister, a blue marble. She doesn't leave the Rumble Cave as much as Ruby, but will occasionally join her sister on adventures, though is not as fast as her. Although Sapphire can understand human language, she is unable to detect lies, jokes and sarcasm, which occasionally leads to trouble.
 * Topaz is Ruby and Sapphire's younger brother, a small yellow marble who rarely leaves the Rumble Cave and is almost completely unable to understand human language. Some episodes that feature him end with him making patterns and/or words in the ground with his tracks.
 * Freezie is Ruby's sentient fridge whom looks after Topaz when Ruby and Sapphire are absent. He can also sound an alarm if Ruby has to return home for any particular reason.

Toyblock Castle residents
The Toyblock Castle is located on the outskirts of Red Desert. The castle itself appears to be built with giant Lego-like construction blocks. It is inhabited mostly by anthropomorphic toys made of metal.
 * Princess Orchid is the castle's princess, who prefers to play the leading role in keeping the castle safe whilst her parents, the king and queen, remain on the sidelines. She appears to be Ruby's best friend, and is the one to underatand her the most. In addition to carrying a staff, she also has a clockwork motor attached to her back which appears to give her strength when wound up.
 * Orchid normally gets about via her horse-on-wheels Trigger, whom has to be pulled back in order to travel far distances. A recurring gag has Orchid pulling Trigger back only to remember that she can't turn well at high speed, which always results in the latter crashing.
 * The Toy Soldiers are the castle's main bodyguards who help Princess Orchid protect it from intruders, though they often end up spending more time playing games, given they usually have nothing to do. Other times, they are seen outside the castle, marching around the fictional world; other characters, including Ruby, are expected to move out of the way for them.
 * Sarge is the elderly leader of the soldiers who leads their outside marches. He is shown to be strict during work time but is also shown to have a lot of compassion and willing to spend time doing fun activities.
 * Clyde is one of the younger soldiers. He doesn't have a lot of confidence in himself but is willing to step in and make a change when the times comes for him to do so. Clyde appears to be interested in music, and is occasionally seen leading an orchestra band which performs a parade at the end of several episodes. He and Princess Orchid are implied to have a crush on each other.
 * Topsy is Orchid's "pet" spinning top.
 * King Fry is the friendly but very overweight and lazy king of Toyblock Castle, often spending the whole day sitting in his bed and watching his collection of video tapes. His favourite food is apparently "turkey dinosaurs" and "smiley face potatoes".
 * Queen Tulip is Orchid's mother and Fry's husband. She makes only sporadic appearances but is generally shown as well-meaning but very snobby towards her husband's choice of television and the nature of the other characters.

Black Garden residents
The Black Garden is located west of Toyblock Castle. Despite its name, it is actually a park consisting of multicoloured trees and a shed, referred to in-universe as "The Big Cupboard", where several characters live.
 * Henry Bear is a giant teddy bear and seems to be the owner of Black Garden. He is rather slow but also shown to be very wise and a good role model to the others, though he also has the tendency to suddenly fall asleep suddenly. He often serves as the announcer for the Toy Soldiers' orchestra bands.
 * Triangy is an energetic pyramid toy block who likes to organise and play games. He is shown to be very good friends with Ruby.
 * Ribbon Duck is a rubber duck with a ribbon on the back of her head. She is shown to be very mischievous and particularly enjoys eating things, although she proves to be a useful "hoover" when the park is in a lot of mess. She is implied to have family members in some episodes, although they never make any on-screen appearances.

Other characters

 * The Bowling Pins are large bowling pins that occasionally cross paths with Ruby on her travels. They often play a game with her where she has to ram into them and send them flying as far as she can. It is implied that they cannot feel pain.
 * Scat is a giant spider who lurks around the fictional world, seemingly never having a permanent home. He has a big appetite for marbles, and thus often tries to eat Ruby whenever he bumps into her. He is shown to be friendly with her depending on the episode, however, and seems to be on good terms with the Black Garden residents, though the Toybloc Castle residents not so much. According to Winkel, Scat was occasionally called "Sect", meaning "insect", but his name was changed when one of the writers felt his name sounded too similar to "sex".

Cast
Ribbon Duck's voice was provided by stock sound effects of a duck. Scat's voice clips consist of edited sound effects of a dog. The few robotic/alien sound effects made by Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz and Traingy were provided by Denise Chevrolet.
 * Wilhelmina Watson - narrator
 * Sofie van Halen - Princess Orchid
 * Ray Bradbourne - Clyde
 * Darren Marion - Henry Bear, most of the Toy Soldiers
 * Henry Buckings - Freezie, King Fry, Sarge
 * Betty Parkin - Queen Tulip

Production
Video Tape began production around early 1996 as an original idea pitched by Claudia Winkel. Winkel suggested that the show could use computer imagery to showcase the potential of 3D graphics.

When coming up with ideas for the show's premise, Winkel suggested a loose format so the show could reflect a child's imagination. However, she was suggested by Ruth Tucker not to make the show "too random" so children could be familiar with the characters and recurring elements.

Out of all the show's characters, Ruby, a living red marble, is the only one to appear in every episode and also gets the most screentime. Ruby was chosen to be the central character as Winkel thought a marble rolling around would be a good excuse to showcase the 3D visuals, and that Ruby would also be easy to animate due to her simplistic design. There was some conflict over whether to refer to Ruby with male or female pronouns, as Winkel noted that a lot of protagonists of Kuboian animated television series were young girls. In the end, Winkel decided to make her a female. In spite of this, some of the first few episodes incorrectly refer to Ruby with male pronouns.

It was originally rumoured, and falsely stated in several sources, that Video Tape was animated using development software for the Nintendo 64, although Winkel ended up debunking this in a 2022 interview.

The show's trance and eurodance-inspired soundtrack was produced by DJ Hopscotch.

Episodes
Episodes of Video Tape premiered on a daily basis. Across all three series, the show occupied the 7:40p.m. (making it the last programme Tiny Vision aired each day).

Specials
In addition to the main series, three 30-minute specials were also produced. They did not air on Tiny Vision however, and instead aired on Vision 1 during its normal timeslot.

Telecast
Video Tape aired on Tiny Vision in reruns until its closure in 2008. It also aired on Junior Vision until late 2011.

Video Tape saw its international debut in the United Kingdom on CBBC, airing several months before its Kuboian premiere. The show later moved to CBeebies in 2002 and aired on the channel until September 2005.

The show also aired in Canada on Treehouse TV from 1999 to 2003.

Home media releases
Video Tape was released on VHS by Vision Video in Kuboia and BBC Video in he United Kingdom. Over twenty VHS tapes based on the show were released throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, with each tape generally having three episodes.

The show was later released on DVD in Region 2 in boxsets containing each of the three series. The Complete First Series was released in April 2009, the Complete Second Series was released in December 2009 and the Complete Third Series was released in July 2010. The three specials were also released in November 2010 as a DVD titled "Winter Bumper Pack".

Books
A sticker book based on Video Tape was released in November 1997. Further activity books were published throughout 1998 to 1999. A series of reading books based on the show were also published from 1999 to 2002, which featured black-and-white illustrations and were often bundled with colouring pens.

Toys and games
Elektro Toyz owned the licence to sell merchandise based on Video Tape throughtout the 1990s and 2000s, most notably marble runs and several electronic toys featuring Ruby.

Video Tape Adventures was released for the PlayStation and Game Boy Color in November 1998. The PlayStation version is a 3D action-adventure whilst the Game Boy Color version is a 2D side-scroller. Both versions feature the player switching between playing as Ruby and Princess Orchid, with the PlayStation version also featuring Topsy and Scat as playable characters. In a retrospective review for the PlayStation version, the Open Eagle called the game ambitious but had a "terrible camera" and "completely non-existent" marble physics when playing as Ruby.

Video Tape: Ruby's Game Mania was released in June 2000 for the PlayStation, and is a party game which features racing stages where players play as Ruby and other marbles and minigames in which players play as different coloured versions of the show's other characters. Pop Magazine awarded the game a B rating for its fun multiplayer.

Tropes

 * Tropes
 * YMMV
 * Trivia