Q*BERT
MAIN CAST:
New Gottlieb programmer Warren Davis was
looking for ways to practice his craft; particularly randomness and gravity
mechanics. He came across artist Jeff
Lee’s doodles of characters and concepts he had been drawing since
childhood and asked if he could use them in his efforts.
The resulting game is what would
eventually be known as Q*bert. The player controlled the titular
character, a round creature with no arms and a long nose, as they moved him
diagonally around various pyramids comprised of cubes designed to give the
illusion of being in 3-D, inspired by the works of M.C. Escher. The player was tasked with
changing each cube to a target color by jumping on them—a suggestion from vice
president of engineering Ron
Waxman—while avoiding enemies and jumping off of the pyramid into the black
void that filled up the rest of the screen.
Flyer describing Q*bert and its characters.
Those enemies included Coily, a
purple snake that hatched from an egg that bounced down the pyramid and
actively pursued Q*bert; Ugg and Wrongway, two purple creatures that moved up
the sides of the pyramid to the top until they fell off; and Slick and Sam (a
play on “spick and span”), two green creatures that descended on the pyramid
and reverted the colors of blocks Q*bert already changed. Additionally, there
were bouncing balls: a red one that would kill Q*bert on contact, and a green
one that would immobilize enemies for a brief period. Additional help came in
the form of multi-colored discs located near the bottom of the pyramids that
could bring Q*bert quickly back to the top in order to escape enemies (if Coily
was close enough, this would cause him to leap off the pyramid in pursuit).
Whenever Q*bert ran into something that hurt him, a word balloon would appear
with “@!#?@!” in it accompanied by a gibberish voice sample designed by audio
engineer David Thiel when
he was unable to create coherent English phrases on the synthesizer he was
using (meant to be gibberish, not swearing). Falling deaths were
accompanied by a thud created by a pinball machine spring hitting the inside of
the game cabinet; a contribution from technician Rick Tighe.
Flyer touting Q*bert's success.
Davis began working on the game in
April of 1982, and several months later it became an official Gottlieb project.
Most of the decisions in the crafting of the game came from Davis’ desire to
keep it simple for himself, as well as try to keep it simple for players. He
championed his unusual directional controls against strong opposition, feeling
players would appreciate their simplicity. While initial test audiences did
find it difficult at first, many were able to adapt. The battle Davis lost,
however, was in the game’s challenge level as Gottlieb had him make it slower
and easier. The biggest hurdle, however, was the game’s name. Throughout its
development it was given the unofficial title “Cubes”. Lee wanted to call it Snots
and Boogers after the original concept of Q*bert firing “mucus bombs” from
his nose, which Davis did away with because of its complexity to program. It,
along with a list of suggestions from various employees, was discarded. Vice
president of marketing Howie Rubin pushed for @!#?@! to become the
official name, with some test cabinets being released emblazoned
with it. This was rejected as a silly notion as nobody could pronounce it.
Eventually, it was decided to name it after the character, with “Hubert”
becoming a strong contender. The name was ultimately combined with “Cubes” to
become “Cubert”, and art director Richard Tracy stylized it as “Q-Bert”, with
the hyphen eventually giving way to the asterisk.
Attempting to expand the Q*bert empire.
Q*bert
was
officially released between October and December of 1982, becoming Gottlieb’s
fourth title and only critical and commercial success with the sale of around
25,000 cabinets. It was among the 13
highest-grossing arcade games of 1983, and was widely merchandised with the
character appearing on coloring
books, board games
and toys.
A flyer
released by Gottlieb boasted that the game was included on over 125 different
products. A variant version of the game cross-promoting Mello Yello, Mello Yello
Presents Q*bert, was released as a sweepstakes
prize; with Gottlieb hosting a competition that would net a player 5 cases
of the soda if they finished the game 10 times and sent a picture of Q*bert
drinking it in the new cutscene. Gottlieb, at the time, was owned by Columbia Pictures
who in turn was owned by Coca-Cola,
the makers of Mello Yello. Gottlieb would also translate the game into a
pinball machine called Q*bert’s Quest, but that only performed well in
Japan.
Q*burg architecture.
Around this time, CBS was looking to get in on
the video game craze and to combat ABC’s
Pac-Man produced by Hanna-Barbera.
Figuring to hedge their bets, they licensed several gaming properties and
commissioned former Hanna-Barbera
employees Joe
Ruby
and Ken
Spears to handle it through their studio, Ruby-Spears Productions.
The resulting series was Saturday Supercade.
Making up the Supercade every week
were segments based on Frogger, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.,
while Q*bert and Pitfall! rotated weekly.
Q*bert with Q*tee and Q*ball in the car, Slick and Sam, and Q*bit.
Q*bert saw the titular
character (Billy Bowles) as a high schooler—with arms!—in the town of Q*burg. It
was a 1950’s-inspired world full of cube shapes (food, plates, records, even
the buildings were cubes stacked on cubes) with names either containing the
word “cube” or beginning with “Q*” (the asterisk was often replaced visually by
the original hyphen). He was joined by a cast of new characters: his
girlfriend, Q*tee (Robbie Lee); his little brother, Q*bit (Dick Beals); his
laid-back and constantly hungry friend, Q*ball (Frank Welker); Valley girl
Q*val (Lee); and monstrously-strong Q*mungus (Welker).
Coily with Wrongway, Ugg and Viper.
While
the town was primarily populated by “nosers”, there were some that stood out;
particularly snake Coily (Welker) and his gang of bullies: dim-witted Ugg and
Wrongway (Welker) and his girlfriend, Viper (Julie McWhirter, impersonating Mae West). Coily and Ugg were
dressed like greasers,
while Wrongway wore tattered clothing and looked ferociously monstrous. Slick
and Sam (both Welker) were also present, but they were more well-meaning
troublemakers and friends of Q*bert’s rather than enemies (although, with
friends like those…).
Wrongway and Ugg always causing trouble.
Most
stories centered around Q*bert and his friends hanging out at school, Cube
Pizza or the Sweet Shoppe (complete with a row of arcade games) and engaging in
various activities with each other and around town while Coily and his gang
always sought to disrupt their fun or show them up through underhanded means
and pranks. Reintroduced was the original concept of Q*bert firing projectiles
from his nose; in this case his “Slippy-Doos”, black balls that turned into oil
slicks and tripped up enemies. In keeping with the games, the rainbow discs
were present as the equivalent of skateboards (or, more accurately, the hoverboards
eventually seen in Back
to the Future Part II) and the surface of objects changing color when Q*bert
bounced on them during a chase (although an explanation for the color change
was ever given, nor acknowledged). Also, whenever Q*bert ended up hurt or
annoyed, he would get his signature word balloon and the gibberish dialogue
would be played.
Hanging out at the music story with Q*val.
Q*Bert
made
its Saturday Supercade debut on October 1, 1983 after two episodes of Pitfall!
aired in a row. It was primarily written by story editor Gary Greenfield, with
additional writing from Tony
Benedict and Kayte Kuch.
The Supercade theme was composed by Haim Saban
and Shuki Levy,
while the Q*bert theme was done by John Bahler
and Rick
Segall. When Supercade was renewed for a second
season, Q*bert was the only returning feature along with Donkey Kong.
The other three segments were replaced by adaptations of Kangaroo and
Space
Ace.
Q*ball should know better than to hit on the girlfriend of Q*jock.
Despite
the initial marketability of the original game, follow-up efforts hadn’t
received as much fanfare. The reception of the home ports by Parker Brothers
varied from system to system. Bowles would reprise his role in animated commercials for
them. The sequel, Q*bert’s
Qubes, was released under Gottlieb’s new name, Mylstar
Electronics, in 1984 and utilized free-floating rotating cubes and new
enemies. It went beneath the public’s notice. Konami,
who handled Gottlieb’s international distribution, produced their own Q*bert
in 1986 for MSX computers
utilizing the Qubes mechanic with Q*bert replaced by a dragon. Future
home releases of the original would update the game to
include new levels and visuals, while a cancelled version more in line with
Davis’ original vision called Faster Harder More
Challenging Q*bert was released by him onto the internet in 1996.
Q*bert on DVD.
To
date, Saturday Supercade hasn’t seen any form of release on home media. Warner
Archive announced via their Facebook page
in 2010 that plans were underway to release Supercade
to DVD, but because of rights issues with the various game properties the
project needed extensive research before it could happen. However, unlike the
other parts of Supercade, the rights to Q*bert remained with
Columbia after they sold off Gottlieb, and came under the ownership of Sony with the rest of the studio. To coincide
with the release of the Sony film Pixels in 2015,
which featured an appearance by Q*bert (Billy West) along with a variety
of other video game characters, Sony
Pictures Home Entertainment released The
Best of Q*bert onto DVD. The title
alluded to the fact that only 17 of the 19 episodes were available to transfer
onto the disc for release, preventing it from being the complete series.
EPISODE GUIDE:
“The
Great Q*tee Contest” (10/15/83) – Coily plots to spoil Q*tee’s chances to win a
teen contest and make Viper the winner.
“Q*bowl
Rigamarole” (10/29/83) – Coily plans to cheat his way into becoming a star
quarterback.
“Crazy
Camp Creature” (11/12/83) – After Q*bert makes Coily look like a coward, he
plans to crash their campout and return the favor.
“Thanksgiving
for the Memories” (11/26/83) – Q*bert’s class gets a history lesson about the
first Thanksgiving in Q*Burg.
“Dog
Day Dilemma” (12/10/83) – Q*bert and Coily intern at a dog groomer for the
hopes of winning a permanent position.
Season 2:
“Noser
P.I.” (9/15/84) – Q*bert and his friends have to find who took Q*Puppy before Q*Ball
ends up expelled.
“Hook,
Line and Mermaid” (9/22/84) – Q*bert accidentally hooks a mermaid on a cruise,
and Coily plots to capture her and sell her to the zoo.
“Q*historic
Days” (9/29/84) – Taking refuge from a storm in a cave, Q*bert translates some
cave paintings for his friends to pass the time.
“Q*bert’s
Monster Mix-Up” (10/6/84) – Q*ball is accidentally turned into a monster and
joins Coily’s gang.
“Game
Shoe Woe” (10/13/84) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“The
Wacky Q*bot” (10/20/84) – Q*bert and his friends try to help a klutzy robot
prove he’s useful to prevent his being sent back to the factory and dismantled.
“Q*beat
It” (10/27/84) – Q*bert and his friends are making a music video to win a
contest, and Coily plans to sabotage them so that his group’s video will win.
“Q*urf’s
Up” (11/3/84) – A trip to Q*waii gets interrupted by bullies who challenge
Q*bert to a surfing contest.
“Little
Green Nosers” (11/10/84) – Q*bert and his friends accidentally get launched
into space and encounter aliens that want them for scientific experiments.
“Rebel
Without a Q*ause” (11/17/84) – Q*bert and Viper have to join forces with their
friends to get their stuff back from Q*bully and his gang.
“Looking
for Miss Q*right” (11/24/84) – The gang tries to help Q*ball get a date for the
dance.
“The
Goofy Ghostgetters” (12/1/84) – Q*bert and his friends set out to ensure three
troublesome ghosts are sent back to the afterlife from whence they came.
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