“Red, yellow, black or white…
White, yellow, black or red…
It’s up to Kid Power, Kid Power!
All the color’s in your head”
Kid Power was the first truly multicultural Saturday morning cartoon series. It was also the first positive Saturday morning cartoon series featuring Black characters to be created from a syndicated comic strip, Morrie Turner’s Wee Pals comic strip series, which was introduced in 1965 and was the first nationally syndicated comic strip with a multicultural cast.
Kid Power debuted on ABC in September, 1972. The show’s premise was an extension of the comic strip: a pro-social animated sitcom which chronicled the adventures of a multi-ethnic group of loveable youngsters who called themselves “The Rainbow Club.”
Each week, Oliver, an overweight bespectacled boy, and fellow Rainbow alumni George, Wellington, Nipper, Connie, Diz, Rocky and the rest grappled with weighted social issues like prejudice, environmental awareness, and other moral dilemmas, often instigated by their antagonist bully pal Ralph. (The pilot episode involved Oliver’s directing the Rainbow Club kids in a school production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Ralph is cast as Simon Legree. Mayhem ensues…)
No harmonious multi-ethnic club would be complete without a lovable animal sidekick, and Kid Power had not one, but two: Polly, a Parrot, and a feisty dog named General Lee.
Produced by Rankin/Bass, the creators of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Mad Monster Party, the colorful show employed music as a unifying force; many episodes included songs performed in a stylized, Yellow Submarine fashion. It was, after all, the psychedelic 70’s…
Although Kid Power ran for two seasons, only seventeen episodes were produced. The show, hailed as a “multiracial Peanuts”, was an early victory for proponents of educational kids TV in the seventies, and has since joined the ranks of revered pro-social shows like Sesame Street, Schoolhouse Rock, and that’s a good thing.
The character voices were: Donald Fullilove (Diz, Randy); Michelle Johnson Murray (Sybil).
The 40th anniversary of the series is September 16, 2012.
Wee Pals Original Comic Art and Nipper Character Art was gifted to The Museum Of UnCut Funk Black Animation Collection by Toonseum. The Kid Power Original Production Cels were gifted to the Museum Of UnCut Funk by Bob Balser.
Kid Power © 2017 Comcast-NBCUniversal
9 Comments
wow I haven’t seen any of that stuff for years thank you for posting
Donald thank you so much for visiting and commenting. You are referenced on our Jackson 5ive cartoon page (https://museumofuncutfunk.com/2010/12/31/berry-gordy-and-the-jackson-five-cartoon/). I would love to talk to you about your role as a part of the cast of this cartoon. Let me know if you are interested.
Sista ToFunky
I would love too, Facebook me @ Don Fullilove
I wish the Wee Pals were given a live action motion picture.
It’s time those original episodes of KP that aired on ABC where shown on Hulu. Now, this, of course was long before Disney bought ABC from Cap Cities in the mid-90s. This was when we only had 3 channels in which today we have all these cable channels & so on.
so is that why there are no kid power episodes on youtube? demonic disney owns them?
I loved kid power wee pals 1972 episode, please where can I find those 10 episodes , havent seen them in over 20 years
Hello my name is Melanie Burke one of the songs I co wrote was used in the very first episode it an honor to be a positive part of black history.
Rainbow Club has a totally different context now. And the media/government has been trying to create a rift between the ethnic groups for a decade now undoing all the previous work to get people to come together. Truly a Divide & Conquer agenda.