Sport Billy
Who or what was Sport Billy?
Sport Billy was a 1979 TV cartoon made by Filmation Associates.
In 1982, the show was carried over to the US for syndication after being highly successful in Germany.
Sport Billy was originally a European character who was already reasonably well known in various parts of Europe and even in some parts of latin America.
Sport Billy's main sport was football (soccer), and this was reflected in the opening sequence of the show.
He was even adopted by FIFA as a Fair Play Mascot for football World Cups - not bad going for a cartoon character!
To build on being the Fair Play Mascot he was also used as a mascot in many sporting youth programs internationally, promoting fair play and sportsmanship.
26 episodes were created in total and were eventually shown world wide.
Sport Billy In Action
Sport Billy TV Show Opening Titles
A French poster featuring Sport Billy and some other characters
Sport Billy and his trusty Omni-Sack
Queen Vanda was Sport Billy's nemesis
Sport Billy - the programme
The story of Sport Billy revolves around our hero who is from the planet Olympus, which was an earth like planet in orbit on the opposite side of the sun.
This planet Olympus is populated by athletic god-like beings, so the show took a lot of inspiration from Greek mythology.
Billy has a few gadgets at his disposal to help in his sporting quests.
His main piece of kit was a magic size-changing gym bag called the 'Omni-Sack' - which magically produces various tools and items which was usually used to overcome some problem that would arise during the show.
Always convenient these things eh?...
Billy flies to Earth on a mission to promote good sportsmanship, teamwork and fair play (which is no doubt how he became a fair-play mascot).
Like any good cartoon there was an 'evil' wrong-doer who was always out to thwart Billy and his fair-play plans.
Queen Vanda was out to stop sports throughout the galaxy and was always making things difficult for our hero.
Luckily though Billy was assisted by two faithful companions, a girl named Lilly and a talking dog named Willy.
A lot of cartoons from this era seemed to feature talking dogs and helpful sidekick animals!
The three companions travelled around in a space ship / time machine, saving different parts of Earth, which was being targeted by the dastardly Queen Vanda.
This made for mega-excitement as Billy and his friends triumphed in different locations of our planet each week!
An episode of Sport Billy in Greek
Sport Billy journeyed around in his trusty timeship
Useful Retro Links
- 80s theme tunes
If you were a child during the 1980s there must be lots of television theme tunes that stick in your mind. Here is a selection of the best of them... - 80s Theme Tunes
Welcome to 80s theme tunes part 2! Another fine selection of classic TV tunes... - Acorn Electron
The Acorn Electron was an 8-bit Micro - Amiga CD 32
The Amiga CD32 console - Amiga Games
The best in 16 bits - Asteroids Game
Asteroids (along with the seminal Space Invaders) must be one of the most famous arcade games of all time - Astro Blaster
A table-top scramble clone from Hales / Tomy - Astro Wars
Also popular back in '82... - Atari ST
The Atari ST was a 16-bit home computer - BBC Micro
The beeb was chunky - Commodore 64
The 'Bullnose' in all it's glory... - Commodore 128
The last of Commodore's 8-bit machines - Commodore Amiga
16-bits of gaming nostalgia... - Crash Magazine
Crash magazine - very retro - Funny Games
Humorous games on a variety of platforms - Games Online
Want to play some games online? - Movie Soundtracks
A collection of well known and lesser known classic movie theme tunes - Space Invaders
Space Invaders defined a generation - Spectrum Games
8-bits of gaming nostalgia - Tetris
Tetris is the all time classic puzzle game that spawned many sequels and clones. The Game Boy version remains a firm favourite - Tomy Sky Attack
Tomy 3D Sky Attack - the ultimate in Tron-alike 3D thrills!
I remember it well...
I remember watching this on Saturday mornings during the 1982 world cup which was held in Spain.
Since I was only 10 at the time, this was almost more exciting than the international football!
A game of Downfall followed by Sport Billy, then a kickaround witth my pals in the park.... ahh good times.
Things like this get me all nostalgic, so I think I'll have an afternoon of ZX Spectrum Games ramp up the evening with some Amiga Games and close out the night with a stint with some Vintage Classic Toys.
I'm surprised that our hero was not given a computer game of sorts as many cartoon's were made into a game for lots of home computers that were around at that time.
