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 succesful 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.

Sport Billy was even adopted by FIFA as a Fair Play Mascot for football World Cups - not bad going for a cartoon character!

He was even 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.

The story of Sport Billy revolves around our hero who is from the planet Olympus, which was an earth like planet on the opposite side of the sun.

This planet Olympus is populated by athletic god-like beings.

Billy has a few gadgets at his disposal. 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. 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!

The three traveled around in a space ship / time machine, saving different parts of Earth which was being targetted by Queen Vanda. This made for mega-excitement as Billy and his friends triumphed in different locations each week!

I remember watching this on Saturday mornings during the 1982 world cup held in Spain.

Since I was only 10 at the time, this was more exciting than the 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.

Anyone got a can of Quattro?