Cartoon Action Hour

Somewhere between the silliness of "Toon" and the serious of "Prime Time Adventures", there sits a book. This book is Cartoon Action Hour, a tabletop RPG that invokes the spirit of the Merchandise-Driven action cartoons of The Eighties.

Cartoon Action Hour has a lot of a shout-outs to 1980s cartoons, including Transformers (Transbots), Thunder Cats (Action Cats), and G.I. Joe (the Inhumanoids-like Dark Brigade and the regular version as Strikeforce Freedom, replacing snake-themed villains with spider-themed villains), for example.

"Cartoon Action Hour: Season Two" was released on Oct 30, 2008. Season Three is currently in development.


 * And Knowing Is Half the Battle: You earn extra experience by playing your characters in the After-the-Show Message.
 * Experience Point: Guilty as charged.
 * Expy: More then its fair share.
 * Captain Ersatz: All over the dang place.
 * Critical Failure: Called a "Flub".
 * Greek Chorus: Kargorr, a fictional villain from a fictional series, shows you how not to play the game. For CAH: Season 2, John Bravesteel, a fictional hero from the same fictional series as Kargorr, keeps Kargorr in check.
 * Hit Points: Called Hurt Points in CAH:S1. Avoided in CAH: Season 2, replaced with "Set Back Tokens". Even more cartoon logical!
 * Mana: Avoided with Spell Clusters.
 * Merchandise-Driven: At least in the first version, players were encouraged to think of creating their character as coming up with that character's action figure.
 * Mooks: called Goons. Rules are provided to handle those who get their hides kicked time and time again.
 * Never Say Die: Completely embraced. Characters don't die, they're only knocked out or captured. Unless you're gaming out The Movie.
 * Noodle Incident: Kargorr, the failed villain complains about a comic relief character, Ziggle. John Bravesteel, Kargorr's heroic counterpart, says that Kargorr is just upset that Ziggle defeated him once--and tries to tell it to the audience, Kargorr shuts Bravesteel up by saying no one wants to hear from him.
 * Point Build System: Uses Character Points (First season) and Proof of Purchase Points (Second season).
 * Retraux: The rule book even includes a glossary of 80's slang, but only in the first edition.
 * Shout Out: The whole RPG and 'Cartoon Logic' is a Shout Out to cartoons of the 1980s.
 * Ted Baxter: Kargorr, so very much. His whole shtick is that he's an incompetent Harmless Villain (bordering on a Dastardly Whiplash) who thinks of himself as a fearsome Big Bad.
 * Word of God: Cynthia Celeste Miller, creator of Cartoon Action Hour.

Warriors of the Cosmos
The fictional series, Warriors of the Cosmos, deals with Iconia, a once peaceful planet, now under the attack of Nekkrottus's Blackskull Empire. The Big Good, King Rastor of Haven, bringso together a group of heroes called Guardians of Iconia to defeat Nekkrottus' forces once and for all.

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 * Bare Your Midriff: Noblara.
 * Big Bad: Nekkrottus.
 * Eek! A Mouse!, or Why Did It Have to Be Snakes??: Serpentina has a fear of rodents.
 * The Empire: The Blackskull Empire.
 * The Kingdom: Haven.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Guardians of Iconia themselves--Justified as they are a mixture of different humanoids and races of Iconia.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Serpentina.
 * Shout Out: To He-Man and The Masters of The Universe.
 * Spin-Off: Ladies of Might, which happen to be in a special St. Valentine's Day PDF file.
 * The Starscream: Shadow Queen fits this role.
 * Take Over the World: Nekkrottus's goal.

Strikeforce Freedom
The fictional series Strikeforce Freedom deals with the titular military force fighting SPIDER, a terrorist organization that wants take over the world.


 * The Baroness: Her blonde haired Expy, The Black Widow.
 * Big Bad: General Arachnid.
 * Shout Out: To G.I. Joe.
 * The Squad
 * Take Over the World: The goal of SPIDER chaos warfare.

Transbots
The fictional series, Transbots deals with Trevor Hastings' Transbots as they battle against Maximillian Mercy's Warbots.


 * Big Bad: Maximillian Mercy.
 * Shout Out: To The Transformers.
 * Take Over the World: Maximillian's goal.
 * Transforming Mecha: Both the Transbots and the Warbots fit this trope.