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), Thundercats (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.
 * Small Name, Big Ego: 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.


 * 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 Transformers Generation 1.
 * Take Over the World: Maximillian's goal.
 * Transforming Mecha: Both the Transbots and the Warbots fit this trope.