Star Street: The Adventures of the Star Kids
Star Street: The Adventures of the Star Kids is a Dutch-American animated series that aired between 1989 and 1990. The main characters were twelve pink alien creatures (their heart noses always reminded me of care bears), each one embodying one of the signs of the western zodiac. The show was set on a small star-shaped planet. The antagonists were the pink alien Momo the Glutton and his minions, green aliens called blub blubs. Momo lives on a neighboring junk planet, and he constantly seeks to consume everything in sight, including the star kids' home.
The show did not last long, and is extremely obscure. (So obscure that I believe that it’s considered partially lost media.) In the United States, it was released as a “movie” called Star Street: The Happy Birthday Movie on VHS from Celebrity Home Entertainment, and was just an episode compilation. I could swear that I saw it on HBO Family many, many times over the years, although I've found no such record online of this having been the case. Nonetheless, the Happy Birthday song, while not the most sophisticated of its musical offerings, is a real earworm and comes to me randomly over the years. It seemed like every time I caught the movie on TV, it would be at the ending bit with that same song playing.
While the show's premise and characters are cute on their own, it's the music that truly sets Star Street apart. The music in it is unexpectedly insanely good, and the soundtrack is filled with catchy 80s Europop songs. Like they just dropped this banger in the middle of this episode and thought I wouldn’t notice:
The person who wrote the songs, Jos van Woudenberg, posted full versions of the songs a few years back. And when he did, I definitely noticed–I couldn’t believe that I was hearing the full versions of some of my favorites for the first time ever! Sans sound effects! For years I’d just randomly search up Star Street, hopelessly looking for anything new, and just making do with the songs I could find. I love that he also provides information about the creation of the tracks, it’s so cool. Obviously I’m extremely delighted by this, and I sure hope someday that more songs, especially full versions!, one day surface from the show.
This is the part of the post where I just start spamming my favorite songs. ;)
Another favorite of mine is this one, for not only the song, but also the cute animation and colors used in it:
Links
Star Street: The Happy Birthday Movie on Youtube A review from 1989 of The Happy Birthday Movie
