ERROR debuted on ABC in 1980 as a three-minute animated interstitial bridging Saturday-morning programmes. The premise followed personified computer components inside a malfunctioning mainframe: Jerry Dexter voiced the hyperactive RAM chip, Kathy Garver played the prim floppy disk, Joan Gerber was the sarcastic printer and Don Messick supplied the glitched-out CPU who stuttered random code.
Each micro-episode revolved around the quartet trying to execute a simple command before the next system crash erased them. The show's visual style borrowed heavily from the era's pixel-art arcade games, with backgrounds rendered in phosphor green against black. ABC ordered 66 segments across three production cycles, slotting them between reruns of Scooby-Doo and The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.
Ratings remained tepid; viewers preferred the surrounding cartoons, and advertisers balked at the abstract concept. By autumn 1981 the network quietly pulled the series, replacing it with public-service announcements about home-computer safety. No official tapes have surfaced since, leaving only bootleg off-air recordings traded among animation archivists. The cast moved on to other Hanna-Barbera projects, and the title ERROR has become an ironic footnote in Saturday-morning history.
Production Details
ABC / 3 Seasons / 66 Episodes / 1980
Main Cast
Jerry Dexter as
Kathy Garver as
Joan Gerber as
Don Messick as
