Dir 05 / Record 004
1988: Northgate and the Late Line
Wave 3. Final twenty episodes. The line under pressure.
Abstract
Wave 3 shipped in August and September 1988. The final twenty episodes aired daily from Monday September 12 through Friday October 7, 1988. After October 7, the complete sixty-five-episode library entered conventional daily syndication as a thirteen-week weekday rerun strip. Movie animation production overlapped throughout 1988 with the production and delivery of the final television block, and the combination of movie costs, Wave 3 tooling, Northgate prototyping, and television production helps explain the company's subsequent collapse.
Archive Notes
Official first-run dates: Episodes 46 through 65 aired Monday September 12 through Friday October 7, 1988.
Wave 3 shipped unevenly. Released products reached broad retail. Others existed only as prototypes, catalog entries, or limited-distribution items.
Northgate Station appeared in the Wave 3 catalog and retailer presentations. Prototype development continued into 1989 but the product never reached production.
The best late figures turned into collector legends partly because so few shipped.