King Arthur and the Knights of Justice

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"And then, from the field of the future, a new king will come, to save the world of the past." —Merlin quoting the Opening Narration

King Arthur and the Knights of Justice is a syndicated 26-episode cartoon show that debuted in 1992. The premise involved the evil Queen Morgana and her cruel Warlord army, commanded by Lord Viper, trapping the legendary king and the knights of the round table in the Cave of Glass. When Guinevere, queen of Camelot is also captured by the Warlords, Merlin searches through time to find suitable replacements for the knights to rescue the queen. Does he find a hardcore team of military commandos? Nope. Instead he finds an Identical Stranger to King Arthur named Arthur King who is a quarterback for the New York Knights, a college football team along with 10 of his teammates and their equipment manager.

The replacement knights are partially successful as they rescue Guinevere and hold back Morgana and the Warlords. Keeping their true identities a secret to all the citizens of Camelot (sans Merlin), the Knights must keep up the facade until they recover the 12 Keys of Truth, one for each knight that only they can initially touch. Once all of the keys were collected, the real knights would be freed and the team would be able to go back home. Too bad the show had No Ending (unless you count the one supplied by the Super Nintendo game).

Tropes used in King Arthur and the Knights of Justice include:

• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: In the second season.
  • Each season also had an anti-sexism episode.
• Applied Phlebotinum: The Knights come to medieval England not knowing how to swing a sword or ride a horse, which is handily taken care of by their Transformation Sequence. No wonder the Warlords were always trying to sneak into Camelot and destroy the Round Table.
• Battle Cry: "KNIGHTS KNIGHTS KNIGHTS!!!"
• By the Power of Grayskull: "I am King Arthur..." "And we are the Knights of Justice! We pledge fairness to all, to protect the weak and vanquish the evil!"
• Catch Phrase: "Excalibur, BE MY STRENGTH!"
• Dark Age Europe
• Cool Sword: Excalibur and Lord Viper's sword.
• Five-Token Band: Breeze and Wally are black, Tone is hispanic, Gallop sounds Italian and Zeke is Asian.
• Genre Savvy: To save some of his teammates from the Purple Horde, Arthur challenges their leader to single combat. The thinking is he wouldn't dare lose face by refusing a challenge to personal combat, and Arthur's thinking seems to come from an understanding of movie portrayals of Samurai honor. Nobody calls Arthur on using magic tricks to make it look like he has control over numerous animal spirits, either.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The Keys of Truth. While they had to sacrifice the precious few they'd found in the first season finale, the Knights had actually found three more by the end of the second season.
• Guns Are Useless: Subverted. Although slightly less numerous than the Knights and Warlords, part of the reason the Purple Horde are still a threat is the fact that they have cannons.
• Identical Stranger: King Arthur and Arthur King; Sir Lancelot and Lance. No one says anything about the other new Knights either.
• I Know Madden Kombat
• King Arthur
• Knight in Shining Armor
• Loads and Loads of Characters
• The Low Middle Ages
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: On account of the Knights being able to bring the emblems of their shields to life to fight for them.
• No Ending
• Plotline Death: In the game.
• Real Men Wear Pink: The second season introduced us to the aptly-named Purple Horde, a group of samurai able to hold their own against the Knights and the Warlords at the same time. It helped that they invented cannons.
• Summon Everyman Hero
• Time Travel
• Transformation Sequence
• Trapped in Another World
• Weapon of Choice: All the knights and warlords had at least one. Several Warlords were named after theirs.