The Collector is a Zillion Dollar Adventures segment from the third season of the Richie Rich cartoon series. It first aired 25 September 1982 during the debut installment of The Pac-Man/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show. The segment was rebroadcast as part of the seventh episode of The Monchhichis/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show 22 October 1983.
Summary
Richie and Gloria were about to eat breakfast at the Rich mansion, just before his baseball practice. One of the teammates, a Latino boy named Manuel, had informed Richie by videophone that the coach [his father] went missing. Richie then turned on the news, and was about to hear breaking news, but the news anchor had been abducted by a suspicious character.
Richie and Gloria were now about to hunt down the villain. They fell out of the helicopter, and were about to land in water, but a giant hawk had captured Gloria, and brought her to a castle where the villain was hiding. Richie was in the water, but thanks to propellers attached to the soles of his shoes, he flew to the castle.
Meanwhile, Gloria had been reduced to 6 inches tall and held in a drinking glass by a villain who identified himself as The Collector. Richie arrived at the castle, and was on the hunt for the villain, but the Collector had caught him sneaking around and decided to shrink Richie to add to his "collection". Richie was placed in a glass, placed upside down on a shelf. Fortunately, an opera singer was one of the victims, and thanks to her squeaky voice, the glasses had shattered, and the shrunken victims were about to escape. One of the victims had gained access to the shrinking device, and reduced the Collector and captured him in a glass cover.
After the rescue, Manuel was at Professor Keenbean's lab, with a special device in his hand designed to restore Richie and The Collector's victims to normal size. Everyone was successfully back to normal size, except for Richard Rich, Sr., and Regina Rich wanted to have some fun by holding her husband in the palm of her hand.
Trivia
- Manuel, one of Richie's teammates, would appear again in the Gems segment, "Ball Room", aired the week after this episode aired during the third season.
- When the shrunken characters were held in drinking glasses, they had no access to air. If not for the opera singer's high-pitched voice, the characters could have suffocated and died.
- The Collector would appear in two more episodes in Season 4: "Rich for a Day" and "Irona Story", both without a shrinking plot.
- Shrinking plots were also used in the Zillion Dollar Adventures segments "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bug?" and "The Day the Estate Stood Still" in Seasons 1 and 2 respectively, and the Treasure Chest segment "Rich Mice" in Season 2.
- This is one of two repeat episodes in the fourth season that was paired with a previously aired Little Rascals segment (in this case, "Class Act"). The other previously aired Richie Rich segment that was paired with a repeat of The Little Rascals was "The Maltese Monkey", which was paired with the Rascals segment, "Cap'n Spanky's Showboat", on 26 November 1983.
Voice Cast
- William Callaway as Professor Keenbean
- Nancy Cartwright as Gloria Glad
- Joan Gerber as Regina Rich
- Stanley Jones as Richard Rich, Sr.
- Sparky Marcus as Richie Rich
- Robert Ridgely as The Collector
- Frank Welker as Dollar the Dog