Paranoid Pete

Ubik Software

Status: No Download, Findability: 1/5

Paranoid Pete is a space harvesting action game which was released on the Spectrum way back in 1984. Personal Computer Games advertised the game and clearly you can see that a Commodore 64 version was in the pipeline.

Although the ZX Spectrum , and BBC micro versions did surface and get a release, the C64 version never quite made it due to Ubik going under due to all the problems that occurred. Hedning recently found the reason why in Popular Computing Weekly 6-12 Sept 1984:

“Weetabix acts against Ubik

TYNESIDE company Ubik’s game Paranoid Pete will not now be appearing in the shops. Weetabix complained that the characters portrayed in the game resembled its own ‘Weetabix men’ used in advertising too closely.

“When we first started work on Paranoid Pete we were working in collusion with Weetabix to produce a game based on their characters,” said Ubik’s marketing director Danielle Allan. “But when the game was complete, Weetabix weren’t happy with the result. “In order to be able to bring out a game ourselves, we changed many aspects of it, but Weetabix were not satisfied and it has now been shelved.

However, Ubik do have two more games scheduled for release in October. Razzmatazz is based on the ITV children’s programme of the same name, to be brought out under licence on the Spectrum, with a Commodore 64 version to follow, and a comical game for the BBC provisionally entitled The Professor. Both are expected to be priced around £5.95.”

So shortly after being released on the shelves, Ubik were ordered to stop selling the game. Was the C64 version even in production when Ubik were told to stop?

Rob Hubbard in a video interview once mentioned that he programmed a game which featured the Weetabix character, which the company didn’t get permission to use and hence the game was scrapped.

Considering that Rob also coded a game called Razzmatazz, and that Ubik were based in Tyneside … it was originally certain that Rob Hubbard was behind the C64 conversion of this game. However, it was later confirmed that Rob had worked on Paranoid Pete 2, which later turned into Razzmatazz after the Weetabix legal issues. This is why Rob recalls doing a game with the character at the start, but this was changed to a strawberry with legs.

So, although we thought Rob was involved in the original game – it seems he wasn’t. There is a possibility that his Casio tune was to be used for the game, but that is to be confirmed or removed as a reference in HVSC.

We may have to find someone from Ubik or another developer who may have something of the game, but it is looking bleak. At the very least, the tunes seem to have been saved!

Do you know anything more about this potential conversion?

Contributions: Peter Weighill, Hedning, Chris Abbott, Rob Hubbard, Martin Pugh

Supporting content

Update history

  • 14/12/23 – Removed Rob Hubbard references in credits (as he was not involved) and tidied up page and linked through to Razzmatazz.
  • 13/01/17 – BBC Micro link added
  • 06/04/15 – Confirmation of tunes existing and added to download thanks to Chris Abbott
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