Saturday morning cartoons...remember them?

[thatcrazycajun]

If you grew up in these United States during the last five decades or so, you probably remember spending Saturday mornings the same way I did as a kid: at home in front of the living-room or bedroom TV set, with a bowl of overly-sugared cereal in milk and perhaps a sibling or two beside you, watching what the then only three or four channels on broadcast TV had on offer in the way of children's programming. From 7 AM onward, we had a solid five hours of cartoons, the occasional live-action show, educational interstitials like Schoolhouse Rock and In the News, and endless commercials for toys, games and breakfast foods aimed at our age group. The fun usually ended around lunchtime when the teenagers became the target audience via ABC's American Bandstand or the syndicated and far funkier Soul Train.

All this is mostly gone now, along with weekday kids' shows, a victim of changing times, aging demographics, the explosion of cable and satellite channels and networks and advertisers finally realizing that adults spend way more money than children do. Of the Big Three, only ABC still attempts a kids' block this time of the week, chiefly as a venue for programs produced by their new owners, The Walt Disney Company. Otherwise, programming for the short-pants-and-pinafore set has largely been relegated to PBS and cable channels such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

Which is really a pity, as we of a certain age know today's TV kiddie fare is more often than not far inferior to what we got to watch growing up. The current generation may see some of the old shows on cable, but even if they have parents who can clue them in, finding them on the crowded, 24-hour schedule can be a challenge...not to mention making them stay up past bedtime in some cases. (Yeah, I know, that was one of the big pleasures of childhood, too, but as adults—especially parents—we're responsible for making sure today's kids get the rest they need.) Having the shows you liked all in one block on one day of the week made it vastly easier on us.

So, if you could resurrect this grand old tradition and put on the ideal Saturday-morning lineup, what shows would you include? Bullwinkle and Rocky is pretty much a given, as is Jonny Quest (the original, not the lame-ass 1990s "Real Adventures" version). I'd also vote for the old Hanna-Barbera stable of super-heroes the late Alex Toth helped design: Space Ghost, the Herculoids, the Galaxy Trio, Dino Boy and Mightor. The animated Star Trek should also be in there, even if they couldn't afford to have Chekov or Alex Courage's original theme music. And what would Saturday morning be without ol' Bugs, Daffy, the Road Runner and the rest of the Warner Bros. gang? Nominate your candidates here. Also, what were your favorite commercials running that time of day? I always liked the Ideal toy ads for games like Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Wham-O toys like Slip 'N' Slide, plus the McDonald's "McDonaldLand" spots featuring Ronald, Hamburglar and the (originally Evil) Grimace. The Krofft brothers, Hal Sutherland and Lou Scheimer, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera shouldn't have lived in vain.

Comments

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Cartoon Network?

[barondave.livejournal.com]

The target age group is a factor. Nor should you expect The Youth Of Today (tm) to like the same stuff we did. I'm flixing one of my favorite and best remembered cartoons from when I was nine or ten, Astro Boy, and they simply don't hold up. I don't at all regret having watched them at the time. Similarly, most of the cartoons you mention have long since been superseded, with the exception of the Warner Bros cartoons.

Indeed, a lineup of Saturday morning tv now should present (if I'm in charge) Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Alladin, possibly Powerpuff Girls, Hysteria, maybe one of the Batman variants, and a catch all variety show with cartoons from around the world.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

One I recall fondly - and it came out when I was a teenager - was http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/55097-Tomfoolery_Show_(Series).html - it was works of folks like Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll with animation. I'd like to get that one on DVD and watch it again.

Speaking of which, are they EVER going to issue boxed set DVDs of the later seasons of R&B (that's Rocky & Bullwinkle (ooh, now I have an idea to write a BB King style R&B song about that show - "The Moose Is Gone?") they put out the first 3 seasons and then quit - anyone know why?

And how about Cap'n Crunch? And The Freakies? They don't make commercials like that anymore.

[mshollie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I LOVED Tomfoolery! I'm glad there's someone else who remembers it fondly like I do.

Do you remember a Chuck Jones show called "Curiosity Shop"? I'd like to see that on DVD, too.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

One major reason the nets don't reserve Saturday mornings is that kids are watching TV on very different schedules than they used to. When you have 24/7 cartoon channels (Cartoon Network, Boomerang) and a bunch of others (Disney Channel) that have major blocks of toon time daily, Saturday morning isn't the Grail it used to be.

Must-have toons: Bullwinkle & Rocket J. Squirrel, Underdog, Bugs Bunny et al.. Fill out from the Japanese shows (Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, Gigantor), the modern WB shows (Tiny Toons & Animaniacs), the good stuff from Cartoon Network (Doug before Disney, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lboratory, Rocko's Modern Life, Duck Dodgers in the etc.) and the modern superhero toons (The Batman, Batman Beyond, Justice League [Unlimited], Teen Titans, Superman. NOT the X-Men travesty) and select old superhero stuff (Spider-Man!).

Rerun Schoolhouse Rock almost exclusively, except that we've gotta have an appearance of Wise Old Owl every so often.

"Three! It takes three licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop."

:-D

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I never realized just how few _Wacky Races_ there were until recently. Only 17 episodes?! But Dick Dastardly and Muttley, Penelope Pitstop, the Ant Hill Mob, and all the rest are engraved in my brain...

Of course, I used to *make up* Wacky Races stories to entertain the other kids in my carpool to Sunday school/choir. So maybe I'm remembering those too. :)

OMG. I didn't know about the Boomerang Channel [we only recently got FIoS/DVR] and now I see it not only has Wacky Races, they have the Banana Splits. I may have been the biggest Banana Splits fan on the *planet*. I had the 45 of their theme song. I had all 4 dolls. I had the posters. I had the fan club material including the secret decoder....

*running off to check the channels available now...*

[mshollie.livejournal.com]

I had the Banana Splits club stuff, too...including the secret decoder.

"Hold the bus."
"I can't hear you, I've got a banana in my ear."

I have Boomerang at home, too. There were only 17 episodes of The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, too. I have those on DVD.

Didn't have the Banana Splits dolls, though. Just the club stuff.

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

Not animated, but a Sat-morning weekly run of Fraggle Rock (early) and The Muppet Show (late-morning) would give 2 half-hours that take about 2 years to run through all the episodes. The Muppet Show would be a good watch-with-parents show. The recent Warner-Brothers/Steven Spielberg shows would do good, but for me, only a half-hour per week, alternating Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Freakazoid and any others (was The Tick part of that group?).

Of course the commercial for Faygo Old-Fashioned Root Beer (with the Faygo Kid) would be one to see--search youTube for it.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

tom and jerry, droopy, bugs bunny

[kayshapero]

Fractured Flickers with Hans Conried's hilarious narration. Heck, ANYTHING by J Ward. Though I believe most of the others were on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show (Fractured Fairy Tales, Dudley Do-Right, Tom Slick...)

The Munsters and The Addams Family - didn't we all want to move in with one or the other? Granted, the specific sorts of shows they directly spoofed are history, but the fun remains.

Oh, and a show featuring a different cheesy old monster movie every week (THEM, Rodan, Godzilla, War of the Worlds...) Toss in a MST3K ep every once in awhile, though as I recall we didn't need the robots.

[kayshapero]

Forgot to mention - not only did I grow up on the Addams Family (& The Munsters), so did Vicky, who had the good luck to come along just as cable was going nuts looking for content and tossed in every old show they came upon. A lot of crud, but good stuff too.

[ericavdg.livejournal.com]

Yogi Bear! (I'm a bit older than you.)

And for commercials, the out-of-this-world cereal Quisp, with its alien in a flying saucer.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

The original 60s versions of the Fantastic 4 & Jetsons, not the lame remakes.

And for sheer mindblowingly surreal G-rated WTFery, Beanie & Cecil.

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

All of the ones suggested so far are great.
But there is one classic that's not been in so far:

Land Of The Lost.

LOTL hooked me early and remained one of my guilty pleasures into my teens.
And some heavy hitters were on the writing staff too! Despite the bad acting, there was some legit and decent juvenile SF wound up in the plotlines, especially WRT the background mythology of the show that unfolded in the first season. I think that it's fitting tribute that the current writers of _Lost_ seem to regularly seem to cop plot devices and motifs from LOTL. And as for the classic "shot on video" look, there were some pretty advanced special effects done for a cheesy kids show and it wound up IMHO being not much cheesier looking than Dr. Who of the same period.

It belongs on this list. Come on. You know you watched, even if you only pretended to "put up with it" for your younger siblings' sake.

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

I'll try not to add what others have said; there's so much I agree with.

That said, let's see: Scooby-Doo, Electro Woman and Dyna Girl, Shazam and Isis (live action), Jason of Star Command (how can you NOT have a live-action science fiction series that had James Doohan in a supporting role as part of it?!), Far-out Space Nuts, Speed Buggy, Ark II, Big John Little John, Spencer Tracy and Kong Ghostbusters (the gorilla was named Tracy), Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space...I could probably go on, but that's enough for now.

[filkferengi]

"Valley Of The Dinosaurs" and the version of Tarzan voiced by William Conrad.