If you are over the age of 30(ish),
when I mention Saturday mornings you will automatically think of one
thing. Cartoons. That's right, years and years ago, cartoons
dominated almost all of the networks for most of the morning. Being
that I am of the ripe old age of thirty six, I will be talking about
my experience from roughly about 1984 till 1993.
I guess if you asked me the first
cartoon that came to mind when Saturday mornings are mentioned, it
would have to be The Smurfs. Not because it was my favorite show but
because there was a two hour block of the little blue guys. I enjoyed
the Smurfs but it was a bit of an overkill and that theme song is
still stuck in my head after all these years. All though if I had my
pick, I would gladly choose Snorks over Smurfs.
One of my favorite cartoons was the Get
Along Gang. Granted it probably wasn't the coolest cartoon but
something about it grabbed my attention. I still remember going over
to a relatives house and taking all my toys over there. While the
adults had their boring adult related conversations, I could escape
with the gang.
Popples was another fun show that I
loved. Even more than the show were the plush toys that the show was
based on. They were very fun to play with and would fold into
themselves to make a ball. In the 80's there were lots of these shows
that were geared to both boys and girls.
Another one that I remember all too
well is The Wuzzles. With characters like Bumblelion and Butterbear
it was a pretty unforgettable show. The names fit all too well for
animals to be mixed with other animals. So you got it, a Bumble Bee
was mixed with a lion and yes, a Butterfly was mixed with a bear. The
show was created by Disney but was cancelled after 13 episodes. For
some reason I thought it was way more successful but reruns can make
it feel like that sometimes.
Something else happened where we had
kids versions of older cartoons. Two of the popular ones that stick
out were A Pup Named Scooby Doo and The Flintstone Kids. Both were
goofy but I loved them equally especially the fact that A Pup Named
Scooby Doo had a character named Red Herring. Fred was always
accusing him of being the culprit which was actually only the case
one time. In this version Fred was a bit neurotic, I never got that
out of the adult version but maybe I just didn't see it.
I can't finish this article without
mentioning Captain N: The Game Master. This was a classic show mixing
two of my favorite things, Nintendo and Cartoons. Basic premise was a
teenager and his dog gets sucked into his television to the world of
video games. Along with the teenager Kevin is Simon Belmont (from
Castlevania), Kid Icarus and Mega Man. On a side note, the Game Boy
joined the first episode of Season 2. Seriously, I can't make this
stuff up. The main villains of this show were Mother Brain (from
Metroid), King Hippo (from Mike Tyson's Punch Out), Egg Plant Wizard
(from Kid Icarus) and Doctor Wily (from Mega Man). It was a fun show
with occasional surprises from other video game properties.
Side Note:
Among all of these wonderful cartoons were some pretty solid live
action shows as well. I won't get into these because that might just
have to wait for another article.
The thing I miss about Saturday
Morning Cartoons was that it was a big deal. All week, I would wait
for Saturday to roll around so I could get up super early while
eating bowls of cereal while being taken to so many different worlds
on my television. Each network made a big deal about Saturday Morning
Cartoons. They had new shows in the fall just like the prime time
shows. I even remember that on the Friday night before the new
season, they would air a preview show introducing all the new and
returning cartoons. I have a specific memory of one where Punky
Brewster and some other kids were trapped in a haunted house while
introducing the new shows. Not sure if anyone else remembers this but
it has been a memory of mine to this day.
In the 90's I remember FOX bringing
back Saturday Morning Cartoons with shows like The Tick, Eek The Cat,
and the Super Dave. They were producing really solid stuff that was
much different then previous years.
Kid's WB also appeared in the late
90's-early 2000's with some solid line ups. Freakazoid! was a terrific
show by Steven Spielberg, while the wrestling fan in me loved the
show Mucha Lucha. I can also remember Superman: The Animated Series
being on around this time as well. Although this might have been on
during the week, I specifically remember it on Saturday mornings.
These are certainly not all of my
favorites but I wanted to give an overview of memories that most kids
don't have anymore. I know that there are still some cartoons on if
you check the right channels, but to me its not the same. Pokemon
took over years ago so many clones followed afterwards. I'm not
saying these are terrible by any means but to me, its not the same.
Networks used to make a big deal about cartoons but now they are so
readily available to kids, even having entire channels devoted to
them. Which I'm pretty sure my eight year old head would have
exploded if I discovered that there was a channel showing cartoons
24/7.
If you do remember waking up, running
into the living room and sitting down for most of your Saturday in
front of the television then just know that you are a part of pop
culture history.
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