Saturday Morning Memories

"Love Bugs & Daffy - For years they were a part of Saturday mornings for me. When that show ended at noon, it signified the end of the cartoon day."

Wings at 'Caffeinated Joe' left that comment on my latest post about Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and I had to respond to it. He tapped into a childhood experience that we both shared. As I was writing my response to his comment I realized that my reply was too long but would make a perfect topic to post about. Maybe this one will bring back memories for you. I would love to hear about what cartoons or programs that you loved growing up.

Its too bad that kids today don't know what Saturday morning was like for us older people as kids growing up in the 60s, 70s and 80s. You could get up early on a Saturday morning (we all did) make your own breakfast (Cap'n Crutch and Pop Tarts) and lounge in front of the TV for a good six hours. That was the one time that your parents didn't bitch about you watching TV too much or that you should go out and play. They knew it was not worth the battle that would come. This was the time of basic TV when you were lucky to get 13 channels. At times some would fade out due to storms because the receivers beaming the shows to you were so far away. Each network had a full slate of Saturday morning programs that started on the hour and half hour. As soon as the show was done on say NBC you got out of your chair and turned the channel knob (BY HAND) and skipped between all three network channels to see what of the three shows you would choose. There were also no VCRs or DVRs or Tivo so you would often have to choose between several shows at the same time. No taping them to enjoy later. Thankfully by the time summer rolled around you could watch cartoons you may have had to sacrifice earlier in the year when you chose your favourites over them. The ones I enjoyed the most were of course the superhero ones like 'Spiderman and his Amazing Friends, 'Tarzan', 'Batman Adventures', 'Super Friends', 'Thundarr the Barbarian', the 'Herculoids', 'Birdman and the Galaxy Trio' and the 'Mighty Mightor'. Later in the morning we got to see live action shows like 'Land of the Lost', 'Shazam', 'Isis', 'Jason of Star Command' and 'Ark II'. Where we lived, the last half hour before noon showed old black and white silent comedies like the 'Keystone Cops'. 'Charlie Chaplin' and 'Laurel and Hardy'. For me the best thing about the post noon cartoon end time was that it meant that I had YBC bowling league to go to and I loved me some bowling. Then I went home and watched the 'Bug Bunny and Tweety Show' and then Hockey Night in Canada. That was my Saturday for the longest time

But the good times were not going to last. By the mid 80s a full slate of cartoons had all but disappeared from Saturday morning. If you check out the big three today you will find a cartoon wasteland. The WB is still that only network that has hours of cartoons at that time. They also keep producing new titles like 'The Spectacular Spider Man', the 'Adventures of Superman', 'Justice League', 'Batman Adventures, 'The Batman', 'Loonatics' and 'Legion of Super Heroes'.

There were many reason why the Staturday morning cartoons died. Many of the best cartoons (like GI Joe, Transformers, Thundercats and He Man) were syndicated and shown everyday after school. Cable channels that showed cartoons almost exclusively (like Nickelodeon) were springing up. Shows like 'Hannah Montana' owe much of their success to 'Saved by the Bell' and other live action teen shows which became very popular on Saturdays. While I do love being able to pretty much see cartoons at anytime of the day or night I still miss the sweet times from my childhood. Its one of those things that when it passes you feel older. The world just seemed to have grown up and in this instance its too bad for that. Below the are some advertisement examples of the slate of shows you could expect. Click to enlarge as usual.





Check out 'Once Upon a Geek' for his take on the Saturday morning cartoons. I used some of his information for my post.

http://onceuponageek.com/2009/03/25/saturday-morning-cartoons-1985-nbc-ad/