When I was a kid, my parents had no problem getting my brother and I to go to bed early on Friday nights.
Why?
Because of Saturday Morning cartoons!
From 6am till noon, we would be camped out in front of the TV, constantly fighting over what cartoon or goofy live-action show to watch, dreading when 12:01pm would arrive and Dad would commandeer the TV to watch sports the rest of the day.
If you are in your 40′s like me, who can forget such classics as….
Scooby-Doo
Captain Caveman
The Grape Ape
Hong Kong Phooey
Shazam!
SuperFriends
Yogi Bear
The Flintstones
The Jetsons
Bugs Bunny/Road Runner
Magilla Gorilla
Land of the Lost
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters
Josie and the Pussycats
Fat Albert
Speed Racer
The Pink Panther
I could go on for hours listing all the other great shows……
Now, where I live, Saturday Mornings are all but dead for the kids of today.
Thumbing through the guide of this Saturday mornings offerings, it looks like you can plop Junior down in front of the TV and enjoy such modern classics as…
The Local News! (Gotta keep up on all the overnight murders…)
A Real Estate Homes Tour (In case Jr is looking for that great starter home and has $300,000 in his piggy bank)
How to make money in the Stock Market (Jr needs to diversify his portfolio)
Hannah Montana (In case Jr did not watch her show 120 times during the week on cable, the local station has decided to let him watch it again on Saturday Morning)
Suite Life on Deck (Same as above)
Bosley’s Hair loss solutions (For when Jr actually grows hair, then loses it, he will know his options…)
Tennis (Because young kids love nothing more than a 3hr tennis match between two women who’s names they will never be able to pronounce..)
And the most popular current Saturday Morning offering……
Paid Programming! Which this week just happens to be Time/Life Music and their amazing collection of all the greatest songs from the 1970′s and 1980′s! (Gosh…someone ought to start a blog with lots of info on 70′s and 80′s music…hmmmm….maybe I will……)
I know what your thinking…
We now have cable and satellite with 3,000 channels…..with at least 50 channels targeted towards kids…..
Kids don’t need Saturday Morning cartoons anymore, they can get them 24hrs a day on cable, or can get them whenever they want online.
And because of that, my wife and I have to set off small, controlled blasts of dynamite in our sons room on Saturdays in an effort to get him up before 3pm…..
When told that his nerdy parents used to go to bed early on Friday Night so that they could be up before dawn to watch cartoons……the kid just laughs uncontrollably……..”You guys were such Looooooosssseeeerrrrssss!”
That’s it in a nutshell…..
LOSERS!
Those of us in our 40′s are losers because we happened to grow up in an era with no Playstations, X-Box’s, PSP’s, IPODS, I-Phones, Computers, Blackberry’s, YOU TUBE, IPAD’s, Wii’s, and we had nothing else to entertain us but Saturday morning kids shows.
I will take my 1970′s Saturday Mornings over all the current junk anytime.
When I was a kid the TV was my babysitter. We had “Shazamm and Isis Hour”, “Electra Woman and Dynagirl”, and “Rocky and Bullwinkle”…not to mention School House Rock.
The funny thing is that I’m posting on SHR right now!
Saturday mornings ROCKED! Bugs Bunny was, without a question, my fav. I remember getting up later in the morning on some Saturdays bummed that all the good cartoons were over. We’re talking 10:00 a.m. ish? Even with the kids’ channels on cable/satellite now, they still don’t hold a candle to the cartoons of the 70′s & 80′s. My kids will still pick Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny any day over what’s offered on most kids’ channels.
Oh Yes, this is soo true. I am 34 and I remember being up on saturdays by 6:30 am to start watching cartoons. Oh yes, it used to be Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner and all the rest. I feel so bad for kids today, there are no more saturday cartoons. As a matter of fact I still wake up relatively early compared to the rest of my friends as I am still programed to want to see cartoons even though I there will be none. Well unless you have the Boomerang channel (which I do thankfully) that is the only place you can see these classic cartoons. Although I wish they would start showing bugs bunny again.
I totally agree with everything you said about Saturday morning tv. I to am a Saturday Morning tv vet, in my 40′s, and can rememeber those great times watching all those shows. I long for those days again, but I have to remember that, those were great times, and great shows, and great memories, but its different times now, things are not the same, kids are not the same when you think about it. They think differently, act differently, and often times are pushed to grow up more quickly then our generation was. So all in all,im so happy to have grown up in that era, and to experience that whole thing, but those times are long gone, its a new generation, new times. But, our generaation has those precious memories of those Saturday mornings long gone buy. Kids today will never know the difference, sad to us, but they will never know the difference, thus care. Long live 70′s Saturday mornings.
Saturday mornings were so special weren’t they? I remember my Saturday morning cartoon spree always ended at noon with my mom making my favorite lunch “Grilled Cheese”! Cartoons and grilled cheese forever man!!!!
Yes they were. I remember eating Libby Land meals, and sometimes Rollercoasters for lunch on Saturdays.
Saturday Moring Cartoon Rocks remember smurfs and shows like Mr.T and what about weekday cartoons in the afternoon like the thundercats and gi joe and voltron those was the good old days also weekday moring cartoons like the go-bots and transformers. man i kind of feel sorry for this generations society wants them to grow up so fast we should bring back some of the old toys like big wheel and sit and spin the slinky and etch and sketch those toys never get old or out dated
So glad to find this! We watched ALL of those. I thank you for putting my thoughts in writing!The children of today have lost their innocence too early. I have fond memories of my sister and I sitting in the living room floor with our cartoon foldup TV trays and Boot-shaped coolaid cups,eating our grill cheeses and tomato soup while watching “The land of the lost” on our great big wooden console TV that took up most of the living room wall. When Elvis died, they interrupted Scooby Doo. I also want to put in a special mention for Sunday nights Wide World of Disney, It was a must! P.S. from your artists , on screen, to television….. Your tastes are dead on 70s and 80s ! = ) U r cooler than an 8 track my friend! PEACE
Oh man did Saturday Mornings rock back then! My wife Deb and I agree completely, that having grown up in the years from 1969-1989 really was the best. We had the best cartoons by far: Captain Caveman & The Teen Angels, Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show, Josie & The Pussycats, The Groovie Goolies, and more . The funniest and coolest kids shows: Shazam, The Secrets Of Isis, Ark II, Land Of The Lost, Sigmund & The Sea Monsters, and others. The hottest music and dance shows: American Bandstand, Soul TRain, and USA’s Dance Party, followed by such favorite shows as ABC’s Weekend Special, CBS Childrens’ Film Festival, and ABC’s Wide World of Sports. It was a time of innocence and imagination. A time when kids from all across the country, no matter your state, county, city, town, or neighborhood, was able to share in the same experiences. Now that my wife and I are both parents now, we see how much those days meant to us then. We only wish that our child and the children of these upcomming generations would have been able to experience the same enjoyment, as we all obviously did back then.
I’m a 13 yearold girl, brought up with all of this, but how do I spend my saturdays? I get up at 7 in the morning, watch cartoons on TV, get on a bus to go and see my friends, because they live more than walking distance away, read comic books the whole journey – NO MP3 PLAYER – and spend my entire day outside, no matter the weather.
I wish there were more people my age who didn’t depend on modern technology to enjoy themselves, because I know I don’t.