The Magic That Used To Be Saturday Morning

[chewbaccadoll]

I was reading Larry Young's post about children's tv and it got me thinking about what it was like to grow up in the 70's/ early eighties with Saturday morning tv being what it was.

I've tried to explain it to my 5 year old daughter, but in a world where you can have whatever you want whenever you want, it's no wonder she doesn't understand.

I truly believe that the "Saturday Morning Experience" had a big role in forming and shaping me into what I am today. I'm well aware of the fact that it was mainly a vehicle for marketing (I've read more than one book on the topic, "Saturday Morning Fever" was one), but it doesn't change how I feel.

Getting up at 5:30 - 6ish, getting my cereal and tv dinner tray... house quiet and dark except for a bluish glow casting a small boys shadow on the living room wall... eagerly awaiting the next show.

Later in the morning... toys out and on the floor while watching, stopping dead in mytracks for anything Krofft, watched right up until 11ish and went out to play literally all day with a mind full of adventure and without boundries, going whereever my imagination took me.


I'm trying to recreate at least part of the experience for my kids, though it will never come close. At least the kid in me gets to come out as we watch shows (now on dvd) on the floor rolling around in our pjs.

All of you that were a part of the Saturday Morning Generation... SHARE YOUR MEMORIES! PLEASE! Would love to hear!

-K

 

[Clerval]

Even before reading your post, this is pretty much exactly where my mind started to head to:

"Later in the morning... toys out and on the floor while watching, stopping dead in my tracks for anything Krofft, watched right up until 11ish and went out to play literally all day with a mind full of adventure and without boundaries, going wherever my imagination took me."

It was about what those shows (and surely a few bowls of sugar bombs) did for me: the imagination went through the roof. Whether it was after certain cartoons, or some of the (ugh, now dreadful) live action that made it on at times. Was there much better than a new Fall season, to see what the hype was about? And yeah, to wonder how some of those stinkers took the place of beloved favorites... sure, some of that too.

I suppose you've also got to give some credit to the toys we headed out with. Figures, vehicles, sets, the possibilities were endless. Even in sports, setting up end of game scenarios, the last shot, final pass, torpedoes heading for the tre-- well, you get the idea.

 

[ONEYE]

I miss those days (late 60s & early 70s) for me. No VCRs, you missed it, you missed it. It was a simpler time. The kid's cereals that went with the cartoons. Funny Face drinks! Something like Alka-Seltzer but a drink for kids. I can't remember the name. Groovie Ghoulies! When the Wizard of Oz came on during Thanksgiving (or around that time). Frosty, Rudolf, Bumbles around Christmas! Mad Monster Party! Oh man, you had to wait forever to see some of those!

 

[CessnaDriver]

Yeah it was a big deal.
Looking at the TV Guide and planning out what new shows to watch.

Saturday morning doesn't feel quite right without Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner going at it anymore.

 

[DemonFire]

yup I remember those days, getting up early just to catch my favorite cartoons.

IMO for the most part the cartoons nowadays suffer from they don't make em like they used to.

 

[Moviefreak]

Here is what I would love to do... maybe we could get a bunch of people in on a project to make it happen.

I always wanted to make DVD's of saturday morning line ups. I want to make them complete as they ran on TV. The exact time slots and vintage commercials inbetween. I know getting the shows would be easy, and the commercials as well, but the editing would be hard.

 

[slave1pilot]

Something like Alka-Seltzer but a drink for kids. I can't remember the name.

 

[terryhimself]

Early 60s. Lone Ranger, Hop Along Cassidy,Roy Rogers, Sky King, Space Rangers,and Gerald Mc Boing Boing. Oh, you had to be tough to let an orange Fizzie melt on your tongue!!

 

[ONEYE]

:thumbsup

So obvious a name! How could I forget?!?! Oh being 50 and destroying so many brain cells when I was young and dumb! :$

 

[rollerboi]

I'd go for late 70's/early 80's.

I grew up on Mighty Mouse, Hannah-Barbara (Huckleberry Hound and friends), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Voltron, Thundercats, and a few others that don't come to mind immediately.

Edit: Tom & Jerry, Wil E. Coyote, Pepe LePew..

Other good memories spent with my dad watching the Incredible Hulk (w/Ferrigno), and wrestling afterwards. Arrgh!

--

Only problem doing this is that it puts 'em out of touch with the rest of their peer group. All kids are gonna talk about their favorite spastic/ADD TV show and ours won't be hip and current. They'll be retro-nerd kids, heh.

 

[Deric]

I really wanted my son to experience some of my favorite cartoons. My wife picks on me because I didn't grow up with cable and never really experienced Disney cartoons until Ducktails or Darkwing Duck which by that point I was heading into my teens. We don't have cable since we watch our stuff mostly online so for a few Saturdays I setup a few DVDs and online viewings of classic cartoons (Bugs bunny, road runner, Tom and Jerry, Pink Panther, Rocky and Bullwinkle). My son loved them and wanted to watch them over and over. I told him he had to wait until the next Saturday which confused him a bit at first but he said he was looking forward to it all week. I told him that was part of the experience.

One thing that happened from this that I didn't expect is that he doesn't like some of the modern offerings of the WB cartoons now that he watched the classics. He said they are no longer funny to him.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

Nothing like that over here in Germany, but what comes the closest was a TV show in the summer holidays for all those that did not go on vacation. Or a tv program with marionettes, Augsburger Puppenkiste & Die Kiste - Das Augsburger Puppentheatermuseum / Homepage that was shown mainly around christmas, with one episode of a larger story 30 minutes long every week. Imagine the horror when you missed on of those :lol
And the pre-evening broadcasts starting around 6 p.m.
And for a lot of children "the Sandman" Startseite | unser Sandmännchen | rbb Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg which is the closest to anything Krofft like, really a spearhead of stop motion animation, with a lot of very, very cool props, since the Sandman got a special vehicle every other show, even rockets and moon buggies!

Ah, the memories...

 

[Jet Beetle]

As bad as marketing used to be it can't hold a candle to the 30 min commercials they make for kids today. There was once a law that stated you could not make children's programming for the sole purpose of selling products - well, you can see how well that held up over the years. It first declined to you could only sell so many toys, then the sky was the limit.

I used to love the Kroft Supershow - I even worked for Captain Kool once Michael Lembeck - as a writer on Santa Clause 2 - which he directed. Wonderbug was my favorite show but the chic from the Bugaloos was my favorite character - mmm.
I also used to love those Special even shows they'd have on Fridays where Billy Osmond or someone of that calibur would preview the new cartoons set to premiere the next morning.

And then Saturday afternoon would get here -

What a great time to be a kid.

 

[ONEYE]

Kukla, Fran and Ollie, you have to be an ancient to remember that show. Crap in heaven! I remember, you had to get off your butt and turn the dial to change the channel. That's why us "kids" in the 60's were not over weight!

 

[DARTH SABER]

I really miss those days.
What kids today don't understand is that back in the 70s - 80s there was an average of about 12 channels.
And only 3 of those channels had a sharp picture.

I remebmber if I woke up around 5:30 or 6, some really strange shows would be on (Arthur and company), and as 7-8 o'clock rolled around, more cartoons would flood the channels...then around 10 hue live action kids shows would start- Jason of star command, Isis, shazam, etc.
Hen around noon, after all the cartoon and kidshows were done, it was time for Tarzan theater.

 

[Moviefreak]

There is no better feeling than a Saturday morning. Just thinking back brings a warm happy calm over me and I sit here and just smile. Those were part of the best years of our lives.

 

[Lear60man]

Grandma and Grandpa would pick my sis and I up from school on Friday after school. Hand made milk shakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. Then Gpa and I would build something in the shop or make airplane wings out of cardboard. Watch some sort of fright night theater. Next morning, sneak up and turn on Super friends, Ark 2, some cartoon with a guy with fur swimsuit and lazer sword etc. His sidekick was a Wookie ripoff. Gparents would wake up and make us orange pancakes. Build a fort in the living room to watch more cartoons.

 

[Rotwang]

Back in Belgium, we would get different national channels, like France, Netherlands etc. Wednesday afternoons and holidays were kid's heaven. Shortly after noon until sometimes 5pm you could watch cartoons and television shows nearly uninterrupted. Sometimes it was a matter of channel surfing to get the better stuff. The French channels had some of the best programming and some indigenous cartoons alongside Japanese and American imports. By the late 70's the Japanese anime shows like UFO Robot Grandizer and Captain Harlock were so much more exciting than Hannah-Barbera. In the 80's French kid's shows were dominated by cheap Japanese imports. Anything from Sentai to Dragonball, but concerned parents and the government cracked down on them and insisted on a wider portion of indigenous cartoons which lacked the edge and freedom of storytelling as well as a return to the "safer" US imports and tons of reruns of old US tv shows like Silver Spoons and Diff'rent Strokes.

The era of Wednesday afternoons and 3-5 pm afternoon slots being dedicated to kids is now mostly gone, except for dedicated channels. They still get the 5-8 AM morning slot, but as more lucrative targets are found, slots for children's tv is increasingly under pressure.

 

[NkySpike65]

When life was fun and simple...

Do you remember Jim Neighbors and Ruth Buzzie in the Saturday morning show " The Lost Saucer "



YouTube - The Lost Saucer Opening Sid And Marty Krofft Jim Neighbors Ruth Buzzi



_____________________

 

[BB43MAN]

Space Academy, Jason of Starcommand, The Mighty Isis Power Hour with Shazam, The Far Out Space Nuts, Flash Gordon, Dr. Shrinker, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Speed Racer, School House Rock, Josie and the Pussycats, the Flintstones, Superfriends, and the list goes on and on!