The Magic That Used To Be Saturday Morning

i think they're taking the older 80's gijoe/transformers back. ive already seen the previews for the new gijoe.

looks like the movie.

looks like crap.


that figures. The TF game is a massive hit with g1 fans and newer fans which means they'll butcher it and come up with something crappy. I even liked the last animated series as it had alot of G1 references for older fans.
 
Remember when the TV Guide would showcase the new cartoons coming in the fall? I would read that with rapt attention eagerly awaiting for fall to arrive. Like most who have posted, I'd be up way before the Saturday line up started and wouldn't even think about anything else to do until noon when the boring adult programs came on. And not the cool adult programs either. :lol

Anyone else love the way Adult Swim has resurrected/remade some of those shows. Harvey Birdman, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021, even The Venture Brothers has the Saturday Line Up feel to it to me. I love the nostalgic feeling I get when I watch those shows and they are adult funny to boot.

The 1-2 hours after school when they would show Batman, Get Smart, The Munsters, Leave it to Beaver, etc.

I also couldn't wait for the shows that only came on once a year. Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka, etc. and the TV shows that came on one time only at the Holidays like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, The Charlie Brown shows for Christmas, Thanksgiving, & Halloween, etc. You missed them and you wouldn't get another chance until the next year. Now they show them several times a week during the Holidays and The above movies might be on 3-4 times or more a year. I don't believe my kids have ever made it completely through any of them without losing interest.
 
THUNDARR BABY!


YouTube - Thundarr the Barbarian TV cartoon intro (1980)


l_11b3e527b8714018b602896109ff51bb.jpg
 
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!

Ditto for me! PLUS... Satudays, the milk man (yes, I said "milk man") delivered chocolate milk for me and my sibs to enjoy while watching those awesome shows!!!

Good times :)
 
Remember when they would show Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry and other characters in black face with white gloves? Then we'd go to lunch at Sambo's restaurant.

***** ******, and this was in the '70s and early '80s!
I had absolutely NO concept of what Racism even was at the time and yet I was completely inundated with it on a daily basis...absolutely insane! :wacko

Found myself coming to this same realization not long ago.

3 words...Hong Kong Phooey.

Now we're talking! Hands down my favorite cartoon character of the 70's. I had an unatural affection for Rosemary. :$

Henry, the mild mannered janitor?.......could be!

Not to be a stickler, but it's Penry, not Henry.... but It's an honest mistake.



Someone mentined Barbapapa. I wasn't sure how to feel about this show. And I believe it was on Sundays (around here anyways). I watched it, but then again I used to watch anything.

Speaking of... does anyone remember the Sunday morning Jabberwocky? It took me years to uncover the memory of this show. I actually found a Youtube clip after many fruitless searches:

Opening
YouTube - WCVB-TV "Jabberwocky" Open and Close 1972

Clip with Frank
YouTube - Jabberwocky - on Dance - Part 1 (1974)


And here are some of the more obscure things I remember from Saturday morning/ after school tv:


Always had this puppet burnt into my brain... never knew it came from this
YouTube - 1977 Bubble Yum commercial

The "Other" fast food mascots
YouTube - Disco King!

Now You're Wasting HEAT!
YouTube - saving energy psa

Robalar
YouTube - robolar

Timer
YouTube - Time for Timer: "Hanker for a Hunk o' Cheese"

Yuck Mouth
YouTube - "Yuck Mouth" commercial ABC PSA

Don't Smoke
YouTube - Star Wars Smoking PSA

Funky "Be Prepared" Scouts Ad
YouTube - Be Prepared - PSA-type ad for Scouts, 1970's

Love all of the storys. It's great to share something so many of us held sacred.

As an artist I seriously want to create some artwork of an emblem of sorts that would eventually become a t-shirt for a ficticious group (like us) called, "The Saturday Morning KidVid Society", or just "Saturday Morning Magic Club"... cool logo depicting a kid 2 inches from the screen, cereal in hand, etc.

"It's 5:30 am. Is your TV on?"

Something to say to people that you were part of that era. Raise awareness to it's importanace to those of us who hold the experience so close to our hearts.

It's so hard to explain to younger people though. Fun shirt idea I think though.
 

That looks familiar, wait a minute!

thundarrmag.jpg


I sell this shirt! haha And this one:

ooklamag.jpg



In fact, if you look at my site you'll see that most of it was inspired by A LOT of what's discussed in this thread!



OH! How could I forget my most memorable thing from Saturday mornings...

Sleestaks
Sleestaks
Sleestaks
Sleestaks!


And let's not forget the Skipper & Gilligan in outer space, or as Sid & Marty Krofft like to call it "Far Out Space Nuts"! Ridicules, but I loved it!

saturday_morning07.jpg


-K
 
This was in the 80s but I would wake up extra early just to watch Spiderman. It was only on around 6 or 7 in the morning. And there was this Cartoon Express that had Pac-Man and Dragon's Lair!
My daughter only likes watching Dora. :(
 
Saturday mornings were something to look forward to. When Land of the Lost premiered, I about sh#t my pants.
 
Yeah, during the weekdays (before school started) I would wake up and watch the old 60's Bakshi Spiderman cartoon.
Then came the Great Space Coaster.


The cool thing about the 60's spiderman cartoon is that the stories were basically adaptations of the real stories from the comics....THen they started going off track with a bunch of psychedelic episodes.
 
Yeah, during the weekdays (before school started) I would wake up and watch the old 60's Bakshi Spiderman cartoon.
Then came the Great Space Coaster.


The cool thing about the 60's spiderman cartoon is that the stories were basically adaptations of the real stories from the comics....THen they started going off track with a bunch of psychedelic episodes.

I rmemeber that line up. I watched both of them every day. I ended up getting the complete 60's Spiderman series on DVD.
 
As an artist I seriously want to create some artwork of an emblem of sorts that would eventually become a t-shirt for a ficticious group (like us) called, "The Saturday Morning KidVid Society", or just "Saturday Morning Magic Club"... cool logo depicting a kid 2 inches from the screen, cereal in hand, etc.

"It's 5:30 am. Is your TV on?"

Something to say to people that you were part of that era. Raise awareness to it's importanace to those of us who hold the experience so close to our hearts.

It's so hard to explain to younger people though. Fun shirt idea I think though.

Thats a GREAT shirt idea!!!
 
Thats a GREAT shirt idea!!!

Yeah? You like?

I'll have to give it a go then...

I know I'd wear it like a badge of honor!

I thought another funny design would be to draw a bunch of the show characters sitting in front of a TV watching, eating cereal, etc.

Haven't thought of a clever slug line for it though, although visually it might be funny alone.
 
How about cartoons that never got a chance: road rovers, and freakazoid. Animaniacs suffered when it went to saturdays. Battletech was doing good in ratings until fox axed it, so was the original Dragonball and one other anime i forgot that had a catgirl in it. That got axed after a few episodes. Fox had a ton of good saturday morning cartoons in 2000 but most got axed when they phased the stuff out. Digimon was still thriving, there was one about a giant mecha and a little robot boy who thought the mecha was alive like him. I remember Schoolhouse rock being on all the time as a kid until lke the early 90s, i also remember that piece of cheese who was wearing a cowboy hat singing about a hunka cheese and a cheese wagon wheel lol. I miss the horrid transformers and gi joe public service announcements too.
 
WoW great post! I tell you, those were the days! I remember waking up early with my siblings on Saturday mornings and rushing to watch all the Hannah Barbara cartoons. We also loved to watch The Smurfs on Saturday mornings. Mom would make us Pancakes or French Toast and we we would watch them as well ate. It was so great! Plus, Saturday programming isn't what it is today. It was way better. I remember we would spend the rest of the day afterwords, watching all these great movies. They would have one on right after another and they were good movies, not some of the boring stuff that they have on Saturdays today. We would make a day of it. (Sigh) such great times, it's sad that this generation has to miss out on it. I think it's great that you're trying to recreate that for your kids, keep it up! :thumbsup
 
Ahhh the memories. I was born in late 1970, so I was dumped right into the heart of 70s programming. Those years did indeed shape me into who I am today. BTW, you KNOW you grew up in the 1970s when you went crazy to watch the Star Wars Holiday special when it aired in 1978 and LOVED IT (regardless of what you think of it today).

Fond memories include:

Lost Saucer- Memories of Fi and Fum, the Chickafant and the Elephicken (and the Dorse). I was too young to remember Far Out Space Nuts. BTW, in the link to the intro, did anyone else notice it is Adam West doing the credit narration?

Ark 2- I need to pick this up on DVD

Wonderbug- I remember when Corgi came out with a matchbox sized Miles Manx, it became my favorite car for about a year when the show was on.

Star Trek animated series- I only have dim memories of this when it was on originally, but of course it is on DVD and has been shown on Nick's channels many times. It was VERY high class science fiction for saturday morning TV.

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids- Hey hey hey, this show was OKAY! I also liked the introduction of "The BROOOOWWWNNN HORNET hornet hornet...." (my attempt at an echo).

Shazam and Isis- Both shows seperate, but shown together with Isis coming after Captain Marvel did his thing. They were fun to watch. I believe TVLand showed a couple episodes of Shazam about five years ago in prime time, but still it is not out on DVD while Isis is.

Run Joe Run- Very fleeting memories of this one. I mainly remember the dog.

Tarzan- Another great Filmation show. I have fond memories of his monkey (not sure what breed of monkey it was) Nakimba.

Space Academy- I kind of looked up to this one since it had kids in outer space. For many, Johnathan Harris was Dr. Smith from Lost in Space, but to me he was Commander Gompu and always will be. Fire up the Seeker and lets explore the unknown!

Batman the New Adventures- The 1970s Filmation cartoon on CBS had Adam West and Burt Ward reprising their voices for this. The 70s batmobile being muscle car based sounded cool and I loved the Bond type gadjets, such as the one man helicopter ejection seats. The stories as I recall were also a lot more serious then the 60s live action show.

Jason of Star Command- My family was overseas when the first season aired, so I didn't get to watch until we got back from Okinawa in 1979. But it was cool to watch since it was like Space Academy, yet wasn't. I've got both shows on DVD now. Somebody needs to do a kit of the Starfire though to compliment the James Small kit of the Seeker.

Flash Gordon- Filmations take on Flash Gordon was great to watch in 1979. I also remember several of the episodes were compressed into a two hour movie a year or so later.

Super Stretch and Micro Woman- An interesting show from the early 80s with two superheroes that looked like ordinary people.

Blackstar- an interesting fantasy show in the vein of Flash Gordon that seemed to be a forerunner to He Man by about two years. John Blackstar had the star sword and his nemesis had the power sword. Interesting how at least on episode of He Man seemed to use some animated sequences originally done for Blackstar as well.

Kids Superpower Hour with Shazam- A bizzare variety hour with a Shazam cartoon thrown in. It was a fun bit of diversion.

Spidey and his Amazing Friends- The first Marvel Sunbow cartoon that I can recall from the 80s. Spiderman teamed up with Iceman from the X-Men and his sister Firestar (who didn't exist in the comics until the show, and then only briefly). The stories were not bad for their time.

The Incredible Hulk- The other Marvel Sunbow show from the early 80s had many of the same voice actors that worked on GI Joe a couple years later. I was never much of a live action Hulk fan, but the cartoon was fun to watch.

Of course, one can always mention the afternoon weekday cartoons and the prime time shows of the 70s and 80s as well, but I will leave that for another thread. Somebody did mention Saturday nights though. For me, the best Saturday nights were a period of about two years in San Antonio, Texas when one of the local channels showed what they called "Sci Fi Theater". At 10:30 they aired Twilight Zone, at 11:00 they aired classic Star Trek and at 12:00 they aired Battlestar Galactica. It was during that period that I got a chance to watch all the shows involved and really began to enjoy them as I hadn't picked up on Trek until TMP came out and my family was overseas when Galactica was in its network run. Thankfully I was able to continue that when my family moved to Omaha in 1983 as the local PBS station was airing Gerry Anderson's UFO for about a year and when that went off the air, the Iowa PBS stations were airing classic Doctor Who in a full story arc format (all episodes of a particular story arc back to back in one night).

I have one question. I can recall one cartoon I remember watching. I think it was by Filmation and it involved a yellow rescue helicopter of some sort. I remember watching it for a few weeks, but I can't recall what it was called or what it was about.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top