As I lay the finishing touches of a business venture (one can only hope it works out. If not I'll be asking people if they want hot chocolate with their maple walnut doughnut at some point in the not too distant future), I had some time to spend with my daughter.
Lauren-Alessandra is 16 months old and watches – surprise - cartoons. I sat and watched Treehouse with her, bonding with my gal as it were. While my brain was put to the test with Dora the Explorer and Blues Clues, I confess I immediately yearned for Snagglepuss or Mutley.
Times have indeed changed. The cult of the Saturday morning cartoon is all but gone now. No more uncensored Bugs Bunny and questionable, albeit hilarious, stereotypes. No more Speed Buggy. No more Dungeons and Dragons, Captain Caveman, Flintstones, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and no more Superfriends. No more nothing. I used to spend a good three hours eating sugar (and not the brown stuff) and watching shows early in the morning before beginning my long day in the outdoors semi-unsupervised.
Now it's education-this and eat healthy nut bars-that. I saw the development of this revolution unfold before my eyes well before Lauren was born. If you recall, it was the 'sitcom with a message' program genre like Saved by the Bell (started by Degrassi Jr. High) that littered Saturday mornings with their tired, trash clichés. Anyone who needed moral lessons from Screech had deeper issues to contend with.
Since hanging around with the little tyke, I pretty much know how to speak Spanish and roll a cigar — though I argue Speedy Gonzalez was far more effective in teaching the language — and get to grandma's house using a sundial.
I'm not going to say the aforementioned cartoons were better than anything on today. However, the great cartoons of today (Futurama, The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, King of the Hill and not so long ago, Spawn, to name a few) are adult in nature and find their slots in the evening. Rather, I'm talking about ingesting an abnormal amount of cartoons — good or bad — in a tight compact time span.
Article comments
1 - Iloz Zoc
Alas, it's not just you. Deep sigh. I miss those wonderfully just-silly-fun episodes, too. Ironically, with all the ethics/health teaching, the planet is in worse shape, along with us. Go figure.
2 - Donnie Marler
Johnny Quest was a favorite of mine.
Okay, I have to admit I was a closet Speed Racer fan, but even as a child I wondered why the stumps didn't rip the bottom of the ride open when he deployed the big saw!! LOL
3 - alessandro nicolo
zoc, ironic indeed. We were probably more active back then. I remember hanging out in nearby forest for a whole day when I was a kid. Today, I never see any kids in the forest. We used to play baseball and hockey on my street. Today? You got it. Nothing. I do see some but not as much. Donnie, glad you can come out of the closet here.
4 - Iloz Zoc
Speed Racer was super. I just hated chim chim. My other favs for anime were Astro Boy and Tobor the 8th Man (if I remember correctly). He "smoked" his energy recharging tubes, so I strongly doubt we'll see him anytime soon.
5 - Ray Ellis
Let's not forget Gigantor.
6 - El Bicho
Get the channel Boomerang where it's Saturday morning 24/7.
7 - alessandro nicolo
El Bicho, where's the fun in that? It used to be on the conventional network. Up here in Canada, there's Teletoon and YTV but it's not the same. It's not in the same spirit.
8 - Mat Brewster
I can remember as the summer dwindled and the days of school came closer, every morning I would have a debate in my head. The choice was whether to use the last few free days I had left to sleep in, or to wake up early and watch cartoons.
Cartoons always won out.
9 - Ray Ellis
You know what? We're beginning to sound like grumpy old farts. . . "we'd come home from school and watch Huckleberry Hound and do our homework later. And then, we'd get up early on Saturday morning to watch Woody Woodpecker and Friends--and we liked it!"
Seriously, though, I do miss thode days.
10 - alessandro nicolo
Ah, the 'Pecker! Such a diabolical fiend. I remember gettung my hands on some really old Woody's. Man were those 'toons racey.
11 - permial
What happened to the ACME company & Crew? I miss the Roadrunner and the old WB toons.
12 - alessandro nicolo
I know I shouldn't be taking this to another level but could not resist nonetheless. Remember when weekday morning was folled with game shows and not talk shows. Lord do I LOATHE talk shows and its seemingly empty chatterings. I would rather listen to Daffy Duck and Bugs scrap it out any day over that stuff.
13 - fluff1948
Oh, it wasn't just the 'toons! Does any one remember the Little Rascals and the Bowery Boys? Laurel and Hardy? Three Stooges? Saturday could mean nearly the whole day in front of the TV! And bring back the days when late night was filled with Old Movies instead of "Infomercials". *sob*
14 - alessandro nicolo
I certainly remember the 'Little Rascals.' Eddie Murphy: the greatest imitation of Buckewheat ever. There were a lot of movie come to think of it. That's where I got to see the bulk of the classics.
15 - Bill
Yes! Heavens yes I remember the Bowery Boys. Every Saturday afternoon on WNEW, Channel 5, New York!
I too miss the "old days" of the Saturday Morning Cartoons. My son is 7 and he'll never really know the joy and simple pleasures of those, be it Looney Tunes, or Woody Woodpecker, The SuperFriends, or other animated treasures. Even live-action shows like H.R. Pufenstuf and Sigmund & the Seamonsters and Land of the Lost were terrific! Now it's Ron Popeil and his spaghetti maker, rib baker, or automatic turkey baster/feather plucker infomercials....blech!
I grew up in NJ, so I also got to see "live" shows
such as Captain Noan & his Magical Ark, and Chief Halftown as well. I'm 40 now, and still I long for those days of yore
16 - alessandro Nicolo
Now those are imaginative names! Captain Noan and his Magical Arc - funky. Chief Halftown, Sigmund and the Seamonsters, Pufenstuf - I never saw them but they sound wild.
17 - Donte
i miss every last && single classic cartoon and they took them off for what come on some bull shit wack and corney shows like divorce court come on please i miss it