Saturday Morning Memories

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Chris_cafc

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For those of us who are old enough, what are your fondest memories of the days when Saturday morning cartoons were a big deal and you got up early so you didn't miss a single show?

I used to love Saturday mornings. One of the shows that really excited me was the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, Incredible Hulk combo that NBC used to air. I used to flip around between networks, but most of the time I'd go back to NBC. They had the Smurfs, Kidd Video, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Thundarr the Barbarian at one point, the Punky Brewster Cartoon, the Snorks and bunch of my other favorites. When I got older I tried never to miss Garfield and the Muppet Babies. I remember being annoyed that Garfield episodes were stretched out with US Acres segments.

I'd always feel a little disappointed when The Littles came on, on ABC. Not just because I didn't really like it, but because it was one of the last cartoons of the day so you knew they were winding down. Sometimes, however, the networks would air an interesting live-action or cartoon special, like PippiLongstocking, and that would keep me watching for a while before going outside to play.

A lot of the times we would eat our morning cereal while we watched the cartoons. I remember one time my brother was jumping around for some reason and sat in a bowl of Cheerios. I thought it was hilarious.

Almost as good as the shows were some of the Saturday morning public service commercials. I always thought the blob thing that tried to teach us good nutrition by talking about how he was "hungry for a hunk of cheese" and showing how to make popsicles by freezing fruit juice in an ice tray had catchy songs. I thought Schoolhouse Rock was okay, I guess, but it must have ran on one of the networks I didn't favor because I was never a big fan. I though Captain OG Readmore, the cartoon cat that wanted you to read, was cool too. He was preaching to the choir with me, though, because I was already a little bookworm.
 
I never was much of a Saturday morning kid, actually. In fact, I started enjoying Saturday morning cartoons when I was a teenager. The one memory I have of Saturday mornings in my early years was recording Sonic SatAM every week. Then I remember the heart-crushing disappointment when the show changed time slots and I ended up recording Free Willy the week of the series finale. Thank heavens for the internet nowadays.

My love for Saturday mornings began in 1999 when I started watching Digimon on Fox Kids. I solely watched Fox Kids for several years, then became a fan of the Fox Box when 4Kids took over the airspace, and several months later became a fan of Kids WB. I love Saturday mornings.
 
Unfortunately, I have no special memories. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my memory is horrible. The only animated programs that I do remember waking up early in order to watch were “101 Dalmatians: The Series” and “Sonic The Hedgehog”. I watched them every week, though I can’t say much else happened. I guess that’s not really a fond memory… :sad:
 
Fondest memories? Watching Looney Tunes on Saturday morning-they had them on CBS then on ABC.

I think the reason they don't really have too much animation on the Networks like they used to is because of news blocks or they don't have the budget to support them.

They probably couldn't compete with cable networks since they now have 24 hour cartoon channels.

Kids today can just turn on CN or Boomerang or Toon Disney and watch the Saturday Morning stuff there.
 
All of my early Saturday morning memories seem to run together into one long one and seems to be filled with lots of random or short lived cartoons that I loved at the time. Generally I had to contend with my older brother & sister to watch the stuff I wanted unless I was able to get up before them and thus gain control of the remote.

Some of the shows I LOVED to watch on Saturdays was of course Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first and foremost. All 3 of us liked Garfield so that was usually a given. After that there was a whole slew of short lived stuff I really liked such as the Back to the Future Animated Series and Wild West C.O.W.-boys of Moo Mesa was a favorite of mine for a looong time. I remember seeing the first promos on fox kids for The Tick and the Christmas episode of Life with Louie and my brother and I both thought they looked hilarious and of course they both were.

After that I always had to end the morning on ABC watching the Bugs Bunny & Tweety show which was probably what I looked forward to the most every week. There also was a cool live action Super Fudge show on ABC in the late 90's that I think you can watch on hulu now.

When I got a little older than that I would still watch cartoons on Saturdays but mostly just a few shows on ABC. I watched Disney's Doug because I loved Nick's Doug so much. Other than that I also really liked Recess and The Weekenders. Since that time i've only watched a handful of toons like the new TMNT, The Batman, Spectacular Spider-Man, World of Quest but I don't get to catch them real often or even very regularly.
 
My best memories are with Kids' WB when they had Pokemon. I mostly got into Saturday Morning blocks back in fifth or sixth grade, some of the worse school years I've ever had, even though I had watched blocks like that for years. I remember that I would look foreword to Saturday everyday since that would be my time to just relax and get away from my stress at school. I used to love watching practically the entire block, even though I was mainly watching it for Pokemon and eventually Yu-Gi-Oh!. Back then, I thought that Kids' WB had a much better variety of shows that were really enjoyable, like Static Shock and the early seasons of Jackie Chan Adventures. I even enjoyed watching the Johto seasons of Pokemon, despite how most people consider that the worse arc of the series, because Pokemon was, and still is, one of my favorite ways to escape reality for awhile and just enjoy the moment.

I also would love to watch the afternoon block that they had. An hour of Pokemon and then an hour of Yu-Gi-Oh! was like paradise for me back in elementary and middle school. I felt bad when that was taken down a couple of years ago. Thank goodness for DVDs. Now, I can create a feel of an after school block or a Saturday morning block with my DVDs whenever I want to. I also did feel bad when Kids' WB was going to end, but the fact that I did leave the block for a couple of years, after they got rid of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, didn't affect me as much as it must have for other people.
 
Yeah. I was cool. I was in college then (which makes it weird that you are called Old Guy, I must be Methuselah), but I loved The Tick and the X-Men. But what about it? Share more specific memories.
 
When FOX Kids was at its prime it was the best. They aired Power Rangers, B:TAS, Spider-Man, X-Men, Animaniacs, Life with Louie, Goosebumps, Eeri Indiana, etc.
 
Of course, this will reveal how old I am, but......

My earliest memories came 40 years ago, with the introduction of the Banana Splits, and the first Batman cartoons. I wasn't really that into the Archies at first, but for a 5 year old, any toon will do.

During part of the 70's, the local CBS affiliate (now a ABC affil) would black out certain network entries they didn't think would succeed and sub reruns of Popeye and/or Looney Tunes shorts. I don't think that was fair, IMPO, looking back in hindsight, but it shows even then that local ad revenues were very, very important to the stations.

In my teen years, I was working for my local church as a volunteer for their Sunday School bus ministry, so I missed a lot of stuff. After I enrolled in their school, I gave up the bus work, and that opened my Saturday mornings. I think you guys can guess from the color I'm using now who my first crush was.

My all-time favorites:

Super Friends (1977-86)
Thundarr
Banana Splits
Fantastic Voyage
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Shazam!
Isis
 
True, but for some strange reason it just worked better on saturday morning. I don't know, it just seemed kinda cool to be watching such a quirky show in the morning. It's the same thing with Goosebumps. It worked better on saturday morning than on Friday afternoon or the special primetime specials. Most likely cause it wasn't scary to begin with, so watching a "supposed" scary show in the morning was kinda interesting.
 
Oh, there were lots of shows I remember from back then. Smurfs, Real Ghostbusters, Muppet Babies, Garfield and Friends, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Captain N: The Game Master, Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa, Project G.eeK.eR., Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Sonic the Hedgehog, Free Willy the series, etc.

I remember being very excited when Darkwing Duck debuted. I remember one year I got a bit of a surprise because I liked a show I didn't think I would. It was the year both Wish Kid and Pro Stars debuted. I didn't like sports and I did like Macauly Culkin at the time (the kid from Home Alone who was on Wish Kid). So, I figured I wouldn't like Pro Stars, but would like Wish Kid. Turned out the other way around. Wish Kid was boring while Pro Stars wasn't that bad. Oh, and I remember being blown away when ReBoot first premeired on ABC. I didn't think they could do computer animation on TV at the time.

Oh, and here's a little something I regret admitting. It'll sound a little dorky now, but for a few years I played this game in which I'd program my own Saturday morning. Basically, I came up with this idea for a fake station (IBC, the Imaginary Broadcasting Station). And on a piece of paper I'd come up with shows to air from about 7:00 to noon (I wanted to start earlier than the regular shows). Every year I'd take old shows I was tired of out and write in new ones. They were usually based on toys, comics, movies or even older shows. The only major rule I had was that if the idea ever became a cartoon for real, I'd have to take it out of my imaginary schedule. For example, my longest running show would have been a cartoon based on the Wayside School books if I were still playing, but I would have had to take it off the schedule when Nickelodeon's Wayside showed up.

I was such a dorky kid. :D :p
 
That aired on Saturday morning? :confused: I don't remember. Then again, before getting into FOX Kids in 1993 (as a result of Power Rangers, Batman, and Animaniacs) I would watch Disney Afternoon and on Saturday I think I just flipped around different stations. I do recall watching CBS for Ninja Turtles and that Super Mario show.
 
There once was a local channel who broadcasted saturday morning cartoons, as the hosts from the show once were in Disneyland Paris.
 
I remember when they had promo specials to introduce kids to new Saturday morning shows-they don't do that anymore.

I remember Looney Tunes on CBS and then on ABC.

I remember when they used to air Bugs and Daffy or Looney Tunes on Cartoons Network Saturday mornings-they stopped doing that.

I remember when cartoons on NBC was big.

I used to watch Saved By The Bell.
 
I remember watching and enjoying the following cartoon shows on SatAM:

Muppet Babies
Garfield and Friends
Gummi Bears
Smurfs
Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show
 
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