The Saturday morning cartoons thread!

H

Heather[TBTMK]

New member
I did a quick search and noticed that the last Saturday morning cartoon thread was over a year old, so I figured I would start a brand new one for people to share memories of their favorite Saturday morning cartoons and traditions. For me, it was very much about the atmosphere of Saturday mornings, the feeling of not having to go to school, the sounds, commercials, cereal, snacks, drinks....you know, stuff that made Saturday morning's fun! I would always have Fruity Pebbles or Golden Grahams or some kind of fun cereal to enjoy my cartoons with and throughout the morning I would snack on stuff like Shark Bites or Fruit by the Foot all while drinking massive ammounts of Hi-C's Ecto-Cooler, it was such a fun time to be a kid in the 80's and early 90's, I really do miss it so much. Saturday morning's are still fun for me, but it will never be as grand as it was back then, being an adult there are things you need to attend to and the feeling of freedom and wonder that came along with being a kid in that era just seems to be gone. My sister's son wakes up at like 9am on Saturday mornings, when I was a kid if you woke up at 9am then the day was half over! I would be up at the crack of dawn to watch stuff like Land of the Lost and Mr. Wizard before my cartoons started at 6:30/7:00, if I missed any of it I felt like my Saturday was ruined, it was really a weekly ritual for me to spend all morning watching my treasured shows, and then in the afternoon it was all about going outside to burn off the calories from all the Hi-C and gummy snacks I consumed, lol. Man those were the days.
 
I spent many a Saturday morning watching The Bugs Bunny Show with my Dad. He loved watching Foghorn Leghorn paddle the dog with a board. Dad's not with us anymore, but the memory endures. :sad:
 
I remember recording Sonic the Hedgehog every Saturday morning. One dark day, right before the final 2 episodes, they moved the series back an hour, and I ended up recording Free Willy the final 2 weeks of the series. Ah, life before the days of on screen guides. It wasn't until a decade later that I finally saw the final 2 episodes.

I quit watching Saturday morning cartoons until 1999 when Digimon started on Fox Kids. Nothing beat waking up early on a Saturday morning watching Digimon. Heck, Fox Kids itself was just a treat to watch. They really did Saturday mornings right.

I don't watch Saturday cartoons nearly as much anymore, particularly since 4Kids TV ended most of their shows I was interested in.
 
The only non-cable cartoons I remember watching Saturday mornings were On Saturday Morning and Pokemon on Kids WB. The former was only something I watched occasionally since my dad would always change the channel.
 
Some of the Saturday morning cartoons I remember distinctly include Sonic the Hedgehog, Garfield and Friends, and Tom and Jerry Kids. I happen to have one of my old VCR tapes which has a recording of Garfield and Friends, and I'll make sure that tape is with me forever.
 
I remember the good'ol days of Saturday Morning cartoons. Waking up and watching Fox Kids with shows like Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Tiny Toons, The Tick, Beast Machines, Digimon, Nascar Racers, Transformers: Robots In Disguise, and too many others to name. Fox Kids was always my preferred block, it looked the best, that one promo announcer was awesome, they just did it right.

I really didn't pay much attention to Kids'WB!, other than Batman moving there, Earthworm Jim, X-Men: Evolution, Pok'eMon, Batman Beyond, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and of course The Batman, and Spider-Man towards the end of the blocks run. But other than I really didn't care about the block it was always Fox Kids for me.

Then of course there was ABC with Sonic, Darkwing Duck, Looney Tunes, and Bump In The Night, but that was pretty much it from them that I cared for. And there was TMNT on CBS.

I was disappointed when it was announced that Fox Kids would end its run, but I eagerly awaited the FoxBox. But I didn't really care for the shows on the block until the new TMNT started. I do think the block really improved in its second season when they had Sonic X and Shaman King. Even Winx Club was alright and I eventually appreciated Ultimate Muscle.

Now other than E/I blocks all we really have is The CW4Kids, and even that will probably disappear when their contract expires. But even they don't really have much to offer other than reruns from their FOX block.

Its a shame because I'd really hate to see this long time Saturday tradition end. I know we still have cartoons on CN, Nick, and Disney XD, but to me those don't feel like real Saturday morning blocks. What made blocks like Fox Kids, Kids'WB and other blocks that were around at the time so awesome was because most of the shows on those blocks could only be seen on Saturday mornings. I always looked at it as Prime-Time for animation.

The shows CN, Nick, and Disney play on Saturday mornings are usually reruns and can be seen any day and time of the week. They're not exclusive to just Saturdays. At least thats just how I feel about it.

I'd love to see the Saturday Morning cartoon be revived some day, but it will probably never happen with networks like CN, Nick, and Disney. And I'm ok with that.
 
Anyone here who used to watch Fox Kids on a regular basis currently watch ABC Kids?

Because I could swear the announcer for ABC Kids is the same one who did announcing work for Fox Kids promos.

EDIT: I just rewatched some old Fox Kids promos. The ABC Kids announcer is definitely the same person. Makes me kind of wish Digimon was on ABC Kids again so I could hear his voice advertising it like the old days. There's still Power Rangers, I suppose.
 
ABC never got rid of it. It was Disney's theme at the time for the shows they aired on Saturdays on ABC. They still provide all the shows for Saturdays on ABC just with no overall theme for the block.
 
I was an early riser on Saturday mornings because there was tons of great shows and cartoons that would come on bright and early, almost every major station aired cartoons and kids programming back in those days so there was always something to watch no matter how early you got up. It was great. I would hang out and watch cartoons throughout many different networks until the afternoon came and then I would usually go outside and play with friends or play some Nintendo/Super Nintendo and kill the day off that way, but between about 6:00-11:30 or so, it was all about the cartoons.

The feeling was what made Saturday morning cartoons so special, I still kind of get that feeling these days, but it isn't what it once was of course, but it's fine because it makes the older days that much more special to me. I remember a few different times I would have to go somewhere or do something on a Saturday morning when I was a kid and how crushed I would feel that I had to miss my beloved cartoons, then people would be talking about them the next day or later on that day and I would feel left out, man I used to hate that. Anyhow, I agree that cartoons and cereal go hand in hand on Saturday mornings, Cinnimon Toast Crunch, Fruity Pebbles, Corn Pop's, Honey Smacks and other great brands were heavily consumed by me on that special day, I should do that more often these days when watching the Saturday morning lineup, I just never think of it.

Hey wait a second, I'm watching cartoons right now....it's Saturday morning....okay, it's time for some cereal!
 
Saturday morning was when kids could get away from the stresses of school and being a kid and just kick back.

Some of you guys are young, though. Geez. Sure, I remember Digimon and Pokemon. However, my earliest memories for Saturday morning go back to the late '80s and early '90s. Smurfs. Alvin and the Chipmunks. The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3. Captain N the Game Master. Muppet Babies. Gummi Bears. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the CBS one). Garfield and Friends. Believe it or not, some of those shows still hold up upon later viewing.
 
Same here, show's like the original TMNT, MOTU, "The Real" Ghostbusters, Garfield & Friends, C.O.P.S, M.A.S.K, Thundercats, Mother Goose & Grimm and other shows ruled my Saturday mornings, to the younger crowd the shows like Pokemon, Digimon & Yugioh are their classics.
 
A lot of you missed the golden age of Satarday Morning Cartoons which I would like to think of from the 1980s to mid 1990s. I remember waking up at 3 in morning thinking. What am I going to watch since there was cartoons on every single channel. Kids have it easy now days with there 24/7 cartoon channels and the interweb, hahah. But we had the toys, kids now days have really really crappy toys, compared to kids of the 80s and even early 90s.
 
Everyone would argue for their own golden age. My dad grew up watching stuff like The Banana Splits and that old Spider-Man show with the choppy animation (You know the one: "Spider-Man, Spider-Man. Does whatever a spider can . . . ").
 
True, but truth be told, I am almost a bigger fan of stuff from the mid 90's like X-Men: The Animated Seties, Batman: The Animated Series, Spider-Man: The Animated Series and The Tick as I am stuff from the mid to late 1980's, I also love a lot of stuff that aired a couple years ago on CW4Kids, 4KidsTV and CN for Saturday mornings, but there was just something about the late 80's that makes me miss that time period.
 
Saturday mornings, like it was in the "Old School" days, might be revived, someday, but we just don't know when. At the same time, not everyone in America has cable TV. I'm most concerned with broadcast TV, because as long as the FCC allows prohibition as well as its radical enforcement of its E/I mandate, it may never return. Prohibition doesn't work, and how long will it take the FCC to realize it? Saturday mornings are supposed to be for entertainment for the younger audiences, not a radical extension of school, like we're seeing, nowadays.
 
I did not have cable until my second year in college. Tehrefore, my memories of Saturday morning cartoons is restricted to the local broadcast channels. Howerver, I do have fond memories of watch great 'toons such as Transformers, GI Joe, Thunercats, Rainbow Brite, and all teh fun programming Dinsey was putting ouy in the 80s and early 90s.
 
Back
Top