What do you miss more: Sat. Morning toons or weekday/afternoon toons?

L

Luigione 70

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What do you miss more, Saturday Morning Cartoons or weekday cartoons? I'd say the latter. For one you got more eps, especially in the days of 65 episode syndication (btw, i know weekday cartoons still exist due to cable, but theyre pretty much all reruns as opposed to new episodes). Also, some classics came out of the weekday format (Animaniacs, B:TAS/S:TAS, Transformers/Beast Wars, TMNT, etc). Finally (though this has more to do with syndication), weekday toons had longer shelf lives. Once a Sat. Morning show ends its run, thats it, never to be seen again, while i was seeing reruns of Heathcliff as late as 1993.
 
Since I feel that Saturday morning cartoons are still very good, I will have to pick weekday afternoon cartoons, I miss them terribly. I remember coming home from school and Fox and the station that would become the WB were always playing cartoons, it was a glorious time. These days I can still get my fix from Nicktoons and CN, but it isn't like it used to be, but I still have my memories.
 
I'll go with weekday afternoon blocks. While I loved Saturday mornings as a kid, they're still around. It always felt good to come home after school and turn on the TV to watch shows on Kids' WB and Fox Kids.
 
I definitely miss the after-school lineup more than the Saturday morning blocks. My favorite Saturday morning block consisted of little more than that hour of Dungeons & Dragons and Pole Position, the latter of which lasted only a season. But weekdays was a whole 'nother story.

When I was growing up, from 3:30 to 6:00 every Monday through Friday, depending on which of the four channels you were watching, you had your choice of G Force, Filmation's Ghostbusters, the Real Ghostbusters, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ducktales, Jem, Bravestarr, He-Man, She-Ra, Thundercats, C.O.P.S., M.A.S.K., Heathcliff, Bionic Six, Dragon's Lair, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, and The Littles. I'm not even kidding. Between 1984 and 1989 ALL of this was on plus a lot MORE!

And there was no concept cooler to me than those badass G.I. Joe five-parters that would run the entire week. It was like a present, coming home from school on Monday and turning on the TV to find Part 1 of the "Weather Dominator" or the "Pyramid of Darkness" storyline starting. Saturday morning just couldn't compete with that for me.
 
That's a VERY good question. I don't know to be honest. You guys are correct about afternoon cartoons. Classic shows. Everyday. More episodes. However...there was something special about Saturday morning cartoons. For starters, it was great to celebrate the weekend (2 days free of school) with cartoons. Plus, it was easier to watch. Just think of all the times you missed afternoon cartoons cause of some school activity or sports or whatever.
 
While I also remember enjoying Saturday morning cartoons when I was little, I still do with blocks like the CW4Kids and Pokemon on CN. I do miss weekday afternoon blocks more because I loved coming home from school to shows on Kids' WB like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Batman Beyond, the early seasons of Jackie Chan Adventures and other shows too. After going through my terrible days of school, which were pretty much all of elementary school, coming home to some of my favorite cartoon shows and escaping all of my problems for awhile.

I do watch some DVDs of my favorite shows during weekday afternoons to recreate those kinds of blocks. While that does allow me to watch more episodes whenever I want, it still was nice to have the block for nostalgic reasons. I rarely missed the block anyway since I didn't have too many things to do after school.
 
I miss more weekdays when the syndicated channels aired cartoons in mornings/afternoon. I remember fondly the good times of The Disney Afternoon on my local NBC channel, the different cartoons from my local ABC and finally, the Fox Kids blocks with Disney properties in one same channel. Oh yeah, it was good times! :anime:
 
I don't know how things were in the `80s but in the `90s all the afternoon shows aired on Saturday as well. So...I guess I would miss afternoon more if it wasn't for that. I remember as a kid I missed afternoon cartoons for 2 years because my mom had a new work schedule and she couldn't pick me up till 6pm. So, I was put in after school programs. And, if it wasn't for Batman, Animaniacs, and Power Rangers also airing on Saturday I would have been VERY upset. So, while I do agree that the afternoon cartoons were superior it wasn't a big deal in the `90s cause you could also watch those shows on Saturday. So, there was this whole "oh my God I have to watch" thing going on. You could miss them and still be okay.
 
I miss the days of the 5 part episode. The aforementioned G.I. eps (plus Rise, Serpentor, Arise), TMNT's original premiere mini plus "The Eye of Zarnoth" mutli-parter; Jem's 'Truly Outrageous' 5 parter; Filmation's Ghostbuster's pilot, etc.

You don't get that nowadays. The most you get is 2 part premiere. Shows like 'The Secret Saturdays', 'Ben 10/BTAF' could have really benefitted from a good 5 part pilot.
 
It's not a cartoon, but the only one I remember (aside from TMNT) was Power Ranger's Green With Evil saga. That's all everyone was talking about at school that week.
 
This 5 part episodes is probably too long for today's audiences. They want the end quickly and passed to a other story. I hope they bring back the 5-part episodes.
 
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