Growing up I found it difficult, to say the least, to get out of bed and get ready for school. All that went out the window on Saturday morning. Most times I was up at 6:00 ready for cartoons to start. Sometimes I’d be up before the broadcast day had begun (we didn’t have cable) waiting for the little bit with the flying eagle and music and whatnot signaling the start of the Television entertainment for that day.
I’m not very good at remembering stuff I watched on TV 15 or 20 years ago. But here’s what I remember watching over the years: Smurfs, The Gummy Bears, Alvin and the Chimpmunks, Punky Brewster (Glomer!), Muppet Babies, Dungeons and Dragons, Looney Tunes, Ewoks, Super Friends, Ghostbusters, Alf, Garfield and Friends, Camp Candy, Super Mario Bros, X-Men and The Tick. Ok, I didn’t really remember all of those, I had some help. I watched these cartoons throughout the 80’s and 90’s on Saturday mornings. Good times.
In the afternoon after school I’d watch on Fox (over the years the lineup would change): G.I. Joe, Ducktales, Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tailspin, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs and Darkwing Duck. Also good times.
Toward the end of my Saturday morning cartoon watching years Saved by the Bell and other “live action” shows started taking the timeslots of my beloved cartoons. Also, the Smurfs got kinda weird with the time crystal storyline or whatever it was and I stopped watching it. Before long it was getting harder and harder to find cartoons on Saturday morning on the Networks. Like I said, we didn’t have cable so no Cartoon Network or anything else.
It’s a bit sad that the Saturday Morning Cartoons are no more. It was a good time to be a kid. What do kids do nowadays on Saturday morning? I don’t know. I suppse there are other channels that show cartoons on Saturday morning. But it’s not the same, from 6:00 to 12:00 it was all cartoons on all the channels I received. The commercials were geared for kids with cool ones like Star Wars toys (I still remember the B-Wing commercial). One morning a week, the networks aired programs for kids and it was special.