Pour One Out for Saturday-Morning Cartoons
My older brother routinely harassed and mildly terrorized me, as older siblings are hardwired to do. But he did give me one gift: he slept late on Saturday mornings. That meant one thing: from 6:30 in the morning to almost noon I had COMPLETE TELEVISION DOMINATION. And why did that matter? Three words: Saturday. Morning. Cartoons.
Our “good TV” was a 25-inch screen trapped Han Solo carbonite-style in 52-inches of cheap faux wood product that resided in the living room. Rabbit ears gave way to a shiny black cable box, roughly the size of car battery. The only other set we owned was a microscopic 13-inch set that squatted on a rickety snack tray in our kitchen. It had a DIAL, which you had to, like, TURN ALL BY YOURSELF to change the channel. I know. It’s okay if you need to take a moment to collect yourself. My father often commandeered the “good TV” to watch stupid stuff like football and Bridge on the River Kwai for the millionth time. That left me no choice but to sit in a hardbacked kitchen chair, resting my chin on the table and staring slavishly at the screen through a line-up of my favorite sitcoms like Perfect Strangers, Golden Girls, and Mr. Belevedere until I was gently pried away and put to bed. But on Saturday mornings all bets were off and it was just me, “the good TV,” a box of powdered sugar donuts (because HEALTHY BREAKFAST!), and an entire cartoon nation.
The high holy era of the Saturday-morning cartoon phenomenon belongs to my generation of kids growing up in the 1980s. As early as the mid-1960s network executives realized in evil genius fashion that they could fill somewhat dead airtime with cheaply produced cartoons aimed at kids who, as any parent or any grown person who recalls being a child can tell you, are the slickest sales people alive. Show a tiny human a piece of colorful junk that does something silly or violent or looks good enough to eat and that micro-person will make it his/her/or their singular mission in life to obtain that garbage. What better way to hawk unhealthy cereal and snack products not to mention racist, sexist, dangerous toys to consumers than by using hours of the Smurfs and Muppet Babies as subterfuge to do your dirty advertising work? As someone who remembers begging for a My Little Pony lunchbox and thermos set as well as just about anything Care Bear-related, I’m not saying it wasn’t highly effective. You have to respect the audacity of turning a half hour cartoon adventure into a glorified commercial for sneakers.
Shows ran concurrently across the three major networks at the time — ABC, NBC, CBS — requiring some deft schedule maintenance on the part of the discerning watcher. In some cases for me it was an easy pick between shows like Transformers (pass), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (acceptable), and He-Man and Masters of the Universe (runner up). Other blocks felt like some real Sophie’s choice moments: Smurfs, Snorks, Gummie Bears? Now I’m in the tense situation of switching between shows mid-episode if one is dragging or it happens to be a re-run. In a perfect scenario I could glide from favorite show to favorite show almost seamlessly completely a Smurfs, The Wuzzles, The Real Ghostbusters hat trick. Chef’s kiss.
But more than any of this there was a ritualistic aspect of Saturday-morning cartoon viewing that imbued it with a kind of sacred, devotional atmosphere. The only time this amount of cartoon programming ran in this way was on Saturdays. That meant waiting, looking forward to that one day all week you got to spend uninterrupted hours traveling through all sorts of worlds, colored in diverse animation and art styles, and flavored in so many different types of perspectives from the bananas-silly to the save-the-universe heroic. It was hurling yourself down a pure imagination rabbit hole that felt bottomless. Questionable content choices aside — really Rambo? Et tu RoboCop? — the sheer glut of material opened up countless avenues of inspiration, wonder, and creativity to an entire generation of artists and makers.
My nephews are of the instant download generation. They click from Peppa Pig to Daniel Tiger on their iPads, essentially, whenever they want. It’s all there, always cued up to play along with the ads for the shiny, cheap stuff destined to clog landfills and doom the planet. I marvel at them and the way their little brains, shaped by the forces of this digital revolution, already outpace my ancient, dusty circuitry. I’m in awe of them, but I don’t always envy them. They’ll never know how it feels to fight for and win (!) an argument about what to watch or have to fill in the days between cartoon binges dreaming up their own scenarios and adventures for their favorite characters. They’ll miss out experiencing what it feels like to relish an entire morning meant for nothing other than wild dreaming.
