Saturday Morning Cartoons

Saturdays have always been my favorite day of the week. It is the week's equivalent of the year's Christmas. As kids growing up in suburban Los Angeles, we woke up really early on Saturday so we wouldn't miss the cartoons. Sometimes we would get up so early the farm report was still on. I guess that was the time we shoveled down our cereal and waited for the familiar music in the opening titles of our favorite show.

Every year in the fall, each TV network would unveil their new Saturday morning cartoon line-up. We would be so excited to catch the first glimpse of the new weekend fare. It was so cool to go to the store and find lunch boxes portraying our TV heroes to take to the first day of school. I loved the way those brand-new Aladdin lunch boxes smelled when first opened. The thermos was a cool thing, too. It kept our milk luke-warm until we swished our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches down with it before whisking off to play dodge ball or marbles, awaiting the dreaded recess bell to ring, calling us back into the classroom.

When we were kids, we didn't look for quality in our cartoons, we just wanted to laugh and be transported into the two-dimensional world that beamed into to our living rooms. Looking back now at the cartoons of the 60's and early 70's, I am amazed how quickly they must have pushed those things out of the production line. The backgrounds were looped so you could always count to 5 and the same background scene with Barney and Fred running was repeated. We were gullible, but we loved our cartoons. I guess the ritual would last from 7AM till 10 AM when mom or dad would kick us out of the house to go play or do chores.

When I sit down to look at cartoons today I am bored in seconds. For goodness sake, they have full-time cartoon networks nowadays where kids don't have to wait until Saturday to see them. They are always on. I remember when I started to get into my pre-teens, Sid & Marty Croft produced live-action kid shows like The Bugaloos, Lidsville and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Also a favorite from another production company was H.R. Pufnstuff with Freddie the Flute and Jimmy. I loved the water that Jimmy would swim up in during the show's intro segment; I always wanted to go there and live on that island. I remember my desire to watch cartoons faded right before Land of the Lost became popular because I don't think I ever watched it.

Things have changed drastically in 40 years. I sit here at the computer with a bit of melancholy for the days gone by. I can still see, in my mind's eye, three boys, shaved heads, in their PJ's looking intently into the TV, transfixed by moving drawings on a screen. Those days have gone but are precious memories, none the less.