Saturday morning cartoons, then & now.....

[wingdarkness]

Originally Posted by Solace

ABC Saturday Mornings?

Yep, enjoy your chocolate chip...

[Solace]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

Yep, enjoy your chocolate chip...

Thanks, here's a treat.

[Guernsey]

That is a classic, the dog cannot seem to win against the fire hydrant.

[KimmyChan]

Thundercats and transformers baby! :d

[GreenLama]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

I could post for days in this thread^^...

Anyways, cookie for anyone who remembers this:

♫♪♫After these messages♫♫♪...We'll be Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight Back♫♫♪...

The "After these messages.....We'll be right back!" bumps are the stuff of legend, they are on youtube for all to see, just type in abc saturday morning bumps. My favorite were the ones with the dog and the fire hydrant, there were like 3 with the fire hydrant, 2 or three with a few dancers and 2 with a cowboy, great stuff!!!

[GreenLama]

Originally Posted by Quzor

Hell yes I remember that; Mr. Wizard! That was the first thing I used to wake up to every morning as a youngster. Mr. Wizard, then Inspector Gadget, then Fraggle Rock, Muppet Babies, and then whatever happened to be on at the time. Apparently before I can remember, I used to wake up and watch Captain Kangaroo, and I remember a short stint with Mr. Dress-up. Also, somewhere in there TMNT took over my life and, to date, I own every TMNT action figure produced between 1988-1996, plus the 3 live action movies, the 4 extra movies (which I think I got from Burger King, iirc), and the Easter and Christmas Movie Specials [/brag].

My morning usually started some time around 6 am, with a healthy dose of cartoons until noon, then Nintendo until dinner time, then back to Nintendo, or over to a friends house to play...Nintendo.

Ahh, those were the days.

It was all about the original NES after cartoons for me too, but usualy after cartoons I would watch WWF Superstars and then hit the Nintendo for many hours of QUALITY video gaming action!

[KimmyChan]

I used to love watching all kinds of Saturday morning kids show, like Power Rangers

[asgard_shill]

I used to start my day with a heapin 'bowl of Sugar Frosted Teethrotters to real classics like 8th Man, Marine Boy, Clutch Cargo, and Bugs Bunny. If I was feeling really lazy and didn't have any other plans, I'd hang around for Rocky and Bullwinkle, Speed Racer and Space Ghost (the old version, not that Coast-to-Coast stuff).

Now get off my lawn, you damn kids

[GreenLama]

What were some of everyones favorite commercials that would air during satAM cartoons?

[ria1414]

I have to go back aways but back in the day it was Bugs Bunny/Road Runner, the Archies, the Smurfs, and School House Rock. And then I had a child and ended up watching Pokemon, Dexter's Laboraratory, and Spongebob with her.

[KimmyChan]

And who can possibly forget the total coolness that was Johnny Bravo & The Powerpuff Girls?

[Quzor]

Originally Posted by asgard_shill

I used to start my day with a heapin 'bowl of Sugar Frosted Teethrotters to real classics like 8th Man, Marine Boy, Clutch Cargo, and Bugs Bunny. If I was feeling really lazy and didn't have any other plans, I'd hang around for Rocky and Bullwinkle, Speed Racer and Space Ghost (the old version, not that Coast-to-Coast stuff).

Now get off my lawn, you damn kids

Great call on the Rocky and Bullwinkle. I actually still own a shirt with "Vincent Van Moose" on it (those of you with the VHS tapes know what I'm talkin' about). Also, the Mario Bros. show (the cartoon) was quality times. I still have some episodes of that lying around on a VHS somewhere; perhaps it's time to dig it out and reminisce.

[fish eric]

i always hated captain planet, my younger brothers liked it though so I would always rout (sp?) for the bad guys.

i used to always watch on the weekends, but now that im older i can't remember which shows were weekend shows and which were after school shows... man my brain is fried

[klowny]

From what i can try to remember is watching ABC every Saturday mourning watching Pepper Ann, Recess, doug , rocko's modern life, power rangers, beetlemorphs, etc.

Illuminated Telivision?

[Vexx]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Bullwinkle.... it was amazing the level of satire they got away with during the Cold War...

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Bullwinkle.... it was amazing the level of satire they got away with during the Cold War...

Cartoons (heck, most television in general) became rather sanitized after political correctness set in. I always found it funny that shows like GI Joe featured all out gun battles where no one could hit the broad side of a barn and everyone always managed to hit the eject button in time. Of course as a kid it was still cool as heck (Snake Eyes was the most bad ass ninja ever!).

Even stuff like Looney Tunes became heavily censored. =\ I doubt most people here even remember things like the Flintstones commercials for cigarettes.

Surprisingly, animation used to be rather adult (and heavy with satire, adult themes, and political statements). The cartoons for children stereotype probably owes much of it's image to Disney and savvy marketers who saw an opportunity to sell directly to children.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Solace

Surprisingly, animation used to be rather adult (and heavy with satire, adult themes, and political statements). The cartoons for children stereotype probably owes much of it's image to Disney and savvy marketers who saw an opportunity to sell directly to children.

The entire Looneytoons line-up was written for adults to show before adult movies in the 40s and 50s at movie theatres. Heck, even until the late 60s many theatres would show an animated short before the main feature (and the only g*d*f*ing commercials were the lobby concession jingles). They didn't even "sanitize" the cartoons for Saturday morning television til the dreaded 70s "omg, think of children" anti-violence crap started corroding away at Saturday mornings. Itchy&Scratchy is only a few pixels more violent than Tom&Jerry's overthetop mayhem. I'll catch the offerings now and most of them make me puke (Where's the Wheel of Morality? At least that was funny - Strawberry Shortcake makes me want to commit unearthly violence).

Rah, piss, moan, rant.... "yeah yeah sure sure, Hubey".

[dragon4dudes]

there were and still are good cartoons in the morning... maybe, I really don't follow TV anymore except the Office and 30 Rock

[Solace]

I see you share my hatred of movie theater commercials too. (I feel like snapping every time I see another damn cell phone commercial.....)

Honestly most of the offerings back in the 80's and 90's were terrible, basically 30 minute commercials. But there were some glimmers I think. Thundercats, Silverhawks, Robotech, and the like filled in some of the gap - mostly mindless, but timeless because the concepts and ideas were sometimes deeper than the rest of the drivel. Nickelodeon in the early 90's had a bit of a renaissance until they started censoring Ren & Stimpy - heck, even MTV had a decent animation block for a bit. And of course there were the Bruce Tim shows like Batman and Batman Beyond, and the Fox X-men show.

Looking back on the past decade, Cartoon Network really had some talent with some of its original offerings, but it's mostly fallen back on "safe" kids shows. Spongebob has some interesting satire at times, but that fountain seems to have mostly dried up. Fairly Oddparents had some good one liners occasionally too.

Probably the best and most original Western animation I've seen in a long time was Avatar. While still very tame compared to the average anime, I thought the complex characters and strong storytelling transcended what we typically think of "cartoons" (heck it was better than many "live" shows). It's a shame that more shows don't follow that example.

[kyousukey]

pokemon and biker mice from mars ;D lmao