Most of my cartoon memories were after-school stuff (Transformers, G.I. Joe, MASK, etc.), but two most-definitely-get-up-early-Saturday cartoons remain fixed in my mind:
Dungeons & Dragons. I was never much of an RPG gamer, but I was flirting with it enough to twig into this series. Great animation, some fairly deep characters, and really good (relatively speaking) writing, though in retrospect it’s a tad annoying that every episode was a variation of the same basic plotline – “Dungeon Master sends the kids on a quest to find something that might take them home, but they have to give it up in the third act to save a bunch of innocent NPCs.”
Mighty Orbots. Yeah, everyone remembers Transformers and the Go-Bots, but the Orbots were also around at the same time, and ABC made it damn worth getting up early on Saturday to catch this show. Fun stories, eye-popping animation (TMS roolz!), and spiffy action scenes made this a must-see. Though Gary Owens’ announcer voiceovers can be rather cringe-worthy in retrospect. I remain rather upset that there was never any sort of Orbots toy tie-ins – capitalism, why has thou failed me?
I agree – the writing on that one was pretty good, even if many of the plots were a bit formulaic. Some of the stories varied a little, and I like that they did focus on different ones of the main 6 characters from time to time. Had some good background theme music during the action sequences, too.
(Not that I caught all this when I was a kid. But I found episodes and re-watched them more recently – a little nostalgia).
Don’t know how many people remember, but one of the characters was voiced by Donny Most. (Who? Ralph Malph, of course!)
Nineteen of your favourite cartoon theme songs, by Material Issue, Sponge, Mathew Sweet, Tanya Donelly, Mary Lou Lord, Collective Soul, Butthole Surfers, Helmet, The Ramones, The Reverend Horton Heat, Frente!, Violent Femmes, Dig, Face to Face, Tripping Daisy, Toadies, Sublime, The Murmers, and Wax.
Every September the big three networks would have a preview show, typically on a Sunday night, that would tease the upcoming Saturday moring lineup. That was a HUGE schoolyard topic, and if you missed it, you might as well stay home on Monday.
Comic books from the early eighties (in the fall months) had two page ads showing the networks Saturday morning schedule to further spread the hype.
Nostalgia is great, but the fact is most of the cartoons of my youth were crap. I think it was Evan Dorkin who said Saturday morning cartoons are proof that adults hate kids.
Quality shows, like Eek the Cat, The Tick, Jackie Chan Adventures, and Batman restored my faith in the genre.
Personally, I think this show should have ended after the first season. I never liked it much.
As for shows from my childhood–well, I watched Saturday morning cartoons until I was 17, and still do watch some when I have the chance (I can’t stand the writing on WINX, but I can’t resist magical girl stuff either). Combine that with a few years when we had Cartoon Network, which showed a lot of older shows, and my childhood spans TV from the 1970s until today. I remember many of the shows mentioned in this thread, even though a lot were before my time.
Anyone remember Reboot? It’s one of those shows I think they didn’t make enough episodes of. I heard rumors they were going to make another season after the recent movies, but nothing has materialized yet. Even though I couldn’t appreciate a lot of the computer references when I was younger, I loved it then and still do now.
Sleeepy2, I remember those specials! I also remember them being really cheesy and asking myself, “why am I watching this?” but I did anyway. I was all about the Saturday morning cartoons, but I can hardly remember which ones I watched anymore. I know I always watched “Transformers” and “G.I.Joe”, but I don’t think they were Saturday morning. I know I liked “Ghostbusters” and “Garfield and Friends”, but does anybody remember “Turbo Teen”?
Dang, I’ve been trying to remember the name of that show for years. Thanks for the link!
As for Dungeons and Dragons…I’ll just say that I hate the UK for having DVD sets of this series. I’d buy those in a heartbeat. It was a great show.
If anybody’s curious, the writer of the show did do a final script that wrapped everything up. Never aired, alas. Damn shame, too. It would’ve been a killer episode.
Oh yeah-I remember-although I think some of them were on Fridays, and what they’d do is have some of their hit shows “host” the new cartoon clips. One I remember was Larry and Balkie from Perfect Strangers, and instead of a new episode of that show, they’d have the two of them sitting on the couch watching the new cartoons, and being all excited about it.
And yeah, looking back, a lot of the cartoons sucked ass, but admit it-you still watched them. Hell, I’d watch “The Snorks” if they were on-I liked the Snorks.
One comedian I saw speaking to a group of mostly Gen X’ers (my generation- I was born in 1966) majorly hit a responsive chord when he said the words “Sooooooouuuuuuuul Train” still make him mad and depressed because as a kid it officially meant “cartoons are over”.
My favorites that haven’t been mentioned here include TARZAN (though it had the most annoying background music ever recorded) if only for the talking apes, and FLASH GORDON (one of the few cartoons that would let a main character get killed and filmed in serial form just like the 1940s live actions).
One my earliest memories of any kind is a snibbet of The Beatles saturday morning cartoon. And yet for 15 I heard nary a mention of it amid the standard innundation of Beatles memorabilia (“No, not ‘Yellow Submarine’! It was a saturday morning catoon show!”). I had begun to doubt it had existed when MTV showed some reruns in the late 80’s. Vindicated!
Another barely-remembered show from that era was something called “Tom Foolery” or the like, featuring some rather bizarre animal characters. In one episode, Chicken Licken thinks the sky is falling when he gets hit on the head with a puzzle piece labeled “piece of sky”. Anyone else remeber that?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going down to the Little Store to buy some “Odd Rods”.
A few that nobody has mentioned were: Tom Terrific and Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog.
Anyone remember Tennessee Tuxedo and Mr. Answer Man? How about Heckle & Jeckle, Woody Woodpecker, Underdog, and Betty Boop? Mr. McGoo, Cool McCool, and vintage Popeye were some of my faves, but nothing really did it like Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Dooright, Fractured Fairy Tales, and Mr. Peabody.
Sectaurs-Warriors Of Symbion? Prince Dargon and his heroic pals fight General Spidrax and his evil minions. I have some of the toys, and a few issues of the comic. I don’t know if they ever made a cartoon though. The other problem is that the characters rode insects.
Visionaries- Hey, holograms are wonderful things. The Supernaturals was a toyline even more heavily based on holograms. But, afaik the Supernaturals never had a cartoon.
Re Mighty Orbots
How could whatserface not know scientist guy was Orbots comander? His Orbots commander uniform didn’t even cover his face. And how come Tor was human-sized as Tor, but when he folded in his arms and legs to form Orbots’ body he was was 20 feet tall?
OTTOMH “Something is missing, some vital ingredient. I know! Mustard!”
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