Saturday morning cartoons: did you hate it when they had ‘and friends’

[Dale_Sams]

@mbh

I was a kid in the 70s. On weekday afternoons, and on weekends, we got a lot of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, the Three Stooges, old matinee serials, Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes movies, etc. Movies from the 30s and 40s, TV from the 50s and 60s.

And Our Gang

Also…early 70’s isnt too far off from Bob Hope (!) or Jerry Lewis having their own long running DC comicbook series.

[johnspartan]

@Chronos

I liked Garfield’s “friends” (a group of farm animals-- I think they were something Acres?) better than Garfield himself.

Yeah. The & Friends of my age was Garfield & Friends, and U.S. Acres was sufficiently funny with enjoyable characters so mixing in U.S. Acres episodes with Garfield episodes was fine.

Garfield as a franchise is much maligned for being a (excuse the expression) one trick pony, and the kids cartoon was probably a bit more robust than the strip but I get why people aren’t fans.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Chronos

I liked Garfield’s “friends” (a group of farm animals-- I think they were something Acres?) better than Garfield himself.

Before this thread I had no idea ‘and friends’ was a common marketing tool used in kids cartoons. The only cartoon I remember this happening in was Garfield and friends, and I thought the US acres plots held up on their own pretty well. However I still preferred the garfield skits.

Do shows do this for filler, or to create markets for new shows or something else?

[P-man]

@Wesley_Clark

Before this thread I had no idea ‘and friends’ was a common marketing tool used in kids cartoons. The only cartoon I remember this happening in was Garfield and friends, and I thought the US acres plots held up on their own pretty well. However I still preferred the garfield skits.

Do shows do this for filler, or to create markets for new shows or something else?

This was the first example I thought of where the “friends” were more entertaining than the main event. That said, I thought Chilly Willy and Ma and Pa were worthy companions to Woody. “Shhhhhh” and “Crazy Mixed-up Pup” compare favorably to the best of The Pecker, IMO.

[Just_Asking_Questions]

Depends on how old I was at the time, but in general, I never even noticed. All cartoons were watchable, at least until my tastes got more refined.

But not even every Bugs Bunny or Looney Toon was good, either. They’d show stinkers even in the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour. It was confusing to my seven year old self why Bugs looked different and why that guy was talking like Elmer Fudd but didn’t look or act like him.

And don’t get me started on Tim Conway! Everybody should know who he is. But you get a kid of any era, the sixties to now, and show him or her Hollywood Steps Out. I certainly didn’t understand who was being parodied, or why anyone thought it was funny. That was far more of a waste of time than Snagglepuss or Sandy Duncan.*
*I thought the celebrity Scooby Doos were stupid the first season they appeared. I also thought that of Josie and the Pussy Cats In Outer Space and Gilligan’s planet. Doesn’t mean I didn’t watch them all, thought. because - cartoons! Not everything could be Pink Panther (and the Aardvark, too)

[Chronos]

In the case of Garfield specifically, US Acres was also created by Jim Davis, so there was an obvious tie-in (and I think maybe even crossovers-- The Arbuckle family other than Jim are farmers; was US Acres their farm?).

A lot of times, though, it was just the company having a bunch of other cartoon properties that weren’t marketable enough on their own, but they still wanted to make some sort of use of them.

[dalej42]

@Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank

(early-mid 70’s for reference)

Don’t forget The Three Stooges. . .and we had a lot of Ma & Pa Kettle movies, and Blondie & Dagwood movies, and Frankie & Annette movies (with Eric von Zipper!). Man, we had shitty choices, but when something remotely appealing came on, it was such a great day. “Cool! I never saw this Gamera movie before!” Or on Monday morning: "Did you guys see Godzilla vs Megalon on Super Host? " :rolleyes:

But back to the tread topic: by and large, the “and friends” were death. Another half-hour, or HOUR, of formerly good cartoons mostly wasted. I still watched 'em. What else was I gonna do while eating too much cereal on a Saturday morning?

I remember actually doing homework when some awful friends filler cartoons came on! I could knock off a few multiplication or division problems on my worksheets.

[dalej42]

Oh, and I won’t tolerate this Woody Woodpecker dissing. Woody Woodpecker is a god and should be worshiped as such. Chilly Willy et al need to be exiled to the far back benches and learn to appreciate the comedic genius of Mr Woodpecker.

[monstro]

Anyone remember Heathcliff and friends? I liked the friends (Riff-Raff et al.) a lot more than I liked Heathcliff.

[control-z]

@johnspartan

Yeah. The & Friends of my age was Garfield & Friends, and U.S. Acres was sufficiently funny with enjoyable characters so mixing in U.S. Acres episodes with Garfield episodes was fine.

Garfield as a franchise is much maligned for being a (excuse the expression) one trick pony, and the kids cartoon was probably a bit more robust than the strip but I get why people aren’t fans.

Garfield and Friends still holds up decently well these days and is pretty quotable. A friend and I regularly say “If you see it on TV…IT MUST BE TRUE!” to each other.

I always thought US Acres was a little awkward and forced, I didn’t like Orson the pig that much but Roy the rooster and that chicken that would never leave his egg were pretty funny.

[Darren_Garrison]

I don’t remember having any problems with the various “and friends” cartoons. But on the other issue, I was born in 1972 and as a kid was absolutely familiar with The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, and Our Gang from heavy TV play. Also constant reruns of more recently canceled (but still before my time) shows, such as half of the rural purge series. (On the other hand, I never saw a single episode of Star Trek until 1987, when Fox started running them in advance of the premier of ST:TNG.)

[Darren_Garrison]

@monstro

Anyone remember Heathcliff and friends? I liked the friends (Riff-Raff et al.) a lot more than I liked Heathcliff.

I remember the series with the junkyard cats and the one with Marmaduke.

[P-man]

@control-z

Garfield and Friends still holds up decently well these days and is pretty quotable. A friend and I regularly say “If you see it on TV…IT MUST BE TRUE!” to each other.

I always thought US Acres was a little awkward and forced, I didn’t like Orson the pig that much but Roy the rooster and that chicken that would never leave his egg were pretty funny.

Roy the Rooster is a very underrated cartoon character, IMHO.