When did TVs become common in American households? Mid 50s?
I think the pioneering Saturday morning kids programme was Andy Pandy, on the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/smallpeople/past_present.shtml
1954, and the programme was called Watch with Mother. Before that, Muffin the mule was on from 1946, but it wasnt on Saturday mornings.
You guys had me exploring Yesterdayland for hours last night, reliving the Saturday mornings of my youth. Now you’ve got me wondering—what was that cartoon where the archvillain was from Tibet??? He traveled in a flying machine that he pedaled like a bicycle. That was my first introduction to Tibet. Hopefully it didn’t warp my mind too severely when I grew up and studied Tibetan Buddhism. :rolleyes:
Cartooniverse<------------ 38 year old man VERY DISCREETLY removing Powerpuff Girls sheets, comforter, pillowcase, desktop blotter, stationary, t-shirts, skort and all-important “Today is Wednesday, a Great PowerPuff Girl Day!!!” panties.
Shit. 
Now what? I’ve lost my sense of self… :eek:
Cartooniverse
OMG you guys! Thanks for the links, rjk and Hastur. And I thought that these memories were buried in lonesome recall forever; now I can frighten my boys with them. It will be like telling a ghost story: “…and we only had two channels, and had to get up and walk to the TV to change the channel, and this is what we watched!” BWAHAHAHAHA
Facets Multi-media is a video retailer that publishes the Whole Toon Catalog. This is Nirvana for toonheads such as myself. They’ve got Davey & Goliath, Scooby Doo, Gumby (dammit), Danger Mouse, Beany and Cecil, School House Rock, Jonny Quest, Flintstones, and even Cap’n Crunch. Their website is http://www.facets.org but for some reason they don’t do online sales. However, you can order their catalog there.
I would ask, “When did this weekly event come to end?!”
Have you tuned in recently? It seems all the networks have dumped their saturday morning cartoons & kid’s shows for golf and football. Although this is probably good considering that, except for Fox (The Tick, Freakazoid etc.), the networks’ saturday morning shows were pretty abysmal.
However, I will say that I wish The Cartoon Network was around when I was a kid. Instead of Scooby-Doo and Jonny Quest (ick!) I’d have gotten to watch Dexter’s Lab, The Powerpuff Girls, Cow & Chicken, I Am Weasel and reruns of Freakazoid (not that I don’t, at 35, watch them now!)
Good point - - I’ve noticed this too. It’s sad. Thank God for Cartoon Network!
“ick!”??? Jonny Quest ROCKED! I loved the one with the villain who had two giant lizards on a leash.
From the late 50s and early 60s, I have dim memories of Crusader Rabbit and Mighty Mouse. I believe there’s been an incarnation of Bugs Bunny on Saturday morning all my life; I even recall a brief period where Bugs was on prime time.
My cartoon awareness dawns in 1967. The Herculoids, Space Ghost, Wacky Races, Shazam!(sp), The Jetsons, The Bugs Bunny Show, Johnny Quest. Ah, those were the days. Alas, I lived in a town that didn’t have an ABC affiliate until 1971, so I missed so much!
They show B&C cartoons on The Bob Clampett Show. That show had some of the cleverest writing you could ever want. I wonder how many people remember that B&C was a puppet show before it was a cartoon show? Did you ever notice that you never see all of Cecil in the cartoons?
Man, I wanted to BE Space Ghost. I thought it would be so cool to fly around and fire ray-beams from my fists. (But he sure lost those power bands a lot, didn’t he? :D)
It probably came to an end about five or six years ago. I remember losing interest in cartoon when I was 12, not because I had outgrown them, but because they simply weren’t on anymore, and we didn’t have cable. Oh sure, Bugs Bunny was still on at ten, and there were a few crappy ones on earlier that my sister liked, but not many. Surely not enought to feel the 6:00-11:30 block I grew up with.
Except for Fox.
I spent my last week at work pre-move by watching cartoons online. I think that having a seven-year-old has soured me on a lot of cartoons, but I sure still love to watch the ones I watched as a kid. Bugs Bunny et al were my favourites back then. Now I will watch Cow & Chicken and Angry Beavers. Plus there’s a ridiculous one on Teletoon called “Yvon of the Yukon” about a French explorer from King Louis XV’s time. He was blown off course, froze into a block of ice, and thawed 200 years later by an Inuit kid in the Yukon. Now he runs around in his tighty whities, flannel shirt and a toque.
Sounds like my ex.
Ginger
I think it was in the mid-60’s. Only lasted one year. The theme music was composed by Henry Mancini, if you can believe that. The only reason I know was that they used the music several years later in a Pink Panther episode entitled “Prehistoric Pink.” Catchy tune. But can anyone fill me in on the details of Super President? It’s lost in the mists of time.
Yesterdayland has the skinny on Super President (and Spy Shadow). What a great site.
Oh, I remember watching Davey and Goliath as a kid. I also remember seeing it when I was older too. You knew you were out really late partying if you came home, turned on the TV, and Davey and Goliath was on. (OK, where I lived, it was on at 5AM)