oh yes, lancelot link! for a long time i thought i dreamed that because even my brother (who i KNOW watched it with me) thought i was nuts when i mentioned it. It wasn’t until Tom Hanks talks about it to Hooch in “Turner and Hooch” that i was vindicated!
Going back to my childhood and adolescence…
Our family had cable pretty early (late 70s). Other than HBO, basically the only other channels were independent stations from a bunch of different cities (WTBS, WGN, etc.), so there was a lot of syndicated kidvid.
-One station in Philadelphia had an afternoon programming block of Space Giants, Marine Boy, Speed Racer, and Ultraman. Everyone knows Speed Racer and Ultraman. Space Giants was pretty scarce, but someone mentioned it. But very few people remember Marine Boy. Marine Boy’s mermaid friend Neptina was an early crush.
-The Magic Garden is well-known where I grew up, but was a local show and is almost unknown outside of the New York metro area. Paula was another early crush.
-I was an early riser (mainly because I had a ridiculously early bedtime), so I watched shows like the Patchwork Family, New Zoo Revue, and Marlo & the Magic Movie Machine while other kids were sleeping.
-In its earliest days, Nickolodeon had am all-import afternoon block. You Can’t Do That on Television is famous, but what about theTomorrow People?