The NY Times
Social Commentaries by Nick Yaekle Vol. I Number II September 18, 2001


WHATEVER HAPPENED TO
SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS?

Those were the days. . .
Dynomutt. Captain Caveman. Land of the Lost. Laff-a-lympics. Sigmund & the Sea Monsters. Superfriends. Schoolhouse Rocks. The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries featuring Shaggy (not the rapper). Smurfs. Q-Bert. Wuzzles (a personal favorite still shown occasionally on Disney Channel). Hair Bear Bunch.

Could it really have been that long ago that kids around the country had a reason to wake up early on Saturday morning, wait patiently (yeah right, have kids ever done ANYTHING patiently?) for their moms to pour them a bowl of cereal or pop some Rich’s oven-baked doughnuts into the range, and plop down with their siblings (after fighting over which of the three networks to watch) and prepare for several hours of non-stop comic entertainment? It certainly doesn’t seem that way for this 28 year old (figure I better get that in as many times as I can seeing how I will be one year old here in a couple of months!).

My brother and I would make it a point to try to get to bed extra early on Friday night so that one of us would be the first up at the house and stake claim to the rights of the television. No remote control, other than our fingers, made it even more of an advantage to sit close to the TV. Our mother would usually leave us alone, unless of course if my brother pulled out his Dracula book and started scaring me with the cover picture from the old Nosferatu movie. And we would laugh at the silly antics of Dynomutt and Blue Falcon or marvel at the ability of Shag and Scoob to run for minutes in place, in air, and never seem to outwit (or outrun) the “bad guys”. Some of my fondest childhood memories are in front of that old RCA console on Saturday mornings.

And I can share in some of the memories thanks to modern cable/satellite television and the Cartoon Network by taking periodic trips down cartoon lane and watching the old guys act up again, never having aged, never having learned their lessons. Sure, the art may not have been the best and the dialogue certainly wasn’t something out of a Dickens’ novel, but who cared? They were out in the real world, fighting crime, solving mysteries, or just pursuing the dreams they set forth for a million kids around the world.

Now I know there are a good deal of things in this world that have come and gone. As an adult, I look back at those things in childhood that I thought would remain forever and stand in amazement in that kid-like frame of mind that they aren’t like they were supposed to be. But one thing that should have remained constant, no matter how the networks look at it, are Saturday morning cartoons. What will my son have to write about in twenty-five years? Do you honestly think he’ll look back on coming home from school and watching another episode of Power Rangers or Pokemon with great nostalgia? Yeah, me neither.

The thrill of waking up on Saturdays is no longer. Kids aren’t interested in watching the farm report or Norm Abram’s New Yankee Workshop (believe me, I’ve tried to watch it when he’s rather watch that goddamn bulldozer tape AGAIN!). It pains me to know that even though you can find cartoons occasionally on the networks on those lonely Saturday mornings, its just not the same. I remember not being able to wait until my grandmother got her TV Guide that highlighted the new season of Saturday morning cartoons. I remember learning early prioritization by choosing which cartoon would get the privilege of coming across the airwaves of my TV set. I remember learning the very real understanding of “termination” as networks cavalierly axed some of my favorites. I remember the cross-merchandising that came along with the Saturday morning cartoons–the lunch boxes, pencils, notebooks, pajamas, breakfast cereals, toys! It was a virtual cornucopia of children’s fantasy. Even Mr. Willie Wonka himself couldn’t have created something so, so. . .everlasting?

Everlasting. What a good word. It describes the memories I’ll always associate with Saturday mornings. No, of course I won’t remember the plots to ANY of the cartoons we watched (plots? they had them?). But I’ll remember the act. The virtual ritual of those mornings. Tom & Jerry may have been great after school and The Great Space Coaster or Banana Splits may have offered some reason to get up for school in the mornings, but they just don’t share the same place in my heart or mind that those Saturday mornings always will.

I was talking with some fellows at work a few days back about the advent of the new cartoons, the high-tech fancy fangled (Fangface, there was another one!) animation (anime’) that comes from Japan. Horsepucky! Those aren’t cartoons. They are meant for the sheer laughter and fun of kids. Who really wants to sit down and watch a cartoon on a Saturday morning with a plot, good dialogue & special effects, and that you have to pay attention to without waiver and most of the time actually know a little history of the characters and storyline in order to even begin to make sense of it? Not this kid, I’ll tell you that. And I have a feel there are a lot more like me out there.

I think its indicative of our culture, though, if you think about it. Things change, this I won’t deny. In fact, I am, for the most part, glad things do. Death and taxes are supposed to be the only things you can count on in life, but beyond this I would say that change is right up there. I’m glad I can write this article on my computer, instead of having to spend hours upon hours at a typewriter trying to properly “format” it and then going back over it for mistakes. I’m glad my car gets more gas mileage than a Cadillac (land boat) from the 1970s. Hell, I’m glad it doesn’t take 30-45 minutes in an oven to warm up my Rich’s Doughnuts. But I haven’t got a Saturday morning to enjoy them with. Ed Johnson and the local farm report, watching men and hogs traverse amongst mountains of pig shit just ain’t my idea of leisurely Saturday morning viewing.

I even miss that damned old CBS eye that would come on right before regular programming was to be pre-empted in order for a “Special” to be aired. Here Comes Peter Cotton Tail. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Frosty the Snowman. Leprechaun’s Christmas Gold (uh-huh, bet you guys didn’t think I knew my stuff, did you?). All those great Rankin-Bass felt-a-mation shows that are hardly seen, never on network television thanks to the deity-devil of Mr. Ted Turner, are lost for generations. Sure, you can buy most of those “Specials” on videocassette or DVD, and I have, but somehow its just not the same.

I used to enjoy sitting around as a child and wondering what Dynomutt and Blue Falcon (third mention, bet you would never guess I really liked that one) were doing at that very minute. I knew for sure that Falcon was probably peering down that big eagle, eh, falcon, beak of his and scowling at the hijinks of Dynomutt, the bionic cousin of Scooby. Now what do kids do with cartoons they see (not on Saturday morning, have I added?)? They play Power Rangers and the like with their friends, trying to determine which one is actually “dead” and who can come back to life and continue to fight the evils of the world. Whoa! Aren’t kids supposed to be kids? At what point did our society, powered by the big business of network executives, start giving kids stuff to worry about further than whether our homework was done or not? When did it become “okay” for children to actually be adults? I’m all for giving kids reality in doses; it makes the harsh blow of adulthood and evils and miseries of this world a little easier to handle. But death? Guns? Sex? And we wonder and fret about why our kids are doing the things they’re doing.
Okay, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the violence-laden cartoons that are being imported into our country are the reason that kids go into Columbine High School in Littleton, CO and start blowing away their fellow classmates. I’m not saying that kids are jumping off cliffs either, like Wylie Coyote may have in his perilous and un-victorious pursuits of the Roadrunner (although Warner Bros. did once try to allow Roadrunner to be caught-but dag-gummit, he somehow managed to outsmart that wylie old coyote!). But certainly the fact that they are pre-empted, to use a TV term, from being children so early has something to do with this. Reading this you may think of me as a zealous child advocate in association with some Christian organization that blames television for all the perils in the world and would rather see kids in bible school or something. Couldn’t be farther from the truth. Hell, as a kid I enjoys such classic adult TV shows as BJ & the Bear, Hart to Hart, Dynasty, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Dallas, & The Dukes of Hazzard. But I didn’t become a trucker. I didn’t marry a journalist, start my own multi-national conglomerate and travel the world solving mysteries (although I must admit, this IS a supreme goal of mine!). And I certainly don’t drive a supped-up Dodge Charger and outrun the law with my cousin! And I still love television. I just miss Saturday morning cartoons. Even if I didn’t watch them today, it’s the fact that the option isn’t there for me or for the children.

Saturday morning cartoons is a legacy of childhood that no child of my generation for countless before and several after will ever be without. But it is one that my son and his peers will be without. Maybe I can tape the old cartoons, insert some Schoolhouse Rocks (“I’m Just a Bill”) at the end of each show, pop some Rich’s Doughnuts into the oven and pour a glass of Nestle Quik (even the rabbit from that is gone! And the Kool-Aid man and the Cavity Creeps and Punchy, from Hawaiian Punch. . .and whatever happened to Tang?) and sit my son down every Saturday morning and create those same memories with him. Who am I kidding? It wouldn’t be the same. But it might bring some tingle of joy to this man’s heart!