Saturday, August 4, 2007

Whatever happened to...Saturday morning cartoons

I am sure some of you reading this will not have the fond memories of the great '80s Saturday morning cartoons that I grew up on, either you are too old or too young. But seriously what happened to Saturday morning cartoons. I was up early walking my dog and then decided that I would sit and watch some cartoons before I really got my day going. I turned on the TV and all that I could find on the major channels were there talk shows like the Today Show or CBS this morning. This was at 7:30, what the hell. At 7:30 as child I was up and watching cartoons for at least a few hours. I don't think my parents woke up before at least 9 or 10, so this is when I could watch what I wanted. Maybe kids are sleeping in later now becaue the Saturday morning cartoons don't seem to come on till at least 9:30 or 10. And what happened to the good cartoons like Muppet Babies, Bugs Bunny, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, M.A.S.K, The real ghostbusters, Jem and the Holograms, the Smurfs or the Snorks. Ok so I had to look up the names of some of these cartoons, but I instantly remembered seeing all of them when I was growing up. Have we raised a generation of kids who only watch Power Rangers and Pokemon or other Anime. I usually don't care about buying American or American products, but really what happened to American cartoons. Yeah, I know many of those cartoons were probably drawn in like Korea, but still they were intended for American audiences, we were not watching the creations and spin offs of another culture like Japan. I just wonder what this world is coming to when my children (when I have some) will not be able to get up at 7 AM and turn on the TV and watch great cartoons that corrupt your brain forever. Although I do not remember if this cartoon was one that was shown on Saturday mornings, it is still one of my favorites.



Although, as I looked for the theme for this show apparently I remember the version or at least the opening for the 1964 version of Johnny Quest and I wasn't even alive at that point, heck my parents hadn't met yet and wouldn't for another at least 10 years. They must have shown this version at some point during my youth on re-runs.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

When I was a kid it was Scooby Doo. But my guess is that kids lost Saturday cartoons to cable and kid tv is on 24/7 now.

Anonymous said...

I used to love Johnny Quest, but I don't ever remember anything as exciting as the opening ever happening.

If you like JQ - give the ironic, post modern version, "The Venture Brothers" a go.

Regards,

Tengrain