Animated Goodness

Tiptoeing into the living room and turning on the TV, another Saturday morning with several hours worth of cartoons was about to begin. When I was much younger I loved sitting in front of the TV on a Saturday morning and watching these cartoons that I enjoyed so much. Big deal, what was so great about watching cartoons. Cartoons are on everyday, and all day in some cases with the creation of the cartoon network. Well, I didn’t have all of this. Television as I knew it consisted of four channels. Among my massive selection of channels were NBC, CBS, PBS, and a religious channel. At the time of course I only knew the channels as 10, 7, 27, and 16. Cartoons were ONLY showed on Saturday mornings. It was a treat. PBS however was a favorite of mine with all its great programs like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers; 321 contact, and other various children’s daily afternoon shows.

5a.m. on Saturdays would find me sitting in my pajamas turning the channel selector waiting for the start of the broadcast day. Many people never saw the beginning of a broadcast day. One channel always began with a patriotic type video featuring the Star Spangled Banner. The religious channel would get things rolling with a photo slideshow of stained glass windows featuring a powerful song version of the Lord’s Prayer. Ah yes my Saturday cartoon fun was about to begin. I would always start things off on the religious channel with some vintage David and Goliath. This Claymation cartoon with strong Christian moral values wasn’t my favorite cartoon, but you could always rely on it on killing a half hour until the “good stations” would start the cartoons…and I didn’t quite appreciate the value of this time slots competition, The morning farm report. Soon the sun would peek through the white curtains and the scent of coffee brewing in the kitchen would drag everyone else out of bed. Before long  I’d have a bowl of cereal in my hands…eating slowly never taking my eyes off the TV, savoring all the concentrated animated goodness my senses could imbibe. Garfield would be on soon along with its lesser counterpart U.S. Acers…which for the longest time I read acres as A SERS…which confuse the hell out of me I must admit. Much like the word GEE found in the comics of bazooka Joe bubble gum. What does GEE? Mean, is it somebody’s name, am I missing an exceptionally funny joke here. Upon realization that GU-HEE was the transitional word GEE things made more sense. I could always count on the teenage mutant ninja turtles as well to provide high quality entertainment. There were countless other shows that fulfilled my morning schedule, and I found myself feeling appeased come noon on Saturday mornings, knowing that my weekly need for cartoons had been reached.

When my family moved into town from the country my mom chose the basic cable platform. While many children would scoff at the idea of basic cable, for me it was a whole new world where cartoons were on EVERY DAY! Wow information overload. You could get up early before school and guess what….yup. watch cartoons, ah the adventures of sonic the hedgehog and his friends was a particular last minute favorite before bolting out the door to make it to the bus stop on time. Afternoons would hold other great cartoons as well. I was in cartoon heaven, never far from animated entertainment. I believe at the time I would have completely become an insomniac if the basic cable package included the cartoon network…24hrs of cartoons a day. Wow. I’m glad we didn’t have that. My palette of cartoon appreciation skyrocketed. I felt like an arrogant resident of California wine country waving my nose up at Garfield….such an absence of sophistication. Ah not a good year for bugs bunny I see. I knew my cartoons. Strangely however, the Saturday morning ritual of rising early to watch David and goliath slowly stopped all together. I would rise when I felt appropriate and watch the cartoons from the eight or so channels that offered them now on Saturday mornings. If video killed the radio star, then cable TV killed the Saturday morning cartoon experience.

Eventually I would grow to turn my back on cartoons all together, electing to sleep in later and do other things with my Saturday mornings. Several years ago I found myself alert and moving early on a Saturday morning and found that cartoons have changed a lot….in fact cartoons have seemingly vanished all together from some stations. Take for example NBC, there were always great cartoons on NBC back in “the day”, now you won’t find any animation on Saturday mornings. You’ll find discovery kids…where trading spaces is scaled down into a children’s program. Saved by the bell type mini drama’s also take up this time slot not. What happened to Wyllie E. coyote and Garfield….well they just went away, fading silently into the shadows of children’s entertainment with countless other failed cartoons which had run their course. CBS isn’t much better. I don’t know for certain the current state of it’s cartoon programming, but a while back they featured the Nick JR. type of programming which as far as I could tell was geared towards infants or brain dead individuals who particularly enjoyed bright colors.

 Even though I knew lack of good cartoons wouldn’t impact my life, it just feels like today’s kids are getting robbed of that feeling I got when I was a kid. Waking up early to catch the rarely seen cartoons on a dark Saturday morning, switching the TV knob between four channels has been replaced with a kid flipping through channels on the remote sitting on the comfy chair or couch trying to decide which one of the two hundred channels will have the best cartoons…that is if they’re not to busy on the computer or playing the latest video game system. Saturday morning cartoons are dead. I can deal with that…but the whole concept of the Saturday morning cartoon experience is something I always love to back upon now. Watching that brown talking clay dog question Davey’s actions all while feeling the sun on my back as it crept up over the horizon that’s what being a kid is all about.