What would the Saturday morning of your childhood include?

[Daehawk]

If you could go back in time and have one more Saturday morning of TV before the adults got up what would it consist of? And this time you dont have to limit it to just 30 min cartoons..maybe theres a tv show or two you'd ad into the mix or a movie. In this Saturday morning it doesn't have to last only 6 hours from 6am to noon. You can eatch as much as you like .

Me I have cartoons like ...

The hetsons
Maybe some Flintstones
At least 2 eps of Scooby Doo
Some Dungeons & Dragons
Thundarr the Barbarian
The Herculoids
Tarzan
and Space Ghost...the original not the Coast to Coast talk show

Id also have some tv shows likes an ep of....

Buck Roger in the 25th Century
The A-Team
the original Star Trek
and of course one of the original Battlestar Galactica

All this would be bookended by original Sat morning commerical for sugary cereals with toys inside and new shows coming to the 3 major netwoks

All the while Id be eating those same sugary cereals like Fruit Loops and Alpha Bits...like I do now still lol.

Im sure Ive left out tons of cartoons others watched. Whats in your Saturday morning line up?

[TheMix]

Beats me. Probably some cartoons? Breakfast? Playing with various toys? All solid possibilities.

[Daehawk]

Bah..no imagination My saturday mornings are treasured memories not just a collections of some stuff I mighta done at the time.

[Sudy]

If dad won at the tables the night before, a hooker might make me breakfast. I love chilaquiles to this day. Otherwise it was Fruit Loops and Showtime.

[Sudy]

In the days before video games, I'd probably been up late reading or with family the night before. I remember willing myself to wake up early and not miss the early morning cartoons. I don't think I had an alarm clock before a certain age, my parents probably wanted me to sleep naturally. (At one point I was waking up at 5:30 to watch reruns of Astro Boy.) I seem to recall they usually slept in. (Or something that involved their door being closed.)

I was born in '84, so my cartoon-watching days were probably from about '89 to '94. Garfield and Friends. Eek! the Cat (Which I told myself I liked, but I don't think I did really?) The first season of ReBoot (I went crazy for anything CGI). Honestly weekday afternoons were probably more interesting... Star Trek TOS reruns and the Disney cartoons of that era (Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Aladdin, etc).

[hepcat]

If dad won at the tables the night before, a hooker might make me breakfast. I love chilaquiles to this day. Otherwise it was Fruit Loops and Showtime.

...you start to laugh...then think "what if he's being serious?"...then you look down at your shoes, unable to think of what to write in reply...then you finally think "I could really go for some chilaquiles".

[Jaymann]

I remember when I was very young watching a baseball game on TV (that was the only day they televised games) and saw the number 100 on the screen and I thought one of the teams had scored 100 runs.

Other than that is was all frogs, snakes and turtles. The highlight of that was feeding a praying mantis to our box turtle - better that Godzilla.

[Kraken]

I remember getting up early to watch cartoons. It's a jumble which ones. I remember Jonny Quest and Dudley Dooright/Fractured Fairy Tales off the top of my head. Probably Loony Toons. Flintstones, Underdog, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Woody Woodpecker...gawd, there were so many.

[TheMix]

Bah..no imagination My saturday mornings are treasured memories not just a collections of some stuff I mighta done at the time.

I have plenty of imagination. But I think there is a fine line between thinking about treasure memories and dwelling in the past. I have plenty of memories. But I don't consider what I did on Saturday mornings when I was a child to be particularly worth remembering. To each their own.

[Hyena]

I remember getting up early to watch cartoons. It's a jumble which ones. I remember Jonny Quest and Dudley Dooright/Fractured Fairy Tales off the top of my head. Probably Loony Toons. Flintstones, Underdog, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Woody Woodpecker...gawd, there were so many.

Yeah, I was born in '74 so these were pretty popular with me. As the kid of a marine though, I was raised on Ultraman and Godzilla when we lived in Okinawa. Once we got back to the states, it was Loony Toons (especially Roadrunner and Coyote), G.I. Joe, and my all-time favorite Spidey and Friends with Iceman and Firestar. I REALLY loved it when they would do a crossover with the X-Men. I remember the one where Juggernaut was coming for them and they would lay down an ice wall with a pit dug out by Cyclops' eye blast, but of course he Juggernauted through all that nonsense. Then when Dungeons and Dragons came out I was in heaven, even though I had to sneak watch that because EVIL SATAN CULT HELLFIRE REPENT REPENT REPENT!!

But yeah, I could get out of bed before the sun rose on the weekends. During school days, it required a tow truck and anchor chains to rouse me.

[EvilHomer3k]

I'd get up and get mixing bowl of Life cereal and sit 2 feet away from the TV.
Lots of cartoons but my favorites were probably:
Dungeons and Dragons
Looney Toons
Laffalympics
Thundarr the Barbarian
Super Friends
School House Rock!

[Rumpy]

I was never much into the action-oriented cartoons. I was more of an Animaniac/Muppet Babies/Tiny Toons kid.

[hepcat]

It was all about the Superfriends when I was a kid.

….and then Adult Swim ruined it for me years later.

Spoiler:

[Jeff V]

I remember getting up early to watch cartoons. It's a jumble which ones. I remember Jonny Quest and Dudley Dooright/Fractured Fairy Tales off the top of my head. Probably Loony Toons. Flintstones, Underdog, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Woody Woodpecker...gawd, there were so many.

How can you forget Clutch Cargo!

I also remember Cecil and Beanie, Gigantor, Pink Panther, Tennessee Tuxedo, Fractured Fairytales and Speed Racer. There was always those series that never took and were done (and forgotten) after a season.

My kids don't watch any cartoons aside from occasional animated movies. Most of their watching time is You Tube, watching videos on game play as well as various non-fiction things that grab their interest.

[Zenn7]

I may have watched Saturday morning cartoons for a few years longer than some of you (like even after I graduated college and through my child's childhood...). So... like 1975-2010 or so?

Dungeons and Dragons, Superfriends, Amazing Spiderman and friends.
Always some version of Looney Tunes.
Few different Scoby Doos.
Laff Olympics
Captain Caveman
Speed buggy
Clue Club
Thundarr
Galtor
Robotix
Inhumanoids
Xmen
Xmen - Evolution
Avengers (several iterations)
Justice League
Teen Titans
Green Lantern
Smurfs
Darkwing Duck
Gummi Bears
Visionaires
Prince Valient
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice
Pole Position
Gargoyles
Tom and Jerry
Pink Panther
Underdog
Mighty Mouse
Pirates of Dark Water
Transformers (several series)
GI Joe (a few series)
He Man
Thundercats (and the reboot Thundercats
The Littles
Bravestarr
Heathcliff
Paw-paws
Ewoks
Droids
Flash Gordan
Recess
Batman (various)
Dexter's Lab
TazMania
Kwikee Koala
Occassionally: Captain Planet, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Peanuts, Winnie the Poo, Tailspin, Yogi Bear, Yugi-Oh, Rugrats, Johnny Test, Foster's Home for Imaginary Monsters, Berenstein Bears, Dragon Tales,

And weekdays;
Battle beyond the Planets (G-Force!)
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Go go Gopher indians
Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers
Pinky and the Brain
Silverhawks
Ducktales
Ghostbusters
Garfield and friends
Gobots
Spiral Zone
TMNT
MASK
Defenders of the Earth
Centurions
Jetsons
Flintstones
C.O.P.S.

and many of those were on both weekends and weekdays

And many more I'm forgetting.

Edit:
Fat Albert
Pink Panther (loved the Ant and the Aardvark!)
Bozo the Clown
Space Ghost
Starcom
The Centurions
Robotech series

Oddly, very little Voltron (never found it I guess)

[Kraken]

I remember getting up early to watch cartoons. It's a jumble which ones. I remember Jonny Quest and Dudley Dooright/Fractured Fairy Tales off the top of my head. Probably Loony Toons. Flintstones, Underdog, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Woody Woodpecker...gawd, there were so many.

Yeah, I was born in '74 so these were pretty popular with me.

Shows how much staying power they had. I was a high school junior in 1974.

[YellowKing]

Super Friends cartoon would be at the very top of the list.

Weirdly enough I also watched a lot of syndicated 60s shows as a kid in the '80s. Green Acres, I Dream of Jeannie, and Bewitched were right up there with the amount of cartoons I watched.

And while it's not a Saturday thing, I fondly remember watching General Hospital with my mom because afterward Sesame Street came on. I got REALLY caught up in the Luke and Laura romance for a 6 year old.

[hepcat]

Do they even HAVE Saturday morning cartoons these days?

[Smoove_B]

Do they even HAVE Saturday morning cartoons these days?

It's been a long time since they disappeared.

[hepcat]

Goddamn FCC!

[Jaymann]

I may have watched Saturday morning cartoons for a few years longer than some of you (like even after I graduated college and through my child's childhood...). So... like 1975-2010 or so?

Dungeons and Dragons, Superfriends, Amazing Spiderman and friends.
Always some version of Looney Tunes.
Few different Scoby Doos.
Laff Olympics
Captain Caveman
Speed buggy
Clue Club
Thundarr
Galtor
Robotix
Inhumanoids
Xmen
Xmen - Evolution
Avengers (several iterations)
Justice League
Teen Titans
Green Lantern
Smurfs
Darkwing Duck
Gummi Bears
Visionaires
Prince Valient
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice
Pole Position
Gargoyles
Tom and Jerry
Pink Panther
Underdog
Mighty Mouse
Pirates of Dark Water
Transformers (several series)
GI Joe (a few series)
He Man
Thundercats (and the reboot Thundercats
The Littles
Bravestarr
Heathcliff
Paw-paws
Ewoks
Droids
Flash Gordan
Recess
Batman (various)
Dexter's Lab
TazMania
Kwikee Koala
Occassionally: Captain Planet, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Peanuts, Winnie the Poo, Tailspin, Yogi Bear, Yugi-Oh, Rugrats, Johnny Test, Foster's Home for Imaginary Monsters, BerenSTAIN Bears, Dragon Tales,

Mandela'ed

[Blackhawk]

I can't really do a full-range compilation like that. I can't combine what I watched at five with what I watched when I was older. So I'm going to focus on one period of my life, the time between becoming a full-fledged kid, and when my mother got sick, after which things were just... different. So, that brief 'golden age' of my life would have been from around 1978 (I was 5) until around the time I turned 8 (so 1981.)

Besides, if I wanted that recreated Saturday morning, I could do so in a heartbeat thanks to Youtube.

Saturday morning. Context: Clovis, California. Nice house in a nice neighborhood. I get up earlier for Saturday morning than I do for school. I make my way to the den (where the family TV was), and lie down on the floor in front of the console TV with my blanket. I was probably allowed to eat a bowl of cereal laying there (most likely Apple Jacks.) At various times over those few years I would have watched:

The Tarzan/Lone Ranger Adventure Hour
Superfriends
Scooby-Doo
Whichever show that year was mixing and matching episodes of various Hanna-Barbera cartoons
Fat Albert
Tom & Jerry (which I much preferred over Loony Toons.)

Naturally, all of it was punctuated by commercials and PSAs such as Schoolhouse Rock and Time for Timer (which far fewer people remember.)



I'd then stretch it out with whatever shows came on later. I didn't love them, but, dammit, it was the one time each week when TV was just for kids.
You knew Saturday morning was over when American Bandstand or Solid Gold came on.

The rest of the question wasn't about Saturday morning, it was about Saturday night!

Saturday night. Context: I'd be back in the den, this time with my sister (when I was 6, she'd have been about 22.) She'd make popcorn and we'd sit on the couch, patiently answering the 10,000 questions I asked about every show. The top fare from that period would have been:

The Dukes of Hazzard
The Incredible Hulk
Grizzly Adams

If I was really lucky, there would be the annual airing of one of the prime-time kids' movies - Willy Wonka and the Wizard of Oz were standouts.

And of course on Sundays, this was all replaced by Disney.

Disclaimer: I don't actually remember what night these came on. I'm just using Saturday to fit the question.

[Blackhawk]

Just to be complete, the cartoons and shows that really stood out for me from other periods:

Early mid-80s: GI Joe, The Master, The A-Team, the Beverly Hillbillies (watched on reruns right after school.)

Mid-80s: Reruns of the Abbot & Costello Show, Silverhawks (I really loved the Silverhawks), and Heart of the City, an 80s police/family drama that almost nobody remembers (it ranked 82nd that season - out of 83 shows.) It wasn't my type of show, but I had a major crush on Christina Applegate in that (which is one of the reasons that young me hated Married with Children.)

In retrospect, I didn't watch a lot of TV back then. In fact, after about 1984, I didn't actively watch much at all, and didn't follow any series. I can't think of anything that I watched regularly after about 1987. It wasn't until the early 2000s that I actually started following shows again.

[em2nought]

I often had to stay in bed on Saturday to carry on the ruse of being too sick to go to school on Friday.

[Scuzz]

Probably Bugs Bunny, some Roadrunner and maybe some Johnny Quest. Then at usually 11:00 pst the Saturday game of the week. It might be at 1pm if they were doing the rare thing and showing a west coast baseball game.

I was born in 1955, so old cartoons really were a part of my life.

[dbt1949]

Like Scuzz it would have been olde cartoons and Romper Room. And a lot of kid programming from the local stations. But more than that it was me running around in our local hills and mountains by myself. I was in the army before I started the standard Saturday morning cartoons. Me and all the other GI's who weren't hungover.

[Kraken]

Like Scuzz it would have been olde cartoons and Romper Room.

Did Miss Jean's magic mirror ever see you? I'll bet she saw Dave at least once, but us Kennys were invisible.

[EvilHomer3k]

I may have watched Saturday morning cartoons for a few years longer than some of you (like even after I graduated college and through my child's childhood...). So... like 1975-2010 or so?

Dungeons and Dragons, Superfriends, Amazing Spiderman and friends.
Always some version of Looney Tunes.
Few different Scoby Doos.
Laff Olympics
Captain Caveman
Speed buggy
Clue Club
Thundarr
Galtor
Robotix
Inhumanoids
Xmen
Xmen - Evolution
Avengers (several iterations)
Justice League
Teen Titans
Green Lantern
Smurfs
Darkwing Duck
Gummi Bears
Visionaires
Prince Valient
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice
Pole Position
Gargoyles
Tom and Jerry
Pink Panther
Underdog
Mighty Mouse
Pirates of Dark Water
Transformers (several series)
GI Joe (a few series)
He Man
Thundercats (and the reboot Thundercats
The Littles
Bravestarr
Heathcliff
Paw-paws
Ewoks
Droids
Flash Gordan
Recess
Batman (various)
Dexter's Lab
TazMania
Kwikee Koala
Occassionally: Captain Planet, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Peanuts, Winnie the Poo, Tailspin, Yogi Bear, Yugi-Oh, Rugrats, Johnny Test, Foster's Home for Imaginary Monsters, Berenstein Bears, Dragon Tales,

And weekdays;
Battle beyond the Planets (G-Force!)
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Go go Gopher indians
Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers
Pinky and the Brain
Silverhawks
Ducktales
Ghostbusters
Garfield and friends
Gobots
Spiral Zone
TMNT
MASK
Defenders of the Earth
Centurions
Jetsons
Flintstones
C.O.P.S.

and many of those were on both weekends and weekdays

And many more I'm forgetting.

Edit:
Fat Albert
Pink Panther (loved the Ant and the Aardvark!)
Bozo the Clown
Space Ghost
Starcom
The Centurions
Robotech series

Oddly, very little Voltron (never found it I guess)

How did I forget about X-Men and The Littles?
Did anyone really like The Pink Panther? I couldn't stand it or the theme song.

[hepcat]

Probably Bugs Bunny, some Roadrunner

The classic looney tunes stuff from the 40s and up didn't really register with me as a kid. It wasn't until I was in college that I realized just how damn good they were. Witty, funny and even subversive at times, I started buying up all the box sets of the DVDs I could find. I really need to get those out of storage and see if I can rip them to a media server.

[Madmarcus]

I never really liked the Pink Panther but I did like the theme song.

I remember so many of the shows people mention but I can't say I really have strong memories of Sat. mornings being special to me. I remember liking Sunday morning better when there would be a better breakfast and the whole family sitting around.

[EvilHomer3k]

I never really liked the Pink Panther but I did like the theme song.

I remember so many of the shows people mention but I can't say I really have strong memories of Sat. mornings being special to me. I remember liking Sunday morning better when there would be a better breakfast and the whole family sitting around.

There's no better breakfast than a giant bowl of Life cereal.

[Madmarcus]

At that age I had cereal before school most days. Getting a hot cooked breakfast was so much better especially if it was pancakes or waffles!

[Scuzz]

Like Scuzz it would have been olde cartoons and Romper Room.

Did Miss Jean's magic mirror ever see you? I'll bet she saw Dave at least once, but us Kennys were invisible.

I don’t recognize that. We had a local show featuring a guy and his duck puppet. I know of Romper Room, I just don’t have any memories of it.

[Scuzz]

Probably Bugs Bunny, some Roadrunner

The classic looney tunes stuff from the 40s and up didn't really register with me as a kid. It wasn't until I was in college that I realized just how damn good they were. Witty, funny and even subversive at times, I started buying up all the box sets of the DVDs I could find. I really need to get those out of storage and see if I can rip them to a media server.

My daughter has a couple box sets of the old cartoons. Many aren’t shown now due to how politicaly incorrect they are. Still funny though. Definitely products of the times.

What is involved in moving them to a media server?

[hepcat]

I don't remember a big kerfluffle over the political correctness. I just remembered that they stopped showing some of them due to the cartoon violence. But I may have just missed that.

[Blackhawk]

I don't remember a big kerfluffle over the political correctness. I just remembered that they stopped showing some of them due to the cartoon violence. But I may have just missed that.

The cartoons that were really problematic were more quietly retired before any kerfluffling.

[dbt1949]

I forgot Ding Dong School.

[Pyperkub]

Growing up in California on PST, I remember being pissed off whenever there were baseball games which would pre-empt the later Saturday Morning Cartoons - Dungeons & Dragons was one I particularly remember suffering this fate multiple times.

[MHS]

I didn't watch cartoons. Even as a child, I preferred sleeping in, and then reading or playing outside.

[Scuzz]

I don't remember a big kerfluffle over the political correctness. I just remembered that they stopped showing some of them due to the cartoon violence. But I may have just missed that.

There are some definite racial stereotypes used that are unacceptable now. Part of it is understandable as the cartoons were made during WW2, but there are some black stereotypes as well.