I fell asleep early last night, I’d say around 11pm, so sadly now I’ve been up since about 5am, pondering my Saturday blog. When it struck me to possibly turn on the television and maybe see what Saturday morning cartoons I could watch as the morning passes me by. Sadly the listings for the upcoming cartoons read like a who’s. who of nothing I have ever heard of before. Growing up, saturday morning cartoons were a tradition of almost epic proportions. I remember in grade school we would even discuss our Saturday morning cartoon viewing. If a new show was on, if we thought it sucked or not. We would discuss how much we loved Bugs Bunny, Woody Wood Pecker, Tom & Jerry, Heckle & Jeckyl, Mighty Mouse, Under Dog the classics.
Sadly today’s cartoons seem so serious and dark. Gone are the tom foolery, silly antics of Bugs Bunny in a dress, or Woody just annoying the ever living hell out of someone. Gone are Heckle & Jeckyl mentally abusing the innocent. All replaced with either cartoon characters so wholesome they border on the insane. Some cartoons are all about image over substance, kind of like a young Britney Spears, NSync, New Kids on the Block, and so many more false images sold to the American public, of all that’s supposedly good and innocent. Then there are the dark adult themed cartoons, I can’t even get into those. Bugs Bunny was very adult themed but, it was done in such a childish, creative manner it was suitable for children. All the old Warner brother cartoons were just insane, often weird, views of the times but, they remain timeless.
So I decided to post a blog featuring a top 10 to whatever I remember, list of my favorite cartoons growing up. So here goes. They are in order of random memory and not which is my all time favorite. Just a random, not organized into a top list of the greatest cartoons ever. That is not for me to decide, but these are some of my favorite cartoons.
1) Bugs Bunny: Just brilliant!
2) Tom & Jerry: the original episodes & the Chuck Jones era are amazing!
3) Heckly & Jeckyl: These two Crow bastards were hilarious.
4)Woody Wood Pecker: He could get on my nerves but, I enjoyed him. His original series episodes were his best work.
5) Pop Eye: What can I say? This semi homo erotic Sailor was funny, tough, got the girl (Olive Oil, whom was built like a 12 year old boy) and whupped a big fat hairy bullies ass all the time. Also Who could forget Alice the goon? She was uncommunicative, had a huge crush on popeye and probably was better suited to mate with a Polar bear.
6) Thundar the Barbarian: This dude just kicked ass, was followed around by a hot sorceress, and Ukla the Mok, who was alot like Chewbacha from Star Wars, whats not to love. He was from the Future but dressed like a caveman warrior.
7)Yogi Bear: the original older ones were great.
8.) Though the Animation and story lines were terrible. Who can hate the Super friends.
9) Thunder Cats: though more of a daily staple, the thunder cats were awesome.
10) Though short lived for some dumb reason. The Mighty ORBOTS were an amazingly beautiful cartoon and a lot of fun to watch.
11) All Star Blazers (Spaceship Yomato in Japan) This was an amazing cartoon from Japan)
12) Captain Harlock another old Japanese Cartoon I was forced to watch mostly in spanish, because the english speaking networks were not into anime at the time.
12) the Smurfs: I do not know why but, I had a serious, smurf addiction for a year. I was just addicted to the Smurfs, I will never try to figure that one out.
13) Batman the animated series (the First run) Why? because it was done very dark and in the style of the old original Superman serials, which were beautifully done by the Fleischer studios.
14) The Herculoids: I would be remiss not to mention them.
15) The Jetsons: Loved the Jetsons, who could forget the episode with Knucles Nuclear, and his freeze gun.
16) Scooby Doo: who doesn’t love Scooby, it is impossible to no tlove him.
17) Dungeons & Dragons: this take on the popular geek adventure game, which includes myself and Vin Diesel as players. Was not great but entertaining.
18) Spiderman and his Amazing friends: Who doesn’t love Spidey? & The original Spidey series from the 60′s
19) He-man: why? because he was Americas first truly out of the closet gay super hero. He-man was so obviously gay, even us kids knew. We would look at our friends gay uncle, and then look at HE-Man and know, they were one in the same. Awesome.
20) Now this is going way back, in truth not many people will remember this show. It was not so much a cartoon but, they did show cartoons. I have always had a fond place for this show in my heart and it has never left me. I present to you my number 20, Kukla, Fran & Ollie here is a website dedicated to this show. http://kukla.tv/
21) Now here are a short list all wrapped up into number 21. A list of shows I remember I found curious but not deserving to be given their own number. Davie & Goliath (Christianity thrown at you with stop animation) The Thunderbirds (The Puppet version), Kroft SuperStars (think l.s.d., pot smoking, Mesculine tab taking, Mushroom ingesting, alcoholism on crack!), Penelope Pit stop, and finally Fat Albert. I used to love Fat Albert but, when they made it into a live action movie they killed the magic, with bad acting and a terrible script. Bill Cosby should have stabbed someone. I will say ,when the bad taste of the Fat Albert movie leaves my system, I will put Fat Albert up on my list where it deserves to me.
I do have to say this, I think maybe these older cartoons are banished because some of them covered out dated themes or ideas but, in truth they are timeless and should be aired so children today can see what were the themes of the past. They should be taught that we have made huge strides in certain areas of society. I also think censorship has reached an outlandish level in our country and though we seem to be open minded about things, we sadly still are a close minded society, that is fear based, and sadly passes it on from one generation to the next.
To me there was no greater feeling than waking up on a saturday, filling a bowl with cereal, sneaking into the living room wrapped up in a warm blanket and sitting on the floor to eat my cereal and watch cartoons. It was awesome, sometimes, what made it even better was when my dad would wake up first, make breakfast, and then sit down in the living room on the floor and watch them with me. My dad was the one who passed on to me my love of cartoons. He would tell me about a time when he had to go to the saturday matinee at the local movie theater, which in his time was an all day movie, cartoon, serials event. For about a quarter they would get two movies, 5 cartoons, 5 serials like Flash Gordon, Superman etc and also be able to afford food, all on a quarter. Hmm thanks dad! For sharing I love you and I miss you!
I’m out but since it is Saturday, there will be an afternoon blog today folks. YAY! Also I would love to see your list of favorite cartoons in my comments. So please comment back.
Peace & Love
M.A.R.
again another interesting read mark.
my favourite was… well…. captian planet, there i said it, i would watch it all the time GO PLANET!. also there was a cartoon here in Australia called Blinky Bill, look it up it will give you a giggle for sure! saturday morning for us aussie kids involved a silly little puppet that was very curde and just so funny called Agro.alking of puppets there was an aussie show called the ferals (i know only in Australia) that was very funny but oh so wrong! My dad loved astroboy so we watched that often, well as often as it was shown which wasnt much to my dads disapointment …. and who could forget TINTIN my brother and I loved that cartoon, who could forget that adorable talking dog snowy? heee hee
there are lots more… flinstones comes to mind, and other random australian cartoons, have to love our sense of humor
on a side note, i share your love of the saturday morning father time, my dad often watched cartoon with my brother and I, i think to see which one kids likes and what ones his tv network should be putting on, we were always test dumbies to new cartoons, always saw them before everyone else, which was exciting. actually i have very fond memories of those days,everything seemed so simple, before life took over. I guess thinking of the cartoons and even watching them again takes you back once more if for a second to a time when the little things counted!
will be awaiting the next blog