The 3:00 bell rings. Kids rush out of their classrooms and into waiting cars. They're rushed home, they grab some milk and cookies...and plop down in front of the tv.
As a child, this was my after school routine. It wasn't an every day thing, but some of my most vivid memories of being a kid were watching some classic television either after school, from 3:00-5:00, or on Saturday mornings.
Before I go further, I would like it to be known that TV did not run my life as a kid. My parents would never have allowed that. I spent A LOT of time outside playing sports and other random games that my childlike mind could think up with my friends. But I also watched my fair share of cartoons.
The first memory I have is, of course, Saturday morning cartoons. I can't quite remember what my favorite lineup was, but I have certain favorites I took from the era of the late 80's and early 90's. For example, every Saturday morning I would strive to be up by 8:00 AM in an effort to catch a full hour of Garfield and Friends. This might well be my favorite cartoon of all time. The one problem I had with this, however, was that as I got older and was allowed to stay up a bit later at night, 8:00 would pass with me still in bed. So as I got older, I missed more and more Garfield every Saturday morning, which was a sad state of being if you ask me.
After Garfield I remember there would be a variety of shows I would watch, including A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Captain N: The Game Master. These shows were not as strong as Garfield, but still solid in my mind. I also remember that as the morning got later, the cartoons got worse and worse. The 8:00 cartoons seemed to be the best, and 9:00 was still solid, but the shows at 10:00 or 11:00 would begin to make your mind wander to your plans for the day and whether to have PB&J for lunch, or a ham sandwich. Today, Saturday morning cartoons are virtually nonexistent. There is an interesting Wikipedia article here that provides several explanations for this decline, including the rise of cable TV and video games.
A final memory I have of Saturday morning cartoons was one of the most highly-anticipated events of every year for a kid, and that was the Saturday morning preview show. Each network would air mini episodes of several new cartoons to air in the next season as previews for kids. These would generally air on Friday nights, often in place of TGIF or other regular Friday programming. I remember vividly watching such animated TV programs get previewed, including animated versions of Tales From The Crypt and The Addams Family. However, most of these shows that would make the Saturday morning preview only seemed to last for one season.
The other hot spot for cartoon watching was the weekday timeslot from 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm. This was a time when kids were getting off of school and wanted nothing more than to relax in front of the tv with a juice box and some Twizzlers. There were two sets of shows I vividly remember from this era in my life. The first was the block of shows that aired on the Kids WB. The main shows I remember airing were Batman: The Animated Series, Animaniacs, and Tiny Toon Adventures. The latter two, especially, were both classics that I think I would still enjoy watching to this day.
Running in direct competition to the Kids WB was The Disney Afternooon. This ran in the same timeslot and had a similar format to TGIF where it had 4 shows that changed every season. It began with the lineup of The Gummi Bears, DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers, and Talespin. It went on to include such classics as Darkwing Duck (among my favorites cartoons ever), Goof Troop, Bonkers, and Gargoyles (another classic, ambitious cartoon).
The whole point of posting was to reminisce about my childhood and some of the classic programming I had available to me on network television (we didn't have cable growing up). I find it a damn shame that kids programming is so different today than what it used to be. Kids need to be able to look at shows like Duck Tales and Gargoyles and broaden their minds and imaginations by entering new worlds with different characters. Instead, kids today are sent home after school to play Call of Duty and Halo, while watching Hannah Montana and eating organic potato chips and sugarfree Kool-Aid. When did being a kid become so boring?
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