I am an early riser. It is not unusual for me to be out of bed before 7am on a Saturday morning, ready to write in the quiet of a house still asleep.
But recently I was visiting family on a Saturday morning and there was a youngster up and out of bed before me, watching TV – and it wasn’t a school morning. No reason he couldn’t have slept in!
Except there was a reason.
Half a century ago, I was the kid who was up at 7am on a Saturday morning. I was the kid who slipped out of bed, trying to not wake my little brother, tip-toeing to the kitchen to fix myself some Cocoa Puffs and make my way to the family room.
See, in our house, whoever got to the TV first on Saturday morning commanded that TV until Mom and Dad got up and implemented turn-taking. And back then, Saturday morning was the only time of the week that cartoons were available on TV.
That is, of course, hard to convey to the modern youngster, who has at their command more than one 24/7 cartoon channel. Nor is it unusual for the average US household to have more televisions in the house than children (the RV in the driveway at this family gathering has three all by itself).
But back then, in the early Seventies, there were no 24/7 channels of any kind. There were only four channels altogether – the three broadcast networks and public television. And few homes had more than one TV set.
So it was first come, first serve at the Robinson household on Saturday morning.
It’s difficult to describe that thrill to a contemporary child. It’s difficult to frame having to choose between the cartoon on CBS and the one on NBC, since DVR (or even video tape recording) did not yet exist.
It’s difficult to explain that this wonderful window of celluloid celebration lasted a mere four hours, giving way after lunchtime to old movies and cooking shows and ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Tough choices had to be made; turf had to be defended. Attention to the unfolding laughs and adventures on the small screen had to be fortified against a gradually stirring household and the emerging cacophony of younger siblings.
This was another time, another era, another age; it had its own feel, a signature, an identity – a unique sensibility. There had never been a time like it, and the excesses to follow erased, in the end, all that made it special.
It was the time of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, the first of many cartoons to feature the empirical super-sleuths Fred and Daphne and Velma and Shaggy and their mangey, cowardly, lovable mutt – a show vastly superior to its sequels, The New Scooby Doo Movies and Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo and A Pup Named Scooby Doo and Shaggy & Scooby Doo Get a Clue.
It was the time of the Road Runner and the Coyote – the same joke over and over – and over, and over, and over – which, like “Who’s on First?”, never ever stops being funny.
It was the time of the Wacky Races, with Penelope Pitstop and Peter Perfect and Rufus Ruffcut and the Bulletproof Bomb and the Bouldermobile and those ruffians, Dick Dastardly and Muttley and their Mean Machine.
And, of course, Archie and his Riverdale pals, Jughead and Betty and Reggie and Veronica and Moose and Dilton, and their spin-offs, Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch – all of which live on today in live action incarnations.
Speaking of live action cartoons, the early Seventies served those up as one of its great innovations – with young Billy Batson and his Mentor traveling the highways and by-ways of America, shouting Shazam! in times of dire need... a thrill that we have relived in movie theaters this very season. And Mighty Isis, and H.R. Pufnstuff and Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp and the superb Land of the Lost.
There were real TV thrills brought down to cartoon (Star Trek) and real people, as well (the Harlem Globetrotters). There was avante garde (Make a Wish, a stream-of-consciousness exercise for children hosted by Harry Chapin’s little brother Tom), movie characters in the spotlight (The Pink Panther), bona fide adventure (Jonny Quest), and sci-fi on the coattails of Star Wars (Space Academy, Jason of Star Command). Superheroes abounded, from Superman and Batman and Aquaman and the Justice League to Spider-man and Captain America and the Mighty Thor and lamer incarnations like Superfriends.
And all of this was somehow not only legitimized but immortalized by the ultimate Saturday morning innovation, Schoolhouse Rock – with its “Conjunction Junction” and “Three is a Magic Number” and “I’m Just a Bill” and “Zero, My Hero” and “Interjections!” and “Figure Eight” and “Interplanet Janet” - all of which taught us more than we ever learned in school. Schoolhouse Rock inexplicably ennobled all the rest of it; if we didn’t feel special before, we certainly did once those delectable three-minute bursts of knowledge came on the scene.
The end of the era came slowly. NBC abandoned Saturday mornings in 1992, and CBS soon followed. ABC held out as long as it could, all the way to 2004. And the CW, a second-tier network with treats like Sonic X and Digimon Fusion, caved in 2014, when the FCC imposed a three-hour educational TV requirement – and CW, like many other networks, decided it was better to give Saturday mornings over for that, rather than prime time.
It’s difficult – nay, impossible – to convey the wonder of that era to the youngster on the couch today, whose world is packed with riches he takes completely for granted, for whom this morning is just like any other. It’s impossible to get past the I-walked-two-hours-through-snowstorms-to-get-to-school nostalgia of my experience, when Saturday morning cartoons were sparse treasures, like prizes in cereal boxes. I understand that the youngster on the couch is perfectly happy as he sits there, soaring with today’s Teen Titans...
…but I still feel like the lucky one.
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