I feel old right now... I've been thinking of what saturday morning cartoon shows I'd watch back when I was a little Scrooge, and came across a shocking development... I can't remember any! All I could remember was Garfield & Friends, Wish Kid, The Bugs Bunny Hour on ABC, The New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, Tales From The Cryptkeeper, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Muppet Babies. :( Help bring the memories back.

Edit: Rememered a Pup Named Scooby Doo, The Addams Family, The Pro Stars (Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzkey and Bo Jackson cartoon), ALF, Back to the Future, and I think Super Mario World was a SMS.

First off, you have to understand that I wanted to be a cartoonist since I was a wee lad. I still want to be (or at least try to be). Plus, I still pick up old comics that feature huge ads for each network's new fall lineup. The 1984 Mr T ad with the Snorks, Smurfs and Spider-Man is a classic.

Saturdays were pretty big, back in The Day. They used to have primetime specials, featuring samples of all the new fall cartoons. This was well before 1984, when NEW cartoons were only shown on Saturdays. During the week, we were stuck with endless morning and afternoon re-runs of Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny and Scooby Doo.

I remember waking up at 7am on Saturdays, in my space robot jammies, while my big brother had his Captain America Bicentennial jammies. We'd hop downstairs and eat the leftover pizza from the night before...then wouldn't move until 10.

First Saturday cartoon I can remember watching was the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show. This thing ran forever. With Buggs and Daffy doing the AWESOME "Overture..dim the lights" intro song. I'd always mark out when Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester and the others came out kicking in a chorus line. Road Runner had his own song, too. "Road Runner, Road Runner, never bothers anyone..just runnin' along the road is his idea of havin' fun!" The song's actually in "The Shining"...in the middle of the film, when Danny's having breakfast in the Overlook Hotel.

Also in the late 70's, I remember digging "Laff-a-Lympics"-- the Hanna-Barbera Olympics spoof where Yogi Bear's team went against Scooby's Team and the Evil Heel Team. I hated the Scoobies... and wanted the Yogi's to win every week. But I was okay when Scooby team members Blue Falcon and Dynomutt made a difference.

When we moved to Denver in the late 70's, I remember getting hooked on "Challenge of the SuperFriends"--the big one with the Legion of Doom and 12 heroes. Then, "Batman and the Super 7" and the "Tarzan/Lone Ranger hour". So looking at my 70's cartoon favorites...I think I liked the shows with EVERYBODY on 'em.

In the 80's, I went nuts with Saturdays. I watched almost everything. When Smurfs premiered in the fall of 1982 (or was it 81?), I set an alarm for 6:30 am, so I could catch the entire show. I also liked a crappy show on CBS called "The Drac Pack", about 3 teenagers who resembled Dracula, Wolfman and Frankenstein. Then, Thundarr the Barbarian, Blackstarr, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and Space Stars made my week. "Space Stars" was an expanded 90 minute spin-off of "Space Ghost". Along with Space Ghost and the Herculoids, you also got "Astro and the Space-Mutts"( which featured Astro from the Jetsons, a guy named Ace and buncha' dogs) and the... "Teen Force"(?) Had 3 teenaged space superheroes, named Moleculad, Electra and Kid Comet...along with 2 annoying midget sidekicks. I'd add in Kwiki Koala and Trollkins when I was feeling cute.

In the 1982-3 video game craze, EVERYBODY watched "Saturday Supercade", with Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Q-bert. Weekends were awesome during that time. We'd go out to Showbiz Pizza on Friday night, play video games, then watch the stupid cartoons the next morning!

My 80's cartoon days kinda' stopped around 1983, when I started having football games on Saturday mornings. But I know I watched "Mighty Orbots" and "Droids" around fifth grade. "Muppet Babies" became a favorite of my football team in sixth grade (fall 1985). We were in a huddle during a snowy game and our runningback asked "hey, didja' see Muppet Babies today?" I'd occassionally watch "the Real Ghostbusters", "SuperPowers: Galactic Guardians" and "PeeWee's PlayHouse" around 1986 or so....but not much after that. Oh...when I got into wrestling in 6th grade, I'd try to watch "Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling".

But by Fall 1985, the fun of Saturday mornings had worn off. Saturday had always been the home for the new first-run cartoons..but when He-Man and GI Joe came along, they changed everything. Now you'd get the NEW cartoons everyday, so Saturday lost that specialness. In 1984 and 1985, Saturday was a leftover day...we had stuff like Transformers, Voltron, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and later, MASK, to keep us happy. Plus, cable entered alot of our homes. USA's afternoon Cartoon Express had alot of the old 70's stuff that we had vague memories of: Grape Ape, Clue Club, Hair Bear Bunch, and Inch High Private Eye. HBO would run Fraggle Rock, Not (Necessarily) the News, and the Buggs Bunny movies during Saturday mornings. Eventually we stopped looking forward to Saturdays on the big networks.

Saturdays now are garbage. Nothing worth watching at all. The Big Three networks don't seem to care at all. Fox and WB care, but can't find anything worth watching. Especially since you can see almost all the WB's shows on Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network can go to hell too. I remember back in the day, as in 1996, watching GOOD shows, like the Flintstones, Fraggle Rock, The Smurfs, Johnny Quest, Every form of Scooby Doo ever made, and other awesome Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Now... shit japanese crap, the Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd, & Eddy, and Johnny Bravo. Wow...