The Buckets by Greg Cravens for December 10, 2023

Pour one out for Saturday Morning Cartoons. Death by regulation. Sure, they were just vehicles to sell toys but some of them had real passion behind them.

The Toys that Made Us has some real interesting lore behind the toys and cartoons for a lot of them. I think format/narrator is a little grating but the behind the scenes info is amazing.

I didn’t get to watch much cartoons because my older sister had to watch Sky King, Roy Rogers, The Cisco Kid and the Lone Ranger. (50’s)

We’ve entered the first wave of grandpas who grew up with Nickelodeon, I think.

And now you can have cartoons any time, so long as it’s okay with you that they’re sanitized to the point of blandness with no amusing mayhem. Even the Roadrunner can no longer drop an anvil on Wile E. Jerry could mince Tom. Elmer could actually hunt Daffy and use a gun to do it. And they could do it without the gratuitous viciousness of Ren and Stimpy. Just because the saps of the mod assumed carton violence was the same as real violence, when it turns out that comedic violence has no effect on behavior.

I tried watching Bugs Bunny (Looney Tunes on Max) to relive some old memories… they’ve replaced it with a watered down version that’s just pathetic. Why not show reruns of the originals – too controversial now?

I used to love the Saturday morning cartoons on TV. I would get to watch some of them, then I would have to quit watching them to go work on our farm.

And then Sunday evening, where I would get to watch the first half of Walt Disney hour then have to leave for evening worship.

The cartoon, as a whole, makes me realize that I know / remember / used stuff that today’s kids have never even heard of

I actually miss those days. I remember, even as a kid, watching not only the storyline but the artwork (been a visual geek since forever). I love the old jazz influence in bugs bunny, for instance. The details in the very old original pre-t.v. Popeyes were wonderful. Making cartoons for the small screen changed the artwork quite a bit.

A bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs (insert favorite here) cereal on Saturday mornings watching Roadrunner & Wile E. Coyote. Then on Sundays it was Dad’s pancakes and Tarzan, Hercules, Zorro or any other of the old adventure movies. Nothing better in the world when I was too young to know better.

Dang now I feel ancient. Don’t tell them we had to get up to change channels and adjust the volume. We also could not delay shows and we either watched it live or miss it altogether

Your kids will say the same thing about you in the not to distant future, assuming me have a future of course…..

We had Gigantor, weekdays when kids getting home from school were a prime target audience. It wasn’t on during Dark Shadows so I didn’t have to fight my sister.

Mind blower. I remember, as a kid, trying to imagine what life would be like without television (as my parents had). Different world.

Watching the holiday cartoons was a big deal… other things were planned around them… and if you did happen to miss one…. you would wait another year!!!… but being able to see anything, no matter what the season, whenever you want seemed to take away from the “specialness” of seeing it… and for YEARS I haven’t bothered to watch any of the old “classics”!

After reflecting on that conversation, I guess things have improved a bit. But I’m glad I experienced the transition.

Don’t forget the Friday prime time cartoon experience.

I remember those days, fondly. Saturday mornings were for kids.

Oh that craaazy grandpa!! Hahaha!!