This week's assignment for the League: You’ve been hired to program the ultimate Saturday morning experience for kids across the nation–create your own ideal Saturday morning cartoon schedule. Oh wow, the Rediscover the 80s TV channel!! Let me just think about the prime time lineup: A-Team, Knight Rider, Miami Vice, and Airwolf. Mix in some sitcoms like Cheers, The Jeffersons, Family Ties, Alf. Game shows would be a must including Press Your Luck, Card Sharks, $100,000 Pyramid, and Sale of the Century. And instead of commercials, music videos!! I'm getting chills. But the RD80s channel wouldn't be complete without an all-star Saturday morning lineup. Here are the cartoons I would choose, but you'll need to get up early to watch them all. Don't worry about breakfast...I allow you to eat your Mr. T's in the living room.
7am (Video Game Hour)
Saturday Supercade & Pac-man
Video games and cartoons...a match made in heaven. In the first half hour, you'll get everything from Mario chasing down Donkey Kong, the misadventures of Pitfall Harry, Frogger's crazy stories in the Swamp Gazzette, or the fast times at Q*Berg High. Then, it's on to Pac-Land to see if Pac-Man and his family can keep those pesky Ghost Monsters at bay.
Transformers & Go-Bots
Some people complain alot about Japanese import cars but you didn't get any kids with that attitude in 1984. The original airings of both Transformers and Go-Bots were just a month apart. The Go-Bots didn't get a regular series until 1985, which gave Transformers the edge on Saturday morning. Both were similar in that the good robots (Autobots and Guardians) faced off against the bad robots (Decepticons and Renegades) in each episode.
9am (Team Battle Hour)
G.I. Joe & M.A.S.K.
No sense in letting the robots have all the fun. We need teams of soldiers and a secret task force to square off too...as long as no one gets hurt and safety is promoted to the fullest extent. These two shows were great because there were so many characters that there was always one member of the team you could connect with. There was just something about getting the bad guys with advanced weapons and vehicles that made the world spin right.
10am (Mystical Sword Hour)
He-Man & Thundercats
Let's face it...if you carried a mystical sword in the 80s, you were king. But as popular as He-Man and Thundercats were in the 80s, the swords were kinda lame. There was very little swashbuckling sword play in these cartoons. He-Man's sword was basically a portable Superman phone booth and Lion-O's Sword of Omens was a glorified pair of Bushnell binoculars. But man, could those swords ever deflect some laser beams. We didn't care about not having those epic sword-play battles, it was all showmanship. These characters had the coolest weapons on the planet...and they knew it. (Except when they frequently lost them.)
11am (Fictional Creature Hour)
Smurfs & Gummi Bears
Smurf this, Gummi that...yeah, it got old after 30 minutes but never stopped us from coming back the next week. Smurfs was another one of those cartoons that had you could always pick out a favorite. Strength in numbers was their key to victory each week, a fact that Gargamel just never seemed to get. There was also alot to like about the Gummi bears, including the theme song. I often wished I had a supply of gummibeary juice so I could bounce up and down my street without my Pogo Bal. Both creatures had that mystical effect that made you wish you were one and at the same time, sympathized with the villains for wanting their secrets.
Well, I'm to a point were I need to start my Saturday morning earlier (which I never remember getting up before 7am to watch cartoons) or I need to drop the morning altogether and just watch cartoons all day on Saturday. There are just so many more all-star shows I want to add including Ducktales, The Real Ghostbusters, Hulk Hogan Rock N' Wrestling, and Voltron. But I guess I'll stick with this list as my favorites. So now the question is, would you watch?
Maybe you would prefer other League member lineups:
GreenPlasticSquirtGun has the ultimate Dinosaur and Monster collage.
ShezCrafti already had her list posted. Cheater!
GoodwillHuntingForGeeks had the same idea as me with theme hours.
MemoriesOfToymorrow starts out with two classics.
MemoriesOfToymorrow starts out with two classics.
