Mike Gold: Saturday Cartoons No More? Sleep In!
A friend of mine was complaining about how there aren’t any more Saturday morning cartoons on teevee. I wasn’t the only one who thought, “damn, bro, through the miracle of cable teevee we’ve got cartoons everywhere, all the time.”
Then I started to think about it from a historical perspective. Saturday morning cartoons started when local teevee programmers started turning their lights on early sometime around 1950, recognizing that small children were attracted to the boob tube like babes to teat. Somebody in the advertising community realized that kids have enormous influence over their parents’ breakfast cereal purchasing decisions. Not coincidentally, Kellogg’s came out with Frosted Flakes and Sugar Pops in 1951 and Sugar Smacks in 1953. Also not coincidentally, the incubation period for diabetes is about 30 years, which is why this particular plague has been devastating the Baby Boomers for over 15 years now.
In the world of commercial broadcasting, invention is the mother of necessity. Local programmers had no budget for Saturday mornings so they put on cartoons that were in the public domain, including silent cartoons and the works of the Fleischer brothers – no wonder my generation warmed up to LSD in the late 60s.
It didn’t take long for the network programmers to notice, and it didn’t take long for the packaged food industry learned just how seductive the phrase “pre-sweetened” was to baby Baby Boomers. Chocolate milk enhancers, flavored straws, powdered sugar candy, and something called “Maypo” which, in fact, was actually maple-flavored oatmeal. It was created in 1953, but its 1956 television commercial with the catchphrase, “I Want My Maypo” (animated by the legendary John Hubley) quickly became the most obnoxious thing uttered by children en masse since Woody Woodpecker’s laugh. It is no surprise that most, if not virtually all, such products featured cartoon characters or cartoon-like characters that could be used in animated commercials.
Nostalgia for one’s childhood delights is a powerful force, and not always a force for good. Nonetheless, it is a strong part of our popular culture business and of the comics racket in particular. Look at all the comic book revivals of GenXers’ cartoon shows such as G.I. Joe and Transformers.
Sure, now we’re worried about this “health” thing. Now that we’re craven sugar addicts. And, yeah, I blame Saturday morning cartoons for being the delivery system. But I am not pissed about it. I enjoyed all that shit.
Sugar Smacks became Honey Smacks which became, simply, “Smacks.” Personally, I would have changed the Smack word and kept sugar. But they didn’t sell opiates on Saturday morning teevee.
Until Rush Limbaugh came along.
This was my reaction, originally posted on Facebook, to an article on Gizmodo about the end of Saturday morning cartoons:
“Sure, I get a little nostalgic twinge of sadness that the broadcast networks aren’t doing Saturday morning cartoon blocks anymore….but is this necessarily a bad thing? Those of you who also grew up with Saturday morning cartoons, consider this:
What made Saturday mornings so special for us as kids? Wasn’t part of it the fact that, once upon a time, that was the *only* day and time of the week when you could get TV cartoons on a regular basis? Think about it–sure, we got the specials in prime time on the various holidays, and occasionally even a non-holiday animated special, but back when all we had was an antenna and the broadcast networks, Saturday morning was pretty much the only part of the week where you *knew* you could get cartoons. That made Saturday morning truly “special” for us as kids.
Now, Saturday morning isn’t so special anymore….but again, is it necessarily a bad thing? Why isn’t Saturday morning as special? Because cartoons are on cable….and DVD….and Blu-ray….and streaming video….they’re available. Everywhere. ALL THE TIME.
Saturday morning will always be “special” to some of us for the memories….but I’m not as sad as I thought I would be that Saturday morning as I knew it doesn’t exist anymore. I can pull a Looney Tunes DVD off my shelf and watch it; I can cue up episodes of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends on Netflix.
I don’t have to wait for cartoons anymore–and that’s AWESOME.”
I remember when Saturday morning was mostly live action – “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock”, “Sky King”, “Fury”, “Hopalong Cassidy”, etc. (We got our first TV in 1953 or so.)
In those days Sugar Pops boxes featured Guy Madison and Andy Devine.
oh the pops are sweeter
and the taste is new –
they’re shot with sugar
through and through!
kellogg’s sugar corn pops –
sugar pops are tops!
…and Guy Madison or Andy Devine on the front of the cereal box would fire his six-guns twice.
And Mickey Dolenz would eat his ceral.