WHAT HAPPENED TO SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS

When I was a kid I used to get up at 5:30-6:00 on Saturday morning to watch TV. There were all types of shows on all channels- All kids stuff. A mixture of new shows old shows, cartoon, real life, puppets – you name it.  It was on all morning till around 2:00. There was classic stuff like SPIDERMAN, THE FLINTSTONES, SCOOBY DOO, FAT ALBERT, TARZAN, SHAZAM, THE MONSTER SQUAD, THE WIZARD OF OZ/PINOCCHIO, THE MONKEYS, ISIS, ROCKET ROBIN HOOD, LAFF OLYMPICS, CAPTAIN CAVEMAN, H+R PUFF N STUFF, THE CROFT BROTHERS SUPERSHOW, THE PINK PANTHER, LAND OF THE LOST, THE FITZPATRICKS, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS, ETC.  For 8 hours straight- I never left the couch. And you only saw them on Saturday morning, no other time. Today Saturday morning sucks, no different from any other day. You have your specialty channels now but most of the newer shows are lame. There is teletoon retro which is good, but you can tune in any time it’s not special. Nothing can compare to the Saturday marathon, it was awesome.  Friday night was equally awesome with “the night stalker” – Carl Kolchak was always one of my heroes - at 11:00 followed by the “chiller thriller” movie at midnight. I will always remember the opening sequence. It was a woman screaming and she was being dragged by a man or monster down a hallway- used to terrify me every time I saw it. There was also one with cartoon monsters eyes blinking at you on a dark screen. These were followed by “The night gallery”- scary twilight zone style shorts.  My sister used to wake me up so I could watch them with her. I remember the old tube style television that would make popping sounds when you would turn it off and on. It made sneaking up at night more difficult, especially when the TV would pop and make a bright circle which would slowly shrink to a dot when you had to make an emergency shut off when my mother would wake up.  You had to cover that dot with your thumb so she wouldn’t see it in the dark.  I miss those days of 2-3 hours sleep between Friday night and Saturday morning. Those were the days.