Saturday morning in those days of course meant
cartoons all morning. Shows came and
went over the years, but staples remained, like The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner
Show, The Porky Pig Show, Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Rocky
and Bullwinkle. There were a host of other Jay Ward creations, including Underdog,
the Go-Go Gophers, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle, and of course King
Linus the Lionhearted. Besides being
responsible for lots of the holiday specials that graced our childhood,
Rankin/Bass provided the Saturday morning fare of King Kong, The Reluctant
Dragon and Mr. Toad, and later shorts like The Red Baron and The Mad, Mad
Monsters. Hanna-Barbera, at the time, had already produced a stable that
included (besides the Flintstones and Jetsons) Top Cat, Quick
Draw McGraw, Atom Ant, Wally Gator, Space Ghost, Frankenstein Jr., the Space
Kidettes, The Herculoids, Magilla Gorilla, Secret Squirrel, Moby Dick and the
Mighty Mightor, Shazzan, The Adventures of Gulliver, The Wacky Races, and
the Banana Splits, not to mention the sui generis, glorious,
incomparable Adventures of Jonny Quest. There was Deputy Dawg and
Mr. Magoo and Heckle and Jeckle and Casper and the Archies
and the Monkees and Kukla, Fran and Ollie.
In the fall, before the new season premiered, the networks would have a
show on the Friday evening before showcasing the new line-up to whip up our
anticipation. From about six in the
morning (when they might show older cartoons or the comedy capers of Laurel and
Hardy or the Little Rascals) until twelve noon (when the shows petered out to
the more educational or live-action kid programs) the television was ours, and
given over to adventure, fantasy, laughs, and holding your water until the
commercial breaks.
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