Saturday mornings

Nightfly's quotation from "Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla" reminded me.

Schoolhouse Rock - which was, I think, one of the BEST things on Saturday morning tv when I was a kid. As I remember, there were three "Rocks" - "America Rock," "Grammar Rock," and then the one with math. (There might have been science ones too? I don't remember.)

America Rock is the one I remember best - there was one about inventions, and about women's suffrage (and yes, if some Napoleon Dynamite look-alike came up to me with a "petition to end women's suffrage" I'd give him the stink-eye and tell him out...and his cameraman, too). There was one called "No More Kings" that I think had the Boston Tea Party?

And the two most memorable: "I'm only a Bill" and the one about the Preamble of the Constitution. Thanks to Schoolhouse Rock, I can recite the Preamble to this day (and yes, there's one tiny inaccuracy in the SHR version, but I'm aware of that too).

Grammar Rock had Blossom Dearie (a "legitimate" jazz singer - I wonder today how many "real" performers - other than maybe They Might Be Giants - would be up for doing educational spots for kids) singing about unpacking your adjectives. And there was Conjuntion Junction (which, I suspect, I will now be singing in my head the rest of the day, now that I've thought of it).

Oh, hahahahah. And "Verb! That's what's happenin'!" Shaft for the under-12 set.

That's one of the things I love about the shows when I happen to see them again - or even think of them. How much of their time they were...so much of the music was that kind of poppy folk-rock (especially the America Rocks) stuff that was so earnest and so early-70s.

For the numbers ones, I remembered the "Three is a Magic Number" (which, IIRC, actually referenced the Trinity...wonder if that could happen today?). And the one about Lucky Number Seven with the rabbit. And the figure-skating one for eight

(The line:

"Figure eight as double four,
Figure four as half of eight.
If you skate, you would be great,
If you could make a figure eight.
That's a circle that turns 'round upon itself.

Place it on its side and it's a symbol meaning
Infinity...

seemed very deep to me when I was a child. (And there's Blossom Dearie singing again).

I also remembered the one for 12, because it introduced the idea that there could be bases other than 10 - kind of a mind-blowing concept when you're 8.

And I see that they all basically taught the times tables for the number featured.

(I had to look the rest up. I figured they probably had shows for each number but I don't really remember the ones for 2 or 4. I remember the one for 5 now that I see the title - yeah, it was about counting by fives, in the context of playing hide and seek.)

I enjoyed those mini-programs. I think most other kids did, too, considering the level of nostalgia that Gen-Xers seem to have for it.

Saturday mornings were a different time when I was a kid - I remember getting up at 6 am, plunking down in front of the tv with a bowl of cereal (the only time of the week I was allowed to eat away from the table) and watching the tail end of the Farm Report just so I wouldn't miss any of the cartoons. (Cartoons started at 6:30 am or so when I was a kid - no more). We also had only a few channels - first there were five, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) plus PBS and an indie station (channel 43 from Cleveland - I think it's a Fox affiliate now but when I was a kid it was pure indie). Later, channel 19 (I think it was) joined the lineup as another indie.

Before the "network" cartoons (Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny, and the like), the channels showed whatever they had on hand, or whatever they brought in. I remember watching "Barbapoppa" and "Dr. Snuggles" and other strange European-import cartoons that the local tv channels had bought to fill the time before the network stuff started.

I also remember cartoons being on for LONGER in the morning when I was a kid - they started around 6:30, as I said, and it seems they lasted until noon, when Wide World of Sports and things like that came on. (IIRC, the Krofft shows - like Land of the Lost - were the ones on towards the end of the morning. It seemed that "littler kids'" shows were on earlier. I supposed the programmers knew that it was mostly the under-12 set who were getting up at 6 to sit in their jammies with their bowls of Cocoa Puffs and wait for the cartoons, and the teens were the ones who slept until 10 or so)

Now, most of the early morning is taken up with stuff like "Saturday Today" (ack, pfui) and other adults-oriented news shows. There just aren't as many cartoons on. And they seem crappier, or maybe I was less discerning as a child - with the exception of the "Qubo" shows that run on NBC (including "Veggie Tales," which I openly admit I watch as an adult), most of the programs are either extremely infantile or they're just stupid. It seems that the network (well, CBS - I don't think ABC shows cartoons any more) has the infantile programs, mostly stuff imported from Nick, Jr. (and that's another thing - the whole somewhat-incestuous relationship between the networks and the cable channels - it's like there's only so much programming out there, so it's going to be re-run endlessly). The Fox affiliate and the WB affiliates run the stupid programs - stuff like Xiaolin Showdown, which I've tried to watch (I'm a cartoon fan) and just cannot work up any kind of interest for (and it makes me sad: you'd think Warner Brothers would try to live up to its illustrious cartoon history of Looney Tunes, and later, Animaniacs). And Cartoon Network, pretty much any more, shows their own stuff - most of which is kind of blah.

I also have to admit that when the trend to live-action shows began (stuff like a teen version of Survivor), I figured no good could come of it. I expect in another year or two, the "children's" programming will be mostly reality-type shows: ugh.

I also remember that the new fall lineup of Saturday morning cartoons was a big thing when I was a kid - sometimes the networks even did a "special! preview! show!" usually on a Friday night a week or two before the new lineup premiered. (I remember sitting there, fingers crossed, hoping my favorites were back but also hoping the shows I didn't like were replaced by something good). I think they've since stopped doing that; the networks seem to acknowledge that people don't care about Saturday morning cartoons any more.

(I wonder if it could be partly budget-cutting, but also partly changes in family dynamics: many of my friends who have kids are up and out the door early Saturday morning for soccer or swimming or drama class or what have you).

I know, I know, that the farther you get from childhood, it looks better and better, even if there were a lot of things you weren't totally happy about as a child. I know I'm probably being overly nostalgic over cartoons (and frankly, other than the Looney Tunes - many of which were butchered by the censors) and Scooby Doo (which I stopped liking after I turned 6) and Pink Panther, I don't really REMEMBER any of the cartoons of my childhood (ok, there was the Smurfs, but I was a preteen by the time they came around and really, my little brother was the Smurfs fan; I just watched them to keep him company). But when I was a kid, there was something special about Saturday mornings - it was like, it was the one time of the week when tv programming time was carved out for the kids, and stuff that specifically appealed to kids was shown. It's different now, with whole networks of allegedly child-friendly (I say allegedly because have you seen some of the stuff that shows on "The N" in the evenings? Good grief. It's like soap opera, junior) programming.

I tend to think that scarcity makes things more precious and abundance makes you take them for granted. I wonder if kids will look back with the same nostalgia that we generation-xers (and the baby boomers, before us) have about Saturday morning cartoons?

I also wonder what will become of cartoons. Will they be pushed aside as part of the Stamp! Out! Obesity! campaign - a push to get kids off the couch? Will they be phased out as "too expensive" in a world of "reality" tv where gomers will happily expose their foolishness on tv, for free, for the world to see? Will they be phased out as "too juvenile" as kids endlessly "age up" - where 6 year olds aspire to be 14, where 14 year olds dress like they're 21 (and have no taste in clothing)?

I don't know. I have to think there are still some kids out there - kids over the age of 3 or so - who like cartoons and still happily watch them. And who like cartoons that are just funny and silly and that aren't full of car chases or are somehow aping the movies that "grown ups" watch.

Or at least I hope. Because sometimes a good cartoon is a simple escape from life, 20 minutes or so (and yes, 20 minutes, darn you, advertisers) where you can kind of step back from what's bothering you.