1980 8:30 on CBS: The Tom & Jerry Comedy Show

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(Cross Posted from Tumblr)

THE TOM & JERRY COMEDY SHOW - If you tuned in to your local CBS affiliate at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday in 1980, you would have witnessed this cartoon. Mercifully, there was only one season of this particular Tom & Jerry cartoon. Much like the Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jekyl cartoons of this age, this was a modern attempt to make new cartoons with classic characters while following the guidelines presented by Concerned Parent Groups. Gone were the wacky slapstick violent antics and instead we had a series of situational comedies. Just dreadful :( This show technically had two seasons, but the second season was nothing but reruns.

The Problem, SOLVED!!!

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Long-time followers of this community know that we have a certain... *problem*... with the Scrappy-Doo characters of our 1980's Saturday Mornings. Godzooki, Gleek, Blip, Slimer, Mr. Cool, Dollar, Nugget, Azrael, Uni... I'm sure we all have a favorite comic-relief character that we just hate SO MUCH, it almost makes our favorite cartoon unwatchable. Am I right?

So I was going over those cartoons of the early 80's that I really just don't care for, the ones made (primarily) by the Filmation Animation Studios that revamped classic cartoon characters (see reviews of shows like Tom & Jerry Comedy Show, The Mighty Mouse / Heckle & Jeckyl Show, The New Adventures of Popeye and even original creations like The Kwiki Koala Show for examples) and it hit me as to why I dislike these shows so much:

THEY TURNED EVERY CHARACTER IN TO A SCRAPPY-DOO!

Discuss below :)

1980 8:30 on NBC: Dynomutt (The Godzilla / Dynomutt Hour)

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(Cross Posted from Tumblr)

DYNOMUTT, DOG WONDER - Tuning in to your local NBC affiliate at 8:30 on a Saturday morning would bring you to the second half-hour of the Godzilla / Dynomutt Hour. Much like the Godzilla cartoons that they were paired with, the Dynomutt cartoons used in this show were just reruns of the two seasons that had run from 1976 to 1978 with no new content other than the opening title sequence. The show was about a Batman-esque super hero (Blue Falcon) and his assistant, bumbling yet generally effective robot dog Dynomutt, who could produce a seemingly infinite number of mechanical devices from his body. As with many other animated super-heroes of the era, no origins for the characters were ever provided so you should go ahead and start writing your FanFic *NOW* :)

An Important 1980's Saturday Morning Poll!

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As I'm sure you all know, the first Saturday of September (unless that Saturday falls on September 1st) is the traditional birthplace of all the new Saturday Morning line-ups through the entirety of the 1980's. Our original vision for this community was to have a watch-along each year on this first Saturday AT LEAST, but this year we got a little distracted and, long story short, we didn't have anything ready to go :(

HOWEVER! What we *do* have is about 2 hours of 1980's Saturday Morning Preview Shows complete with era-appropriate commercials and timing, just like our traditional watch-alongs! However, we're not sure WHEN to do it...

We could do it on Friday night, the traditional air time of the historical Saturday Morning Preview Shows. This would be the most historically accurate way we could go.

We could do Saturday morning, just like a regular 1980's Saturday Morning Historical Preservation & Restoration Society watch-along, only much shorter and with Preview Shows instead of actual cartoons.

So what do you think? Whichever way would get us the most participants is the way we intend to go, so please vote not for the one you like best, but for the one you could/would actually log in for!

[Poll #1863418]

Results will be posted no later than next Tuesday! I'll probably post plenty of nag-posts this weekend asking you to go and vote :)

1980 9am on CBS: The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show

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(Cross posted from Tumblr)

Starting at 9am on Saturday Morning at your local CBS affiliate, you could see the long-running Bugs Bunny / Road Runner Show! This cartoon show, which was just a repackaging of Warner Brothers cartoons that had been produced up till 1962, bounced around the Saturday Morning TV dial so often you never really knew what channel it was going to show up on. But in the morning of 1980, it was on CBS...and it was like a Rosetta Stone of Childhood Memories. Parents, grandparents, older siblings... EVERYBODY knew the 5-to-8-minute adventures of Bugs Bunny and friends and so this cartoon was a common language that could bring generations together :)

(Also ran at 9:00 in 1981, 9:30 in 1982/1983)