1980 10:30 on CBS: The All-New Popeye Hour (The Popeye & Olive Comedy Show)

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So here's something interesting - Oh, not the cartoon mind you... The All-New Popeye Hour (Saturday Morning at 10:30 on CBS in 1980) was your average hour-long animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that had been on the air since 1978. This show tried its best to retain the style of the original Thimble Theatre comic strip (Popeye returned to his original costume and "Brutus" to his original name of Bluto), while complying with the prevailing content restrictions on violence. Because of those helpful parental watchdog groups and their restrictions on violence in TV cartoons for children at the time, in this version Popeye did not throw punches to get back at Bluto; he often lifted him, with his own hands or with machinery, and hurled him away. This series marked the last time that Jack Mercer would voice the spinach-eating sailor. Mercer died in 1984, one year after the show was cancelled by CBS.

...But that's not the part that I find interesting.

No, what's REALLY interesting (to me, at least) is that all three networks - ABC, NBC and CBS - programmed their Saturday morning of 1980 so that NO CARTOONS WOULD START AT 10AM!!! They all programmed 90-minute blocks for 9am, or a half-hour block followed by a full hour block so that NO SHOW would start at 10am!

That's WEIRD!

In 1981, this show kept the 10:30 time slot but was cut down to 30 minutes and renamed "The Popeye & Olive Comedy Show". Oddly enough, I can't confirm or deny that they ever actually made a new opening title sequence for "The Popeye & Olive Comedy Show" and I distinctly remember being confused when I would tune in on Saturday morning only to see the "The All-New Popeye Hour" opening and thinking I had a full hour till the next cartoons started on this channel. Imagine my HORROR when I flipped back to this channel during the first commercial break of the 11:00 hour only to find that the cartoon had changed at 11 and I missed the first 5 minute of the new show!