1980's Saturday Morning Historical Preservation Society

The ABC Weekend Special was a weekly 30-minute anthology TV series that aired Saturday mornings on ABC from 1977 to 1997, and was generally known in my home as "The last chance to see some cartoons before American Bandstand. It featured a wide variety of stories that were both live-action and animated.

The 1981/1982 season was the fifth season of this show overall, and featured many re-runs of the past 4 seasons mixed with the new half-hour episodes:

• "The Puppy Saves The Circus", featuring the increasingly popular character of "The Puppy" and his friends saving a circus
• "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", an adaptation of the classic Mark Twain short story
• "Bunnicula", which I have embedded above, the story of a vampire bunny
• "Miss Switch To The Rescue" parts 1 and 2, the second Weekend Special to feature the popular Miss Switch character
• "The Joke's On Mister Little", a story of two boys who play pranks on the titular Mister Little (and NOT the first episode of "The Littles")

"SPEED BUGGY!??!" I can hear you yelling at your computer screen. "But Captain!" you protest, "Speed Buggy is a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and broadcast on CBS from September 8, 1973 to August 30, 1975 that followed the adventures of an anthropomorphic, fiberglass Dune Buggy and his teenage friends as they solved Scooby-Doo-esque mysteries! What's it doing under the heading of 1982?!?!?"

Blame Bo and Luke Duke.

The Dukes of Hazzard was an extremely popular and high-rated hour-long prime-time television show on CBS Friday nights. Having seen the success of prime-time-to-animation transition shows such as The Fonz, Laverne & Shirley (as well as historically successful cartoons of The Partridge Family, Gilligan's Island and Star Trek), CBS decided they wanted to diversify and bring them Duke Boys to Saturday Mornings. "Hey, Hanna-Barbera, can YOU make us a Dukes of Hazzard Cartoon?" they asked, and since Joe & Bill could never say no, they did all the work needed to get a cartoon done (model sheets, story boarding, voice casting, script writing, etc) and everything was ready to go! Bring in the celebrities in, record the dialogue, bring the actors in again for a final voice-over and...

In the spring of 1982, as filming was due to begin on the fifth season of the prime-time show, series stars Tom Wopat and John Schneider did not report to the set due to a contract dispute. Catherine Bach (their cousin "Daisy") also considered walking out due to similar contract concerns, but Wopat and Schneider convinced her to stay, insisting that settling the dispute was "man's work" (actual quote). Rather than cave in to the demands of the talent, CBS pulled the old "YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL. YOU CAN BE REPLACED" move and hired two new actors, Byron Cherry as Coy Duke and Christopher Mayer as Vance Duke.

"Hey, uhm... Hanna-Barbera? You guys can change all the animation and voice-over and everything before September, right?"

Hanna-Barbera said no, we CAN'T do that are you CRAZY it's not that simple, but CBS (at this point crazy with Ceasar-esque power) said something akin to YOU WILL HAVE A CARTOON READY THAT FEATURES OUR NEW GUYS AND LOOKS NOTHING LIKE THE OLD GUYS OR YOU'LL NEVER WORK IN TELEVISION AGAIN, and so H-B said well I guess we can try but we can't guarantee anything so maybe you shouldn't put it on the Fall Schedule...

...And CBS proceeded to promote that a Dukes Of Hazzard Cartoon would be the first cartoon in their 1982 Saturday Morning Line-up.

There are different accounts of what happened next, but the facts are these:

• The affiliates were told that they would have a Dukes Of Hazzard cartoon at 8:00 Saturday morning, September the 18th.
• The network and the affiliates sold advertising based on the projected number for a brand-new Dukes Of Hazzard cartoon.
• CBS received a shipment from Hanna-Barbera labeled "The Dukes Ep 01".
• The shipment contained re-run of the 1973 Speed Buggy cartoon.
• Advertisers and Affiliates were PISSED OFF.

The official story is that CBS was aware of the possible Speed Buggy substitution, having communicated with H-B and said something like "Well if you CAN'T get us a Dukes of Hazzard cartoon in time, just send us SOMETHING to do with cars and racing" and intended to compensate affiliates and advertisers only in the event that H-B could not get the Dukes cartoon completed in time.

Popular Theory (and my personal favorite) is that CBS remained stubborn and threatening, so H-B sent them a box labeled "The Dukes" as a decoy while they frantically wrapped production on the new version of The Dukes, with lots of "Gee I don't know how this happened, we finished production a week ago, it must have been my new intern, we're tracking it down right now, blah blah blah" excuse till the Spring of 1983.

Spring of 1983 saw only one new cartoon debut, "The Dukes". More about THAT when I get to 1983 :) Also, it all became a moot point because Coy & Vance only lasted one season before the contract disputes were settled and the proper Duke Boys were back, making the second season of The Dukes SO EASY for Hanna-Barbera to produce since they were 98% done and in the can :)

I know so very little about this series! Looks like "Tenacious D: The Animated Series" to me. Yet another of the Marvel Productions attempts at a traditional Hanna-Barbera / Filmation action/comedy, The series centered on Meatballs & Spaghetti, a husband-and-wife singing duo who roamed the country in a mobile home with their friend Clyde (who was the bassist), and their dog Woofer (who was their drummer).

I have never seen an episode of this show... anybody care to share any thoughts about it?

Debuted in the 11:30 time slot of 1982, moved to 9am in the Spring of 1983, and then was *gone*.

In 1982 at 11am on ABC was a little slice of cult legend, misdirected ambition and same-old same-old in the form of the hour-long Scooby & Scrappy Puppy Hour. This show was the first (and I think only?) collaboration between the Saturday Morning Juggernauts, Ruby-Spears and Hanna-Barbera. The first half-hour of the show consisted of three 7-minute shorts, a mix of "Scooby and Scrappy-Doo" (the version where Scooby, Scrappy and Shaggy travel across the country as the "Fearless Detective Agency" and get involved in typical spy or criminal cases) and "Scrappy and Yabba-Doo" (Scrappy-Doo's adventures with his uncle Yabba-Doo and Deputy Dusty in the wild west), followed by a full 30-minute episode of "The Puppy's New Adventures" in the second half-hour. The Scooby/Scrappy-related shorts were written and voiced at Hanna-Barbera Productions, but animated and edited by Ruby-Spears Enterprises.

(Also aired at 10:00 starting in the Spring of 1983)

In 1982, the world belonged to Gary Coleman, which is why he had his own cartoon every saturday morning at 10:30 on NBC. The fine folks at Hanna-Barbera made 13 episodes of this show, which featured Gary Coleman as the voice of apprentice angel Andy LeBeau, who was sent back to Earth to earn his wings by helping others. The half-hour series was based on Coleman's 1982 made-for-TV movie The Kid with the Broken Halo. Each episode, Andy helped some kid in need and fix his problem. The villain trying to stop Andy for some reason (I forget why) was Hornswoggle, who tried to make Andy's mission more difficult, usually by getting him to make the wrong choice or by otherwise complicating the mission. It was up to Andy to correct whatever mistakes he made and foil Hornswoggle's plans.

This cartoon, which debuted at 10:00 Saturday morning in 1982 on ABC, is an example of evolution gone horribly wrong.

"The Mork & Mindy / Laverne & Shirley / Fonz Hour" has it's origins back in 1980 with one of my all-time favorite time travel epics, The Fonz & The Happy Day Gang", which was then joined in 1982 by the swine-tinted Laverne & Shirley In The Army. Having had a fairly successful run at adapting sit-coms for Saturday mornings, the unholy trinity of Hanna-Barbera, Ruby-Spears AND Paramount Entertainment combined their forces to create... this.

First, they mashed Laverne & Shirley together with The Fonz, taking away the whole time-travel aspect and instead making it the story of an Army Base (with a pig for a drill sergeant) where a leather-jacket hoodlum on a motorcycle and his talking dog are allowed to com and hang out. This is where I refused to continue suspending my disbelief. Talking military pige, time-traveling greasers, yeah, I can get behind that. But civilian hoodlums allowed on base for no particular reason? NO.

And then there's the Mork cartoon. It's the same basic premise of the Mork & Mindy sit-com (alien sent to Earth in order to learn their customs and report back to his superiors), only Mork is a teen-ager. ANd he has a wacky alien dog because this *is* 1982 Hanna-Barbera and EVERYBODY GETS DOGS!!!

Saturday mornings in 1982, over on NBC at 8:30 in the morning you could find the adventures of The SHIRT TALES, although if you're younger than me you *probably* remember this show from somewhere else and are getting ready to hit "Leave Comment" to let me know that I've made a terrible mistake.

HOLD THAT BUTTON, and read on...

Much like other perennial 80's favorites Strawberry Shortcake and The Care Bears, The Shirt Tales were created for the Hallmark Greeting Card Company (by Janet Elizabeth Manco) with no real story or reason other than to look cute on greeting cards. The Hanna-Barbera came along and gave them a storyline! Tyg Tiger (in orange), Pammy Panda (in pink), Digger Mole (in light blue), Rick Raccoon (in red), and Bogey Orangutan (in green) lived in a big hollow tree in Oak Tree Park (as Tigers, Pandas, Raccoons, Moles and Orangutans often do in the wild) and wore shirts which flashed various brightly lit messages reflecting their thoughts. They spent their time teasing the park ranger (Mr. Dinkle) and FIGHTING CRIME AS SOME SORT OF SUPER-SECRET AGENTS (as Tigers, Pandas, Raccoons, Moles and Orangutans often do in the wild). They zipped around the world in a vehicle known as the STSST (Shirt Tales Super-Sonic Transport) which was a car, jet, boat, submarine, and pretty much anything else they wanted/needed it to be.

The show ran for two seasons on NBC Saturday Mornings, 10 episodes in the first season and 13 in the second season. In the second season things changed *slightly* with the addition of "Kip" (a young Kangaroo) and an apparent power-struggle between Rick and Tyg. Rick was rarely seen in that second season, which i weird since he had been the apparent leader of the group in season 1. Weird.

Anywho, you *MAY* remember seeing this cartoon on CBS rather than NBC, and with good reason; in the Fall of 1984, NBC dropped Shirt Tales from their schedule and it was immediately snapped-up by CBS, who were looking for a last-minute filler to replace the low-rated "The Biskitts" cartoon at the last minute. CBS showed a mix of re-runs from both seasons of Shirt Tales.

In 1981 at 11:30 in the morning on ABC, you would see Heathcliff ANd Marmaduke (along with a very catchy theme song). Officially considered to be the second season of the 1980 Heathcliff and Dingbat Show only with Marmaduke instead of Dingbat (obviously), they made 25 episodes of this version ( as opposed to just 13 "Dingbat" episode) which is why you probably remember the Marmaduke titles better than the Dingbat ones, if you remember them at all. Also note that this is a Ruby-Spears joint, NOT the DiC "Heathcliff and The Catilac Cats" version that was syndicated a few years later.

At 11 in the morning on CBS in 1981, you could find an... *interesting* little show that I can only assume was created by a committee of Time Traveling Marketing Executives at Filmation, BLACKSTAR.

Buck Rogers crash-lands on He-Man's planet (Eternia) and teams-up with characters from Thundarr and a small platoon of Smurfs so he can fight The Thundercats foe (Mum-Ra) for the other half of a magic sword, because there should always be a sword.

Or, in the words of the narration:

"John Blackstar, astronaut, is swept through a black hole, into an ancient alien universe. Trapped on the planet Sagar, Blackstar is rescued by the tiny Trobbit people. In turn, he joins their fight for freedom against the cruel Overlord, who rules by the might of the Powerstar. The Powerstar is split into the Powersword and the Starsword. And so with Starsword in hand, Blackstar, together with his allies, sets out to save the planet Sagar. This is his destiny".

In later years when I was watching this on VHS, every time the end of the narration came and he says "I am John Blackstar", I liked to follow it up with "...And I'm an alcoholic." HI, JOHN. "It's been one week since my last drink, the last time I saw a Trobbit, but I feel like I might lapse and..." and then the episode would start and it was all just hi drunken nightmare/fantasy, week after week.

Never had much use for this cartoon... sorry I don't know much more about it. It was on opposite two other shows that I liked a heck of a lot better, and it was on a channel that we didn't receive very well with our antenna :/

Although there were only 13 episodes produced (a single season), the reruns continued to air at 1:00 in 1982 and 1983.

Please leave your memories/opinions/thoughts in the comment below :)

Starting at 10:30 Saturday morning on NBC in 1981, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends debuted. It followed the adventures of Spider-Man, Iceman and Firestar as they fought crime in New York while also occasionally I don't think I've ever met a person over the age of 30 who hasn't seen this show and has at least one favorite episode :) What most people *don't* know is that it was the animated world's first (and possibly only?) *sequel*.

It all started in 1978, with the DePatie-Freleng Studios (founded by two Warner Bros. Cartoons alumni, director/producer Friz Freleng and executive David H. DePatie) producing a few higher-quality Marvel Comics cartoons such as The New Fantastic Four and Spider-Woman (previous incarnations of Marvel characters in cartoon form had been somewhat pathetic in their animation). In 1980 they made a single season of a new Spider-Man cartoon for syndication that was VERY well received. SO WELL RECEIVED, in fact, that it inspired the buy-out of the animation department of DePatie-Freleng and renaming it to MARVEL PRODUCTIONS (the folks who were behind dang near every beloved cartoon of the 80's.

Recognize any of these?

• Muppet Babies
  
• Transformers
  
• GI Joe
  
• Jem
  
• My Little Pony
  
• Inhumanoids
  
• Fraggle Rock (animated)
  
• Dungeons & Dragons
  
• RoboCop: The Animated Series
  
• Dino Riders
  
• Defenders Of The Earth

It all started right here, with Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends :) Often teaming with Sunbow Entertainment, these guys pretty much defined 1980's action/adventure animation!

So anywho, about it being a sequel. Unlike other cartoons that change the model sheets from season to season or from series to series in order to keep things unique (see the artistic and design evolution through animated Batman, Justice League, modern Spider-Man shows, etc) and copy-rightable as distinctly different properties, Marvel Productions used the existing model sheets and backgrounds from their syndicated Spider-Man cartoon and added just a few new characters.

This paid off BIG for Marvel Productions in 1984 when they decided to repackage the previous three seasons with the syndicated Spider-Man episodes, instead of making new episodes.

This show had many different incarnations over the course of the 80's, and each on will get their own entry in this community because they had a distinctly different opening title sequence for each one. In one way or another, Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends was on Saturday Morning TV all the way through 1986.