1980's Saturday Morning Historical Preservation Society

The ABC Weekend Special was a weekly 30-minute anthology TV series for children that aired Saturday mornings on ABC from 1977 to 1997. It featured a wide variety of stories that were both live-action and animated, so it totally counts as a Saturday Morning Cartoon in my opinion.

Many people confuse The ABC Weekend Specials with the ABC Afterschool Specials, so let's get this straight right now - Similar to the ABC Afterschool Special that had started five years previous, the ABC Weekend Special differed in that it was primarily aimed at younger viewers following ABC's Saturday Morning cartoon lineup, whereas the ABC Afterschool Special was known for its somewhat more serious, and often dramatic storylines dealing with issues concerning a slightly older teen and pre-teen audience.

Basically, if it felt like you were supposed to learn something about life and/or adolescents from it? It was an ABC Afterschool Special.

Unfortunately, to further complicate matters, they took a bunch of the ABC Afterschool Specials that had been aimed at slightly younger audiences and re-packaged them into episodes of The ABC Weekend Specials.

The ABC Weekend Specials were a huge downer to me, as they signified the End Of The Cartoons. Oh sure, I could probably flip around the dial a bit and find some syndicated cartoons, or over on ABC they always had re-runs of Jonny Quest and The Jetsons if there wasn't a sporting event of any kind that they could air. The ABC Weekend Special meant I had to go get dressed :(

A lot of people had no idea that this cartoon ever existed. Heck, even *I* didn't know it existed until I found a Karate Kid lunch box at a local thrift store a few years back! Looks kind of awesome, I think?

And just to make us all feel a little bit older, Ralph "The Karate Kid" Machio just turned 50 this week. FIFTY YEARS OLD.

If you're an ancient relic like me or you just have something nice to say about this cartoon feel free to leave a message in the comments below. And if you're so inclined, feel free to go vote this up in our Best of 1989/1990 Poll!

I wish I could find higher quality episodes of this show on-line, as I've developed a fascination with John Candy over the past few years and I've never even seen this cartoon.

What do YOU remember about it? Leave some comments below and then if you really liked this show go ahead and vote it up in our Best of 1989/1990 Poll!

Hot on the heels of the success of "The Land Before Time", somebody thought "Hey we should make a cartoon about baby dinosaurs for Saturday Morning!" ANd so the highly forgetable "Dink The Little Dinosaur" was born. I personally think it failed because of the name... "Dink"? Really???

Love it or hate it, leave some comments below :) And if you happen to love this show you may want to go and vote for it in our Best of 1989/1990 Poll!