Saturday mornings

Remember how magical Saturday mornings were when we were kids? They were the best! We put up with five days of school, boring after-school educational programming and stodgy grownup evening TV shows.

So when Saturday morning hit, we were up at the crack of dawn, to catch the very first cartoons coming on the air. Yes, on the "air" ... because there was no cable television yet. There were three network channels and public television. That was pretty much it.

And the only time you could watch cartoons and other cool, fun kids programming was on Saturday mornings. It usually started at 7 a.m. It was definitely over by noon, when the sports programming would kick in. So you basically had 4 to 5 hours to numb your brain on the great cartoons:

• Looney Tunes — all the Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote you could get (still the funniest toons ever)
• Scooby Doo and Speed Buggy
• The Hanna-Barbera catalog, especially the ones where the characters all raced each other in their special cars
• Dudley Doo-Right and Underdog and the Go-Go Gophers
• Rocky & Bullwinkle and Mr. Peabody and Sherman

And then there were all those freaky Sid and Marty Kroft shows — The Bugaloos, H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Seamonsters ... and the greatest of them all ... The Land of the Lost!


Marshall, Will and Holly ... on a routine expedition ... met the greatest earthquake ever known ... high on the rapids, it struck their tiny raft ... and plunged them down a thousand feet below ... to the la-and of the lo-ost ... the land of the looooooossssst!!

And that was usually the last show before dad took over the television.

But nowadays, kids have the Cartoon Network — 24 hours of toons. Nickolodeon and all kinds of other toon outlets. Saturday mornings are no longer special. Who cares about what's on in the morning of one day when you have all of those other options?

It's their loss ... totally.