Weekly Nerd Chat: Saturday Morning Cartoons

Us nerds like nothing more than to banter back and forth on nerdy topics in Slack. Here is one of those chats, very lightly edited.

Weekly Nerd Chat: Saturday Morning Cartoons

Adkins September 27, 2014. Not a date that carries much significance for those who weren’t wished “Happy Birthday” sometime during the course of that day. Most of us probably couldn’t tell you where we were or what we did on this date nearly two years ago, but it marked the end of a magical era for generations. It was a Saturday. Obviously not the last Saturday since, but certainly the last of its kind. That was the day that Saturday morning cartoons died.

Today, Jason, Nash, and myself are going to take a trip down our respective memory lanes.

Which shows did you guys watch over your Wheaties, fellas?

Nash Man, I didn’t realize we were going to start so somber. I’m catching feels over here…

So in my old age I am starting to forget which ones were for sure Saturday morning cartoons for me, the one I will never forget as part of my normal Saturday morning routine is, of course, the X-Men.

Adkins We had the VHS tape of the first few episodes of that. I’ve probably watched “Night of the

Sentinels” (Parts 1 and 2) a hundred times.

Jason (Looks around nervously) I’ve never seen the X-Men cartoons.

Nash WHAT?!?!?!?!

Adkins Are you for real, Jason?

Jason And listen here is my stance. The only people who like Gambit are people who watched the X-Men cartoon. And if that is a result, then I may never watch them.

Nash This is disconcerting (in my best Beast impersonation).

Gambit is absolutely one of my favorites, so you are correct there lol

Jason And it was a timing thing. They popped at the age when I was too busy learning to play Indigo Girls on guitar to woo ladies in the college courtyards. I was just past the age where I would watch cartoons and just not quite at the point of deciding to nerd no matter what.

Nash I get that, I have a lot of Nerd blindspots due to poor timing lol.

Adkins So Jason: When you listen to Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, the intro and exit themes don’t stir up all the nostalgias for you?!

That show had an amazing theme song.

Jason I get pumped just because it means their podcast. Now I would be “why did some 90s show co-opt Jay and Miles’ theme song?”

I do like Jubilee. And the theme song is pretty great.

Nash Ok so maybe a little off topic, you know how big league baseball players choose their “walk up song” I think mine would be the X-Men theme song now that Adkins mentions how awesome it was.

Jason That would be epic. Beautiful choice. Every nerd crunching stats like they are Nate Silver would be on your side.

We need to sell that idea to an agent.

So as the oldest, cartoons ruled the world. And it wasn’t just Saturday mornings. Networks like TBS filled up their afternoons. Among my favorites: the Scooby Doo episodes with guest stars.

To put it in today’s terms, Scooby and the gang would bump into the pop culture equivalent of Kanye and Kim and solve mysteries!

Adkins Scooby and the gang hold a special place in my mind because at an early age my mom told
me that it was her favorite cartoon show when she was a kid, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Jason And no matter who you are, there is a character for you to relate to. Fred is for the ascot wearing jocks. Shaggy is the stoners. Thelma is the nerds. Daphne is the hotties. And, I may a doctoral thesis on this, Scooby is for the fat kids.

Adkins Always with the Scooby snacks, yeah?

Jason Always! Proof of the show’s longevity is that they are rebooting the show as a comic right now. It definitely falls into the nostalgia category.

Adkins When I was a kid, there was a version of it that starred the gang as kids and Scoob as a pup, too.

That show is the only reason why I know what the term “Red Herring” means.

It was called A Pup Named Scooby Doo.

Nash [checks out during conversation and finds X-men theme song on Spotify]

Jason Scoob as a pup is fine. Scrappy Doo is the teenage angst character who ruined the franchise.

Nash Teenaged angst: ruining shows since the 80s.

Jason As I got older, the shift was on and I discovered the Japanese shows that American companies would buy and vaguely drop plots over. Shows like Robotech and G-Force and, because it is currently relevant, Voltron!

Adkins I started watching the new series on Netflix this past week!

Nash Is Voltron already on Netflix?

Where have I been…sheesh.

Jason Voltron was just rebooted as a modern cartoon and it is great. My brother, nephew and I sat and watched the pilot. At the end, the almost 5 year old nephew said two things: “what is that called?” And “Tomorrow, I want to watch more Voltron!”

Nash That’s awesome!

Adkins Totally.

Jason I like that the modern show kept a lot of the stylings of the original but they spent time upgrading the story. The truth is, watching the old one is rough in terms of plot. But they seem to be course correcting on this one.

Okay: a couple old school shout outs: Hong Kong Phuey. No one deserved that show with its majestic portrayal of a police station janitor who is a dog and a Kung Fu master.

The Hair Bear Bunch. Just a bunch of bears, wearing stylish clothes of the late 60s and early 70s, who have one of the greatest con jobs in animation history: the rode “invisible” motorcycles. I wish I had been there that day when they weren’t going to make the deadline and the new guy said “what if the motorcycles were just invisible?”

Nash Nice lol, and another shout out for me has to be Prostars…

Adkins I think it goes without saying that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is my standout favorite, but my parents raised me well on the likes of the aforementioned Scooby Doo, The Smurfs, and even The Super Friends. This is why I loved Cartoon Network’s Boomerang channel. All of those and more, 24/7. It was my childhood self’s dream come true.

I also had the benefit of growing up in Nickelodeon’s heyday – Rugrats, Doug, etc.

Now instead of waking up early to watch cartoons, they stay up late playing video games.

Jason Cartoons man. So foundational and, like Michael said at the top, we are almost a whole generation into kids who don’t know the joy of waking up early on a Saturday morning, snagging the big bowl of sugary cereal and kicking back for the next 4 hours.

So, nerds, do the work and help share your old and new favorites. And by new favorites I mean Avatar. The kids are depending on us.