Saturday Morning Cartoons Reinvented

Pinkie over at Pinkie’s Paradise started an intriguing reinvention of the Saturday morning cartoons some weeks ago. From the inception of the series, I really liked the idea and very quickly got to work on setting that time slot aside in my own life, for the same use.

I had a crappy childhood. Saturday morning cartoons were iffy at best, and didn’t include anime to speak of because I’m that damn old. So I’m taking this opportunity to overwrite those years with some much better memories. So there, hah.

The dedicated time slot is from whenever I got up to noon. The most important aspect of the cartoons or anime chosen is they must either make me laugh or keep me glued to the screen as much as the one or two series I remember and enjoyed. And by and large, they need to appeal to a younger audience. I am trying to locate and stream some of my old favorites where I can, too.

I am also including some sort of decadent, unhealthy and fattening breakfast treat because I don’t often do breakfast at all, and I am very careful about treats due to my tendency to gain weight just looking at food. Because normally everyone was gone at work when I woke up, I actually regularly breakfasted on cookies as a child. Finding food in my house was a bit iffy, too. We were more likely to have cookies than breakfast food and almost never cereal and milk. However, these days I’m a bit gluten intolerant and I’ve always been lactose intolerant, so cereal and milk aren’t as big a treat as you’d think.

I’m three weeks in at this point, and because I’m a bit lazy about blogging I am not even going to try to blog every Saturday. Instead I’ll do a little roundup every three weeks or so. Give or take. However, I am keeping a running entry on my Penzu journal updated every Saturday so I will have that for reference.

Saturday, May 10th was the first official Saturday morning cartoon day. As it happened the hubby had some Honey Nut Cheerios for a snack, so I snatched a bowlful of those. No milk. My wonderful hubby (he cooks) also brought to me warm, freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies later in the morning. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmm

Previously I had done a bit of surfing around looking for cartoons/anime that might suit my parameters of funny, missed, fascinating, nostaligia. Under the Pink influence I searched for a Pokemon series, and found Pokemon Sun and Moon on Netflix. I was looking for Yu-Gi-Oh but instead got sidetracked to Yokai Watch. I am really into yokai, so I had to chose this one. It is also on Netflix. Somewhere down the line I ran onto Wander Over Yonder and did a little research on it. I found it on YouTube and watched like ten seconds and could not stop laughing – so even though I have to search and scrounge for each ten minute or so episode – it’s on the list. Last, but hardly least was Gargoyles from Disney Plus – something I ran onto looking for something else. Overall most of these are shows either anime (which I got none of ), or that remind me of shows I actually did get to watch. More on that later.

Yokai Watch – My favorite episode so far is #4 with Hungrigramps. He makes conbini store food look good! I am getting a big chuckle out of all the ills of life being caused by yokai, and each of them when summoned has a ridiculous intro-summoning sequence that makes me laugh and at least consider hopping up and trying to learn their dance moves. But my true love, as you may have guessed is Jibanyan.

I’ve already found a plushie I MUST HAVE and of course, I want the games if I can find any that will work on any device I own.

Speaking of devices, in case you are wondering, these series also have to be on something my main laptop computer can deal with. Said computer is ten years old and has a heart attack if it sees VRV.CO in a URL, so we are restricted to Hulu, Netflix, YouTube and such. It’s good for me to watch anime away from VRV now and then. The reason is that this whiney old computer hooks up to the whiney old big screen TV so I can watch my Saturday morning cartoons on the TV. Much as all has changed and advanced, this is somehow a thing for me and it’s my Saturday morning so that’s just how it is. 😛

Wander Over Yonder is my next cartoon, and because I watch 2 to 3 episodes, I’m now up to Season 1 Episode 9 and 10 which are so far my total favorites. I dearly loved the goats and all the silly wordplay in 9, and the Lords of Enlightment episode 10 had me rolling on the floor. I am metaphysical as heck, but I do take some of the woo-woo with a truckload of salt and this episode really poked the sacred bears, so to speak. I can’t figure out why Disney ever took this off their channel, and even more so can’t imagine why they don’t have it on the streaming website. Just saying, I would absolutely buy this if the series were on DVD or something somewhere. Even though there isn’t a thing in the house that plays DVDs anymore.

Pokemon Sun and Moon I have to honestly say isn’t my favorite. It has it’s moments. I kind of have an issue with Ash being so immediately blessed by the island guardian with all the goodies. But hey, of course he is. And Pikachu is cute. I get it now. The cute little voice melts me every time. Awwwwwwwwww… I know there is better Pokemon out there, that I really think I’ll like better, but I have yet to find them on a streaming service I use.

Gargoyles on Disney. This series appealed to me on several levels. The mix of myth and scifi. And the artwork to me is reminiscent of some of my most favorite childhood cartoons. It’s cartoony but realistic. If that makes any sense. So far I’m intrigued. I have a few story issues where things aren’t realistic, but then, it’s a cartoon, relax Summer. I’m up to Episode 4 and I can’t say I have a favorite yet. I don’t hate it or anything, just haven’t fallen in love yet either.

The last couple of Saturdays I’ve had an old favorite snack – graham crackers dipped in milk. Absolutely loved it. But the milk went sour this week. Neither of us actually like milk. So yeah, this will really be only an occasional treat for Saturdays. This Saturday I was also treated to a biscuit with butter and honey from one friend (who wanted biscuits, can’t cook them in her trailer so we cooked them for her and we all shared) and a raisin bagel with cream cheese from hubby. Yes, I had a stomach ache. I think this coming Saturday I’m going to get myself a bag of those white powdered sugar donuts. I love those things. They’re awful for me.

But the biggest thrill EVAH came Saturday May 23 because one of my all time most favorite ever childhood cartoons suddenly showed up on VRV. Wait. VRV? Yes. I crossed my fingers and took grumpy old Mingo (what, you don’t name your devices) up to VRV and wonder of wonders he conceded to actually play…

Jonny Quest!!!!!!!!!!! I loved this cartoon with all my heart. I wanted to be Jonny. Or Hadji. Or Race Bannon. Or have a grown up like Race Bannon or Professor Quest in my life. Who liked me. But I faced it now with some adult trepidation. I have a sneaking suspicion I am not going to appreciate how Hadji is treated. (In fact, I have some lurking memories of thinking I didn’t always like how Hadji was treated when I was a child. After all, he has a similar complexion to my mother and I AM a child of the 60s and we were NOT unaware of the difference in treatment based on difference in skin color…)

So this Saturday I dived into Episode 1 and 2 and… I wonder where Hadji was in Ep 1? Oh well. And just who, exactly, does Race Bannon work for? And seriously, he’s a pretty crappy body guard since Jonny saves him as much as he saves Jonny. But that’s okay because I had a BLAST. Sure, I can pick apart the facts like crazy but it’s still a fun and oh yes, so boy, romp. Okay, so I was a little boy and I still am, really. Yeah, turn me loose with a snowmobile that goes 100 mph, great idea. I remember the snow cat and snow mobile and water ski better than I do the story. Huh? Story? And I kind of think Hadji is smarter than Jonny. So there’s that. And that jet in the intro – is that an A-12? Because it kind of looks like one. In case you aren’t a super fast silent spy jet fan – the A-12 was the SR 71 Blackbird before it was the Blackbird. Which sort of fits since Race Bannon actually works for Intelligence One – which agency sounds suspiciously like the CIA. Sort of. Okay, let’s not get hung up on facts. Cool snow skimmer!

Looks like VRV won’t let me grab a screen cap. 😦

In conclusion, I am really having a lot of fun with my own version of Saturday morning cartoons. Thanks Pinkie!

And starting this week, I’m also relaxing on Sunday with my own favorite Sunday show – nature documentaries. Yep, just call me Marlon Perkins. Holy crap, I just discovered that Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom has a dedicated YouTube site with new shows… Anyway, there is no shortage of nature documentaries between Hulu, Netflix, Curiosity Stream, and Disney Plus and because I’m a horse person, I also sprang for the Equus channel on Film Festival Flix. Anyone want to ride along?