Our childhood

We've all been there...

We've all been there. You wake up early on a saturday morning. The sun is shining through your window and you smile, remembering that there's no school. You throw back the covers and run downstairs to get a bowl of cereal and plop down in front of the tv for the first show of the day. With bright eyes and itchy pajamas, you watch intently, from the first cartoon to the last live-action silliness. Hooray for childhood.

These were the things that gave us joy. Watching Baby Kermit open the closet door, only to find a locomotive screaming towards him. Waiting for Pee-Wee to reveal the day's secret word. Finding out what activity Garfield was going to blow off for a plate of lasagna. We've all been there. And we'd all love to be back there.

At some point in our lives, someone told us that it's time to grow up. That we had to leave the childish things behind and face the real world. We're too old to watch Nickelodeon. We have responsibilities now, no time for dreaming. "Put your toys away, those are for kids." Well, I say, "No." And amazingly, so has my generation. Truly, we are the first to take it with us, to follow the mantra of Toys R Us: I don't wanna grow up.

Just look at the world today. The video game industry is one of the biggest in the nation, virtually untouched by the woes of the failing economy. The Cartoon Network has gone from a Looney Toons graveyard to a thriving nexus of animation innovation. And we, the new adults, are having more fun than our predecessors ever dreamed.

And what are the children of today watching? What gems are they taking away from their saturday mornings? A lot of adults today will look at the cartoons of the 21st century and think that they're not as good as the ones from the before times, but you know what? That's not for us to judge. I'm sure my grandparents didn't understand why I was so enthralled by Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and rightly so. It wasn't for them. It was for me.

My nephew recently told me that he's a Power Ranger. Part of me got upset. He doesn't know anything about the Green Ranger Saga. He doesn't know the relationship between villains Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd. He probably doesn't even know what a Zord is. Do they even still have Zords? I haven't watched the show in a long time, mostly because it barely resembles the show I was used to. But it doesn't matter. He's still a Power Ranger. We've all been there.

These shows are with us forever. They are part of our lexicon and will always shine through. Every time we see a child wearing footy-pajamas or eating a bowl of Fruit Loops, we'll be transported back to a time when we were undeniably happy.

We've all been there. We will always be there.

Comments

You forgot Cartoon Network, tons of crap just for a quick buck

TOTALLY AGREE WIT U ON THAT 1!!! GOOD ARTICLE

Nice read. I too don't understand the toon's today. Back in our time they were made for kids. Now, They are made for kids who want to grow up too fast. More understandable violence and humor that kids should not know about. The power rangers were the best back in the day. Man I kept up with them for the longest time until the end of the original run then they got boring.

this article was good you,and to (sikkbones)use the pictures in your mind dig up your memories brotha..lol

I miss the Saturday mornings of the 1970's and 1980's. I loved getting up on a cold, winter Saturday morning to have a warm breakfast and watch "The Smurfs" as I cuddle one of my cats. Those were the days.

I used to live for Saturday Mornings. The crap on Nickelodeon and Disney now is ridiculous.

this article is useless without pictures.

While this article was short and a bit vague, it was still a nice read. Saturday mornings were the culmination of my week when I was a kid, though I hated that the shows I wanted to watch the most (like Power Rangers) had to be at the very start of the block. There'd usually be a couple shows that I didn't care for (like that Godzilla animated show, or the Zorro animated show), but they were okay background noise while I broke out the toys. Soon, the excitement shifted to Sunday nights, with The Simpsons, King of the Hill, That 70's Show, Futurama... and now, the simplicity that was once known is forever gone. It's a shame that we have to move on, but it's still important to keep remnants of your childhood with you.

And for those commenting on the spoiled kids with 24/7 Cartoon Network and such, when I was a kid Cartoon Network was still cartoons 24/7. I didn't get to watch it very often, though, as I didn't have cable at home; only at my grandparents'. But even though there were cartoons on all the time, it didn't mean I wanted to watch all of them. Hell, I'd say a good chunk of them were watched out of boredom, waiting for something else to come on.

This article made my day! Saturday mornings were the best thing in life. After all those great cartoons, then it was time to gains some levels in Secret of Mana, FF 3, and Chrono Trigger. Maybe even before then, time was spent trying to beat Section Z.

Ill tell you all something about my childhood. I learned the principle of the powerslide on my Bigwheel, now im a Pro on the drift curcuit.

Some nice points were made, but it would have been nice if you related specific instances from your childhood instead of assuming that we all had the same experiences. It was nicely written, but the point of the site (IMO) is to share YOUR memories, not just blog about general thoughts. I was nicely written, so I would be very interested to read more of your childhood adventures.

Nice. I totally remember being happy as hell that there was no school and lots of cartoon watching to do.

nice article, i believe you don't need pictures for every article. the lack of them helped my imagination see the cartoons i personally watched as a kid instead of ones you posted. kudos sir.

Power Rangers do still have Zords

The end of "Saturday Morning and Weakday afternoon"cartoons are long gone.Kids wont know of old school Transformers ,GI Joe,Thundercats and so forth.All they have now is lame ass talk shows with baby mamma drama, paternity test Tuesday.Kids wont know what is like to come home from school and have three channels to choose what cartoons they are going to watch that afternoon.

Pics would've been nice in this article but like another user said, it painted a nice picture of what the lives of a lot of kids in the 90's were like. Some of my favorite memories include waking up at 5am on a Saturday to start the morning marathon of cartoons until about noon and going to the mall in the 90's when they were still thriving in a stable economy. I remember the mall was usually where a lot of trends and fads in the 90's sprung up. I played with pogs for the first time at a mall and lo and behold like a week later everyone had a tube of pogs and was playing each other at lunch or recess.

Every Time i think back to my childhood it upsets me because i used to be so care-free and happy i would wake up the sun would be shining through my glass sliding door i would sit down turn on the T.V and would always find something good to watch like Batman the animated series, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Digimon so on.... ( I'm a 90's kid ) but now there's only The Batman which is basically Anime, The horrible new Power Rangers, and other great series turned to rubble but it's only a matter of time before they bring back the good shows or at least run re-runs of them and until then i will be waiting... :'(

Many kids will not know of Power Rangers now that they were cancelled.

Cartoons aren't the same for our kids as they were for us. When I was a kid there were a few cartoons on after school like Ducktales, Gummy Bears, Tale Spin, just for a few hours. Saturday was the day to watch cartoons, all day it seemed, until the infomercials started at 3 or 4.

Nowadays cartoons are on 24-7 7 days a week 365 days a year. Cartoon network shows cartoons all day, kids can get their cartoon fix whenever they want. I notice kids today don't regard Saturday as a cartoon day like I did.

I love Sponge Bob though, and would have watched it as a kid. Just watch some of the thousands of intros for cartoons from when you were a kid on this site and see how many you watched on a regular basis. There are crap cartoon as there are real gems today just like there were when we were kids. In fact, I still wish Invader Zim would have gone on for a few more years, and I was 21 when it came out but my nephew who was below 10 at the time loved it also.

Good statement that cartoons are made for kids today and not for us. Everyone blast Disney and their new shows saying that they are not as good as the old stuff. They are not being made for us, same as Pee-Wee's Playhouse was not made for our parents and I know mine didn't like it.

great article, it was nice reading it and visualizing it in my head...went almost exactly as you described our 90's...I remember waking up every saturday morning at 8 or 9 to watch electric playground, eat some froot loops, then play some duke nukem or turok on my n64...followed by renting some movies like the matrix, the thirteenth floor, the avengers on VHS and eating some chef boyardene ravioli pasta to movies, then having chips and pop or ice cream or pizza pops...the good ol' days that have been taken away from us. Now life expects hard work out of us, if I could go back in time, I would go with my knowledge and enjoy my child-hood again, make different decisions. Life is like an RPG-game, you must choose your choices wisely.

Yeah I dont know...Its a good read but......what is it? Its not an article, theres no real subject. Cosgrove had it right, this would be better off in a forum.
I liked it....I agreed with it, and I can't even say anything bad about your grammer or proofreading....But no pictures and no subject...I don't know the point.

My nephew loves watching my old Power Ranger VHSes. Of course, he sees no difference between today's PR and the ones I loved.

How can you be sure your nephew doesn't know the oldschool Power Rangers? You might be surprised to know that a lot of today's kids are watching 80s and 90s cartoons on DVD. There are several 5-8 year olds at my church who love the original Ninja Turtles.

I totally agree with you about how things have changed for kids today with cartoons and video games. I can hardly even find a show that I want to watch today of any kind, but if the same shows of my childhood were on I'd still be watching them today. In some ways I think some of the artistry has gone away. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of artistic people out there now days, but I feel like compared to the people who put together those shows of our childhood, many today just don't get it. They've had it too easy being fed instant gratification their whole lives. Myself included. Generations change I suppose. You're right, the things that our grandparents or our parents grew up loving we have a hard time understanding. Just like we have a hard time understanding what kids or early teens see in the shows or interests that they love today. I will say this though, I may have been just too old when the whole Power Rangers genre started, but I never ever understood what kids saw in that show. The whole series was a big pile of crap to me. Like bad Godzilla movies for kids or something with horribly stereotypical basic stories. Sorry, that was the beginning of some of the decline to me

even though you have zero pictures. i'm gonna give you a little love for being from the 757. a good read though......just needed some polish.

I like your points and spunk. I'm one of the fellas on this site who thinks that modern day entertainment for kids is in a way the same as it used to be and still in good quality. It's all in the eye of the beholder. Kids from today will look back on their childhoods the same way we look back on ours. I consider my dad and I to have the same fondness for our childhoods, except just a generation apart. I watched one of his favorite shows from the 50s not too long ago and saw the same sparkle in his eye that I have when I watch Freakazoid and Dexter's Lab. Kids will be kids and retro will be retro.

The article itself won't pass here on this site. It needs a plethora of pics and the text itself could have easily been in a thread in the forums. Check out Knites' article on how to write a better article.

Good read. I still miss those days, myself. What disqusts me is the Power Rangers of today. What series is it now? I can't even keep up.

Oh, and the Saturday morning cartoons of today suck major ass. Every cartoon is made in Japan now. What gives? Where are the American cartoons that we used to know? I'm just glad I got to live it.

Saturday Morning as we knew it is a long gone institution for today's kids to comprehend. How can they understand the excitement we got from getting up 6am on a Saturday morning to watch cartoons on 3 networks for a five to six hour block when today they've got 24hr Nick, Disney and Cartoon Network. This is certainly a case where LESS IS MORE in our favor. 3 channels and so much diversity. 24hr channels is just overkill.