Sat Morning Cartoon Ads!

The ads we saw in comic books, newspapers, and TV guides etc

Hello fellow Retrojunkies!

I've covered Toys R Us old vs. new, I've dug deep and produced 80's Christmas Wish Book Ads with the prices.
So what else could I possibly come up with that might be cool?

How's about 1980's Saturday Morning Cartoon Ads from Comic Books, Friday/Saturday/Sunday Newspapers, TV Guides, etc etc!?

Circa 1967 I think. This is an OLD school ad from the comic books showcasing the early Saturday Morning goodness!

I was a big Comic Book Collector in the 80's. And one thing I do fondly remember about them was on either the back cover OR Center Spread of the comic book were great ads showcasing the Saturday Morning Cartoon lineups. The newspapers here in NY also did this on the weekend editions of the paper.

This was another source to find out the new cartoons, when they were on, and what channel was gonna show them, and I think it is safe to say that most kids in my neighborhood tuned in once we got this new news. I know I did.

We had a pretty robust cartoon selection growing up. Everything from Bugs Bunny to Spiderman and His Amazing Friends. You name it, we pretty much had a cartoon of it.

Well folks it's time to take another stroll down memory lane with me to take a peek at some OLD classic printed ads showcasing Saturday Morning Cartoons.

1983 ABC full 2 page comic book spread. Showcase the cartoons, give the kiddies a trace by number activity and BOOM kids were hooked into tuning in. ABC 83 lineup however didn't have much I liked except the Littles really.

NBC the top dog of the big 3. NBC had MANY cartoons I loved and in 1980 I was hooked on NBC. Godzilla and Batman and the Super 7 I was addicted to lol. Anyone else remember when 2 cartoons you LOVED were on at the same time and we had to flip between the 2 because we couldn't just watch one? Oh god that was such a travesty back then, seems so trivial now a days.

Wonder Twin Powers ACTIVATE! 1981 was a good cartoon year for ABC. I had the Super Friends and I had Thundaar the Barbarian amongst others. Two great cartoons. The super hero action stuff ALWAYS got me revved up to go out and play after wards. My parents however had their hands full because I would bounce off the walls when certain cartoons were on lol.

Atari and ABC took full advantage of Saturday Mornings in the earl 1980's as shown here in a 1982 ABC Halloween Special Ad. I swear they milked EVERY holiday with specials and ya know what... IT WAS AWESOME!

82' was kind of a transition year to me. There were still a lot of 70's cartoons on and the newer trends were just starting to appear, like Pac Man for instance. This to me is the year we see the "modern" cartoon start to take shape.

1983 marks the "new age" of Saturday Mornings to me. Lots of Video game cartoons, more TV shows being made into cartoons like the Dukes of Hazzard and the arrival of one of my favorite Saturday Morning Classics... DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS!

I had no choice, I bought the complete 27 episode DVD box set when it came out. Such awesomeness I would NOT be refused lol.

1984 saw the rise of Saturday Mornings to I think it's beginning of it's absolute peak. I found more 84' ads then any other year, in fact I don't think I found an ad later then 84.

CBS was kicking it into full throttle at this time as was NBC with the highly successful Smurfs cartoon. 84 also culminates a massive surge in McDonald's commercials and the wide use of the best Mickie D's tag line/jingle ever...
"It's a good time, foe the great taste, of McDonald's!"

And another thing CBS capitalized on was the Video Game Market... Enter Saturday Supercade! We got Donkey Kong, Q-Bert, Space Ace, Dragon's Liar, Pole Position, and finally the graphics were good! lol. That to me was the best part about Video Game Cartoons... they didn't look like crap lol.

Hello SMURFS! About time I get to show a Smurfs ad lol. As stated earlier NBC was the top dog of the Big 3. And NBC marketed some really cool cartoons like the Smurfs. Smurfs took off like wildfire, it was an instant hit and I think is what put NBC on the cartoon map.

Now you know that Saturday Mornings are HUGE when even Richard Pryor, one of the dirtiest comedians of his time has a cartoon! LOL could you imagine that cartoon IF Pryor could be himself!? It'd be an HBO special lol.

Good ol' CBS gave me the Muppet Babies and Hulk Hogan's Rock and Wrestling! I was a big Muppets fan from the late 70's watching the Muppet Show and I loved Wrestling. How possibly could these not score HUGE brownie points with me. Admittedly Rock and Wrestling was kinda lame, it was NOTHING like the real thing BUT entertaining none the less.

There are SOOOOOO MANY Cartoons, how the hell do I showcase them all!? I remember Shazaam, I loved it, and I remember Fat Albert, well the Brown Hornet to be specific lol. Some obscure cartoons back then, but some were good. I believe this was a LATE 70's ad, possibly very early 80's.

Popeye, Fat Albert, DRAK PACK, Tom N Jerry, and good ol' Bugs and Road runner. CLASSIC Saturday Mornings! CBS had a decent handle on classics. I loved Drak Pack, I was always a comic book, Sci-Fi- Horror movie kinda kid what can I say lol. Halloween was and still is one of favorite holidays.

I think I found BLACKSTAR! I like this ad also because it shows the that cartoons ran past 12 noon. Fat Albert here was moved to 1pm. Kids viewing was a priority back then. We had Saturdays LOCKED UP!

Saturday Morning Cartoons lived on the marketing of those cartoons and their respective toy lines, comic books, and so on. I don't think there was a company out there not cashing in on it. All the more awesome for us!

As I sit here writing this I am watching Batman Under the Red Hood. Batman, Nightwing aka Dick Greyson the original Robin, the Joker... ALL originally introduced to me in the Super Friends Saturday Morning Cartoon. My love for Comic Books and Animated Movies I owe to Saturday Morning Cartoons. All these years later as an adult I find myself enjoying elements of life that were born in the 80's and evolved from my Saturday Morning Cartoons and those experiences in the 80's.

We all owe it to ourselves to take a minute out of the craziness that is adult life to reflect on our childhood. HOPEFULLY we have hit another one out of the park with this article. As always my RetroJunkie buds.. Kick back, grab some Oreos and milk, read on and have a ball.

TOYS R US KIDS FOREVER BABY!

From Bizarro's World this is JPDRAVEN signing off till next time!

Comments

PukeGreenShagCarpet:

Here in NY there are NO Saturday Morning Cartoons anymore. The big networks abandoned the ides once Digital Cable TV, and satellite took off spawning the Cartoon Network, Boom, Hub, and a host of other cartoon channels that are 24-7 toons.

The whole market changed. More so however is the ideology that marketing to children isn't profitable. NOW correct me if I am wrong BUT Saturday Morning Cartoons was driven by advertising, of which made Saturday Mornings THE SPOT of SPOTS for ANYTHING kid related, and it ranged from toys, to cereals, to fast food joints, to movies and department stores flooding the commercials to promote their product.

Where did we hear about the newest toys, cereal, McDonald's happy meal, holiday cartoon to air during the week, etc etc. The kid world LIVED in and around Saturday Mornings.

Today they just don't pay attention to the kids. It's sad. And gross over exposure to cartoons and video games has made kids almost numb to certain things, it's there for the taking 24-7. We however had to WAIT for our beloved Saturday Mornings.

The death of Saturday Mornings killed a childhood CULTURE unique to America. It murdered a tradition and a routine. I don't think the networks realized that. Hindsight is always 20-20. What we need is a completely RETRO Cartoon Channel playing Saturday Morning and other beloved after school cartoons ONLY. I would try to create this BUT there is one problem... licensing. You'll NEVER get all of the cartoons you need under one roof. It is almost physically impossible to do it.

You know, I was watching Sat morning "cartoons" yesterday 4/16(I live in SoCal) and I really feel bad for kids today.
The line-up was just horrible.
All cheap computer graphics, nothing memorable at all.
Then I noticed during a commercial break...you'd think they were marketing toward the 34-55 demographic. Health insurance commercials and the like.
Awful awful awful!
Where's the toy commercials? The sugar cereal commercials?
I just don't get it.

I am always willing to link to great articles, so others can get their retro kicks and trip down memory lane.

You know I found a 1987 fall preview show for cartoons from NBC online intact just after I mentioned it here. Thta's retro gold.

Jem coming back to dvd this year, Rocko's Modern Life, and more, now today's kids can watch some real cartoons!

Follow me @Cartoons1980s at twitter.

*sigh* I had a wildfire lunch box

I remember that book when I bought it at McDonalds back in 1983 with all the ABC Saturday Morning Cartoon Characters on the McDonaldland Funtimes Magzaine!

BandontheRun:

Kids today are OVER EXPOSED to cartoons, video games and now o boot the computer and their cell phones.

It's really sad. They don't go out and "play" anymore, they might do sleepovers but it isn't the same.

In my opinion as I have stated before, Kids today grow up TOO FAST, they aren't given he time to be a kid, and to enjoy that "innocence and wonderment" as long as they should be able to. BUT at the same time kids today are being taught to be lazy, they're being taught that they are untouchable, COME ON, kids calling the cops on their parents for being punished!? WHAT THE HELL!?

It's really really sad. I feel so lucky to have been a kid in the 80's. We were the last generation that were able to simply be kids. That's a priceless part of our generation and our own history so to speak. Treasure the memories, that's all I can say dude.

I'm 38 so the early 80's was prime for video games and Saturday morning cartoons. This article helped bring back some memories..
2 cartoons I remember trying to wake up early for was Dungeons & Dragons and Gummi Bears. I've recently bought both box sets on DVD.
There was also very much a feeling of "looking for something to do" if you were still watching cartoons by 11pm-1pm.
The cartoons really died off after 1pm and if it was a nice day, you'd really be looking to see what everyone else was doing that day.. ideally resulting in a sleepover at a friends house or something.
Sadly, with my kids now 7 and 5, Saturday morning doesn't seem to have the same anticipation.. we've got Tivo, Boomerang, DVDs etc.. kids today are accustomed to watching what they want when they want..

The Shooter:

Thanks for the support dude!

SuperDave80s:

MY BUDDY SUPERDAVE! Hey thanks for the Twitter Link dude, VERY COOL! I truly do appreciate that!

I REMEMBER those previews. It was another way to suck us in and it ALWAYS got us..... LOVE THEM! We had it so damn good I tell ya man, kids no a days just DO NOT KNOW what they're missing.

New articles will be coming but not for a week or 2, I'm sitting in JFK Airport in NY right now on my way to Las Vegas for a Bachelor Party. So after the insanity has subsided and I make it back to NY I'll be writing again, and posting some cool retro stuff for you all to enjoy.

Hoping I find some cool retro stuff out in Vegas to take pictures of and post, maybe devise an article out of it, who knows we'll see!

Until next time this is JPDRAVEN signing off from Bizarro's World!

REALLY cool article!!

I too had searched online for these Ads, I just thought I could find them quickly instead of taking out my old comic collection which is quite buried right now.

I found some but not a great resolution like yours here. do you also remember when the networks would do a preview show for Saturday Morning toons? 30 mins of goodness to kids. I bet they only exist now on a aging VHS tape maybe to be gone for the ages. Good luck with your next article. I linked your article to my twitter account so you'll get more reads.

Anyone interested Follow me @Cartoons1980s on Twitter!

jerbojones:

Im very pleased this touched you dude, seems you got the same feelings I did, and that's awesome. Helps we're the same age too cause we experienced this all together so to speak lol.

More articles are coming, just can't write them now, I'm packing for Las Vegas!

You should do one on The Saturday Morning preview specials that would come on Friday nights before the new season started.

Man this is one of the best articles i've read on retrojunk! I collected comics growing up too. I remember seeing some of the older ads in some of my back issues. I'm 35 so I remember this stuff. late 70's and 80's Saturday Morning Cartoons were the best and the best part of the week! You took me back on this one. Keep up these good articles because you hit one of my favorite memories of my childhood brother. Excellent I really enjoyed it.

SuperDave80s:

Found them mainly online Dave after TONS AND TONS of searching lol.
I know, these ads were a major way I used to find out about new cartoons aside from commercials.

For my Next Article I am gonna showcase 80's sitcoms and TV shows WITH THE TV GUIDE WRITE UPS and PAGES FROM TV GUIDE FOR THE SHOWS!!

Should be a great blast down memory lane..... we shall see

This is a great article! A big thumbs up for me, I really like these kinds of ads, they sure bring back the memories. I've seen some of these Saturday toon ads in frames for sale for quite a penny. Did you find these images online or from your personal collection. Thanks for sharing.

HopefulMonster:

Thanks a bunch Monster, I'm doin' my best to keep these entertaining lol.

zackieboy:

I remember all of those, Muppet babies, Smurfs, Rock N Wrestling I liked, HATED Pee Wee lol.

Very nice article...as usual! It was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Muppet Babies, Popeye, Tom and Jerry, Mighty Mouse, Smurf's, Saturday Supercade, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Hulk Hogan's Rock N Wrestling, and a bunch more for me! (Not in that particular/chronological order of course)

Woot, awesome stuff man. You are the retro-memory master.

gaijinninja:
TY for the kind comment. I am very happy you enjoyed the article. I LOVED my Saturday Mornings, hands down one of the fondest childhood memories I have.

Radi0:
It's cool because it takes us back. I've seen things in print from before I was born that have even taken me back, maybe because it reminded my of my grandparents OR of stories my Aunts and Uncles would tell when they came over almost every weekend night to play cards and have coffee with my folks, OR I saw something similar in a movie and dug it, etc etc.

Nostalgia in PRINT FORM to me is awesome because we can ALWAYS refer back to it so long as we have it. that's one thing the internet is AWESOME for. I have found more pictures, newspaper clippings, articles, VIDEOS, you name it on the internet that helps keep my memories vivid and alive, and that in itself is a gift because in a sense it keeps us young.

If you ask me..... that's priceless.

Truly an article after my own heart. T.U. #21.

I can't put my finger on it, but there's something undeniably cool about old advertisements. I downloaded a bunch of old video game magazines from the early to mid 90's, and smiled a lot at the cheesiness of the ads.

Well HUB plays Smurfs, Snorks, GI-Joe, and Transformers... that I know.

Cartoon Network SHOULD have acquired Saturday morning Cartoons to play and would have done VERY WELL, along with He-Man, Thundercats, GI-Joe, and Transformers from after school.

There is a LARGE part of me that wants to start a TV Network devoted to the cartoons from the 60's to 1989 primarily, make some time slots up that are representative to OUR TIME and run them.

Saturday Morning Cartoon slots COULD run again, BUT would have to MIX the big 3 lineups, So ABC, CBS, and NBC cartoons would be mixed together from 8am to 12pm just like the old days. NOW, given that there is a HUGE amount of cartoons if we do some math I figure we have 20 YEARS of Saturday Programming right there EASY.

If we ideally did the math and took the BIG 3 lineups as they are we have roughly 30 years of programming for a Saturday Morning slot IF we only have ONE channel to use.

That takes care of 1 four hour slot on Saturday Mornings. BUT here's the catch..... what do you do with the other 20 hours of the day, as well as 6 more days of 24 hour programming?

My idea is this.... The station starts to broadcast at 7 or 8am.
Programming ends at 12 midnight.... PERIOD. NO kids are up that late AND truthfully the night hours can be sold for infomercials and such to kick up revenue for the station.

During the week we could follow a similar before and after school type programming lineup.

Take EVERY 1960's through 1980's cartoon and we are talking about a TON of cartoons consisting of virtually tens of thousands of hours of playing time. Add in MODERN commercials and I think it is a viable venture.

The problem however is licensing and acquiring the cartoons to be able to play them, and as we know SOME of these cartoons are already contracted out to other networks. That's the major hurdle and I don't know if it is conquerable.

I'd LOVE to do it, but I just don't think it is feasible because of the logistics and the licensing involved.

Any lawyers out there? Anyone with this type of experience out there? Hey, maybe WE need to get behind me on this and make it a reality? Anything is possible.

P.S. I did copyright this idea lol SO NO STEALING IT lol.

"I wonder why Cartoon Network doesn't pick some of these up and play them on Saturdays. I am getting tired of seeing live action/non-animated shows on Cartoon Network lately. Then I get even more pissed at seeing these types of shows on Adult Swim....It would be Nice to see Adult Swim play Liquid Television, Beavis and Butt-Head, or Get Along Gang (j/k)."

I've wondered why myself. I suspect that Boomerang/Cartoon wont show anything that isn't Hanna Barbara is due to copyright issues.

@jpdraven: Nicely done. It is a sad fact Saturday morning cartoons are long gone, however it is a great thing we can find them easily on iTunes (some at least like He-man and Looney Tunes) and watch them anytime we wish.

@Skeletor: hahahahahahaha!

Even though I was a late 80s baby, I love how you found these great paper adverts for Saturday morning cartoons

I have some very vague memories of Pryor's Place, I mostly just remember the theme song. It was a Croft Bros. production was it not? I'm a big fan of "The Toy." Richard Pryor was quite a versatile actor. He could smut it up with the best of them, but he actually did quite a few family friendly films too.

I love these comic book ads thats back when they really payed attention to kids, the Ronald Mcdonald comment man thats sad to hear I guess there isn't as much fun stuff to be A kid as back in the 70's 80's or 90's. Some of these cartoons are just slightly before my time but it was great to see and hear about them.

Caps 2.0:
Thanks Caps, I appreciate the compliment AND I'm happy you are digging the subject matter in my articles :-)

Skeletor:
LOL. It was so G Rated that I never really thought it was him, BUT if you ever saw the movie the Toy, you know he does clean up well.

Born In The 80s:
Thanks man. I'm trying to keep it entertaining AND close to all of our hearts :-)

another good one!

Richard Pryor had a Saturday morning kids show?!?!?!?! Who thought that was a good idea? "Today's show is brought to you by the letter "N" and the number "3rd degree burns", mutha fuckas!

Your articles have consistently been a great example of the impact retro culture has had on all of us. I unfortunately spent the bulk of my youth in the 90s, and as such, I missed out on a lot of these programs. Truthfully, I stopped watching Saturday morning programming around the time that "The Weird Al Show" bombed. Of course, that show was a spectacular misuse of Yankovic's talents.

I look forward to future material from you.

REVROCK:

1st off CONGRATS on the baby! Very cool that you'll be able to sahre your 80's memories with your child and HOPEFULLY some of our upbringing rubs off on them!

2ndly, Happy Big 40! I turn the big 36 this year so believe me I hear you brother!

Lastly.......
You DO NOT sound mushy, in fact if you read some of the posts from other Retrojunkies these past few articles I've written have really hit home to so many of us, and that's what it's all about! Sharing our memories with each other and instilling the emotions we felt in others is a great thing.

And sometimes it's little things like this that some of need to get through our day, because as we all can agree on life was A LOT easier back in the 80's. Our generation is the 1st generation to have it worse then our parents did, the world has changed, the focus of America has changed, and we, the blue collar Americans are being forgotten in favor of the people of other countries.

So for me personally, every single response I read to my articles I try to respond back to. You guys help keep the good ol' 80's alive! And for that I am eternally grateful that you guys come on here and share with me your memories and your stories based on an article I wrote.

It's a great thing, to have an outlet and place to meet up and ban together!

jpdraven- I hate to sound all mushy but thank you for your articles.. I will be turning the big 40 this year and my wife and I will be having our first baby too. This makes me especially sentimental and your articles are such a super cool way for me to connect with my past. Once again, thank you!

RobbRod:

I hear ya man, kids now a days are fixtures in front of the computer, the xbox, or stuck on their smartphones, meanwhile I'm writing this from the barber shop as I wait for my haircut.

Michelle Obama wants to fight childhood obesity then mh advice, get them to go outside and PLAY DAMMIT! Go ride a bike with friends, talk about excersice!? There you go. Anyhoo I'm up, my turn in the chair for haircut!

Via Con Dios till' later my fellow Retrojunkies!!

I have left a comment before. I must say I love every one of your articles. Something you said in this one hit me, after my saturday mornig cartoons I also ran outside to play ad kids just don't do that anymore. Our generation was a lot different I guess.

Once again another great article!!! I forgot about a quarter of the cartoons listed and probably never even heard of a few of them.
GREAT MEMORIES!! Thanks. You are on a roll!!! Keep em' coming.

Thanks for all the great comments so far, I appreciate it dude.

Those ads for the CBS morning line-up in '86/'87 were the purest representation of my Saturday mornings growing up. Especially Teen Wolf, I loved that show "Oh no, not again..." transformation sequences endeared me to any form of programming. I honestly cant remember what I watched between '89-91', but in 1992 when Fox started up their Sat AM line up with Batman:TAS, X-Men and Spider-Man I was in heaven.

Always loved Saturday mornings growing up. Now I try to get all of the DVD releases of the classic cartoons I loved to watch. Also, I check out other sites that make full episodes of some of the cartoons available to view.

Awesome piece of memory jolting,my good fellow. I rate it two Winklevii out of two Winklevoss.

great add along with some great cartoons. great job again

SuperK1979:

Because catering to kids and a "special" day doesn't make money and get ratings anymore.

Just today McDonald's officially announced that Ronald McDonald is going to be phased out of the Mcdonald's universe to make way for selling Mochacinos and Latte's instead of Happy Meals.

We can blame Obama's wife for the obesity war on kids. I have no problem with making food healthier, that's common sense, BUT to axe a face of a company that has ALWAYS been widely successful? That's just ridiculous.

Kids don't get the attention we did. They don;t see the money in it... sad but true

I wonder why Cartoon Network doesn't pick some of these up and play them on Saturdays. I am getting tired of seeing live action/non-animated shows on Cartoon Network lately. Then I get even more pissed at seeing these types of shows on Adult Swim....It would be Nice to see Adult Swim play Liquid Television, Beavis and Butt-Head, or Get Along Gang (j/k).

palmer10:

We had wuite a few cartoons revolving around tv shows

Gilligan's Island, Dukes of Hazzard, Ed Grimley, Happy Days, The Fonz, Mork N Mindy, Laverne and Shirley, Muppet Babies originates from the Muppet Show of the 70's, and Punky Brewster, there were just sooooo many.

chokeslam:

LOL I hear you man. I've had time to sit down and really think about some articles I thought would be cool, and once I got started doing research I found so much good stuff that made for other articles and it was like a Domino effect, I just kept going lol.

The cartoons of our time were classic, they were original, and they were entertaining. The stuff of today to me is more regurgitated mass produced throw it in the kids face garbage. I haven't seen anything outside of the marvel cartoons and Batman cartoons that has anything really original in it, either in characters or concepts.

Spongebob to me is a biet off of a cross between Snorks and Looney Tunes. Some of the other stuff I can't believe they are even putting out.

Star Wars the Clone Wars however I dig.... a lot, BUT Star Wars really is nothing more then a continuation of OUR beloved Star Wars. And Star Wars is an institution, it's taken on a life of it's own which is very cool.

Dora the Explorer.... can you say Captain Planet lol.

Freaking Barney!? Cross between Grimace from McDonald's and Sesame Street, OR Captain Kangaroo / Howdy Doody. What's original there?

The Teletubbies are just creepy, and the WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE WIGGLES!? Since when is dressing GROWN MEN that renind me of pedophiles a healthy CHILDREN'S SHOW!? WHAT WHAT WHAT!? THE FREAKING WIGGLES!?

My Nehews are BANNED from watching Wiggles and Teletubbies THANK GOD.

Transformers, GI-Joe and the newer He-Man that was around for a brief minute.... sorry, they belong to the 80's lol.

So Im sure people will disagree with me BUT I still feel all this new crapola is just wanna be 80's bite offs.

Another awesome job! You included quite a few of the truly underrated cartoons of the the mid 80's. I had totally forgotten about Trollkins...I watched the intro and man I can't believe I liked that cartoon. Also Mork & Mindy and Laverne & Shirley with the Fonz cartoons, God that sounds awful! I'm glad I missed seeing those two as a kid.

Man JP, you've been an article writing machine here lately. You get a thumbs up just for posting a picture of Frank Frankenston! I don't know why but I always found him absolutely hilarious. Definitely my favorite segment on the Flintstone's comedy hour.

You know, I think the one thing they never did on "Hulk Hogan's Rockin' Wrestling" was wrestle. The animators also took serious liberties with Hulk Hogan's hairline LOL. Still it was a great show.

So many great memories, Dungeon's & Drangons, Muppet Babbies, Galaxy High, Saturday Supercade, the Smurfs, Hong Kong Phooey. The kids of today just don't know what they're missing. Spong who what pants?