You all remember Saturday mornings, don't you? Waking up at the crack of dawn, pouring a large bowl of your favorite sugary cereal, and plunking down in front of the boob tube for 4-5 hours of animated bliss? To me, it was one of the best parts of childhood. I remember it was all I could think about to get me through each dreary week of school, knowing that come Saturday, I'd be in my glory. I have to say though, it saddens me that children today do not get to enjoy the same experience. Today, the Saturday morning ritual is non-existent. Instead, kids have access to stations devoted to cartoons 24/7. If they want to watch cartoons at 3 in the morning on a Wednesday, they can.

But it was different for us growing up. The only way we could see certain cartoons was ON Saturday mornings. These were shows that never aired any other day of the week. To me, that was special and made me look forward to the day all that much more. Kids today have the ability to watch "Kim Possible" or "Atomic Betty" 7 days a week if they so choose. They are basically being robbed of the Saturday morning experience.

So what's on the stations today that make Saturday mornings so special? Well, NBC now airs news and infomercials. CBS partnered with Nickelodeon and airs nothing but pre-school shows. Even Canadian networks such as CTV had dropped cartoons from their Saturday morning line-ups.

Then there's the quality of the shows we see today. The old saying rings true; "They don't make them like they used to". Maybe it's the nostalgic in me, but I think cartoons back in the day were much better than the drivel that's on today. I grew up watching shows such as "He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe", "Go-Bots", "Transformers", and "The Real Ghostbusters" to name a few. In the 80's, I was even introduced to much older shows such as "Rocket Robin Hood", "The Mighty Hercules" and "Milton The Monster". These my friends were the glory days of Saturday morning television.

So is the Saturday morning ritual dead and gone? Well as long as these 24/7 cartoon networks exist, that's pretty much a given. So all we can do is hold on to that special part of our childhood in our memories. Thanks for reading.