I will be the first to admit that I am a child of television. I was born in 1959 and that meant I grew up with television. When I was just shy of turning four, I spent a weekend watching the news and all that went with the assassination of our 35th President. I grew up watching the nightly news with Walter Cronkite which meant I grew up watching combat footage, unrest in America and the world, the deaths of Bobby and Martin and the travesty of Chicago in 1968. This was where I got my cartoons, my music, my fantasies, and my world views. It was my wake-up call every morning and my chill me out before bed every night.
I don’t quite remember when we got a color television, but I do know we had it by the time BATMAN premiered in January of 1966. Until then, my world was a vision in black and white. And we only had a certain number of channels to work with. It wasn’t until the year the Bruins became hot enough a local commodity in 1969 that we put a small black and white television in my bedroom. On game nights, the three of us would hunker down in my bed and watch a very snowy WSBK Channel 38, trying to figure out where the puck was and relying on the play by play of Don Earle and the color commentary of Johnny Peirson and Bill Cleary. A few years later, we added a small UHF loop to the tv in the living room and eventually a roof antenna with UHF capability. Until then, we had only a handful of stations to watch.
Channel 4 and 10 were the NBC affiliates, 5 and 6 were ABC and 7 and 12 were CBS. But 4, 5, and 7 were in Boston and, especially on bad weather days, the reception was no better than trying to watch UHF. So, there were some days you got to watch the Boston stations because of shows like Major Mudd, Captain Bob, Bozo the Clown, and the Boston Red Sox, who aired on Channel 5. The first three were kid’s TV show hosts who were part of my diet along with Rex Trailer, Mister Rodgers, Soupy Sales, the Gentle Giant, Miss Jean and Romper Room, Willie Whistle, Salty Brine and so many more. If you got lucky, you might even be able to pick up Channel 2, the PBS station out of Boston.
So, I was mostly limited to 7 channels at best until the Seventies when Channels 27, 36, 38, 44 and 56 got added to the mix. 36 and 44 were PBS affiliates out of Providence and Boston, respectively while 27 was in Worcester, and 38 and 56 were out of Boston. 38 had the Bruins and later the Red Sox and ULTRA MAN on Sundays while 56 had a whole bunch of locally produced and syndicated shows. It was also the Saturday destination spot for CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE, with four solid hours of monster flicks,
In 2015, we have more viewing choices than ever before. We didn’t have VCRs (remember them?) or DVD’s and only had a handful of channels. Today, even the basic cable subscription has more channel choices than I ever had growing up. The ways to get our entertainment now are seemingly endless. I can turn on my TV, pick a channel based on my need for content at the moment, call up my streaming device and bring up Hulu or Netflix or any number of pay channels. I can even go on my In Demand service and bring up most shows that I missed last night. 24 hour news channels and information services and sports channels and movie channels are the norm.
But in the Sixties and the Seventies, you had to find those things you loved and make note of when they were on and you made time for them as opposed to them making time for you. The TV GUIDE was your path to those shows, I recall thumbing through it, and circling certain shows so I knew WHEN they were on and made sure my homework was done. The network shows spoke for themselves. You grew to know that LOST IN SPACE came on at 7:30 on Wednesday nights or that GET SMART was at 8:30 on Saturday nights. And it was a rare occasion that you got to see an episode that you might have missed as most shows had 29 episode seasons and to repeat a full season was impossible as there are only 52 weeks in a year! So you caught them when they aired and, if there were two shows on at the same time, you PRAYED that you could catch the other “in reruns”.
Syndicated shows were some of my favorites growing up. They ran during the days on the affiliates and ran constantly on the UHF stations. These were the bread and butter of these stations so, in-between WWWF wrestling and early music video shows (no…MTV wasn’t the first, only the biggest), you had all manner of shows. Here are some of my favorite cartoons/animated shows-those that I watched over and over again. You need to understand that some of these only had 40 or 50 episodes so, after running five days a week, you went two and a half months and you were back to the beginning again, year in and year out). Thanks to the wonders of the Internet for allowing my fading memory to be refreshed. I have also included some shows that originally began as network shows and ended up in syndication, such as THE FLINTSTONES and THE JETSONS. I have also included some shows from the Eighties because, even as a post-college graduate, I loved my cartoons!
LOONEY TUNES/MERRIE MELODIES: it all depended on who had the licensee over the years but Bugs Bunny and company ran on TV all through my youth and even into the era of cable television. Saturday mornings and then weekday afternoons, these characters are an endearing part of my life and my culture. They truly are a part of my soul.
CRUSADER RABBIT: this superhero show ran on television before I was born, but it eventually ended up on one of the UHF stations. It may have even been on WSTG Channel 64 which, in its’ very early days, would broadcast for four hours every afternoon and run nothing but old shows, most notably being Roger Ramjet.
COLONEL BLEEP: another one of those lost shows that popped up from time to time. The beauty of shows like this one was they were only five minutes long and could be thrown in during baseball rain delays to fill time.
THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SHOW, THE QUICK DRAW MCGRAW SHOW, THE MAGILLA GORILLA SHOW, THE PETER POTAMUS SHOW, THE YOGI BEAR SHOW: I have included many of the short productions of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera here because they all had been run seemingly forever on UHF channels. And it wasn’t just the headliners. It was Pixie and Dixie, Hokey Wolf, Snagglepuss, Yakky Doodle, Breezly and Sneezly, Yippee, Yappee, and Yahooey
CLUTCH CARGO, SPACE ANGEL, and CAPTAIN FATHOM: These limited animation shows were produced by Cambria Productions and used the “Syncro-Vox technique”. The shows were 4-5 minutes long and ran either 5 days a week or once on Saturdays with one long half-hour show. The animation was crude, the stories were pure movie serial style fodder and the art direction often featured comic legends Doug Wildley and Alex Toth. This was just great, simple stuff that still holds a level of fun today, as my 7 year-old will agree for these
THE ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE SHOW: who cannot admit to NOT having seen this? Who cannot admit that some of the sneakiest, wittiest lines ever dropped into a cartoon ended up here or in the accompanying cartoons such as Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, Fractured Fairy Tales, Aesop & Son, and Peabody's Improbable History. This show consistently had some of the best writing ever in a cartoon, even if the kids didn’t get the jokes. It went on the air on the year I was born and original episodes ended when I was four. But it left a permanent mark on me and a generation after me.
COURAGEOUS CAT AND MINUTE MOUSE: another one of those five minute wonder cartoons. BATMAN’s own Bob Kane created this and it was obvious to us kids that this was a cat and mouse version of Batman and Robin. It must have been cool: even the New York Dolls had been known to play the theme during their shows!
POPEYE THE SAILOR: this was not the classic cartoons of World War II. These were created during the Sixties and were nowhere as cool as the originals. But these shows, complete with Bluto renamed BRUTUS and appearances by Sea Hag, became the path to seeing the original stuff. I recall the first time I ever saw Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor and had my little pre-teen mind blown!
MISTER MAGOO: It only ran for one season, but became a part of our culture. It wasn’t necessarily from this show, but from MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS CAROL that took the holiday classic and, in the early days of annual events programs, became a must view every Christmas season.
THE DICK TRACY SHOW: this was a show that had almost nothing to do with Dick Tracy other than borrow some of his villains like Flattop, Pruneface, B.B.Eyes, Mumbles, and The Brow, and stick the famous crimefighter in the opening and closing of each cartoon. This is another one of those five-minute cartoon wonders that could easily be called upon to fill in a hole due to an “technical difficulty” that was common back in the day. But it truly fails in today’s world of political correctness as you had some of the most racially stereotypical characters you could imagine in the form of Joe Jitsu, Hemlock Holmes, Heap O'Calorie, and "Go-Go" Gomez.
THE ALVIN SHOW: it may have only lasted one season, and yes-it was in PRIME TIME, and most people forget that there was a companion character in the form of Clyde Crashcup. But it lasted long enough to make it into syndication, spawn a musical career in the Sixties, another one in the late Seventies, a return to TV in the late Eighties and on the big screen in the latter half of the 2000’s. And of course, we will ALWAYS have the CHIPMUNK SONG.
DEPUTY DOG, HECKLE AND JECKLE, MIGHTY MOUSE, THE MIGHTY HEROES and THE HECTOR HEATHCOTE SHOW: Ah…where would we be without Terrytoons and these awesome shows, not to mention TOM TERRIFIC on CAPTAIN KANGAROO? Bumbling heroes, mischievous magpies, a less than Mensa smart sherriff and all the crazy characters that went with them. Not to mention, legendary animator Ralph Bakshi, than man responsible for FRITZ THE CAT, COONSKIN, HEAVY TRAFFIC and WIZARDS, got his start on DEPUTY DAWG. Silly, anthropomorphic humor at its’ best.
GIGANTOR, KIMBA THE WHITE LION, ASTRO BOY, MARINE BOY, and SPEED RACER: To have grown up in the Sixties and not to have been experienced to these four classics of Japanese animation, carved up, dubbed in English and brought stateside. We had science-fiction, a precursor to THE LION KING and…SPEED RACER. I mean, how cool was it? It was so cool that I never even thought these were imports. While SPEED RACER got the most mileage, being run seemingly forever on Boston’s Channel 56, they were all too cool and fostered great things in the imagination of a generation.
THE MIGHTY HERCULES: Leave it to Trans-Lux, the same folks who brought us SPEED RACER, to bring us the five minute adventures of Hercules. And they timed it perfectly, so it would be on during the height of what was the Sword and Sandal movie craze. It was so cool watching Hercules, his girlfriend Helena, Pegasus, Newton the centaur, and Tewt the satyr fighting against Daedalus, the Sea Witch, and Murtis. Simple animation, simple stories but a whole lot of fun. And a theme song by Johnny Nash…THE Johnny Nash?
HOPPITY HOOPER: So, here’s one most folks forget. From the demented minds of Jay Ward and Bill Scott, we have the story of Hoppity Hooper, Uncle Waldo P. Wigglesworth, and company who all live in Foggy Bog, Wisconsin. It had bits thrown in that were taken out from the BULLWINKLE show and put in here, along with the main story. Believe it or not, this Pogo meets Bullwinkle cartoon ran for two seasons and many years in reruns.
THE NEW THREE STOOGES: Now, here is the oddest of the odd. Take aging comedians doing short bumper skits, and not even the full classic trio(this is Moe, Larry and Curly Joe DeRita), add in limited animation cartoons and you had this really strange cartoon. The slapstick was toned down, the animation was rough and it wasn’t our Stooges. But this was about all we had until WSBK Channel 38 started running the classic Stooges shorts.
ROGER RAMJET: “Roger Ramjet he's our man, hero of our nation. For his adventure just be sure and stay tuned to this station.” Yeah…another one of those five-minute wonders my era grew up with. He was the most bumbling of superheroes and usually had to be saved from trouble by Yank, Doodle, Dan and Dee. And sure, it doesn’t hold up well now. But it sure was a lot of fun to watch while eating your cereal in the morning before school.
BEANY AND CECIL: My earliest memory, besides vaguely remembering seeing the show in its’ initial run, was having a bean bag toss game with the characters on it. Created by the legendary Bob Clampett, Beany was a young boy and Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent was his best pal. Along with them, you had Captain Horatio Huffenpuff and his ship the Leakin Lena, Dishonest John and a whole cast of crazy characters and a ton of political puns and satire. Picture this as POGO meets LIL ABNER for a younger audience.
MARVEL SUPER HEROES: This series, as cheap and cheezy as it is now considered, holds an extremely warm place in my heart. A product of Grantray-Lawrence Animation, comic fans got to watch Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, The Mighty Thor, and The Sub-Mariner come straight off the pages of their favorite comic adventures and into their living room in seven minute doses. Channel 7, Channel 38 and Channel 27 ran them here first and then, over the years, they came and went through syndication. Completely unavailable on DVD, thank goodness for the Internet and the worn down, taped copies that have been bootlegged for decades. Yes, they are pretty much comic panels carved up and in the most limited animation since the days of CLUTCH CARGO. But they were cool then and cool now. And if you don’t believe they had the BEST THEME SONGS EVER, see how IRON MAN’s theme ends up in the movie of the same name.
BATFINK: Another one of those five-minute cartoon specials. This time, it’s BATMAN meets THE GREEN HORNET as Batfink and his partner Karate fight all manner of crazy villains. Okay, so he had radar hearing and metal wings and used them as a shield. Truly corny and truly silly. But you have to understand: this was the Sixties and, alter BATMAN debuted in 1966, silly in a superhero was good!
DAVEY AND GOLIATH: What we didn’t know back then that this stop motion clay animation program about a boy, his talking dog, his family and friends was not only created by the same guy who created GUMBY, but was also produced by the Lutheran Church in America. So, it was a religious organization giving us a show about values and God and us kids didn’t tumble to it. Well…at least I didn’t.
FORCE FIVE, BATTLE OF THE PLANETS, STAR BLAZERS, VOLTRON, ROBOTECH and CAPTAIN HARLOCK. Ah yes: the Japanese import! Some of the best, although heavily sanitized Japanese Anime came in the form of these series. FORCE FIVE was made up of Gaiking, Danguard Ace, Starvengers, Grandizer, and Spaceketeers while BATTLE OF THE PLANETS was a heavily censored GATCHAMAN. My all-time favorite from this group was STAR BLAZERS, which was made up of carved up episodes from the first three series of SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO, while still maintaining the drama and angst. This stuff is the stuff of legends and helped bring America future shows like MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS and the DRAGONBALL craze.
GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE: And, speaking of silly, we have George of the Jungle who, before ending up as a really bad movie starring Brendan Fraser, had a catchy theme song to go with his Tarzan inspired antics. It was on ABC Saturday morning during the 1967 season and only lasted for a total of 17 episodes but it’s legacy has lasted for almost 50 years. “Watch out for that treeeee!”
1967 was a great year to be a kid and watching Saturday morning cartoons. And again, you had to pick and choose your favorites. Tanks to the wonders of the Internet, I have been able to reconstruct that year. At 9 AM, after watching CAPTAIN BOB on Channel 5, I would go over to CBS and watch FRANKENSTEIN JR. AND THE IMPOSSIBLES. Frankenstein Jr. was a robot and The Impossibles were three superheroes, Multi Man, Fluid Man, and Coil Man , posing as rock stars. At 9:30, as much as I wanted to watch THE HERCULOIDS, it was over to ABC for the FANTASTIC FOUR and then SPIDER-MAN. Another superhero dream. But the FF series, with designs by comic legend Alex Toth, only lasted for 20 episodes, so there was a lot of time for repeated viewings as ABC ran it for three seasons. SPIDER MAN, with work by the legendary Ralph Bakshi, is now viewed as a classic, especially because of its theme song that has been covered by everyone from Michael Buble to The Ramones. At 10:30, it was back to CBS for SPACE GHOST AND DINO BOY. Alex Toth again put his tremendous talents to the test and brought us a show that I spent many an afternoon re-enacting and creating new adventures for.
11:00 was one of those tough choices, as ABC had KING KONG, and CBS had MOBY DICK AND THE MIGHTY MIGHTOR. But NBC had BIRDMAN AND THE GALAXY TRIO and in the battle of the Hanna Barbera action adventures, this was the winner! 11:30 became another toss up as ABC had GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE and THE BEATLES while NBC had ATOM ANT/SECRET SQUIRREL and TOP CAT. But again, CBS had the winner with THE SUPERMAN/AQUAMAN HOUR OF ADVENTURE. 12:30 brought you AMERICAN BANDSTAND against Bob Kane’s COOL MCCOOL against JONNY QUEST and THE LONE RANGER.
Here’s the segue about JONNY QUEST. This is probably one of the greatest, coolest cartoon adventure shows of all time! It debuted on ABC in 1964 to critical fanfare and equally critical approval from kids like me. FINALLY, we had a hero who was, well-A KID! A single father, his son, his adopted son, the boys’ bodyguard and their dog. And you throw in all sorts of adventures, aliens, creepy villains and…Jade! As a four-year-old kid, she was the hottest thing we had ever seen in a cartoon. Legendary artist Doug Wildley created it and it got canned after one 26 episode season. But it lived on forever I syndication, comics and in the hearts of kids of my generation. Not to mention that it had one of the all-time coolest theme songs.
SUPERCAR, FIREBALL XL5, STINGRAY, CAPTAIN SCARLET and THUNDERBIRDS: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson invented the Supermarionation process and made a career out of high end puppets and cool looking models. The stories were great fun, although many of the character types showed up throughout all of these series. If it weren’t for these series, you wouldn’t have TEAM AMERICA show up and turn the genre on its’ ear.
But I can’t leave the Swinging Sixties and Soulful Seventies behind without at least making mention of the following:
Everyone in the Sixties wanted to be a music star or have music prominently featured.on their show. We had THE BANANA SPLITS ADVENTURE HOUR( which also had ARABIAN KNIGHTS, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, DANGER ISLAND, and MICRO VENTURES), H. R. PUFNSTUF(along with the other Sid and Marty Kroft shows like LIDSVILLE, SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS, and even LAND OF THE LOST), THE ARCHIE SHOW(which led to THE GROOVY GOOLIES, SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH and JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS), and CATTANOOGA CATS(which also featured AROUND THE WORLD IN 79 DAYS, ITS’ THE WOLF and MOTORMOUSE AND AUTOCAT).
THE FLINTSTONES, TOP CAT, YOGI BEAR, YAKKY DOODLE, THE JETSONS, LIPPY THE LION & HARDY HAR HAR, SNAGGLEPUSS, TOUCHE TURTLE AND DUM DUM, WALLY GATOR, PETER POTAMUS, BREEZELY AND SNEEZLY, YIPPEE, YAPPEE AND YAHOOEY, MAGILLA GORILLA, RICOCHET RABBIT, PUNKIN PUSS & MUSHMOUSE, and SNAGGLEPUSS: In the Sixties, Hanna Barbera was great at not only filling the airwaves with their characters, but a whole ton of their characters were anthropomorphic animals who appeared in five minute shorts. The exception being Top Cat, The Flintstone and The Jetsons. Sure, Top Cat was filled with anthropomorphics, but we all knew that the difference between The Flintstones and The Jetsons was the period where they lived.
Of course, Hanna Barbera wasn’t the only company producing animal cartoons. The Total Television Production company gave us TENNESSEE TUXEDO AND HIS TALES, KING LEONARDO AND HIS SHORT SUBJECTS, TOOTER TURTLE, UNDERDOG, GO GO GOPHERS, KLONDIKE KAT, and THE WORLD OF COMMANDER MCBRAGG. DePatie-Freleng brought us THE PINK PANTHER SHOW and THE ANT AND THE AARDVARK.
The DC Superhero cartoon boom that featured Batman, Superboy, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Justice League of America, Teen Titans, The Atom and The Flash. Of course, that led to the wondrous Seventies when we had the SUPER FRIENDS and all the various incarnations of that series such as CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS, THE ALL-NEW SUPER FRIENDS HOUR, THE LEGENDARY SUPER POWERS SHOW and GALACTIC GUARDIANS. And, of course, all of that eventually led to BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES and the JUSTICE LEAGUE series.
And of course, there were shows that would end up running in reruns on UHF stations for years. Shows like WACKY RACES, DASTARDLY AND MUTTLEY, THE PERILS OF PENELOPE PITSTOP, STAR TREK, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, G. I. JOE and so many more. They all paved the way, back when our viewing choices were truly limited.
So enjoy the shows and the choices. Just remember: life back in the day was simpler and maybe, because of that, cooler. Or maybe it's just my memory.
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