By Rob Bricken in
Cartoons, Daily Lists
Tuesday, Jun. 30 2009 @ 7:57AM
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The era of the Saturday Morning cartoon is over. Sure, a few cartoons air on Saturday mornings, but these are few and far between -- it hardly compare to the '70s and and '80-s, when all three major networks had 'toons on from 6am until football or wrestling. Hell, there were so many animated shows that networks were always desperate for new series, and were willing to air anything -- anything -- just as long as it filled 22 minutes of airtime. It didn't matter how stupid the concept sounded, hell, it didn't matter if kids even liked it as long as they watched it... which is how so many incredibly stupid cartoons made it on TV, only to thankfully disappear one season later. Here are eight of the worst.
8) I Am the Greatest: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali
The life of a great athlete apparently does not make for interesting Saturday Morning cartoon fare in 1977. So, you know, to spice up what must be a terribly boring life, this cartoon decided to feature Muhammad Ali going around the world fighting evil. I mean, apparently Muhammad Ali has to fight criminals because the fascinating story of Muhammad Ali alone isn't interesting enough? In fact, that premise is apparently so uninteresting that they have him fighting space aliens in the above clip only to have it be a movie that Muhammad Ali is in who is not the real Muhammad Ali at all and...my head hurts.
7) Turbo Teen
Okay, well, the silliness of this 1984 show has been brought up many times before, and will be again because it's a show about a teen who turns into a car when he is exposed to heat, and turns back into a teen when exposed to cold. I mean, how could anyone seriously sit in some network meeting and pitch this idea with a straight face? "Hey, it's like a Transformer, but he doesn't jus transform, he needs to get really hot or cold first! Where are you people going? LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE OR I'LL KILL YOUR CHILDREN! Ah good, you're back. Now. Let us get this thing animated!"
6) Lazer Tag Academy
Before there was online gaming, way back in 1986, children actually had to go outside with guns with infra-red beams and sensors to play a game of "deathmatch." Though sometimes that would become literal when a cop would accidentally shoot one of the kids. Turns out that neither of those things made for a good Saturday Morning cartoon -- nor would turning the Lazer Tag gun into a magic wand that would manipulate matter and the star sensor into a time machine. Or having Jamie Jaren, a girl from the future, chase a stereotypical bad guy and his creepy associates through time. Oh, also, there's this paradox in which Jamie meets her ancestors and has to protect them so one of them can invent the Starlyte and make the future awesome... or something.
5) Rick Moranis in Gravedale High
Rick Moranis rose to the pinnacle of stardom in the 1980s, unable to walk into a Denny's without being crushed by a crowd of fans. So, of course, when the big chance to voice a Saturday Morning cartoon came along in 1990, he jumped at the chance! With a stellar concept of being the only human teacher in a school full of teenage movie monsters, nothing could go wrong! Tim Curry even lent his voice to the show as a role model for children everywhere! Unfortunately something called "reality" came calling and ruined the 20-year run of this solid gold television concept of dung.
4) The Partridge Family 2200 A.D.
There was one big problem with The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. in that Hanna Barbera had already made The Jetsons. In case you can't clearly tell from the design of, er, everything in the above video, 1974's The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. is clearly The Jetsons but with the Partridge Family slapped in there. Since The Jetsons were already a pale copy of The Flintstones, this made The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. a copy of a copy, and one with Danny Bonaduce in it. Bleagh.
3) Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space
Apparently the all-girl cartoon rock band wasn't zany enough, so Josie and her Pussycats were shot into space in 1972. First off, what government spends billions of dollars on a spaceship and then says "Let's not have this crewed by skilled astronauts or anything, let's just have this girl band do it!" Of course, the mission immediately gets screwed up because this idea is retarded, but instead of what you would expect to happen in a space disaster -- in which everyone is burnt to a cinder or suffocates in the vacuum -- the Pussycats instead go off and have wacky adventures. And play music.
2) Rubik, the Amazing Cube
Let us say that there's a hit movie about a friendly alien and some kids. Now, let us say that there's a hit three-dimensional puzzle on toy shelves around the same time. Why not just mash those two utterly separate concepts together and hope for the best? Well, mostly because it would make a really, really shitty cartoon, as Rubik, the Amazing Cube so ably proved in 1983. Oddly, the kids in the cartoon are all Latino --not that there's anything wrong with that, and it's certainly good to have some representation of Latino kids on television. It just seems kind of random, especially for a cartoon from the early '80s. It's like the producers spun a wheel of ethnic groups and it landed on Latino.
1) Gilligan's Planet
Do you know how Gilligan and his pals actually escaped their island? They built a goddamn spaceship. Now, you might be wondering how they built a spaceship with materials found on a deserted island. We think a better question is why they decided to make a spaceship instead of a plane or boat or anything else that would keep them in Earth's gravitational pull. Regardless, the Professor's coconut-based warp drive took them to a strange planet without the necessary palm frond that would allow them to make a second spaceship. Most of the cast of the original show did the voices of their characters in this 1982 cartoon, and hopefully felt really, really ashamed about it.
Tags: Saturday Morning, Stupidity
68 comments
Comments
MattK said:
So yeah, pretty much the biggest problem with Saturday Morning cartoons was that the creators would latch onto a real-world concept, be it toys, a celebrity, or a live-action tv show, and then try to put it in animation form (the sole exception on this list being Turbo Teen, which shows that it took an especially moronic concept to be born out of thin air). I'm also surprised that some of these lasted for only one season...not for quality issues, because they sucked hard, but also because I could have sworn I watched them for at least two years. Ah, the power of syndication...
And yet, I'd take ANY of these over the shit that kids are forced to watch today. Occassionally Kids WB (or whatever the hell it's called) will have something entertaining (though the biggest crime ever was sending Spectacular Spider-Man over to the new-and-therefore-not-widely-available Disney XD), but most of the other networks have total shit. It's either educational/informative or religious, and quite honestly, there are 6 other days of the week for all that crap. What happened to the one single morning that kids could sit down and watch entertainment? Oh, and the conceit that parents had about them being nothing but 30 minute commercials...it's called CAPITALISM, jackasses! Think about that the next time you watch your HGTV or TLC and you find yourself purchasing Kate Gossling's now-humorous memoir about how great her marriage is!
No wonder I sleep in on Saturdays now.
Jeremy said:
Thamks for the Turbo Teen. I could never remember the name of that vile show, but the nightmares still haunt me to this day.
Morgenstern said:
Wow I don't know a single one from these shows.
Alan said:
Thank God that at age 49 I was too old to watch this crap on Saturday mornings.
I can honestly say that I never saw any of these (and I am not watching your generous YouTube clips
I love the classics though. Bullwinkle Forever!
Freakazoid rocks!
Halfazedninja said:
Holy Crap, I remember Gravedale High! And Turbo Teen was awesome, for about 10 seconds.
GUMBERCULES! said:
I watched almost all of these cartoons at one time or another during my childhood, except I Am The Greatest and Partridge 2200 AD. Even a five-year-old has standards. The other morning I turned on my local Fox channel at 8 AM on a Saturday, and what's on? FAMILY GUY!?!?!?!? Worse than that, it's the one where Peter and Lois are in bondage gear. Now, I'm 30 and have no kids, but that still just makes me sad, and a little bit embarassed
To me, Saturday morning cartoons were about imagination. We'd watch them, then play them outside with the neighborhood kids that afternoon. We didn't keep track of the plots or characters. They were just silly and fun. What the hell do kids even watch these days? What do they play with? No wonder they're so weird.
Oh, and KTOV Fox, please put some kid's shows on Saturday morning. I'm pretty sure you can get the Superfriends and Spiderman and his Amazing Friends pretty cheap.
(Why am I leaving a message to my local Fox channel on Topless Robot?)
ranchoth said:
I...probably shouldn't try and read too much into Jamie from Lazer Tag Academy going back to fight alongside her ancestors. Her "ancestors" including a boy and a girl about her (relative) age...*and* a slightly younger boy.
Soundtrack wise, this is where you either play "Dueling Banjos" or "Who Wants to Live Forever," isn't it?
JetfirmusPrime said:
Not a single show from the 90's...
HA, I KNEW IT!!
The 90's WERE better...
Melody Kitn said:
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the possiblity that I've seen at least one episode of all these misfits (I know I saw Laser Tag and Turbo Teen...).
Though, I'm gonna agree with Matt up there, I can't stand most of the cartoons they show nowadays. I remember always being up bright an early to catch the Saturday morning line up. Now kids have the cramp twins and Totally Spies... *shiver*. I'll take our old mutated turtles and futuristic dinosaurs any day.
DE12 said:
I watched most of these, and I agree with most, but I actually liked Lazer Tag Academy. I always thought it was a fun show, and I never really dug to deep into it.
When Farts Have Lumps said:
I remember the days when Buggs Bunny was dressing up in black face singing about "Mammy" and Speedy Gonzalez taught me spanish. Wily E Coyote taught you about physics.
Tom and Jerry used to be well drawn and the classics of Voltron and G-Force were "high sci-fi" of the time.
The 90's was full of pop-flash-in-the-pan series too.
HammerTime
The Adventures of Urkle
BeetleJuice
the list goes on and on...
However, the best was always Muppet Babies.
MattK said:
@JetfirmusPrime
Not necessarily. They just didn't get canceled after one season (as we see, crap can be popular...especially if you give birth to 6 kids at once). And like mentioned above, Gravedale High was 1990/91.
Aeon said:
I can say with some joy that I never saw a single one of these shows. But I recognized at least half of them from the constant ads they ran in Marvel comics.
cartoonopia said:
nice list, you forgot to mention the pac-man cartoon.
TWWK said:
Never knew there was a laser tag show...I think I definitely would've tuned in. How could you not like laser tag? I miss my G.I. Joe laser gear...
scott hall said:
Wow there were a few on that list i didnt even know about, good choices all around.
There were literally hundreds of shows like this back in the 80's with a dismal 15% success rate at best.
This list could easily be ten times as long but you picked some gems for sure.
Geoff said:
Lazer Tag just seemed to be TOTALLY set up incorrectly. You've got a toy that's about engaging in gun-toting combat... and you make the lead character a girl using "Starlight" power and toss in her happy smiling relatives? Were they actively trying to make sure no boys watched their show?
(And every time someone wonders why TF, GI Joe, MASK, etc. all are still fondly remembered in spite of "bad" cartoons: THIS IS THE SHIT THEY WERE COMPETING AGAINST.)
Unicron said:
The only one I remember is Lazer Tag. I actually got the lazer tag set for christmas one year, but never did like the show thank God.
The dude that came up with that Rubik show has to be a genius of epic proportions though.
False Moustache said:
I may be wrong, but it seems like in the 90's most of the crap cartoons were relegated to weekday afternoons, so you could catch them after school. My personal favorites are the ones based on movies that most kids were for the most part too young to have seen like Swamp Thing, Toxic Avenger and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
kyolin said:
Hmmmm.... I remember most of these cartoons and the odd thing that I remember is that I was so young I didn't pay attention to the premise, just the colorful characters moving back and forth and how much I wanted a Lazer Tag gun....hmmmm...that's interesting....
Did Michael Bay make any of these cartoons!??!
Geoff said:
Also, one other thing proven by stuff like Rubik and Laser Tag (and I think Steven Moffat talked about this during his commentary for one of his Doctor Who episodes): kids don't really watch kids their own age, they want to watch people older and cooler than them. Which is why all the kid identification characters were hated, and shows without them generally did better. Look at that Rubik clip - who the hell would want to be, or hang around with, those semi-retarded kids?
And the pace of the dialogue in that is so freaking SLOW. "Gee... Rubik... I think... I have... a self-image... problem!" Even as a kid, you could tell stuff like that was written for the dumbest possible audience, and you ignored it as a result. Megatron and Cobra Commander sure as hell never talked like that.
Bill said:
Sunday mornings were better, as we had Transformers and the Inhumanoids on here. Yeah baby!
erok said:
Gravedale High even became Happy Meal toys. I had Frankentyke. If you pushed down his arms his tongue stuck out.
MattK said:
You only had Transformers on Sunday? That was a weekday show for us! And Inhumanoids was at 6:30 on Saturdays for us...possibly because the really young kids wouldn't be traumatized by Meltar, Tendril, and (most especially) D'Compose.
Sundays began to compete with Saturday when Nickelodeon started their Nicktoons brand and brought out Doug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy. That was tough on me, though, considering my Catholic upbringing. There were a lot of "ugh, I'm too sick for church" mornings. Saturdays were just more convenient and less of a guilt-trip from my mother.
JimmyZappa said:
I remember one magazine 10 years ago exactly did a list of the worst saturday morning cartoons and the Gary Coleman Show was listed as #1. They also had a bunch of other interesting ones such as The Super Globetrotters along with the first two listed on this one.
Can't remember the magazine it was on. It was a Toyfare/Wizard thing with Pokémon on the cover (I would know, it was during the peak of the phenomenon that prompted me to get it at the time) and had a bunch of other interesting trivia for animated shows.
Will said:
I could look this up to make sure, but I think the Rubik's Cube was voiced by the actor who played Horshack on "Welcome Back, Kotter." Ron Palillo?
Kadu said:
I... feel kinda ashamed right now... 'cause I liked "Turbo Teen" when I was a kid. ¬¬'
Hachiko said:
In retrospect, Sunday morning fare was better.
If you got up at 5 or 6, you could watch some of Hanna Barbera's older, weirder titles on USA's Cartoon Express.
Then you had Inhumanoids, Vehicle Voltron, Visionaries, Robotix (sometimes), Bigfoot and the Monster Machines. An episode or two of Transformers as well, although that was shown during the week as well.
There was some truly banal Saturday fare, including those listed. Some more that I don't know if they lasted more than a season:
Kissyfur
Foofur
Kidd Video
Shirt Tales
Gary Coleman's cartoon
that one with the teenage vampire, frankenstein and wolfman, wtf was it called???
JOE said:
How could you mention Gravedale High, but not Camp Candy with John Candy? Did that last longer?
Also, looking at this list makes it clear just why we idolized cartoons like G.I. Joe and Transformers. They looked like the Godfather comapred to this stuff.
Liter One said:
How the "Kid and Play" cartoon didn't make this list is beyond me.
Hachiko said:
Or the New Kids cartoon?
Peterjr1961 said:
The only two I remember watching from this list are Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space and the Partridge Family 2200 AD.
What surprises me is that Turbo Teen had the concept of a forced physical change using hot and cold water before Rumiko Takahashi did it with Ramna ½ ; 1984 for TT and 1986 for R ½
Michael said:
I wish I was still in college so I could write some sort of paper comparing the mythology behind Turbo Teen and Ranma 1/2. That was just the sort of thing that would have amused me greatly, yet still kept me from pursuing any sort of knowledge that might help me find a job in the future. That was kind of my specialty in school, you see.
Geoff said:
"The 90's WERE better..."
I think there's already a list of the worst TMNT ripoffs somewhere on TR. And that was just one overpopulated subgenre!
MattK said:
I think the only explanation is the part where it says "Insanely Stupid Concept." Camp Candy, while being bad, at least made sense in that John Candy was a camp counselor, possibly playing off the success of his role in The Great Outdoors. Rick Moranis, on the other hand, was a normal guy in a school full of ghouls (oh man, can't believe I just typed that), and teenage ghouls at that, all stereotypes of teenagers from that day...or the 50s in the case of the Dracula stereotype.
As for New Kids and Kid & Play: Again, bad, but the idea of them as teens with recording contracts wasn't INSANELY stupid. Now, had they been TIME TRAVELING teens with a sassy talking animal sidekick...
I'm thinking Hammerman got a pass because these 8 are insanely worse...though not by much.
MattK said:
Beetlejuice gets a pass because it lasted longer than one season. And despite the fact that it's based on an adult movie, I actually enjoyed it. Sure, they only have names and some stylistic similarities, but they were entertaining...moreso than the tripe above.
What I AM surprised about is that someone else didn't jump on that band wagon with The Losers: an animated show about a group of kids from Derry, Maine, who have wacky adventures with their morphing clown friend Pennywise and are constantly on the run from bully gang led by Henry Bowers! Hell, they have that "made for PC TV" goodness in that the kids fit all the stereotypes for these shows: The Leader, The Motormouth Sidekick, The Sickly One, The Girl (who has a crush on The Leader), The Fat One, and The Black One.
Diddy_Mao said:
What about Kidd Video and Teen Wolf the animated series? I can't imagine either of those lasted more than a season.
s.bishop1@insightbb.com said:
I remember back then when fall came up. The Networks would have a 30 min special at night, to hightlight all the cartoons comming in the fall. Man, I remember those days.
Meatball and Spaghetti Cartoon...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSgC3cr20e8
Doc said:
I remember the Lazer Tag cartoon show but I also remember the horror that was "PHOTON"..hey! let's make a live action tv show where we rip off Laser Tag and the Last Starfighter...
Chelsea said:
Robot Chicken did a very funny Turbo Teen skit a while back. The kid turns into a car and horrible things happen: People fuck and vomit and crap in it, then it gets stripped for parts. Amazing.
Hachiko said:
Hey, Photon was awesome, as was Captain Power.
Mr The Internet said:
Pshhh... shows what YOU know.... Turbo Teen was fricken AWESOME.
Nikademus said:
What, no "THING RING...Do your THING?"
*heh*
chad said:
love the list even though it brought back memories that i thankfully purged of seeing those cartoons including turbo teen. plus the list shows that network programers did not care what they put on as long as it filled air time. and one can only hope the cartoons on the list never show up on dvd due to rights issues and being so stupid and bad
Geoff said:
"Hey, Photon was awesome, as was Captain Power."
Expys of the Nazi Youth, Hitler, Eugenics, homicidal dictators, killing off the only female character right after she'd declared her love for the hero, nihilistic killer robots... Captain Power did NOT fuck around.
Plus, it's one of those 80s kids shows with a great writing staff: JMS, Larry (Beast Wars) DiTillo, Marv Wolfman, etc. And more Canadian Content than you can shake a stick at.
(Which reminds me: do a Canadian genre show focus tomorrow!)
Nick said:
Turbo teen was the bee knees
maachubo said:
@ Hachiko: Robotix!! I have been trying for 20 years to remember the name of that show. Every time I would try to describe it I would say 'the one with the robot dinosaur skeletons' and the response would be 'Oh, Dinosaucers'. NO NOT FREAKING DINOSAUCERS!! Although Dinosaucers was good. =p
Hachiko said:
@maachubo
Yeah, Dinosaucers was great too. Awesome theme song.
What was WPIX's lineup on Sunday? They had a corny, Power Pack type name for it.
It was mostly the shows I mentioned, and they would only show Robotix like one Sunday per month.
Not to go too off-topic, but regarding good sci-fi cartoons, don't forget Starcom. Cool toys, cool show! I actaully joined the fan club and carried around the Member Card as a kid.
Celshader said:
For what it's worth, one good thing about TURBO TEEN was its parody, TEEN BOAT:
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/johngreen/teenboat/series.php
Odkin said:
This list looks like Mark Evanier's resume.
Second, what about that horrible "Thing Ring do your thing!" show about the teenager who turned into Ben "Thing" Grimm with his magic ring? Where did THAT concept come from? On top of that, Thing had the voice of Jimmy Durante.
You can't get worse than that.
JOE said:
Robotix were cool toys too. They were perfectly in scale with G I Joe figures
Sly said:
You guys want to see a wacky concept check this out, the show was called "Fred and Barney meet the Thing"
Spielman said:
Man, I've been trying to forget Gilligan's Planet for 27 years now. Thanks a lot, Topless Robot!
Skemono said:
I'm watching the Rubik video, and I'm laughing so hard I'm in tears.
Weird, self-psychoanalyzing little girl: "I have a self-image problem."
TV: "An orphanage built next to a cliff is about to be crushed by a giant rock."
Rubik, The Amazing Cube: "Looks like other kids' lives suck worse than yours!"
Greg Easton said:
Apologies in advance if this has been said 30 times before me...
All of these shows were still better written and directed than Transformers 2.
Caesareus said:
hey man! Rubik was awesome!!! at least here in mexico were a huge success, i remember that cartoon whit love, so its the only im not agree of the list
ranchoth said:
@s.bishop1
Ach! Yeah, those Saturday Morning preview specials...god, I miss those. Prime time, with the casts of whatever was that season's hit shows hosting (on ABC, at least——did the other networks follow, too?).
All those moments, lost. Like...tears, in rain.
P.S. Anyone else remember "Mighty Max"? Jus' your run-of-the-mill, toy tie-in series...that killed people, onscreen, for serious drama. Even damned Justice League shied away from doing that, a lot of the time.
GAJoe said:
ProStars had Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Bo Jackson fighting crime and saving kids. It ran for a few months in 1991.
As to the question of why it might seem like some shows that only ran for a single season were on for longer, it's my understanding that some networks would only produce one season of a show, then run the same episodes over and over, either as replacements for cancelled shows or to fill in while other shows were on hiatus. They must have figured we were just dumb kids who wouldn't notice.
I liked Kissyfur, even if it was banal. You gotta at least admit it has catchy theme music. As a matter of fact, a lot of terrible 80s cartoons coasted through my life just because they had memorable theme songs.
Hachiko said:
Didn't Kissyfur have retarded alligators named Leroy and Jolene?
No comment on that.
charro ninja said:
So, that was the inspiratin for the Sueperman vs Ali one shot
Bunche said:
You forgot the two very worst of them all: SPORT BILLY and RICKETY ROCKET. The former was about an annoying kid sent from Mount Olympus to impart the values of good sportsmanship to mortal children, and the latter was about a bunch of stereotypical black characters in the future who flew through outer space in an equally stereotypical, negroid and sentient "beater car" of a spaceship that had googly eyes and a bumper that doubled as huge, blubbery lips. As a black person, I almost shat out a Cadillac when this show debuted in 1979 and not 1948.
matt said:
Ahh Lazer Tag..that brings back memories. I remember getting the gun when I was a kid. I've seen the gun used as a prop in several low budget direct to vhs films. I think Hulk Hogan had one in Suburban Commando.
Pete said:
I believe that you forgot about Bruno the Kid. Featuring a stunningly realistic 3D Bruce Willis.
Clarence said:
I remember when the Laser Tag cartoon came out. My best friend bought Laser Tag sheets. Even as a little kid, I knew it was profoundly stupid.
UPrinting said:
Gilligan's Planet?? Gilligan can't even leave the island but they can leave Earth? That is a crazy plot. :D
Enigma_2099 said:
You know what the sad thing is? Look at what they pass off as cartoons today... now tell me you wouldn't rather watch this crap instead...
jeff said:
Captian N was a good cartoon, and it was mainly a nintendo ad,
L.N. Smithee said:
Re Josie & The Pussycats in Outer Space: In retrospect, it seems like an SNL "Saturday TV Funhouse" spoof a la The Ambiguously Gay Duo!
Gilligan's Planet: Did Dawn Wells get paid double for doing the voices of Mary Ann AND Ginger?
