Category Archives: Saturday Morning Cartoons

Shows and Episodes for Saturday 26/8/23

life, the universe, and everything, Saturday Morning Cartoons, watch along

As promised in the previous post earlier in the day here are the episodes I plan to watch tomorrow morning for those that wish to do similar and then discuss in the comments below of this post.

Thundercats

  • S1E4 – The Slaves of Castle Plun-darr
  • S1E5 – Pumm-Ra
  • S1E6 – The Terror of Hammerhand

Batman the animated series

  • S1E4 – The Last Laugh
  • S1E5 – Pretty Poison
  • S1E6 – The Underdwellers

Dungeon & Dragons the cartoon

  • S1E5 – In Search of the Dungeon Master
  • S1E6 – Beauty and the Bogbeast
  • S1E7 – Prison Without Walls

Don’t worry if you don’t have the dvds like I do. I’m sure that there are streaming sites that you can find the episodes on or even YouTube!

Previously on a Saturday morning…

classic tv, life, the universe, and everything, Saturday Morning Cartoons, watch along

With the previous post announcing my sad attempt to recapture my youth on a Saturday morning I thought why not see if others are interested in doing the same.

Plus to follow along I thought I better share where I am after the first Saturday morning watching the shows. Jut in case folks need or wants to play catch up.

Thundercats

  • S1E1 – Exodus
  • S1E2 – The Unholy Alliance
  • S1E3 – Berbils

Batman the Animated Series

  • S1E1 – On Leather Wings
  • S1E2 – Christmas with the Joker
  • S1E3 -Nothing to Fear

Dungeon & Dragons the cartoon

  • S1E1 – The Night of No Tomorrow
  • S1E2 – The Eye of the Beholder
  • S1E3 – The Hall of Bones
  • S1E4 – Valley of the Unicorns

As I briefly review what I have written (and yes mistakes still get through) I realised that I had not said why I chose these three cartoons to start with. So that’s rectify this right now.

I chose Batman the Animated Series not because I watched it during the seventies growing up, or even the home computer boom years of the early to mid eighties. The series didn’t actually come out until what ‘89 or their abouts after the Tim Burton movies. The cartoon captures the aesthetics, and tone of the the Burton movies perfectly. It had edge. I do have a special relationship with Batman that I explain away in a very long post due to be seen by the world in the later half of October. So because of a reason that will eventually become clear I added it. Plus I have fond memories of catching episodes at the time.

Thundercats and the Dungeon and Dragons cartoon are two shows that I have very fond memories of watching as a I went from a kid to a teenager in the early eighties. Often these shows were an escape from the world, moving up from a primary school to a secondary school, bullying, etc. I can’t say I saw every episode. Don’t forget tv viewing was vastly different to now. Often you would miss an episode for some reason such as tea, on holiday, etc. There were rarely repeats of kids cartoons.

Another factor that also influenced the choice was the affordability and availability of the series as well. For instance my holy grail of the complete Battle of the Planets is not easily available and those copies that are for sale are very very expensive. Too expensive for me to justify the purchase.

I’ve also added a couple more shows to the Saturday morning schedule. See the photo below to see what they are. As I write this the New Adventures of Batman is on its way.

Two new shows arrived to add to the Saturday morning viewing. I’ll talk more about them in a future post and their significance to me once I start watching them.

But for those wishing to join me in this walk down memory lane I’ll put a post up with that Saturdays planned viewing. Which we can then discuss in the posts comments after we’ve watched them.

A third retro tv project idea

Having Blake’s 7 and MASH dvd boxsets sitting on my shelves waiting to be shown some love by being watched. I thought these would be a great start to a retro midweek tv project.

Shows I’d like to add to this new project include Sapphire and Steel (ordered second hand from Oxfam, so awaiting delivery), Wonder Woman (surprisingly affordable), The Six Billion Dollar Man (you would not believe how expensive this is), The Man from Atlantis (nor this), and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (budget friendly). Shows I have fond memories of watching as a kid and teenager.

I have the germs of a fourth retro tv project as well that revolves around the tv I used to watch as a kid on the holidays. Such as the 1930s (I think that’s when they came out, although could be the 40s) serials for Flash Gordon (already own), Buck Rogers, and King of the Rocket Men (already own). I’m going to add Thunderbirds (yep have these too), Joe 90, Captain Scarlet, Space 1999 and UFO to this list.

My Saturday Morning Cartoon Project

life, the universe, and everything, Saturday Morning Cartoons

You may find this hard to believe but I’ve actually started writing a post that won’t see the light of day until the later half of October.

But in those words I wrote this morning I briefly talked about my Saturday Morning Cartoon project that I have started. I also mentioned that by the time you get to read those words I might have written something about the project.

Well here we are with me just about to tell you about this crazy and cool (who am I kidding its anything but this, more sad and weird) project that I’ve started.

Back in the seventies and early eighties as a kid here in the UK our Saturday mornings were either Swap Shop on BBC1 or Tiswas on ITV.

Like the great home computer playground wars of the early eighties between owners of the C64 and the ZX Spectrum, you were either a Swap Shop fan or a Tiswas fan (to be fair dads would have preferred if there kids were Tiswas fans thanks to Sally James).

I enjoyed both, so sat on the fence. As I did in the great home computer wars (after all I owned both).

Both Saturday morning shows had a similar format. Live presenters, an audience of some kind (either in studio or on location), plus some cartoons to break things up.

It was great getting up on a Saturday, switch on the tv and watch these shows with a bowl of cereal, that weeks comics (Warlord, Battle, 2000A.D., Starlord, Eagle, Beano to name a handful of ones that I used to get).

But here I am some forty odd years later trying to recreate that Saturday morning chill, when I had no worries, life was carefree, and times were much simpler.

The plan I started with is to watch some cartoons from that period of my life (or there abouts) to help escape from the worries of the world. To have a relaxing start to the weekend.

I started last Saturday with the following three cartoon series; Batman the animated series, Dungeons and Dragons the cartoon, and Thundercats.

So with a mug of coffee in hand and a couple of pan au chocolate, the attack chihuahuas and I laid in bed and watched the first three episodes of from the first season of the three shows.

Obviously the animation is of it’s time. But I still found the episodes I watched enjoyable. Yes they weren’t the shows that were shown back then. But they are from my youth (except Batman which was more my young man years).

The plan is to add to the shows to watch Hong Kong Phooey, The New Adventures Of Batman, He-Man, potentially Transformers, and my holy grail Battle of the Planets.

I seem to remember that the Flashing Blade was also shown on a Saturday morning as well during Swap Shop. But my memory may be letting me down on that one. However I do own it on dvd and will rotate it in at some point.

At some point I want to start an equivalent Friday evening tv project as well with such shows as The Water Margins and Monkey. Which are the only two I can remember from a Friday evening on BBC2.

So there you have it my plan for spending a Saturday mornings.