I'll be honest, cartoons were a huge part of my life growing up. Every afternoon we'd sit down and watch cartoons for a couple hours, sometimes with the neighbors, sometimes at home. And of course the weekly highlight was Saturday morning, where you got 3 channels full of cartoons for at least 4 or 5 hours. That's approximately 30 different cartoons to choose from in one morning.
I remember my mom used to come down to the bedroom that my older brother and I shared on Friday night with the TV listings so that we could work out beforehand what shows we'd be watching the next morning, so that she wouldn't have to worry about being up at 6 to keep us from fighting. The rule was that we had to make our beds before we could watch them, so we'd set our alarm clock (the first alarm clock we ever got in our room was to wake us up for Saturday morning cartoons) for 5:50 so we'd have time to get up, make our beds, and get out in front of the TV before the first shows came on. This was in the era where if you turned on the TV before 6, then the channels were all showing the multi-colored bars. Don't you miss those? Now there's crazy infomercials on all night, but not back then.
At some point as I was growing up, I never really knew when exactly, Saturday morning television moved away from these great shows and all of a sudden there was news on TV on Saturday, or even infomercials sometime. Now you're lucky to even find cartoons on broadcast television, and the ones they have just don't seem to be as cool as the ones I used to watch.
Anyway, rather than turn this into some ramblingly, teary-eyed, diatribe about the disappearance of cartoons, lets jump right into the countdown at spot #10:
Underdog
Underdog, if I remember correctly fell into the category of cartoons that were on during the day, which meant I only got to watch it if I was home sick from school, or during the summer when I wasn't doing chores or out playing with friends. As a result, I could never seem to get a coherent Underdog storyline, but basically, he was kind of a Superman type character whose mild-manner alter-ego was "Shoeshine Boy" and when it was time for him to become Underdog he'd hop in a phonebooth and change, but he also had a vitamin in his ring that gave him his super powers. He was always trying to save the girl dog/lady whose name was Polly Purebred (I'll admit, I had to look that one up).
I think the main reason that I never got a whole Underdog storyline, was because Underdog was one of those cartoon shows where the actual Underdog portion only lasted maybe 6 minutes of the 30 minute time block and the rest was made up with other cartoons, same as on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and I had a hard time remembering which other cartoons went with which, but after doing some research, Underdog's animated pals included:
The World of Commander McBragg
where the general guy would tell outlandishly false tales of his adventures.
Klondike Kat
who was always trying to stop that mouse (Savoir Faire) from stealing everything. "Au contraire, mon frer. Savoir Faire is Everywhere!"
The Go Go Gophers
who were gophers who were also Native Americans and were constantly doing battle with some US army types who lived in a fort and were trying to scare them off their land.
These cartoons actually had self-contained episodes and didn't leave you hanging for next...whenever you watched next. Meanwhile, Underdog was always in dire straits and they say to tune in next time to see what happened, but I almost never was able to watch two episodes in a row which was kind of frustrating.
I think what I loved probably the most about Underdog was the cool theme song, which you can listen to here. "Speed of lightning, roar of thunder, fighting all who rob or plunder. Underdog!"
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the new feature, and look forward to seeing more blurry, internet-enhanced memories each Friday.
4 comments:
i am not sure i ever saw this show, but if i were a kid again (reverse Big) i would check it out. anyways, i think they are making a live action movie of this as we speak.
also, that mcbragg dude, the pointy chin monacle guy, i think he was on the simpsons last month. i wondered why he was designed so much differently that the rest of the yellow townsfolk.
J!!! For the five minutes I was reading this entry I remembered being a kid again! I never saw underdog either, but we would wake up early on Saturdays too. My best memory was from 3-4pm right after school so that we could watch Tom and Jerry! I'm so glad this is the feature you picked. It rocks!!
Obsessed as I am, they used the Underdog theme song on an episode of Scrubs. It's awesome.
The Go Go Gophers had some memorable music as well. Plus you forgot that after waking at 5:50 and making our beds we would run up to the kitchen stove clock just to see the time say 5:55 which we thought was pretty cool. At least I did.
On an aside I was always bummed by the serial cartoons that aired in the daytime so I could never stick with the story. The one I always wanted to get into was one on Nickelodeon about big Japanese robot planes and tanks. The name of it is somehow slipping me but I only saw it when I was home sick so I could never really tell what was going on. Great choice for replacing FFFFF which was getting a little frightening for me.
Hmm...I don't remember going up to see the kitchen clock. Or the big Japanese robot planes and tanks show. I do remember saving something off General Mills cereals in hopes of winning some big prize.
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