Where did all the good times go?

At the behest of Mr. Nason, I will now address an issue that has been bugging me for a long time. Apparently, I am not the only person to notice that the tradition of Saturday morning cartoons has gone the way of the dinosaur - or, perhaps more aptly, The Great Grape Ape.

I can remember waking up at unreasonable hours of the morning on Saturdays to fight with my sister about which cartoons we would be parking ourselves in front of for the next 6 hours, at least. Our fighting was the stuff you read about, in that it was wholly stereotypical. Lots of shouting, lots of hair-pulling, lots of throwing each other around the living room. Stuff like that. Finally, it took mediation from mom to settle this bickering for good. It came down to alternating half-hour stretches, as this was how long most cartoons ran (bartering was allowed which was good as the Bugs Bunny & Road Runner show was an hour and a half). The only rule my sister and I came up with was that until noon (or 11 or 11:30, depending on what was on that season), cartoons were all that was allowed. I do seem to remember watching Saved By The Bell but that may have been on after the appointed hour.

Here's what's on now that I like:
Spiderman cartoons (I don't care if that's MTV one with Doogie Howser or the mid-90s one with CB Barnes as the voice (I think that's who it is) - actually I think that one's the better one or the trippy one from the 60s)
Any and all of those Batman cartoons (like Batman Beyond and the new The Batman)
The Power Puff Girls (Hannah-Barbera-like background animation with pseudo-anime animation for the girls - and Mojo Jo-Jo is the best cartoon villian in a LONG time)
Scooby-Doo (You know how The Beastie Boys feel about Columbo? No? Look up the lyric homie. Well, that's how I feel about Scooby-Doo.)

I know there are a lot of cartoons on the Cartoon Network but to me most of that stuff just runs together. I liked Dexter's Laboratory for a while but it got old (pick up the soundtrack if you get a chance though - mad cool), people tell me I should hop on the Aqua-Teen Hunger Force bandwagon but I haven't and don't really see it happening and as much as I have always been a fan of Space Ghost, I'd rather see him fly the plane and do cool stuff than sit behind a desk.

I find it shocking that no one has taken it upon themselves to make a Cartoon Network Classic. If ESPN can have one, why can't cartoons? The brief glimpses I've caught of Boomerang lead me to believe that it dabbles in this area but since we don't even have DVR or Trio up here yet, I'll be surprised if Boomerang makes it onto my listings anytime soon.

But why doesn't USA still run the Cartoon Express? And what ever happened to the TBS Superstation Fun Time every afternoon after school? And I remember watching Jetsons reruns before I went to school in high school.

As far as what I dug back in the day, well, the list is long. And, a lot like what I dig on TV today, it was subject to change as new seasons rolled out. Although there were definitely classics.

Rather than just produce a list of every cartoon I ever liked, I'll do it in blocks.

Hannah-Barbera (the best) - all of it from Deputy Dawg and Yogi Bear and everything in between to Space Ghost and that awesome cartoon with the Herculoids to The Jetsons
Rocky and Bullwinkle (I have all twelve volumes of the set on VHS and I still watch it)
Bugs Bunny and Friends
Stuff like The Smurfs and The Snorks
Ren and Stimpy (the early years)
Mighty Mouse and Under Dog
I'm a huge fan of The Powerpuff Girls
Tom and Jerry
The Archies

Stuff I never really dug
Speed Racer
Johnny Quest
He-Man

I'm sure I've left hundreds of things out of this list but it covers the broad strokes. You get the picture. The thing that really fries my ass though is that these companies (TBS, USA, etc.) obviously have the rights to and miles and miles of reels of the best cartoons ever created and they do nothing with them. What are they holding onto them for? And, more importantly, why are they holding onto them and not putting them out there for all of us to enjoy? That's my plea. Please, put the good shows back on television. It could help rejuvinate scripted programming on television, but that's another entry.