RIP Saturday Morning Nostalgia

A unified theory of Saturday mornings and the joy today’s kids, and future generations, will never experience

I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night a lot lately. Is this a being in your forties thing? I don’t know, but it’s a drag. I’ve been making the best of it though by eating a lot of cereal. It’s been Cheerios mainly (since that’s all my Millennial wife likes to buy in bulk… you know, so the kiddos eat healthier)— screw that! I take it up a notch by adding some granola. Take that insomnia! 🥣

To say that I’m a cereal buff would be an understatement. I have a preferred midnight snack— Mr. T cereal. Since I can’t get Mr. T cereal, I settle for Cap’n Crunch.

If you were to ask me what I fantasize about, I’d say it’s an absurdly large bowl of Cookie Crisp cereal mixed with a quarter cup of Mr. T cereal swimming in a generous amount of vitamin D milk. I am not at all ashamed to tell you that the best way to to truly indulge in a similar taste is to mix Cap’n Crunch and Cocoa Pebbles together, and crumble a couple of Keebler cookies into your bowl. Drown them in vitamin D milk. And if you want to get real crazy, toss a few slices of banana in! So now you know how my mind works. 🤣

I’d love to know what you’re favorite cereal was or if you have a bowl you fantasize about. It’s ok, we’re all adults here.

Now, let’s talk about something that is near and dear to every GenX kid—

Our Saturday Morning Nostalgia Cannot Be Beat!

If there was ever a ritual that connected the life force of a generation, it would be waking up on Saturday morning, grabbing a bowl of your favorite sugary cereal, and watching your favorite Saturday morning cartoons.

Whether it was sitting on the carpet and chomping down on cereal and watching, or placing the bowl on our favorite cartoon tray, or sitting at the kitchen table and reading the back of the cereal box, Saturday mornings were magical.

As soon as the sun peeked through the curtains, we'd leap out of bed, pajama-clad and blurry-eyed, we'd scramble to the living room and turn on the television. We would then rush off to the kitchen, the sweet sound of toy commercials reached our ears, and we went to work preparing the perfect serving of a cereal bowl.

Boxes lined up on the kitchen counter or on top of the refrigerator, their mascots grinning at us— Cap'n Crunch, Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, Boo-Berry Ghost, Count Chocula, Fred & Barney, Donkey Kong & Mario, and so many more! These weren't just advertising characters, they were also our Saturday morning companions.

Choosing the cereal was a decision of monumental importance. Would it be the chocolate-y crunch of Cocoa Puffs? The fruity circles of Froot Loops? Or perhaps the marshmallow-studded landscape of Lucky Charms? On a few occasions, depending on how much cash my dad gave my mom, I’d have to eat a generic puffy rice cereal. Even worse, if my mom had not gone to the grocery store before the next weekend, I might have to eat my dad’s Raisin Bran. Yuck! 🤮

Bowl filled to the brim, we'd pour in the milk, grab our favorite spoon and we'd make our way to our designated spot in front of the TV. My mom covered a lot of our furniture in plastic (that was a thing back then), so I would bring my The Real Ghostbusters sleeping bag out with a pillow and lay on them on the floor.

If you were really on point, you could be eating a cereal from the same cartoon franchise you were watching. Toys were not the only product advertised through cartoons. I remember eating Bill & Ted’s cereal while watching the cartoon!

We had the greatest lineup of cartoons back in the day. It just kept getting better year after year in the 80s and into the 90s, and then it just sort of died off some time in the 2010s!

I have four sons of varying ages, so I’ve seen my fair share of Saturday morning lineups. Currently, my two youngest (6 and 4) watch Spidey and His Amazing Friends, but that’s pretty much it. Something that has definitely impacted Saturday mornings in my household is little league baseball my sons are involved in. My parents never signed us up for sports when I was a kid, but if watching Saturday morning cartoons was a sport, I’d probably be the Michael Jordan of toon watching! 🤣

Here’s a short list of cartoons that aired Saturday mornings and the majority of us watched — This is a short list, the rest of which will be published in my book — Some aired during the weekdays but also aired on weekends at some point:

The Smurfs, The Real Ghostbusters, Pac-Man, Heathcliff, Spiderman and his Amazing Friends, Inspector Gadget, Garfield & Friends, Dungeons and Dragons, Gummi Bears, Scooby-Doo, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Thundercats, The Smurfs, Rainbow Bright, My Little Pony, The Care Bears, The Littles, The Wuzzles, Mr. T, Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling, BraveStarr, M.A.S.K., COPS, Dino-Riders, Beetlejuice, Punky Brewster, My Pet Monster, Simon and The Chipmunks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ALF, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, She-Ra - Princess of Power, Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, Centurions, Droids, Jem and the Holograms, He Man and The Masters of The Universe, Snorks, Denver, The Last Dinosaur, Jayce and The Wheeled Warriors, Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo, Captain N: The Game Master, Kidd Video, Turbo Teen, The Karate Kid, Camp Candy, RAMBO, Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos, Muppet Babies…

I haven’t even listed cartoons created in the 90s yet!

1985 - NBC Saturday Morning Cartoon Ad - Nostalgia Nation

I still get giddy when I look at this NBC advert! Just thinking about flipping through a comic book and seeing an ad like this is further proof as to how incredibly different childhood today is from the time we grew up. Have you looked inside a modern comic book today? If there are ads, they are for modern video games mainly or a streaming show here and there. There is no childhood joy pouring out of the pages.

🥣