Nine By Design 5

Welcome to another fun adventure and the weekly visit to the list portion of my humble blog.  I still think I'm a kid.  Not a kid at heart, but a kid.  I don't want to grow up.  I have taken responsibility in my daily life, but I still want to watch dumb comedies, eat sugared cereals, read comic books and get up early to watch Saturday Morning cartoons.  The sad thing is, they really don't have cartoons on Saturdays.  They have them all the time now, but not like the 80's when all three major channels were dedicated to cartoons from about 7 AM to around Noon.  I miss that.  Getting up way too early and sitting in front of the TV with a giant bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs.

This weeks list is dedicated to cartoons.  Not just Saturday Morning ones, but all kinds.  Hope you enjoy.

Cartoons

Banana Splits:  I never saw the original run of this show, which was from 1968-1970.  They always seemed to replay this and the Monkees during the summer.  At least, that's how I remember it, so that's what I'm going with.  The show was kind of a groovy variety show developed by, Hanna-Barbera, with Sid and Marty Krofft designing the sets and costumes.  The show had a live action serial with Danger Island (with a young, Jan Michael Vincent), but also had cartoons, like Atom Ant as well.  It also doesn't hurt that the punk band, the Dickies covered the intro theme and that cover was just featured in the movie, Kick-Ass. 

The Herculoids:  Another Hanna-Barbera classic and was definitely a Saturday morning staple.  The original run was again before my time, 1967-1969.  I remember watching them at the god awful hour of 6 AM or something close to that.  It  was part of the Hanna-Barbera World of Super Adventure.  It still airs at times on Cartoon Network and is referenced in pop culture.

Scooby Doo:  One of my wife's favorite cartoon shows.  I used to watch the original show, but there's been so many different types of Scooby Doo series, it's hard to figure out which relaunch you're viewing sometimes.  Everyone knows that Shaggy and Scooby were stoners.  It's pretty obvious to the trained eye.  My wife made the comment, "You knew Saturday morning cartoons were dead when A Pup Named Scooby Doo came along."  Hard to disagree with that.

The Penguins of Madagascar:  Yes, the ones from the movie.  It's really a fantastic show.  The most recent cartoon series on my list.  All the penguins are funny in their own way, but I really love the lemurs.  King Julien, Maurice and Mort (voiced by Andy Richter).  I don't really care for the movies, but I am glad the creators have made a show with the best part of the movie franchise.

Ren and Stimpy:  One of the first cartoons I watched where you had no clue about that episode.  Literally, anything could happen and that's what made it so much fun.  It was like watching an episode of Monty Python.  Everything was great, the characters, songs and fake commercials.  A cartoon that paved the way for shows like South Park and Family Guy.  Anything goes and it did.

Johnny Bravo:  A nice throwback to the 50's with Bravo.  He's all about picking up women and he sounds like Elvis.  Just too good not to love.  Johnny Bravo was so over the top and full of himself, he was perfect.  This show was often on after Dexter's Laboratory, another favorite of mine.  To go with all of that, The Reverend Horton Heat did a song for him.

Justice League Unlimited:  I like just about all cartoons that are related to superheroes.  I've always been a huge fan of the medium. but have gotten a little too expensive for me to keep up.  I still follow by reading Wizard magazine, from time to time..  It's a very well done show, plus you usually get a lot of superheroes.  That's probably why I like it so much.  The more heroes, the better.

G.I. Joe:  I loved this show, had a lot of the toys, but always thought they were the worst soldiers ever.  Nobody ever gets shot or blown up, yet they are using incredibly powerful weapons.  It always confused me as a kid.  My favorite characters weren't even Joe's.  I was a huge fan of Zartan, but the show was at it's best when Tomax and Xamot were on.  Avoid the live action movie, but watch the animated movie.

Tom and Jerry:  A show that I still watch anytime it's on.  Most likely because, Tom and Jerry don't talk most of the time and music plays a huge part in telling the story.  It's a classic.  I know kids still watch it today, my nieces do at least.  Not bad for characters that premiered about 70 (yes, not a typo...) years ago.  It's the music I tell you...It's universal and timeless.

Hope you had a good time walking down memory lane with me.  Have a great weekend.  Cheers.