It just wasn’t Saturday without Tom & Jerry, Felix the Cat, and Bullwinkle & Rocky, but my favorite cartoons were the old classics:  Silly Symphonies and all the Looney Tunes.  Oh, how I laughed.  Oh, how I was entranced.  Dancing teacups, sentient plants, Singing tubs of cold cream. No wonder we grew up to be the generation that put music videos into the mainstream. 

My brother and I would assemble on the floor in the living room.  Bowl of cereal in front of us far too close to the television.  Mom would say, you’re too close to the television and we would scooch back.  After two bowls of Sugar Pops with the Sugar Bear mascot, I’d be wired for sound.  I did love that cereal which is odd because I wasn’t much of a cereal eater as I hated milk.  I often ate my sugar pops without or as little as possible.

Funny, but I can’t remember the order of the cartoons though I remember that I was done by the time Johnny Quest came on.  Sometimes I’d watch it, other times not.  My brother was done before then and likely in the backyard with his Tonka trucks. 

At about the age of 10 or 11, I added American Bandstand to Saturday cartoons.  I think it came on at noon.  In later years, soul train followed.

When I got older yet, I discovered that often there were old movies on in the afternoon.  I Sugar Popped my way through musicals, film noir, Jerry Lewis, and Tammy movies.

Saturdays were blissful.  The only real day I didn’t have much to do.  Sure, we were expected to clean our room and do other housecleaning duties, but none of that “no playing until chores were done.”  As long as we did get it done, we were pretty free to choose when.  No school, no church, hours and hours to just be.  Laughing at cartoons, reading Beverly Clearly, eating when hungry, and straightening my bedroom when I was good and ready to. 

As an adult, I watched cartoons with my son.  I wonder if he realizes how cheated he was.  Everything has a moral, a lesson, a sponsor.  No silliness just for the sake of being silly.  No whimsy.  No dancing tubs of cold cream. 

I am resolved to buy the old Warner Brothers stuff on DVD so that my grandson will have those hours of childhood.  Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, The Roadrunner.  What a golden period for cartoons.