My Ultimate Saturday Morning TV Schedule
New assignment for the League this week. And it’s another doozy of a topic.
You’ve been hired to program the ultimate Saturday morning experience for kids across the nation–create your own ideal Saturday morning cartoon schedule.
Unfortunately for the TV network that hired me, I hid a clause within my contract that specifies I’m in charge of ALL Saturday programming. Not just the morning hours. Queue the look of horror from the network execs. That’s right, everyone at the network, prepare your faces for Cavalcade TV.
I’ve programmed an entire broadcast day with badass awesome shows designed to melt your brain and impregnate your wife. So step back and prepare your face, chest and wife’s uterus for an invasion. An invasion of pop culture awesomeness.
The broadcast day starts at 6am with:
6-8am – Looney Tunes/Tiny Toons – For this 2 hour block I would show various episodes of Warner Bros Looney Tunes and Tiny Toons. I’d probably use the 6-7am hour for the former and the 7-8am hour for the latter. These are all classically awesome cartoons and I feel they are essential to start the day off right. I’d probably also include the Loony Tunes/Bugs Bunny movies (Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, 1001 Rabbit Tales, Fantastic Island, Quakbusters, etc).
8 – 9am – He-Man and the Masters of the Universe/Dungeons & Dragons – This is sort of the “fantasy hour” I guess. Two of my favorites, back to back.
9 – 11am – Super Hero Block
– 9 – 10am – DC Super Friends – During this first hour I would rotate a bunch of the old, pre-WB DC cartoons; Super Friends, New Adventures of Batman, Ruby Spears Superman, Plastic Man and The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure.
– 10 – 11am – Marvel Super Powers – In this second hour I would rotate old Marvel cartoons; Spider-man and his Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk (1982), Fantastic Four (various series from the 60s and 70s).
11am – 1pm – Monster Block – I love monster based stuff. Especially cartoons. For this 2 hour block I’d rotate through some of my favorite monster based cartoons; Teen Wolf, Fangface, Drak Pack, Gravedale High, Groovie Goolies.
1 – 3pm – Afternoon Adventure Movie – Fun, mostly all ages classic movies like The Goonies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Muppet movies, etc. Give everyone a chance to eat lunch and/or nap. Maybe expose some kiddies to awesome movies they may not otherwise see. Also, prepare everyone for the afternoon onslaught of action awesomeness.
3 – 4pm – Saturday Supercade – Bringing back the cartoon video game variety program Saturday Supercade. It featured cartoons based on Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Space Ace, etc. I would also include the 1985 Pac-Man cartoon in this block even though that cartoon wasn’t a part of the original Saturday Supercade.
4 – 5pm – Video game shows – After the video game cartoons, I’d like to air some video game based game shows. Things like Starcade, Nick Arcade and Video Power come to mind. Don’t remember these shows? Check out the amazingly 80s Starcade intro and the awesomely 90s intro to Video Power. And the SOOO ’90s Nickelodeon intro to Nick Arcade.
5 – 6pm – Knight Rider – Heading into the evening slots I want to show an older, more action oriented group of shows. I’ll call it my Action Evenings!! I’ll start with a favorite of mine, and if you read this blog, yours, Knight Rider.
6 – 7pm – The A-Team – This is the spiritual cousin to the previous show and a perfect #2 in my Action Evenings! These two shows will awesomely lead directly into…
7 – 9pm – Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman – 2 hours of bionic, mind blowing action. YOU. ARE. WELCOME. AMERICA.
9 – 12pm – Whedonverse Theater – A three hour block of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse. Firefly only has like 14 episodes and a movie so I would need to pad things out with some episodes of Dollhouse. However, I’m probably still going to have to run mulitple eps of Buffy and Angel to fill in during later seasons of the first two shows. No, America, you don’t have to thank me for this. I’m only doing what is right.
12 – 3am – Star Trek series – Three back to back episodes of Star Trek; The Original Series, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Some days may even be multiple episodes of the same series whenever there’s a multiple part episode. Who knows. I’ll make it like a Russian Roulette of Star Trek shows. It’s like I’m doing the Lord’s work here.
3 – 6am – MST3K – I’m going to finish out the broadcast day with some Mystery Science Theater 3000. There couldn’t be a more perfect sign off for MY evening (and yours, America).
So, that is what I’d do with a Saturday evening, my own personal television station and some free time.
Other Saturday morning TV schedules from around the League:
1. Shawn Robare from Branded in the 80s
2. Dex from AEIOU and Sometimes Why
3. That Figures
Cavalcade of Awesome 
August 23, 2012 at 9:44 am
Superfriends for sure. Thundarr the Barbarian after that.
August 23, 2012 at 9:53 am
Yes! I totally should have included Thundarr in the Fantasy Hour section. Good call, I can’t believe I missed that.
August 23, 2012 at 10:11 am
Word on Thudarr! Maybe Blackstar, too, just to break it up since none of these got long runs. Where’s your G.I. Joe/Transformers hour, Pax?
August 23, 2012 at 10:17 am
Yeah, Doug, I knew I’d get called out on GI Joe. I would probably NOT include Transformers, but I should have included GI Joe. I’m just not sure where. Ugh. Tough cuts, gentlemen. Tough cuts.
Blackstarr was good. Bravestar also made it as well. I loved that show.
I knew the comments on this article would bring up a ton of stuff I had to leave out. I NEEDED A WHOLE WEEK!
August 23, 2012 at 10:26 am
Also, you forgot the Muppet Babies/Fraggles hour. And Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines. And Robotix. I like how you broke it up into themed blocks. It’s a cool line up. I think it could use a Brilliant but Canceled, or Gone too Soon, block in the late night: Man from Atlantis, Kolchak, Automan, Manimal, etc.
August 23, 2012 at 10:28 am
Muppet Babies, yes. But it’s still on the outside. I do love that show, though.
I absolutely love your Brilliant but Canceled idea. I’m glad I thought of it.
August 23, 2012 at 10:31 am
ha!
August 23, 2012 at 10:17 am
You have indeed impregnated me with pop culture. In 9 months time I’m going to give birth to a five foot long hoagie sandwich. I’ll name it Paxton.
August 23, 2012 at 10:19 am
I am truly honored.
Hopefully you birth a bag of Cheetos and a Diet Pepsi with that.
August 23, 2012 at 10:20 am
Damn, man. I must have sent some network spies to your company to get my line up out ahead of you. Very similar in a lot of places.
I used to love Blackstar. Then I got the DVDs and watched it again. It’s a little painful being older and more aware of animation cycle reuses and even shot reuses from show to show. And those Trobbits…ugh. Still, I like some of the ideas there but it’s no Thundarr!
August 23, 2012 at 10:27 am
Yeah, I was amazed at the similarities, Dex. Great minds think alike. Plus, good shows are good shows.
I had several handfuls of shows I wanted to include but just couldn’t fit them anywhere. I guess, in a way, I already cheated by grouping blocks of programming with “rotating shows” to maximize the amount of shows I can get on the air.
August 23, 2012 at 11:53 am
Dude – kille line-up!! I’d watch the hell out of your station if these were real. The He-Man and the Masters of the Universe/Dungeons & Dragons hour and the Monster Block would especially be must-see TV. 😀
August 24, 2012 at 5:02 am
Not a bad lineup; I could see myself spending a lot of time watching TV on Saturdays with something like this.
But which version of Video Power?
October 10, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Good question. I’d probably show both versions, but I’m partial to the “second season” version.
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