Saturday Morning TV

It’s been a long time since I got excited about a television program.

But when I was in the 2^nd grade, I lived for Saturday morning cartoons. On school days, just getting out of bed was a struggle. But on Saturday you would find me up at the crack of dawn.

In my P.J.’s, I’d eagerly run to the old R.C.A. to get it “warmed up.” A white dot appeared in the center of the screen which turned into a horizontal flat line. The line then expanded out to reveal a black-and-white image.

In those days television stations didn’t operate twenty-four hours. They were usually off the air from about midnight to five A.M. or so. If you got up as early as I did, the image might be “snow,” the result of the T.V. trying to find a signal and not finding one.

When a station finally came on the air the first thing one would see is the “test pattern.” You could use it to adjust your television set. The back of the console had a couple of knobs used for horizontal and vertical adjustment, so I played with those until the picture wouldn’t “flip” and became centered and focused. The channel selector knob also had a dial behind it so that you could “zero in” on the signal, eliminating shadows or ghost images.

Soon came the national anthem, followed by the Farm Report, a program that, if it can be imagined, was actually duller than the test pattern.

During this time I situated a fort of chairs and blankets in front of the screen, and then got a big bowl of Cheerios with milk to eat in my fort. About a cup of sugar was required to make it taste good.

By then some actual cartoons began and I was in my element. If I remember correctly, the first cartoons were usually something like Mighty Mouse, Gumby, Popeye, or some other mildly amusing cartoon, but not what really floated my boat. I’d flip through the channels (there were only three to choose from!) to find the most entertaining one. Finishing off the Cheerios, I’d slurp the milky sugar sludge from the bottom, which was the main point of cereal. Then I’d fix myself another bowl.

During these programs I would get out my Lincoln Logs and build a big cabin with fences, adding my plastic cowboys and Indians to create a realistic frontier scene. At this point my focus was divided between cartoons and toys. All this was a lead-up for the real show.

By ten o-clock I set aside the Lincoln Logs. I was locked and loaded for the piece de resistance. The focal point of my entire day, I turned to channel 2 for the silver tuna of all cartoon shows, The Bugs Bunny Show.

One full hour of Bugs, Daffy, Elmer, Sam, Wile E., Foghorn, and many others. All voice-characterized by the incomparable Mel Blanc. No one dared disturb me during this time. Merry Melodies and Loony Tunes held precedence over everything.

And these Warner Brothers cartoons were educational! Where else could you get young kids to admire the works of the masters like Beethoven, Strauss and Chopin? Or learn French from Pepe le Pew and Spanish from Speedy Gonzales? The show was a cultural smorgasbord for my developing psyche.

 Not to mention knee-slapping hilarious.

Before I really wanted it to end, it did. Nothing else on television could compare, so I turned off the RCA, got dressed, and went outside to find friends to play with.

But not before my mom made me dismantle my fort.

I don’t watch much T.V. these days, but my favorite channel is metv, because I’d rather watch reruns of Andy Griffith than watch some lame reality show or one of the tasteless sitcoms available today.

But despite the fact that we get dozens of channels, none of them have the Bugs Bunny Show for some reason. No matter how old I get, I guess I’ll never be too mature for Warner Brothers cartoons.

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Who was your favorite cartoon character?