This is the third FLASH QUIZ I've proctored. It's also been the most popular - a 65% return rate. I guess I hit on a topic that people like. Except for one respondent who said that she'd think about her answer "over lunch." She still hasn't reported back. She must still be at lunch.
Most of those surveyed fall into the approaching-30 to departing-30 age range. Likewise, the majority of responses indicate a time when Hanna-Barbera was the primary creator of children's weekend television. Patterns are definitely detectable. Three responses were mentioned over and again - Superfriends, Scooby Doo, and the Looney Toons (or Titi & Grosminet in France).
Among the Scooby Doo fans was one purist who felt that the latter day addition of Scooby's nephew Scrappy to the show was "point blank sabotage." This same respondent admitted to a crush on the character Fred. In fact she called the animated man "hot". Interestingly, this descriptor was used by more than one.
Another respondent described her appreciation for the boyfriend character in a cartoon "whose name I can't remember, but it starred a blond cartoon woman named Goldie and she was a model/movie star/private eye type thing. I liked it cause the cartoon guy in it was hot."
The object of another respondent's desires was Aquaman from the Superfriends. "He's a hottie," he wrote. The libidinous overtones of children's cartoons will be the downfall of this great nation. Another Superfriends viewer mentioned his disappointment that the Cartoon Network only airs early episodes of the program. He prefers the later seasons, favoring the Wonder Twins to super heroes in training "Wendy and Marvin and their stupid dog."
A few respondents had counter culture analyses for their favorites. A fan of the Gummi Bears described them as "all the cuteness of the Wuzzles, Smurfs, Shirt Tales, and the Care Bears but with abuse of controlled substances over tones (drinking Gummi juice to get all bouncy? Come on)." Another hinted at a romantic relationship between Johnny Quest's Dr. Quest and Race Bannon. One respondent was so into Fat Albert that she eventually dropped "out of my Saturday morning bowling league. I think that as a lonely black kid in the suburbs, I found validation in Albert and the gang. Also, the Brown Hornet, the carton within the cartoon, was the only black super hero I was exposed to as a child." Well, sure, if you don't count… um… you know… that one.
One respondent couldn't limit her favorite to just one cartoon, but instead enjoyed the entire Saturday morning experience. "It was the 3-hour line up, especially back when you were little and you got up at 8, before your parents, and sometimes you would beat your sister to the TV, and sometimes you wouldn't, but you would love whatever was on, and watch in your PJ's 'til noon." (Umm, that's four hours.) A similar response came from a respondent who wrote that she "got up at 6:30 in the morning and dragged my strawberry sleeping bag out to the living room and camped out for an hour and a half of Smurf bliss." I think people like this are sitting targets for NBC's Must See TV Thursday night lineup marketing.
A handful of respondents are from a time before television. I am amazed that some of them are able to turn on a computer, let alone log into the internet and figure out how to read email. Coming of age during the Second World War and the decades that followed, their answers are thought provoking. It's like tapping into a living piece of history. Like Colonial Williamsburg. One gentleman reported enjoying a laundry list of comics from the Sunday funny pages, "we didn't have TV then". He listed "Dick Tracy, the Katzenjamer Kids, Ally Oop, Steve Roper, the Phantom, and Brenda Starr." I checked into these. Quite a few still exist!
Another Golden Age respondent mentioned her favorite radio show, but remembered more about the experience itself than the program. "It was a radio serial play that had an ad for Buster Brown Shoes--and some memorable voice said 'I live in a shoe...' While listening to it at Joan Lister's house (she was Lutheran, which was somehow related to Germany, and so I wondered if I was fraternizing---sororitizing---with the enemy), we colored and imagined. That was during World War II."
The final response from the over 50 group admitted to watching Howdy Doody and the Mouseketeers at a cousin's house after school but reports that her Saturdays were spent playing outdoors. "We used to play outside more than kids do now. We played kick the can almost every evening. And we explored the woods and fields around us and built forts. Great fun!" (Kick the can? Sounds like something your dominatrix tells you to do.)
A few respondents reported that they didn't watch Saturday morning cartoons. These people typically grew up in developing countries or had communists for parents. One respondent reported, "We didn't have TV. We had to listen to Auntie Kay on the radio or run around in the yard. Of course we did not have much for clothes either, so we ran around half naked." Another tells me that in her house there were "NO CARTOONS ALLOWED...I had to watch Jacques Cousteau, read a good book and listen to public radio!" YIKES! When did you defect to the West, comrade?
Another with a similar tale to tell reported "I didn't watch Saturday morning cartoons - the easiest way to explain would be to say that my family was vegetarian at the time and Saturday morning cartoons seem bizarrely coupled with the consumption of beef." Yet another simply reported "I am a Taiwanese and the networks didn't air cartoons on Saturday morning." The only conclusion to make is that the Taiwanese must not eat much beef. A fan of the animated Pacman turned watching the show into a dining experience. "My grandma would make me burgers or Salisbury steak (yes, that early in the morning-kind of like brunch) and I would pretend they were power pellets! Funny thing is -- even when I see Pacman stuff -- I can still taste that taste in my mouth." On the other hand, maybe there is a connection between watching cartoons and eating beef.
© 2005
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