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I’m not much of a morning person, but, as a kid, I used to wake up at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings—because I didn’t want to miss any of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons. So I couldn’t wait to check out the new Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s collection—especially since I didn’t have to wake up early to do so.
The two-disc Saturday Morning Cartoons set features an episode (or sometimes more) of 11 different series from the ‘80s—all of which were produced by Hanna-Barbera. Despite my love of Saturday morning cartoons in the ‘80s, though, I didn’t find many favorites here. In fact, I didn’t even remember several of them. Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that I’m a girl. Though I was a bit of tomboy—and I do recall catching an episode or two of Thundarr the Barbarian—I didn’t really care about most action-fantasy series like Dragon’s Lair and Galtar and the Golden Lance. And although I sat down to watch them now, I have to admit that I still don’t really care about the more melodramatic mythical adventures.
I’d never heard of Goldie Gold and Action Jack, either—though I wish I had. The adventures of Goldie, the super-rich newspaper woman / daredevil, may be completely over the top, but I have a feeling that I would have loved it as a kid.
The set is also filled with a plethora of spin-off shows, which were especially prevalent in the ‘80s. In fact, some of the spin-offs were my favorites in the collection—like The Flintstone Kids, a cute spin-off of the old favorite cartoon series, and The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, a spin-off of Martin Short’s popular Saturday Night Live / SCTV sketch. It still seems like a strange choice for a Saturday morning cartoon—though it’s almost as amusing now as it was back then, I must say.
There’s also Monchhichis, a spin-off of a line of adorable Japanese dolls. And there are two shows inspired by real-life characters, too. In Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos, an animated Norris joins with Samurais and Sumo wrestlers to battle The Claw and his evil ninja sidekick (though they apparently didn’t really care about battling bad spelling). And, in Mister T, The A-Team star offers sage advice to a team of teen gymnasts—the lunacy of which was totally lost on me at the time (though I can fully appreciate it now).
Other shows in the set include the tiny pups, The Biskitts and The Kwicky Koala Show.
Perhaps this collection is all that’s left of Hanna-Barbera’s ‘80s cartoons—and the rest were tossed out years ago. Or maybe a team got together and chose their favorites. But it’s certainly a tricky collection to put together—because you won’t be able to satisfy everyone. Some grown-up children of the ‘80s might love reliving the adventures of Dragon’s Lair and Galtar, while others might have rather seen an episode of Snorks—or one of the numerous Scooby-Doo spin-offs. Still others might prefer a full collection of one series—instead of just one or two episodes of a number of different series. As a result, Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s could be a hit or a miss, depending on which shows you used to watch each week (and how much you want to relive those memories). For some, it could be a must-have collection—but, for me, it was just an amusing blast from Saturday mornings past.
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