Saturday Morning

Yesterday Joseph Barbera died.

My earliest memories are that of sitting in front of a 13 inch black and white TV on a Saturday morning with a bowl of cereal waiting for the cartoons to start. I still have comics from back then and take them out and show my son the ads for the Fall Season of Saturday morning, Josie and the Pussycats, Smurfs, Hong Kong Phoey and of course Tom and Jerry. All of these from the Hanna-Barbera collective. These men raise more children then they know and I hope they realized that. The article above only scratches the surface of their creations and I am sure that anyone reading this over the age of 25 remembers almost everyone. It is funny how people all have their favorites, they are all different and yet made by the same men.

It is sad that these days our children are not afforded the same innocents as Saturday morning. Today there is no room for a Saturday in front of the TV watching good old fashioned cartoons. They are being whisked anyway at oh-dark-thirty to Soccer practice, or piano lessons, etc, etc. I would say we should organize a stay at home and watch cartoons Saturday but sadly the networks push 'educational' crap or infomercials at us every Saturday morning. Alas an era has passed and the young ones will never know what they missed!