Saturday Morning Cartoons

Mom bought a TV Guide from the grocery store every week. Why she did this is beyond me. We got a total of 6 channels; ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, channel 11 and channel 30, which was usually full of static. Channel 11 was, without a doubt, my favorite channel. They showed horror movies late at night, and mom would let us stay up on Fridays to watch. Now that I'm a mother myself, I understand this tactic. If we stay up late on Friday, we should sleep late on Saturday. If we sleep late on Saturday, she won't be awakened at 6 am by the TV. Riiiiight. We were children, filled with boundless energy. We didn't need sleep!

Twice a year, my sister and I would leaf through the TV Guide and decide which Saturday Morning Lineup we would watch for the next 6 months. It was too much trouble to get up off the floor and change channels every half hour, so choosing the right station was crucial. The networks understood this. They would show previews of their new cartoons in the evening during sweeps week. The winter the Smurfs made their debut comes to mind right off. I don't recall how old I was, though the internet agrees it was 1982. We had already explored the new cartoons guide, and couldn't decide which channel to watch that night. Some of the shows looked really good, some looked like garbage in animated form. Whatever we decided on, it was sadly disappointing. We switched channels, found the Smurfs, and were hooked. Yes... That was when cartoons started to really go downhill.

Crappy cartoons notwithstanding, my sister and I got up with the sun every Saturday. We would try to be quiet, but by 9 o'clock mom would be making breakfast for us. Even better than the cartoons was what came on afterward. Wrestling At The Chase. Wrestling rocked! Big strong men in superhero costumes acting out the most delicious dramas. The good guys like Hulk Hogan, sergeant Slaughter and George the Animal Steel, battled stereotypical evil-doers like The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. Andre the Giant was neither good nor bad, he was more like a force of nature. Once in a blue moon we'd be lucky enough to see him in a "wrestle royale". That's where 20 men fight to be the last one left in the ring. Andre would toss them out like they weighed nothing. Every wrestler had a signature move, and I loved them all. Von Eric had the Iron Claw, capable of delivering a knock out headache. Rowdy Roddy Piper had the figure 4 leg-lock to go with his signature kilt. Adrian Adonis would pause to have his attendants spritz him with perfume before he finished off his opponents. Randy "Macho Man" Savage portrayed a wife beater, back in the day -before it became politically incorrect. He was the man I loved to hate. I also hated "The Millionaire" Ted Dibiase, because he would throw money around, and buy off his matches.

As cartoon quality dropped off, wrestling got better and better. A big part of my childhood involved wrestling, and then; either I grew up, or wrestling just got weird. The managers began playing bigger roles. The best wrestlers retired, and everyone left started looking like body builders. It was a sad day for wrestling when I decided to play outside, rather than watch Wrestling At The Chase.