Saturday, September 30, 2006

On this last Cartoon Saturday of September, when the new cartoon season is off and running with little to no fanfare, we recall the bygone days when launching the new Saturday morning cartoon season was as big as the launching of the prime time line-up (or bigger, depending on what the prime time offerings were). There were ads in comics and magazines, prime time specials promoting the new and returing shows, and an enthusiasm designed to get you to pick your channel and sit through all their shows, even the duller ones.

To mark this, here's an ad for the CBS line-up of 1982. It's notable for its inclusion of Gilligan's Planet, which we mentioned earlier this week. It also appears the Looney Tunes were getting a big chunk of the CBS air that year. A staple of the Saturday morning diet, they'd travel from one network to the other (not to mention daily appearances on UHF syndication) until they settled on the various channels of their parent company (now KidsWB! and Cartoon Network).