Pour the cereal, it’s Saturday morning!
Posted on July 20, 2006 @ 12:54 am
What did I do with my life before I discovered the joys of YouTube? Well, I know what I didn’t do, and that’s spend hours at a time watching the openings from my favorite childhood cartoons. But I am doing that now. You know, since I discovered YouTube and all.
Okay, that was confusing. How about I just link to the opening sequences from my favorite cartoons?
• The New Scooby-Doo Movies: Just to clarify, this is the Scooby-Doo series with all the awesomely bad 1970s guest stars — Sonny and Cher, the Harlem Globetrotters, Jonathan Winters, and so forth. I’ll never forget the time Scooby and the Gang solved the mystery of Mama Cass Elliot’s haunted chocolate factory.
• Laff-a-Lympics: As a rule, most Hanna-Barbera cartoons were pretty lame, but if you lump together about 800 Hanna-Barbera characters into one show and have them compete in pseudo-athletic competitions, that’s pure gold.
• Challenge of the Superfriends: Is it just me, or does the Legion of Doom live in Darth Vader’s head? Seriously, that is one Vader-esque hideout. Plus, you’ve gotta love the additions of Black Lightning, Samurai, Apache Chief, and El Dorado to help increase the show’s diversity quotient.
• The Mysterious Cities of Gold: This was an obscure French/Japanese coproduction featuring three pre-teens flying around 16th-century Central and South America in a condor-shaped airship made out of gold. How awesome is that? The theme song is still burned into my brain. “Children of the sun, see your time has just begun…”
• Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends: There’s a great scene in the opening where Peter Parker pulls a secret lever — disguised as a football trophy — and transform his bedroom into crimefighting lab full of computers and other gadgets. When I was a kid, I always wondered how Spidey managed to get all that equipment installed without Aunt May noticing. And who paid for it? Yeah, I was that kind of five-year-old. The lame kind.
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: Without the tireless efforts of G.I. Joe, America (and, by extension, the world) would have never won the first war on terrorism — the fight against Cobra. Even better is the opening sequence from the G.I. Joe movie. Nothing sells militarism to children like a dramatic fight atop the Statue of Liberty with fireworks, balloons, and machine guns.
• The Transformers: Have you seen the teaser for the upcoming Transformers movie? Surely Michael Bay doesn’t expect us to take robots from another planet that transform into Earth vehicles seriously. Anyway, I remember playing with my Transformer toys as a child and insisting on making the transforming sound (”chee-chee-cha-cha-choh”) the entire time I was shifting a toy from dune buggy form to robot form. It was exhausting work when you consider some of those toys took five minutes or more to transform.
• Dungeons and Dragons: Ah, the cartoon that first introduced me to Satanism. I hope I never get transported to a medieval realm of swords and sorcery just by riding a lame amusement park roller coaster. That being said, if I ever do get transported to said realm, I hope I end up being the guy with the magical bow that shoots arrows made from energy.
• Jem and the Holograms: Jem! Jem is excitement! Ooo, Jem! Jem is adventure! Ooo, glamour and glitter, fashion and fame! Okay, so I liked a cartoon aimed at girls. It’s not like it’s My Little Pony, you know.
• Batman the Animated Series: Still the best version of Batman ever.
That’s it — the opening sequences from ten of my cherished childhood cartoons. What were some of your favorites?
Posted by Jess | Filed Under Pop Culture |
17 comments so far...
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I always felt the odds of Aunt May never dusting that trophy were a little low.
Nobody could possibly fault you for watching Jem. She rocked it and hard.
Batman- once, I had a dream about the animated Batman. he was animated in my dream, too. hmmmm, Batman….
Okay, how funny is it that I have doing the EXACT same thing on YouTube? Ahahahahahaha
Gummi Bears always topped my list. Someone asks Disney to create a cartoon series based on their line of candy, and Disney invents an entire medieval mythology surrounding bears with mystic powers who battle trolls and evil overlords. And the epic theme song still resounds in my head as I write this.
Actually, to throw in a few more Disney ones, Wuzzles, Ducktales, Chip and Dales’ Rescue Rangers, Talespin, and Darkwing Duck all had some pretty catchy theme songs. I always hoped the bus would get home in time so I could catch them.
Life’s problems were so different being ten.
haha, good stuff! One of my favorites was G-Force
Oh sure… now I have another addiction to deal with… thanks
Keep in mind that I’m an older person. I watched some of the ones you folks have listed with my nieces and nephews, though.
Here are mine…
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Speed Racer
Astroboy
Gigantor
Johnny Quest
GI Joe and Transformers were my hands down favorites. But there was also Heman and the Masters of the Universe and Thundercats. (Cheetara… *drool*)
UTube has some great redub parodies of Heman you need to check out.
Batman (the version you refer to) is the best one, but that was more of a college age guilty pleasure for me. It was made after Tim Burton got his hands on the caped crusader. The perfect combination.
They don’t make ‘em like this anymore…
Jess at Apropos of Something has a post up about Saturday morning cartoons. That prompted me to search YouTube for the Johnny Quest opening — my favorite as a child growing up in the urp 1960s. For some reason, I……
I agree that the animated series of Batman was the best batman vision outside of comics.
I wonder how you feel about Harvey Birdman’s take on the Hanna Barbera characters.
Okay remember how Rio used to flirt with Jem, not knowing that she was also Jerica? Isn’t that technically cheating. Scumbag,
OMG…Wondertwin Powers…Activate! You certainly bring back a ton of memorie with some of the cartoons you mentioned.
Thanks for renting from me this week…I’ll do my best to be a good pimp!
cartoons are boring nowadays..i feel like i missed out.
Thanks a million, billion, gazillion for the links!!!
Man, I can do this all day:
Battle of the Planets (NOT G-Force; that was Ted Turner’s bastardization)
Voltron, Defender of the Universe (Pharrell better hurry his ass up and make that live action movie already)
Bionic 6 (I had the hots for the daughter)
Ducktales & Darkwing Duck (since they share both Launchpad & Gizmoduck I consider them more or less the same series)
Back to the Future (why haven’t these been released on DVD? Whyyyy???)
X-Men (the ’90’s series was pretty true to the comics)
I’m not necessarily in the “all today’s cartoons suck” camp, because I realize that what appealed to me 15-20+ years ago aren’t the same as what tickles my fancy at 30. I just think by and large most anime series that are filling out lineups stink, and most domestically-produced series don’t take a lot of chances and are visually uninspired. (Exception: Kim Possible. Am I going to hell for lusting after an animated fourteen year old?)
OH! man you should have never posted this. i am having flashbacks as we speak.I may not agree with all the cartoons but i do with some. Don’t feel bad about Jem and the holograms. that show was great. I loved the Misfits they made the show more entertaining. I loved watching the scooby doo movies wheni was younger. Now if i try to watch them i see all the animation bloopers. Man! it was poorly done.I loved batman the animated series. It was very adult for a kids show. I was big fan of the x-men too. I remember waking up early saturday morning to catch it. I would be so upset if it was a 2 parter.