Continuing as promised, we recreate CBS' Saturday morning line-up for the 1972-73 season. We checked out what the competition at ABC and NBC had to offer this year over here. ABC's line-up hauled ass and NBC's was rather weak. Let's see how the eye measures up.
8:00 am - The Bugs Bunny Show - this year Road Runner did not receive co-star billing with Bugs. Presumably he was a hold-out in a contract dispute with CBS. Beep beep.
8:30 - Sabrina the Teenage Witch - Filmation put together this Archie Comics spin-off with an unfortunately drab theme song. Terrible cartoons of the seventies could always at least advertise a worthwhile, super hoppin' theme song - but this one sounds like it belongs in the eighties. Since when was there a caveman in the Sabrina world? Did I miss something?
9:00 - The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan - Just when I'm feeling depressed, sitting in my pajamas, upset that Sabrina's theme song is for the birds - along comes this haul ass ditty. I'm a big fan of the ole racist Charlie Chan pictures of the thirties and forties, both those released by 20th Century Fox and later by the budget Monogram studio. This cartoon then, should have all the ingredients for a good time. It's a crossover of two of my favorite all-time elements: Charlie Chan movies and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. This theme song is so great - but to fully appreciate the program - please consume in small doses. Crank it!
Charlie was one promiscuous son-of-a-bitch, wasn't he? I wonder if they're all from different mothers!
9:30 - The New Scooby-Doo Movies - Each week showcased a different celebrity guest star. Often Hanna-Barbera just used this timeslot to promote their other shows. Such is the case this week with a guest appearance from the animated Addams Family.
10:30 - Josie and the Pussycats - Well, what can you say other than this turns kids perverted. Makes 'em want to have a sex with cartoon characters. Although, to be fair, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan also makes me hard. Good news - a two-disc set of Hanna-Barbera's Josie and The Pussycats cartoon will be released in the fall.
Of course, this being 1972, it's quite likely that this timeslot was filled with Josie and The Pussycats in Outer Space, although the listings still advertised the original title.
11:00 - The Flintstones Comedy Hour - I think most people figured it was a given that The Flintstones and its several incarnations was always intended to be funny. If you need to put the word "comedy" right in the title for clarification purposes ... that is a big big uh-oh. The show featured bubble-gum pop sequences like these:
12:00 pm - Archie's TV Funnies - Again, if you have to state that its funny in the title - there's a very good chance it won't be. What the hell is going on in this opening sequence? Are the Archie characters working at NASA? And Moon Mullins - what child in the seventies gave a shit or had ever heard of Moon Mullins!?
12:30 - Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids - *Groan* - how many times do I need to post footage from this show? If you want to see it, please visit a previously recreated Saturday Morning elsewhere on the site.
1:00 - The CBS Children's Film Festival - Not a bad haul of cartoons today. Not bad at all. In the end I would say the 72-73 season belongs to ABC, followed closely here by CBS. NBC's line-up is not uninteresting, but still, a far cry from the entertainment provided on the other two channels. This installment of The CBS Children's Film Festival was originally made in 1969 and aired constantly over the course of many years in this time slot. It is titled CLOWN.
1:00 - The CBS Children's Film Festival - Not a bad haul of cartoons today. Not bad at all. In the end I would say the 72-73 season belongs to ABC, followed closely here by CBS. NBC's line-up is not uninteresting, but still, a far cry from the entertainment provided on the other two channels. This installment of The CBS Children's Film Festival was originally made in 1969 and aired constantly over the course of many years in this time slot. It is titled CLOWN.
