So it’s Monday. I look at Twitter and I see nothing but grumbling, sad people giving out about work and buses and the various ways in which their lives suck and I realise what you all need: A FLASHBACK! So here’s a little something to chase away your Monday blues and take your little monster back to a time when everything was utterly brilliant. It’s saturday morning and that can only mean one thing… It’s cartoon time!
The line-up:
7.00am – Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
Everybody knows the original Spider-man cartoon, if for no other reason than The Simpsons movie bashed us over the head with it anew. But how many of you remember this little gem? Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends ran from 1981 to 1983 and featured the webslinger along with Iceman and Firestar (in her debut appearance). There was a time when this was must-see-tv for me. Spider-Man held little appeal for me but throw in a cool (I know) dude and a fiery (on a roll, right?) chick and I was sold. Also, who wouldn’t want to live with a girl whose very presence could give you cancer? TV gold.
7.30am – Jayce and The Wheeled Warriors
Putting this second may have been a mistake because it didn’t get much better than this. Once Jayce had been on you could pretty much go out to play. Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was, quite simply, da bomb. It had everything a kick ass hero, sassy wizard, telepathic girl who used to be a flower, stone-cold merc and a villian who still gives me the ick. If you didn’t want to be in the Lightning League then you weren’t coming to my birthday party. Simple as.
8.00am – M.A.S.K.
That thing I said before? About it being okay to go out to play? Well it’s not. M.A.S.K. is on so sit down and shut up. So what if it was a 22 minute toy commercial, it was damn good. I remember the year I got Birdman’s Vandal for Christmas and it made my year. Never has a piece of purple plastic brought so much joy before. So, while its intentions were less than noble, M.A.S.K. makes our list for sheer, blind rocking. My brief stint as a mad scientist saw many a failed mask prototype toseed away like so much old painted cardboard. Sing along now “Spectrum’s got such super vision!”
8.30am – Widget the World Watcher
Shapeshifting alien best friend. All I wanted from Santa in 1991. Did he deliver? Well, no. So I had to make do with watching Widget. Imagine Captain Planet with a personality and you’ve got yourself a winner. Widget was an alien from the Horsehead nebula with a passion for protecting the planet from pollution (mmm, alliterative). If you think you recognise the voice, you do, it’s The Simpson’s Martin Prince.
9.00am – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Let’s round this off with the King of Cartoons shall we? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Cartoons never have been and never will be better. Whether Splinter taught them to be fighting teens or ninja teens is a matter of geography and maybe “Ninja” was more violent than “Hero”. We didn’t care. We were only green, and so were they. Whether Raphael’s sarcasm tickled you or you preferred Leonardo’s straight-laced approach, maybe you wanted to be best buds with Michaelangelo or copy Donatello’s homework, the Turtles had everything. Who didn’t have a bit of a crush on Irma? Or maybe Casey Jones was more your type. Didn’t you just want to smack Vernon in the mouth? This was the pinnacle of kids programming. Stick this in your sophisticated anime and smoke it. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Dom Pérignon for children. (I could get into so much trouble for that sentence).
Well kids it’s 9.30am and your parents have just woken up so it’s time for you to go bug them for a while and then kill some time until Xena starts. Make the most of these cartoons because soon you’ll be a grown up looking back on them on some “website” on the “internet” in the “future”, and then my child you will shed a tear, because you’re on the bus home from work.
End FLASHBACK.
