The buzzing from the alarm clock begins and it quickly wakes me from my dreams.  I hurriedly hit the off button and within seconds, I am out of bed and quietly opening my bedroom door, stopping like a stone statue for one single moment, to listen to the air…everyone is still asleep, right?  When I am confident there is no noise from the room next door, I make my way to the stairs and carefully step down, one foot at a time, slowly at first but gaining momentum.  Don’t want to wake anyone up.  Still in my pajamas, I round the corner, through the kitchen and into the family room.  The dark wood paneled walls and rust colored shag carpet are the first sights to wish me a “good morning.”  I turn on the console television; the sound is low but loud enough to hear from across the room.  I have already chosen my channel and the flicker of the last few minutes of the farm report fill the room.  I stretch out on the navy, rust & caramel colored velveteen plaid couch, pulling the cozy afghan on over me.

Victory!

I have beaten my brother Stevie to the family room and feign a villainous smile of success even though no one else can see it.  Setting the alarm was worth it.  On this morning, I partake in a party of one celebration.  The early bird got the worm, or in this case control over the Saturday morning cartoons.

How unfortunate for the kids today; they will never have any understanding of how we cherished those few hours each Saturday morning in the 70s & 80s.  They were precious enough to set an alarm clock and bore ourselves with early morning network programming just to be the one to control which station (NBC, CBS or ABC) would start off the day.  Would it be Hanna-Barbera, Looney Tunes or Walter Lantz?

In the day to day of the present, Nickelodeon, Disney Jr. and Cartoon Network, just to name a few, run children’s programming 24/7.  And, if there is nothing on that fits your fancy, you can pop in a DVD or switch over to Netflix.  Honestly though, not too sure who has it better.  Those Saturday mornings my brother and I spent sprawled out on opposite ends of the couch were gold:  Pushing our feet together to see who would be the winner of a feet fight, comparing cereal choices or discussing what would be better invention – a flying car or a shrinking machine?

The only moment that put a damper on our morning was when we heard the “hey, hey, hey” of Fat Albert.  Nothing against Fat Albert and his gang of friends, but that show was the signal that our fun, adventurous, colorful animated friends were about to bid us adieu until next Saturday.  It was the last cartoon that aired before switching over to sports, movies, news or other more adult programming and it was finally time to get out of our pajamas for the day.  And, from the odd choice of clothing I’ve witnessed lately from the athleisure culture, I think there would be a lot more happy people if we never had to change out of our pajamas at all.  (And, I am certainly guilty of wearing pajama pants to pop into UDF to get a Coke or Little Caesar’s for a $5 pizza when I have no plans for the day except some binge watching of the latest show I didn’t start watching at the beginning, but everybody is saying I would love.  Not condemning athleisure, just pointing it out.)

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming… Whether it was The Archies, Captain Caveman, Speed Buggy, Josie and the Pussycats or Casper, there was a lot of knowledge to gather from those Saturday morning tales.  For example:

Don’t be afraid of a ghost, it is probably just the old caretaker wearing a mask.  People are always worse than real monsters.  (Scooby Doo)

Products from ACME backfire a lot; however, don’t give up, always keep trying to reach your goals.  (Roadrunner)

If you have a difference of opinion in a back and forth argument, all it takes is tricking the person to your side by sliding in their point of view, so they will be confused and retort back with yours.  The power of persuasion is priceless.  (Bugs Bunny)

Don’t try to cheat, your wheels will fall off or you will slide on your own oil slick.  Overall, you team will never get to the top on ill-founded wins.  (Laff-A-Lympics)

If you let the water run over the kitchen sink and open the freezer, you can make your own skating rink.  You never know what you can come up with when you try to think outside the box.  (Tom & Jerry)

Eating spinach can make you stronger.  Just a little inner confidence can give you a lot of strength.  Oh, and eat your vegetables.  (Popeye)

If you have million$, use your money for worthwhile and meaningful reasons and your life will be more worthwhile and meaningful.  (Ri₵hie Ri₵h)

If you need to get into a quick disguise, jump into the top floor of a filing cabinet and come out the bottom.  Okay, maybe that one doesn’t work.  (Hong Kong Phooey)

Those lessons should at least get you through the day and ready for Saturday night television…Silver Spoons, The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.  And, just in case that last one is scary, you can always “accidentally” kick your sleeping brother on the other side of the couch – funny how in the morning you wanted him to sleep in; but, now waking him up is the best choice of the whole week.  Now all you have to do is get through the boring news and maybe you can stay awake for Saturday Night Live.  After all, you can sleep in tomorrow; there aren’t any cartoons on Sunday morning.  #50WeeksTo50

NOTE:  This post was inspired by the episode of Scooby Doo playing on the airport terminal televisions during a recent early morning Saturday flight.  They changed to news at 7am, but it was fun while it lasted.