12/9/1972: Remember Saturday mornings?

December 9, 1972  (Saturday)

As a child, there was always something special about Saturday mornings.

These days -- thanks to the proliferation of specialty channels like The Cartoon Network, Teletoon, Teletoon Retro, NickToon, and many others, as well as the the Internet -- cartoons are easily accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  And while there's something to be said about the convenience of being able to watch cartoons any time of the day, any day of the week, this same convenience contributed to the demise of a tradition that dated back to the mid-1960s:  the Saturday Morning Cartoons.

There were many contributing factors to the eventual decline of the timeslot, and I'll write about them in a later blog.  But during the 1970s and '80s, Saturday Morning Cartoons were at their peak.

Back then, Saturdays were a special time.  Part of the reason, of course, was because it was the weekend, a brief respite from the drudgery of school.  But what made Saturday so special was that it always offered four splendid hours of animated bliss.  Sure, we had our weekday and lunchtime cartoons -- mostly re-runs of Spider-Man, The Flintstones, and classic Warner Bros. cartoons -- but what made Saturday Morning Cartoons so special was that they only came once a week.  Therefore, they were a real treat -- something to look forward to all week long.  I enjoyed them all, the good and the bad (and let's face it: there were some really bad ones).  To this day, I look back fondly on those mornings, when I would wake up before my parents, sit on the floor in front of the television with my bowl of Lucky Charms or Cocoa Puffs and my big, yellow plastic cup of chocolate milk, and let myself get swept away. From childhood to mid-adolescence, before sleeping in late began to take priority, my Saturday mornings were always spent in front of the TV, engrossed and entertained by the latest animated antics and adventures of my favorite cartoon characters.

On December 9, 1972, I was only a day old, and those mornings were still a few years away. However, if I had been old enough to watch cartoons, this is the Saturday morning lineup I would have had to choose from:

CBS

8:00:  Bugs Bunny

8:30:  Sabrina the Teenage Witch  (3rd season)

9:00:  The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan  (NEW)

9:30:  The New Scooby-Doo Movies  (NEW)

10:30:  Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space  (NEW)

11:00:  The Flintstones Comedy Hour  (2nd season)

12:00:  Archie's TV Funnies  (2nd season)

12:30:  Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids  (NEW)

ABC

8:00:  H.R. Pufnstuf  (re-runs)

8:30:  The Jackson 5ive  (re-runs)

9:00:  The Osmonds  (NEW)

9:30:  The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie  (NEW)

10:30:  The Brady Kids  (NEW)

11:00:  Bewitched  (re-runs)

11:30:  Kid Power  (NEW)

12:00:  The Funky Phantom  (2nd season)

12:30:  Lidsville  (2nd season)

NBC

8:00:  Underdog  (re-runs)

8:30:  The Jetsons  (re-runs)

9:00:  The Pink Panther

9:30:  Houndcats  (NEW)

10:00:  Roman Holidays  (NEW)

10:30:  The Barkleys  (NEW)

11:00:  Sealab 2020  (NEW)

11:30:  Roundabout  (NEW)

12:00:  Around the World in 80 Days  (NEW)

12:30:  Talking with a Giant  (NEW)

As you can see, the 1972-73 season brought a slew of new shows, as well as new formats for returning series.  Michael Eisner (later the head of Disney) was in charge of Saturday morning programming for ABC in 1972, and he basically brought a prime-time feel to Saturday mornings with cartoon versions of popular recording artists and nighttime shows.  Over at NBC, The Pink Panther was the only thing keeping the network afloat on Saturday mornings.

At CBS, that network's two biggest new shows were The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

The New Scooby-Doo Movies was the second series (following Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, 1969-1970) to star Scooby-Doo and the Mystery, Inc. gang.  Produced by Hanna-Barbera, the show ran for two seasons (24 episodes) and was the only hour-long Scooby-Doo series to date.  What also made this series different from its predecessor was the addition of a rotating special guest star; each episode featured real-life celebrities or well-known fictional characters joining the gang in solving that week's mystery.  As with the previous series, the voice of Shaggy was provided by radio personality and American Bandstand host Casey Kasem (one of the many animated roles for which he provided voice work during the '70s).

This week's episode (#14), entitled "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall," guest-starred country music singer/actor Jerry Reed.  

The story involved Reed being kidnapped as an attempt to prevent him from staging an important concert and the Mystery, Inc. gang's attempts to rescue him and discern the identity of the mysterious "Phantom."

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was created, produced, and hosted (in live-action segments) by Bill Cosby, and was based on Cosby's remembrances of his childhood gang.  Beginning a run that would last an amazing 12 years (the longest run in the history of Saturday morning cartoons), the show centered on the title character and his friends who often hung out in a North Philadelphia junkyard.  

Each episode, "The Junkyard Gang" dealt with an issue or problem commonly faced by young urban children.  Every episode would also feature an educational lesson, for which the show was honored and for which Cosby earned a Doctorate in Education.  Cosby himself provided the voices of Fat Albert, Mushmouth, and Bill (the latter character being based on Cosby himself).

This week's episode (#14) was the first season finale and was entitled "Stagefright."  The story dealt with the gang taking an interest in a local drama club and attempting to stage a production of Moby Dick in the hopes of winning a cash prize.   The lesson offered that week was on the importance of self-esteem.

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Meanwhile, in the real world, pilot Martin Hartwell was rescued in the Canadian Arctic more than a month after he and three other people had crashed near Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories.  The plane's disappearance had led to the largest aviation search in Canadian history.

Green Day drummer Tré Cool was born in Frankfurt, West Germany, and American gossip columnist Louella Parsons died at the age of 91.

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Another staple of Saturdays, one that is still ongoing to this day, is the Billboard Hot 100.

Running in its current incarnation since August 1958, the Hot 100 is the music industry standard singles popularity chart, issued weekly by Billboard magazine.  The statistics of the chart are compiled according to national retail sales and and radio airplay.  (In recent years, the chart has acknowledged factors such as digital downloads and online streaming.)

The week of Dec. 9 saw 11 new songs debuting on the chart, the highest ranking being Elton John's "Crocodile Rock," debuting at #73.  The biggest jump was Carly Simon's "You're So Vain," which debuted at #99 the previous week before leaping up to #60 this week.

The Top 10 singles were as follows (just click the title to hear the song):

          10.  I'm Stone in Love with You -- The Stylistics

            9.  Clair -- Gilbert O'Sullivan

            8.  Ventura Highway -- America

            7.  It Never Rains in Southern California -- Albert Hammond

            6.  Me and Mrs. Jones -- Billy Paul

            5.  You Ought to Be with Me -- Al Green

            4.  I Can See Clearly Now -- Johnny Nash

            3.  If You Don't Know Me By Now -- Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes

            2.  Papa Was a Rolling Stone -- The Temptations

And the #1 song that week....

Yes, that's right.  The #1 song when I was born was "I Am Woman."  I'm not sure whether that falls into the category of irony, but regardless, feel free to laugh all you want.

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On prime-time television, the Big Three networks offered new episodes of all of their Saturday night programming.  NBC aired a new episode of Emergency!.  ABC's line-up consisted of Alias Smith and Jones, The Sixth Sense, and the latest episode of their brand new show The Streets of San Francisco.  CBS continued to dominate Saturday nights with the one-two punch of their hits All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as well as Bridget Loves Bernie, their newest sitcom The Bob Newhart Show, and Mission: Impossible, which was in the midst of its seventh season.

The Streets of San Francisco, which had debuted that September, was a police drama starring Karl Malden and Michael Douglas as Mike Stone and Steve Keller, two San Francisco homicide detectives.  At the time the show debuted, Douglas was still primarily known as the son of Kirk Douglas.  Although he had begun his acting career in the late '60s, appearing mostly in little-known films and various television roles, he had yet to land a significant role.  The Streets of San Francisco was that role.

This was a show I had never seen until I started this retrospective, although I did learn about it as a pre-teen, when I first became familiar with Michael Douglas through Romancing the Stone.  So this week's episode (#10), entitled "The Year of the Locusts," was my first.  The plot involved a band of modern-day gypsies descending on San Francisco, with its aging patriarch unaware that the younger family members have moved on from simple con jobs to million-dollar heists and murder.  

Surprisingly (to me, at least), unlike many other cop shows of its era, The Streets of San Francisco did not seem the least bit dated.  The material could just as easily be transported to a modern show and be just as effective.  And, most importantly, the show works because of the excellent chemistry between the two leads.  That kind of rapport is vital for a show or movie of this type to succeed, and thankfully, Malden and Douglas pull it off admirably.

The other new Saturday night show was the CBS sitcom The Bob Newhart Show.  The show stars Bob Newhart (obviously) as Chicago psychologist Robert Hartley and Suzanne Pleshette as his wife, Emily.  The supporting cast consists of Bill Daily as Howard Borden, their friendly but inept neighbor; Peter Bonerz as Jerry Robinson, the orthodontist who practices in the same medical building as Bob; and Marcia Wallace as Carol Kester, Bob's receptionist.  The show divides its attention between Bob's work and home life.

Most of the situations involve Bob playing straight man to his wife, colleagues, friends, and patients. This was an extension of Newhart's stand-up comedy routines, where he would routinely play one side of a telephone conversation, the other side of which is never heard.

Episode 12 aired on this date.  Entitled "Bob and Emily and Howard and Carol and Jerry," the story involves Emily setting up Howard and Carol on a blind date, which turns out to be a disaster.  And that's only the first act.  Readers familiar with the show and the history of the characters will know how it ends, and what the ending leads to in subsequent episodes, but the less a newcomer to the show knows beforehand the better.

Like Sanford and Son, this was a show I never got to see until the '90s, when I would catch syndicated reruns on various cable channels.  By then, I was already quite familiar with Bob Newhart from his '80s sitcom, Newhart, and his numerous appearances on The Tonight Show. The show was a hit from the start, ranking in the Top 20 in the ratings, and even 20 years later, I could understand why.  Smart, funny, and wry, it's the kind of sitcom that has a timeless feel to it, one that can still be enjoyed just as much today as it was in 1992 or 1972.

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And to paraphrase Lloyd Robertson, that's the kind of day it was on December 9, 1972.