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New Article: ABC’s Saturday Morning Preview Special, 1983!

It's got nothing to do with Halloween, but who knows, maybe you're up for a change of pace. Here's a review of ABC's Saturday Morning Preview Special, a thirty-minute program hosted by Dick Clark that talks up 1983's hottest premiering toons -- everything from "Rubik, The Amazing Cube" to "The Monchichis" and beyond. Suffice to say, you don't see shit like this anymore. Oh, did I mention the bit where Emmanuel Lewis talks about dogs while waving half a pool cube around? Yeah, it's in there baby. Homemade taste it's in there. Check it out.

Posted by Matt on 10/17/2003. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 111 comments

monchichis monchichis oh so fun and cuddly with their thumb in their mouth it’s really sweet fun to wiggle their little feet.

My brother cut the tail off my monchichi. I don’t know why, he just did.

Chestnuts roasted by candybar @ 10/18/2003 2:15 AM

Y’know the little Japanese import store in my local mall still sells Monchichi shit. Ok more like they still have Monchichi stuff for sale, I doubt they’re selling any of it.
I hear tell of a program called the wonderful world of Dic (A name which I find highly suspect) apparently someone thought it would be a good idea to expose the youth of today to the littles again. As I’ve said before, the littles I’ll put up with, but I’m sticking my head into the oven if anyone tries to expose me to Punky Brewster and her "Rainbow Fairy Bear" Glomer.

Chestnuts roasted by Dante @ 10/18/2003 2:48 AM

I was born in 1984 so I wouldn’t have seen that show, but I do remember ABC aring those prime time shows up until I want to say about 97 or 98. When they were doing their One Saturday Morning lineup. My fave ABC one had to be the ones when they showed clips of Darkwing Duck. I used to watch Richie Rich when they repeated it on Sunday mornings in the late 80s. I like Scrappy probably because when I watched his show in weekday repeats. I was like 3, so I had no idea what was really going on.

P.S. in some markets the Littles are being shown again

Chestnuts roasted by pikachulover @ 10/18/2003 2:54 AM

I remember that damn Saved by the Bell special. That thing was mfin’ weird. They did have some characters from the really bad Nintendo cartoon do a throw over to Marsha Warfield (a big star from NBC’s Night Court, coincidence, eh) who played a big menacing security gaurd (what a stretch) who had it in for Zach and had some sort of issue about people being late. Weird.

Chestnuts roasted by Tuff Daddy Cool @ 10/18/2003 3:14 AM

I didn’t give a shit about David and his Gnome-y friends… I just wanted Swift. I loved that fox.

As far as Scrappy goes… well, I have a soft spot for the puppy. Mainly because my first Scooby Doo memories are a couple of movies that featured Scrappy, Scooby, and Shaggy and obligatory Shaggy love intrest. Y’know the ones I’m talking about. "Scooby Doo meets the Boo Brothers", Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf", and "Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School". I think we had these all on one VHS tape and I’d just watch ‘em all damn day when I was little. In fact, I don’t even remember watching the original show untill far later in life.

I wasn’t born ’till 83 by-the-way… looks like I didn’t miss out on a whole lot. I’m just happy that Toon Disney now airs "Garfield and Friends" at 2 in the morning. I can sleep soundly tonight.

Chestnuts roasted by SandyChii @ 10/18/2003 3:52 AM

When I see the Monchichis all I can think of is the odd looking drummer from Limp Bizkit.
http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/John_Otto.html

"The Littles" were based off "The Borrowers" book, which was made into a movie with John Goodman a few years back.

If I remeber correctly, Menudo did the theme for the cartoon Rubik. This might have to do with the kid characters being Latino.

Chestnuts roasted by Richard @ 10/18/2003 4:23 AM

I remember David the Gnome’s closing credits always cheered me up, because everyone was kinda dancing and twirling (even the trolls, I think). But I usually didn’t watch it because some other channel aired Stunt Dawgs during that time slot. Yes. Stunt dawwwwwwgs.

Chestnuts roasted by Low Moral Fiber @ 10/18/2003 5:20 AM

Oh yeah, and about another Saturday Morning special. I think NBC had a "Who Shrunk Saturday Morning?" where Screech shrunk the Saved by the Bell cast into the TV, and George Jefferson was The Wizard, and I couldn’t stop crying.

Chestnuts roasted by Low Moral Fiber @ 10/18/2003 5:23 AM

it may be a guilty feeling i’ve been carrying around for years, but i’m indifferent to the ENTIRE Scooby Doo series. as a kid, i put it last on the toon priority list, and i never did warm up to it. i just don’t care for Scooby, and Scrappy didn’t help any.

there, i’ve said it. i feel better.

@Aeire: i totally remember the Hunk o’Cheese guy. i love cheese. it just might be because of that PSA. (is it a PSA? hmm…)

Chestnuts roasted by zann @ 10/18/2003 9:27 AM

I always preferred the Scooby Doo Meets Some damned celebrity episodes…even if the bastards got that "Pretty Mary Sunshine" song permanently imprinted in my brain.

Also, am I the only one who watched the Police Academy cartoon and had (most of) the figures?

Chestnuts roasted by Nemesis @ 10/18/2003 10:34 AM

I hate Scooby Doo. Every form and spinoff of the series. On "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" They actually had 10 episodes but made slight alterations to each them to make it seem like 200. I mean, they did the same thing that they do with Space Ghost Coast to Coast, but C2C is supposed to be like that and seem the way it does, I don’t think they had those intentions with the Doo. The show maybe was enjoyable the first time you watched it as a 2 year old, but it just got so repeditave.

And the Scooby Doo celebrity movies were the same. They used the same celebrities for the entire series. They had Don Knotts, and the Harlem Globetrotters. They used them in 50 movies.

If there’s any Scooby-Doo spinoff I can watch, it’s A Pup Named Scooby Doo. It’s actually pretty funny, unlike other forms of Scooby. And they actually made new episodes. They didn’t alter previous episodes.

Okay, I’m done rambling.

Chestnuts roasted by Tim-E @ 10/18/2003 10:59 AM

Cartoon Express was the best cartoon block of all time. Having the Go-Bots (WAY BETTER than Transformers BTW) in one place with the Hair Bear Bunch, heaven on earth dear friends. Kids cartoons today suck. If I way a 5 year old in these days and had to put up with this crap I would swallow my Mr. Bubbles in a feeble attempt to kill myself.

Chestnuts roasted by King of Swing @ 10/18/2003 11:27 AM

Go-Bots are the poor man’s Transformers.

Chestnuts roasted by Tim-E @ 10/18/2003 11:48 AM

Gotta admit it…. I hated David the Gnome. I always found it weak and too "sweet." Killing me with kindness, you know. Plus, I don’t know if it was him supplying the voice, but the dude sounded like Mr. Cunningham from Happy Days. Freaked me out. Give me Duckula, DM, and Bananaman any day…something with "oomph."

Plus, you gotta love a cartoon (i.e., Danger Mouse) where one of the characters has an obsessive compulsive disorder. Colonel K, anyone? Kept subtly looking over at his phone (was it his phone?) when talking to DM at the beginning of each show… because one of the earlier episodes had the town’s electronics taking over things. The dude maintained a phobia of his machines for the rest of the series! How’s THAT for consistency!

Chestnuts roasted by Nachokhaki @ 10/18/2003 12:00 PM

I did a feature on "Time For Timer" a while ago.

http://www.parnasas.com/PopArena/Articles/timer.html

Chestnuts roasted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 10/18/2003 12:00 PM

Ho. Ly. MACKEREL.

A morning preview special. A bejesused MORNING PREVIEW SPECIAL. If it weren’t for X-E I’d never even have known such a thing existed – bad crap doesn’t get any better than this, I’ll tell you that for nothing!

I blame it all on my growing up on the wrong side of the Atlantic, though. I missed out on so much batshit insane ’80s nonsense it’s not even funny!

However, I did watch David the Gnome religiously and maintained a healthy obsession that involved randomly pasting David stickers on my bedroom’s IKEA cabinets and forcing my parents to buy a David cereal bowl I’d use approximately 1.4 times each year. I remember nothing about the series though, except that they always rubbed their noses against each other. Dirty geriatric fetishists.

And on a different popular topic in this blog session, I watched various Scooby-Doo series for ages. The last one that aired (again) each morning was actually the original series, up to the penultimate year of high school I think. At that time I really only watched it for sheer camp value – the Scooby-Doo theme ranks up there with anything The Village People or ABBA ever relased, in my opinion. Brilliant stuff.

Chestnuts roasted by JC @ 10/18/2003 1:22 PM

Okay, I wasn’t even a year old when -this- cartoon preview aired, so I don’t remember any of these cartoons– but oh, how well I remember other ABC’s fall cartoon previews past.

Most clearly I remember the preview for Reboot… man, ‘back in the day’ that show seemed like such high technology. :)

What a fun article!

Chestnuts roasted by snowcalico @ 10/18/2003 1:28 PM

Fuck, that shot of Menudo scared the shit outta me. For a second, I actually thought they were given their own cartoon!

And I certainly rememeber that NBC Saturday Morning special. This was before Saved by the Bell premeired. The idea is that Screech’s latest invention pulls the Bayside gang into some psudo dimension ruled by Saturday morning programming, and they meet the oricle who can send them back, and he’s played by Sherman fuckin’ Helmsly, aka George Jefferson! All the while, that security guard keeps bitching about how everyone is gonna be late for class. Anyway, Helmsly says he’ll send the kids back to Bayside, if they agree to appear in their own Saturday morning show called, "Saved by the Bell", cuz he returns them mere seconds before the tardy bell at school rings. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Seriously, shit like this needs to be released on DVD!

Also, does anybody remember the old WWF Cartoon, "Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling?" Admit it! You watched it, you can’t unwatch it!

Chestnuts roasted by A-wel Cruiz @ 10/18/2003 2:27 PM

A Menudo cartoon…..Now that’s only a dream…

Chestnuts roasted by Tim-E @ 10/18/2003 3:00 PM

Oh yes, seasons 1 and 2 of Saved by the Bell have already been released on DVD in one set. Hopefully the rest of the first series will follow.

Chestnuts roasted by Tim-E @ 10/18/2003 3:04 PM

Mr.Mr. Mr., I just checked out your great site. I had never heard of "Aliens in the Family" and I am glad now that I never did:
http://www.parnasas.com/PopArena/Articles/aliens.html

Here are some rare video game records:
The Amazing Adventures of Pac-Man – Slightly Crazy Lazy Day / It’s My Job
http://www.otisfodder.com/365days/archive/270.html
http://www.otisfodder.com/365days-media2.php?file=365days-09-27.mp3
Atari – Fly, Yar Warriors/Missile Command/Atari Theme
http://www.otisfodder.com/365days/archive/246.html
http://www.otisfodder.com/365days-media2.php?file=365days-09-03.mp3

Chestnuts roasted by ME @ 10/18/2003 6:05 PM

was i the only one that enjoyed the antics of scrappy doo
am i wrong to refuse to watch scooby cartoons with my younger sister if scrappy ain’t in it

i refuse to believe i am

Chestnuts roasted by Tha Shacmasta @ 10/18/2003 6:13 PM

While I’m not a fan of Scrappy Doo, I do think we need to redirect our hatred away from him. After all, Cartoon Network and the guys who made the movie have successfully turned him into a bitter psycho.

Rather, I think we need to direct our hatred towards the true demon of the Scooby mythos. By that I mean Flim Flam from 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo. Words can’t express how much I loathe that kid.

On the subject of the ABC preview specials, all I can think about is the year when the cast of Family Matters was given the burden of introducing the shows. Towards the end, with all these announcements of new shows and the logic that older shows would be cancelled, Carl Winslow got really defensive and desperately asked, "But what about Pooh Bear?!"

So Dick Clark may have walked over hot coals in 83 for a paycheck, but Reginald VelJohnson had the decency to show emotion, man. Reginald cared about Pooh.

Chestnuts roasted by Gavok @ 10/18/2003 7:08 PM

SCRAPPY DOO SUCKS SHIT!!! Always has and always will. Why do you think he was the main villian in the Scooby-Doo movie? (Oh shit, I hope I didn’t ruin it!)

And if you like Mr. Mr. Mr.’s site, check out mine, (last time, I swear!!!)

Chestnuts roasted by A-wel Cruiz @ 10/18/2003 7:08 PM

ABC wasn’t the only channel that ran previews of its Saturday morning stuff. I remember that NBC did too (when it actually did run Saturday morning programming). I forgot what year it was, but it involved Benji Gregory (the kid from ALF) as a detective in a mansion and he was solving a mystery. He would go around the mansion getting clues from various Saturday morning cartoon characters. First a clip would run and then a voice of the one of the characters (Alvin of the Chipmunks, a Gummi Bear, Papa Smurf, etc.) would drop a clue.

I miss the cool Sat. morning programming of the 80s…

Chestnuts roasted by Bert Raccoon @ 10/18/2003 8:03 PM

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2003 at 8:17 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.