4. ONE SATURDAY MORNING
But if you wanted to look at the outside...... Going the extra mile distinguishes you from the rest of the pack and helps you live on in memory long after your peers have died out. Going the extra mile is especially beneficial if your core product is weak. I'm sure you remember the cases when the underdog shined because they paid special attention to the finer details of their presentation. Fair or unfair, it has often been the deciding factor in how many people have "gotten ahead." In this instance, I believe we're discussing a situation that falls into the fair category. ABC's One Saturday Morning television block, when compared to the shows that Fox Kids and Kids WB were showing, had the weakest line-up out of the group. They had a lazy system; they put most of their stock into 3 top-tier shows (Disney's Doug, Recess, Pepper-Ann) and surrounded those shows with other inferior programming that was thoroughly underwhelming and completely interchangeable (101 Dalmatians The Series, The Weekenders, Sabrina The Animated Series, and Hercules The Animated Series). Along with that, in what I would imagine was a desperate move, the programmers at One Saturday Morning raided the Disney library of shows (Duck Tales, etc.) and outsourced programming content from other companies (The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Hour, School House Rock) to pad out the programming. A pathetic display by the House that Walt built, but if we've learned anything about the good people at Disney, we know that they could take anything...even a turd, add some magic, some glitter, a Richard Sherman or Alan Menken tune and make it the most magical thing you've ever seen. That is why One Saturday Morning is still spoken of so highly among the kids of the 90s. ABC/Disney took whatever meager shows they had, dressed them up, made them special, and turned it all into an event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntvxV1xwCCY See that stuff right there? That was just the opening. When you tuned into ABC early Saturday mornings this is what greeted you. It was a grand, and I would imagine expensive (at the time) CGI spectacle It was an ode to the tedium of the week and the beautiful freedom that Saturday brings. Still, you must remember that this was just the intro. The real spectacle is what lay beyond. Remember old Walt Disney and how he had his television specials like The Wonderful World of Color? Those wonderful old segments would often serve as a behind the scenes look at the makings of what we consider now to be Disney movie classics, but mostly they were fun little diversions to entertain the audience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4WfP-foY6s Well this was the core basis that made up the One Saturday Morning programming. Not the cartoons, mind you, but the stuff that came in between. Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color took place inside the magical walls of Disney Land. One Saturday morning took place inside the magical (and, sadly, fictional) Saturday building. Inside these CGI headquarters, you find all manner of odd individuals. Colorful and imaginatively decked out humanoids would move in and out of the background, providing endless stimulation for our young minds. Our guide through these weird waters was a young, bubbly personality of the female persuasion (Jessica Prunell in the initial incarnation and later, more famously, Valerie Rae Miller of
Dark Angel fame). With enough style and coolness to intrigue the girls and cuteness to enthrall preteen boys, these two young ladies would introduce the upcoming programming, interact with the inhabitants of the Saturday facility, and provide enough zany diversions to keep us calm as we waited for the next show to come on. When their charms began to wear thin, a very cool interstitial would fill in, one that often proved to be better than the meager cartoon offerings that would follow. Short subjects like Centerville... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUUfYV8l5KU and Great Minds Think Alike (an educational short hosted by none other than Genie from
Aladdin and voiced, at least on some occasions, by the man Robin Williams himself) would serve as great, off-beat ways to pass the time as you re-filled your Cap'n Crunch and milk. One Saturday Morning was a grand spectacle that ABC/Disney put on for us 90's kids. Other stations may have had superior programming, but they didn't try to make it more than it already was. One Saturday Morning took the scant programming that they had and made watching it an event, turning the simple act of Saturday morning cartoons into a perfect way to end the week and bring in the weekend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQKTtxAVplg