Saturday Morning Magic

 Remember Saturday mornings, waking up, grabbing a bowl of cereal, and turning on the tv to watch cartoons that came on exclusively on Saturday mornings? Well I bring this up because lately I've been feeling extremely nostalgic, specifically about the early to mid 2000s (and 90s too, kinda). And since the magic of Saturday mornings has died awhile ago with the rise of streaming services and the ability to watch a lot of those Saturday morning exclusive shows pretty much whenever you feel like, I figured I'd talk about it for a bit. After all, they were a huge part of my childhood, as I'm sure it was for a lot of  millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z kids. So stick with me as I go on a nostalgia trip for a bit.

Speaking as someone whose childhood mostly took place in the 2000s, Saturday morning tv blocks on channels like Fox, ABC, and WB (now known as The CW) had a certain vibe to them that 24/7 cartoon channels couldn't fully replicate. I'm not sure how to fully explain what I mean by that, other than it kinda felt like being part of a world that only existed for about 3-ish hours out of the week. And I know that probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but like I said, it was a certain feeling that channels like Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon just didn't really have. Sure, they tried to replicate that feeling with Saturday morning blocks of their own, but it just wasn't the same. Just using Cartoon Network as an example of what I mean, sure it had shows that came on exclusively on Saturday mornings like Sitting Ducks, but those shows always had something of an indie feel to them. The kind of shows from your childhood that you wouldn't remember unless someone on the internet made some kind of content like a Youtube video or, in this case, a blog post on it.

I mentioned how different channels outside of just the channels that ran cartoon basically all day, everyday, had their own Saturday morning cartoon blocks. well the ones I grew up with were Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC, Kids WB, and Fox Kids. That third one rebranded as FoxBox (yes, the blog name "RoxBox Reviews" is a reference to that) before just going by 4Kids TV. 4Kids being the company behind a lot of the shows that came on the program, mostly known for dubbing anime like Pokémon, Yugioh, One Piece and Sonic X at the time, a long with some original stuff. They're also known for their hilariously bad censorship that more often than not make to sense.

The three channels I named off were basically the kings of Saturday mornings for a lot of kids growing up in the 90s and  especially the early 2000s. Each of the three gave off their own unique vibes, with ABC focusing on pretty much shows that were owned by Disney, which admittedly you could already watch on Toon Disney most of the time, Kids WB having more of a focus on wackier cartoon, as well as cartoons featuring DC characters  like Batman, and Fox having more of a focus on anime and cartoons inspired by anime, like the 2003 TMNT show. that's not even to mention the commercials and the sweepstakes that a lot of these Saturday morning blocks had going on. And for some families who maybe didn't have cable, these Saturday morning cartoon blocks where pretty much their own way of watching cartoons at all.

In recent years, you can find a lot of the shows that came on these blocks on some streaming service like Netflix or Prime Video. And for the shows that aren't on any streaming service, there's always other ways you can find them, if you look hard enough online. With Saturday morning cartoon blocks being a thing of the past, Saturdays definitely feel as if something is missing. Ether way, thanks for reading and I hope maybe I was able to spark a bit of nostalgia in you too.