In this Time Capsule, we’re going back to 1986 to see all of the listings in TV Guide for October 31st…Halloween! It’s a great look at all of the shows and movies that were available to enjoy on Halloween night that year. What do you see in the listings that you would be watching on that night?
This presentation may be the one I’m most excited about in the history of Retro Ramblings. What we’ve got here is a rip of a home-recorded VHS tape that features probably the two greatest Halloween cartoons of all time. It was recorded in 1985 and features the debut airing of Garfield’s Halloween Adventure. Not only that, but it has It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown right behind it. And if that wasn’t enough, it still has all of the original 1985 commercials intact as well. Everything is complete as presented by CBS as a special presentation that week in 1985! So settle in for this one and try to remember what it felt like all those years ago to view this magical night of television.
This may be short, but it’s still a classic. Chris Farley’s Matt Foley character just might be my all-time favorite character in the history of SNL. This sketch in particular is my favorite just due to watching David Spade and Christina Applegate try to keep from breaking character. And hey, it has a Halloween theme, so that’s just a bonus.
Saturday mornings in 2019 are a far cry from the Saturday mornings of 1985. Hell, it’s been that way since the late 1990’s when the networks started phasing out their cartoon lineups in favor of other programming on Saturdays. I’m not sure what caused the change unless it was the fact that cable television was a staple in most homes by that time. But one thing I do know, is Saturday mornings in the ’80s and early ’90s were the bomb for kids. All three of the big networks stuffed their Saturday morning lineups with some of the best cartoons ever produced, and we ate them up!
We all had our favorites, and we all had the ones we weren’t fond of. Channel hopping was commonplace for us kids on Saturday mornings as our favorites were usually spread across all three networks. And back then, that took a little effort. I had to keep getting up to change the channel between shows because I don’t remember having a television with a remote control until the late ’80s. Not that it really mattered though because it was worth the effort to get to the cartoon I really wanted to watch.
Let’s take a look at the Saturday morning cartoon lineups from 1985 and talk about what our favorite offerings were!
NBC unleashed a pretty swank lineup in 1985 with a lot of cartoons that are still enjoyed to this day. It may not have been evident at the time, but The Smurfs would go on to become a powerhouse for the next 37 years, and will probably continue to be one for still a long time to come. Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears debuted in 1985 and was one of the slickest-looking shows on any of the networks. Alvin and the Chipmunks went on to be another powerhouse in the pop culture world, and Mr. T was near his zenith, so his Mister T cartoon was flying high at this point as well. Its Punky Brewster was piggybacking off the success of the live-action prime-time show on NBC, and The Snorks was a Smurfs clone that went on to moderate success of its own. Kidd Video and One to Grow On were minor hits in their own right, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends helped to capture the young comic books fans to round out the block.
CBS countered with a decent lineup of their own. They were banking on the mega-popularity of the World Wrestling Federation and Hulk Hogan in 1985 and made Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling the cornerstone of their 1985 lineup. Much like NBC and the Smurfs, CBS had a powerhouse in their midst with Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies cartoon, and the Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show featured iconic characters that had been bankable for years. The Berenstain Bears were well known to kids everywhere since most kids had read, or at least heard, a lot of their stories from the popular books, so this looked like it could have been a big hit for them. Dungeons and Dragons was on the tongue of most kids in this time frame due to the popularity/taboo of the game. The Wuzzles, CBS Story Break, and The Young Astronauts rounded out the lineup.
ABC rolled out a lineup in 1985 that was full of bankable properties. Star Wars was still a mega-hit in all walks of pop culture, so ABC had a pair of Star Wars-themed cartoons in their lineup with Star Wars: Droids, and Ewoks. They had all the stars of the always popular Looney Tunes with their Bugs Bunny Show and doubled down on the Scooby-Doo franchise with The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo and Scooby’s Mystery Funhouse. While NBC featured Marvel’s Spider-Man, ABC rolled out DC’s Super Friends in Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians. The Super Friends had already proven to be popular through years past, so milking them a little more was a smart move. The fun but short-lived The Littles, ABC Weekend Special, and American Bandstand rounded out their lineup.
So that’s everything that the three networks were offering us kids back in 1985. But the problem with 1985, is that we didn’t yet have Tivo or any other time-shifting technologies that would allow us to watch multiple cartoons from the same time slot. So we kids were forced to pick and choose what we watched. I’m going to run through what I watched and the channel surfing I had to do. Here is how everything lined up on Saturday mornings in 1985.
Several of the best shows ended up being on opposite of each other which really sucked. Some of the cartoons that I ended up loving, I never got to see in their original run. I had to catch them later in syndication or part of something like USA’s Cartoon Express. But here’s how MY Saturday mornings in 1985 shook out…
The network’s programming schedule didn’t start until 8 AM, but at 6 AM I was already settled into the recliner in the living room (that’s where the big TV was) with a bowl of cereal in my lap and ready to start the day. But my Saturday mornings didn’t start with cartoons. Nope, it started with classic television. My local CBS affiliate would run re-runs of The Honeymooners at 6, and I Love Lucy at 6:30. This is the era when I fell in love with those shows, and I watched them every Saturday morning.
After that, at 7:00 am, they ran old episodes of Tennessee Tuxedo and His Pals, followed by The Dudley Do-Right Show at 7:30. Tennessee Tuxedo was my favorite cartoon of that anthology genre, so I never missed an episode when it was airing in those years. Along with the Tennessee Tuxedo shorts, there was also Commander McBragg, Aesop & Son, and Peabody’s Improbable History. While I’d love to say I loved them all equally, Commander McBragg was the best of the group back then.
Well enough with the pre-show stuff, let’s get down to the actual network schedules that got off to a roaring start at 8:00 am. While I loved Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes in general, I remember watching the Berenstain Bears and The Snorks in the early mornings on Saturdays. I’m not quite sure which one I was watching during this season because I seem to recall the whole of both series. In another season, one of them may have been at another time slot. I know I watched Bugs Bunny at one point around 10 or 11 am on Saturdays, so maybe it moved in another season as well.
At 8:30, I was all in Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears! I must have seen some hype commercials for it at some point because I was super stoked to see it. It never disappointed me either. I love the fantasy/medieval themes in stuff like that, and the colors were so rich that I was hooked instantly. My favorite episodes were the ones featuring Cubby as The Crimson Avenger, and the one where Tummy and Gruffy went and found Gusto on his island. I don’t believe I’ve ever watched an episode of The Wuzzles, and have no plans to watch any of it here in later life either.
I wasn’t in on Star Wars yet, so Droids and Ewoks escaped me at that time. At 9 am it was all about The Smurfs at my house. I’ve always loved them and introduced my kids to the classic episodes when they were younger. That helped carry on a tradition too as way back when my Mom would take a break from doing housework and watch some of the Smurfs with me. It was a cartoon that she kind of enjoyed too.
I would watch the Smurfs for the first hour, but I had to cut and run before the last half hour because at 10 am it was time for Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling! Pro Wrestling was my biggest hobby and attraction back in those days, so there was no way I was going to miss it each and every week. The show had Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Tito Santana, Hillbilly Jim Junkyard Dog, Jimmy Snuka, Captain Lou Albano, and Wendi Richter on the good guy side of things, and featured Roddy Piper, Iron Shiek, Nikolai Volkoff, Mr. Fuji, and The Fabulous Moolah rounding out the bad guys side. And let’s not forget “Mean” Gene Okerlund was in there as well. Along with the cartoon shorts, it had live-action sequences which were a lot of fun for a wrestling fan. And who can forget the legendary music video shown on the show multiple times featuring all of the WWF stars performing Land of 1000 Dances. It’s still epic today.
Watching “Mr. Woderful” Paul Orndorff kiss his biceps never gets old.
So that was on for an hour, and then it was time for Alvin and the Chipmunks at 11 am. I believe I watched each and every season of Alvin, and in 1985 it didn’t have any competition that would hold my attention. Well, Scooby might have, but I was never as big of a fan of many of the subsequent versions of Scooby after the Where Are You run. But I did end up with a soft spot for the 13 Ghosts series though because it was like a continuous series instead of stand alone episodes. You can watch the whole series for free on Tubi.
For my tastes, the 11:30 am slot is the weakest. I never watched Kidd Video, and only occasionally watched Dungeons & Dragons. Which is a shame now, because these days my kids are big into D&D and I’ve had to fill the role of their dungeon master from time to time. If I had known how life was going to turn out, I probably would have watched it back then. But I dug The Littles when they were on, and it was a passable series, even if it was on the short-lived side.
It’s funny, but my mind always seems to remember cartoons ending at 12. But looking at these lineups, that didn’t appear to be the case in 1985. I was a huge fan of The A-Team, and Mister T was another hit in my mind. He was in one of my favorite prime-time shows and had been an integral part of the WWF scene all year, so I was on board for his cartoon. Like Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling, it had live-action features mixed in with the animation that I really liked.
Side story: Once during this era, we had Saturday school. I gave my Mom a list of the shows I wanted to be recorded, along with detailing the times and channels. Mister T was one of those episodes. I would play that homemade VHS so many times through the years that it finally fell apart. Can you imagine how cool it would be today to still have that? A tape full of Saturday morning cartoons and commercials from 1985? What a gem that would be.
And then wrapping up my cartoon viewing was Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. I absolutely adored Spidey, Firestar, and Iceman, and tuned in every week. I just wish the show could have run longer than it did, but I still watch an occasional episode now and then on Disney+.
Even though there were still a couple of cartoons left in the day, at 1:00 my cartoon viewing ended because it was time for NWA Mid- Atlantic Wrestling on my local NBC affiliate, followed by WWF wrestling at 2. Once wrestling was off the air, it was time to play with my He-Man and G.I. Joe toys before getting dressed to head out to eat at the family. Which was usually somewhere like Pizza Hut. You know, Back in the Glory Days of Pizza Hut.
So what about you? I want to hear your tale of what YOU watched on Saturday mornings in 1985. I’m always fascinated by others’ cartoon viewing habits. Drop me a line in the comments below and share and we’ll go back and forth arguing over what 1985 cartoons were better.
In the meantime, if you want to relive my 1985 Saturday mornings with me, pour yourself a big bowl of Morning Funnies cereal or make a bowl of Oatmeal Swirlers oatmeal, settle in, and dial up some of these old cartoons on YouTube or Tubi.
There’s never been anything quite like Saturday Night’s Main Event for great Saturday night entertainment. I became aware of it after it had already begun its run, and didn’t even get to get my first live glimpse of one.
My first was on Saturday night May 1, 1986. I didn’t have a TV in my room, so I slept in my dad’s spot in his bed since he was out of town. He had a little black and white TV on the nightstand beside the bed. I tried hard to stay awake to watch it, but I didn’t make it. I had fallen asleep before it started. It was probably the news that did me in.
But I woke up just in time to see what was supposed to be the start of a Ricky Steamboat vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts match. Ricky Steamboat was my favorite wrestler at the time, and I was always excited whenever I got a chance to see him on TV. Unfortunately for 8-year-old me, the match didn’t really happen, because Jake attacked before the match and nailed Steamboat with the DDT on the concrete floor. I was super pissed! While I hated that I didn’t get to see an actual match, the angle did lead to some good ones down the line.
The next big event I can really recall from SNME was the Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff cage match from January 1987. I wrote about it in depth over at TRN last year, so I’m not going to go into much detail here. But I did want to share that I knew that match was happening that night, but my excitement level got turned up to 11 while watching The Golden Girls, as one of the commercials was a short promo from Hogan with the cage in the foreground. That was awesome.
And then in March 1987, the episode that featured a battle royal as a way to hype the upcoming Wrestlemania 3. Hogan and Andre went at it in that battle royal, and the whole thing was awesome.
There were numerous other memorable moments to be enjoyed through the years on Saturday Night’s Main Event, and every now and then on Saturday nights, I get really nostalgic for it. TOnight is one of those nights.
Here’s another Wax Pack Flashback video for you, this time featuring The A-Team trading cards from 1983. Watch along as I open this pack and see what treasures have been hidden inside for almost 40 years!
In this TIme Capsule, we’re going to 1985 and the early days of cable. Back when HBO was the channel we all wanted, but not all of us had. CHeck out the full guide to HBO programming from August 1985, and see what shows and movies you would have been circling to watch!
Recently in the Watch & Listen category, I shared the episode of the TRN Drive-In Podcast focusing on the movie Ernest Goes to Camp. While listening to the episode myself, I heard either Adam or Wyatt mention a TV special called Ernest Goes to Splash Mountain.
Somehow, this Ernest offering had eluded me throughout my life, as I had never even heard of it before listening to the podcast. So I had to do a little research on this lost gem and see what it was all about. As it turns out, Ernest Goes to Splash Mountain was a special created by, and aired on The Disney Channel on July 7, 1989, as a way to promote their newest Disneyland attraction. It would later air in syndication beginning in August.
In the special, Ernest trains as America’s first “Splashtranaut” destined to become the very first person to conquer the mountain. Ralph Story, a veteran news anchor, and his team are determined to cover the momentous event from every angle possible.
I looked it up on YouTube, and it exists in its entirety, so I am presenting it here to you in case you’re like me and have never seen it before. Enjoy.
Here is yet another old pack of trading card that you can watch me open from my Wax Pack Flashback series on the TRNTV YouTube Channel.
In this video, I open a pack of Yo! MTV Raps cards from 1991. Yo! MTV Raps was a daily show that was on MTV every afternoon at the time featuring the best and latest rap videos of the era. These cards feature shots of many of the artists whose videos appeared on the show at the time. Legendary names like Run D.M.C, M.C. Hammer, Heavy D, and more.
So take a little stroll back in time and live vicariously through me as I open this old pack of cards!
One of the things I miss most about the past is just how much info used to come packed in an issue of TV Guide. In the ’90s, that thing became quite a thick publication that was filled with the nightly TV grids so you’d know what was on TV when, and cool ads for various shows and movies each night.
But as good as normal issues of TV Guide were, their best issue of the year was always their fall preview issues where they’d run down all of the new series debuting on network television that fall. Every year was sure to bring hits and misses, and going back through those old issues now is a real trip back in time.
With that in mind, I present this Time Capsule and all of the fall preview pages for the fall of 1984. There were some epic shows that debuted in 1984, plus a few not so epic ones too. Give the pages a look and remember what it was like flipping through a TV Guide fall preview back then.
It’s time once again to watch along as I open an old pack of trading cards! This time up, it’s American Gladiators cards from 1991. American Gladiators was one of my favorite shows of the time as it featured larger-than-life characters locked in sporting combat with better-than-average joes in incredibly entertaining games. These cards capture the feel of the show with its glamour shots of the Gladiators, mixed with action shots from the games.
This video was filmed quite a while back however as part of the Wax Pack Flashback series that I launched on The Retro Network. But the timing of the filming doesn’t really matter, as it’s evergreen content that is good whenever it’s consumed. I hope watching this makes you feel young again.
The Dukes of Hazzard was one of my absolute favorite shows growing up and still is today. But back then as a kid, when you had a favorite anything, you tended to want a lot of the tie-in merchandise that went along with it. Such was the case with me and The Dukes of Hazzard. I ended up having quite a bit of merchandise that was tied to the show, but if I tried to highlight them all here you’d never get through the whole thing, so let’s just look at five of them today.
My cousin Tim and I lived next to each other, on top of a big hill, and we loved to spend our summer days cruising down that hill on our Big Wheels, and usually wore one out every year, meaning that we each needed a new at Christmas time.
One Christmas, we both received Dukes of Hazzard Power Cycles. Those things looked so cool, and we both swore that they went faster than any other we’d ever had. With all the cool decals, the streamers on the handles, and the yellow power hand brake, those things were beautiful.
I’m not sure if they lasted through that first summer season or not (doubt it), but I’m sure when they finally broke down we were sad to see them go. Our days of him being Bo and me being Luke are great memories though.
Wrist Racers were such cool toys, and they were made for several different properties. But the only ones I ever remember having were these Dukes of Hazzard ones. They featured a small (smaller than Hotwheels) General Lee car or Hazzard County police car that would wind up so you could let it go and it would take off. You wound up the car and attached it to its “wrist” base, which you wore around like a watch, and left it there until you were ready to set it off on its journey. On the front of the base, was a pull-out ramp that made it possible to lower your arm to the floor, and have the ramp ON the floor so when you launched the car it didn’t wreck once it left your wrist. One push of a button released the wound-up car and it would zoom across the floor doing stunts along the way. It was a great tie-in because one of the big appeals to the show were the car chases, and you could kind of duplicate that at home with these wrist racers.
Being a huge fan of G.I. Joe and having a lot of those figures, coupled with my love of Dukes of Hazzard made owning these things a foregone conclusion. I had both Bo and Luke, and the General Lee pictured above. When a job was just a little too tough for the Joes to handle, they called in the special forces….the Duke cousins!
You may think it’s preposterous, but I can distinctly remember a time that G.I. Joe was raiding the Cobra Terrordrome, but the tide of battle was against them. It was Christmas Day 1986, and Cobra was launching their deadly Firebat from the center of their base to turn the tide of battle against the Joes, but Bo & Luke in the General Lee jumped off a cliff and knocked the Firebat out of the air during its launch to save the day!
Etch-a-Sketch was such a brilliant toy and was a huge hit amongst my friends and me. As much fun as it was trying to create a masterpiece work of art, you could ramp up the fun even more by adding a “fun screen” over the Etch-a-Sketch itself. There were basic packs of the fun screens that featured sports games and other non-branded fun. And then there were the ones that tied into other properties like The Smurfs, Looney Tunes, and our subject today, The Dukes of Hazzard.
In the Dukes pack were a couple of maze-like games, a connect-the-dots puzzle, and other assorted fun. I never owned this particular action pack, but the set resided at my grandmother’s house and was there for any and all grandkids to use. So on a lot of trips there, I always made sure to take my Etch-a-Sketch along with me to spend a little quality time playing with the Dukes set.
My Dad had originally picked up this cassette and I would listen to it with him when he let me travel with him. When I got my first Walkman knockoff, this bad boy had a new home. I kept it in that tape player forever and would just listen to this thing on loop. I wore the cassette out in short order somehow, and my Dad ended up buying me another copy.
It had the iconic theme song on it and a host of other really good songs if you’re into country music. This piece of tie-in merchandise was really spot on since music had a featured role in the show on numerous occasions.
And just so you can check it out, here’s the album on Spotify:
So that’s five old pieces of Dukes of Hazzard merch I enjoyed years ago. But truth be told, I’m still not too old to enjoy them now, and would do so if given the chance.