The Hazzards of Saturday Morning

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Told you! This week on Jungle Red is about time and place.  And what better place than smack dab in front of the TV? I burst out laughing when I got Lori’s blog…remembering myself in my little pajamas with lavender flowers, watching, ah, Winky Dink?

And now, Lori Rader-Day tells us, that’s…all over? And that how we viewed something back in the day—may not be the way we see it now. So does that mean—don’t even try?

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Bowl

By Lori Rader-Day

When Hank brought up the diminishing market for breakfast cereal this week, I thought, Way to go, paleos. Cavemen totally would have eaten Cap’n Crunch, if they could have. But as my husband pointed out to me, it might not be fad eating alone to blame. Remember eating your Froot Loops in your pajamas in front of the TV Saturday morning? Well, no longer. This week marks the end of Saturday morning cartoons. Period. Last week, the CW Network’s only remaining block of Saturday morning animated programming came to an end.

A moment of silence, please.

If you loved Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, Schoolhouse Rock, Life with Louie (unappreciated in its time), Underdog and the 1980s power hour of Kidd Video and Dungeons and Dragons as much as I did growing up, this is where your heart breaks into tiny, froot-colored pieces.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t cartoons out there, of course. The Simpsons are still leading Sunday nights, and there are, I hear, entire around-the-clock channels where the kids of today can be introduced to all manner of cartoon characters. If my six-year-old nieces are a good test market, it won’t be long before Disney figures out how to get Frozen directly downloaded into kids’ brains.

Did you notice how easily I slipped into curmudgeon mode? It’s what we do, when we start reminiscing about the good ol’ days. We forget that the good ol’ days weren’t always so good, that all cartoons weren’t good. Nostalgia is fine in its place, but if I’m going to start getting squishy over Kidd Video, it’s time for a little harsh truth.

Kidd Video—and many of the cartoons I loved—weren’t that great.

The only place they are great is in my memory, in my imagination, within the particular place of my family and my home, the life I lived, and the time I lived in. It was great then. Now? When a favorite show has been dead for thirty years, it’s best not to pull out the corpse and take a look.

You do, though. At my cousin’s house one day a few years ago, I noticed that he had acquired a DVD set of the hit 1980s television series The Dukes of Hazzard. His wife had gotten them for him as a gift, because he loved it as a kid.

So did I. By the age eight, I was a goner for Bo Duke and that show. Fast forward to the discovery of those DVDs, though, and even I knew there was no going back to Hazzard for this cowgirl. Not only would watching the show point out its (presumably awful) flaws, but the act of revisiting the past would somehow ruin it for all time. Watching them now would reach back and ruin them then. Do you want to revisit the Duke boys, or do you want them to remain pleasantly in your childhood? You can’t have both.

Today my sister and I use this as our litmus test for things that can survive our nostalgia. Is this cookie recipe our grandma used to make for us going to be as good as we remembered, or will it be Dukes of Hazzard? Should we get the nieces to watch Annie, with Albert Finney as Daddy Warbucks, or will it be Dukes of Hazzard?

Too many beloved things dragged from history and shoved into the bright light of modern day are Dukes of Hazzard.

Today’s kids don’t miss Bugs Bunny, and that’s a shame—he’s still hilarious. My nieces are big fans of Chip and Dale, though, so there’s hope. But no matter what they watch, it’s fine. They’ll have their own childhood treasures, and some of them will be pretty good. Many, though, will be ruined by time and by becoming a discerning grown-up. Just like a big bowl of Cap’n Crunch—maybe some things are sweetest left in your past.

HANK: I have never seen Dukes of Hazzard. Never. Not one Duke. Bugs, however, my absolute fave.  Bullwinkle. Underdog. Beany and Cecil!

But I do think you are so right.  My grandsons watch and adore a tv show called—ah, it’s called…the Wild somethings, about two guys who hike and talk about wildlife. It beings with a K. Or a C. I have tried to watch it, and it is beyond me.  Kratts?

So yeah, the sweetness of memory is a fascinating idea.   You can’t go home again, isn’t that what they say?

Reds, did you watch Saturday cartoons? Not that you would now…but did you?  (And it didn’t seem to ruin us, did it? Joining the curmudgeon chorus.) What was your fave?

And the fabulous Lori will send a copy of THE BLACK HOUR to one (very!) lucky commenter!

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Lori Rader-Day’s debut mystery, The Black Hour (Seventh Street Books, 2014), received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. Her short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Time Out Chicago, Good Housekeeping, and others. Her next book, the mystery Little Pretty Things, is out in 2015. She lives in Chicago.