Whatever Happened to Saturday Mornings?

     When I was growing up, there was a certain ritual surrounding Saturday mornings. It had been passed down from generation to generation and had evolved to meet the needs of the parents and children who wanted it, but regardless of what decade or in which family it was being observed, it revolved around two primary pillars: sugar and television.  I remember countless Saturday mornings lying, stomach down on our vintage 1976 green(ish) carpet, as close as legally allowable to our three ton, monolithic, Magnavox cabinet television which, for all of its behemoth size and child crushing weight, had only a twenty-five inch screen. It amazes me that my phone today is capable of better picture quality and entertainment choices than that glorious monstrosity ever was. On that screen played some of the best Saturday morning cartoons ever enjoyed by children, and to keep us watching those cartoons my mom fed us a never ending supply of super concentrated breakfast sugar. If it wasn't steaming hot, chocolate-flavored toaster pastries encrusted in a crunchy, sugary coating (Hey kids, try microwaving them if you can’t reach the toaster!), it was a bowl full of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs (Hey, Moms! Now made with crackly rice product, because everyone knows that rice is healthy!) which were covered in full fat, Vitamin D enriched, super homogenized, bovine-growth-hormone saturated milk. And boy, was it good stuff. My brother, sister, and I would stare, expressionless at the television for hours as a sugary crust developed around our mouths while we ate breakfast and watched nonsensical cartoon characters beat each other senseless, sword fight, shoot each other with whatever cartoon gun they had, blow each other up, throw one another off of cliffs, or whatever other ultra-violent acts you could string together in a cartoon to advertise the latest action figures. The cartons of that day reflected the socio-political atmosphere of the times. We were in the midst of the Cold War. There were always some problems with the Russians, but I never really could make out what it was. The Middle East was in turmoil, there was always something on the news about bombings. And some terrorists had blown up an airliner. The fact that these things happened registered in my mind, but I didn’t grasp the importance, the international ramifications, or the way in which those occurrences would shape our future. I didn’t have to, I had my family and we had our breakfast and our cartoons on a Saturday morning. Everything was good with the world.

     Fast-forward thirty years. My television screen is fifty-five inches across, about a half an inch thick and weighs what seems like six ounces. It literally has the ability to play any television show from any decade, including some of the best Saturday morning cartoons ever watched by children. The problem is they’re the same Saturday morning cartoons I watched because nobody makes Saturday morning cartoons like they used to.  As she hasn’t been exposed to cartoons from my era (frankly because they’re just too violent for kids to watch) my daughter will ask to watch some strange show that she heard about from someone at pre-school and we will gladly find it for her on our super-powered television. Once we start playing it, my wife and I will instantly revert back to Saturday morning behavior from decades past and zone out, eyes a glaze and faces wiped free of any expression while we drink our coffee. And while she and I are watching some surreal cartoon about a dog who talks to people because she ate too much alphabet soup, our daughter will sneak into the bathroom, steal some toilet paper, climb back onto the couch, tear the toilet paper into little bits and sprinkle it onto our heads, and we are none the wiser until we start raining little toilet paper snowflakes about the floor as we walk around. As are the cartoons, the days of sugar packed breakfast bits are certainly a thing of the past. In case it hasn't been made abundantly clear in anything I've written before, giving my daughter sugar is tantamount to inciting a fission reaction in Uranium 235 and watching the surrounding Earth melt because of energy that is unleashed. Not to mention the fact that it’s just not the best thing a child can have for breakfast.

     This particular morning, cartoons were on, we were having breakfast and just as if it were 1986 there were problems with the Russians, the Middle East was in turmoil, and some terrorists had tragically blown up another airliner.  My wife was drinking her coffee (still with bits of toilet paper scattered in her hair), my daughter was practicing her twirl in her new “ballerina” dress, and I decided to leave around 8:30am to make the trip North along the coast a few cities and go to my barber (I am very particular about who cuts my hair, and it is indeed a strange treat to have a gentleman with a heavy Korean accent sing along with “Staying Alive” as it blasts over the oldies station while he cuts my hair). As I drove along the rocky and constantly shifting Pacific coast, dodging the participants of the weekly Tour de Palos Verdes,  I opened the sunroof (the poor man’s convertible) and let the heavy, marine layer air flood into the car as I turned on some Rodrigo y Gabriella (excellent driving music). The air held a faint, warm saltiness that it had gathered as it crept in over the Pacific like a Mediterranean fog, and it flavored the breeze with its sweet brininess as it settled like a blanket over the rocky peninsula. With the tranquility of the drive, the frenzied Spanish guitar plinking through the stereo and the still fresh vision of my daughter twirling in her dress that was playing like a .GIF in my mind’s eye that I was subconsciously timing to the guitar music, I knew that despite what may be going on elsewhere, I had my family, it was Saturday morning, and all was well with the world.