Saturday Morning Cartoons

This Saturday, November 14th at 10am the ICPL will be having its first Retro Saturday Morning Cartoon showing in the Storytime Room. When planning this event, I had to ask what makes something "retro?” I discovered retro is defined as "style that is consciously derivative or imitative of trends, music, modes, fashions, or attitudes of the recent past, typically 15–20 years old."

Thanks Wikipedia. My childhood has been officially classified as retro. Since my childhood c an now be defined as retro, I chose cartoons from 1987 for Saturday's program. See Mom, I didn't waste my life away watching cartoons as a child. I was doing research for my future job!

There are a few websites available that can tell you what shows were on which channel at any given time. My choice in cartoons in 1987 ranged from the Carebears and Alvin and the Chipmunks to the Gummie Bears and Pound Puppies. (I can still sing all of their theme songs).

I was the classic Midwestern, middle class 7 year old. We had just moved to a new home and had two! television sets. My family had a cable box which required you to get up (the horror!) and manually select the TV channel you desired.  I could never remember what cartoon were on what channel and what time they came on. That was fine, because I had all morning to lay around in my pajama's to watch before Mom or Dad woke up and started making me do those dreaded chores.

I would get up earlier than I ever would on a school day and watch cartoons all morning while eating my bowls of cereal, usually Cookie Crisp, S'mores Crunch or Fruity Pebbles. In doing research for t his program, I came across a wide variety of odd cereals. I remember begging my mom to buy these, normally she would say no, but eventually I would wear her down and I would eat one bowl. I can see why some of these never made it out of the 80’s!

This Saturday we will have some cereal for the kids to enjoy as they watch a retro cartoon or two! These are cereals that were introduced in the 1980's and just like me they are still around! If they want, kids can come in their pajama's, bring a blanket or their favorite stuffed toy.

If you want your kids to catch a glimpse of your own childhood, bring them to the library and stick around with us for Saturday Morning Cartoons to bring back some good old memories! What were some of your favorite Saturday morning memories? Tell us!