Saturday morning cartoons have sure changed since when I was a
kid. For me, the weekend was a time to overdose on Bugs Bunny, with
maybe a little bit of the Super Friends thrown in for good measure.
If I was really lucky, I’d be able to catch Bullwinkle or Woody
Woodpecker… before “All-Star Wrestling” came on. (Keep in mind,
this was a time when the only place you could catch wrestling was
the late morning hidden in the UHF channels.)
So it shouldn’t be too surprising that when I listened to
The Music Of Disney’s One Saturday Morning, I kind of felt
like the new kid in town. This was going to be a learning
experience for me, seeing that I haven’t watched most of these
cartoons ever (the one exception being
The New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh, and that was on The
Disney Channel, not ABC), and I had to keep an open mind about
these things.
The tape is another one geared exclusively towards the under-10
crowd, featuring short snippets – some barely 10 seconds in length
– from the cartoons today’s kids are growing up with. Some of the
characters we might be familiar with, such as Doug (who got his
start on Nickelodeon) and Timon and Pumbaa – and let’s not forget
“101 Dalmations,” who cashed in with their own cartoon after the
success of the live-action film. (I personally wish the “Chicken
Woof/Rap” had gone on longer than a few seconds; it was kind of
cute.) Other cartoons, like “Pepper Ann” and “Recess,” are names
that we parents may still be learning, but the kids probably know
these songs word for word.
Acting as interludes are snippets from “Mrs. Munger’s Class,”
short outtakes which make me wonder how badly my friends and I used
to treat some of our teachers. Also, the occasional bumpers for
“One Saturday Morning” break up monotony, but one wonders how much
they really need to keep selling the series. I mean, for Cripes
sake, if the kids have this album, they obviously watch the
cartoons; you don’t need to keep hitting them over the head with
the message, “Watch our cartoons, ’cause the other ones suck.”
It’s hard to find fault with songs that, on average, clock in at
one minute in length, and I can think of worse ways I could have
spent the better part of a half hour. If the kids like this music,
then I’ll let them be the best judges of the merits of
The Music Of Disney’s One Saturday Morning. The kids will
love it, the parents will tolerate it. (And if the parents can’t
tolerate it, just thank God it’s a few years before the little
tykes get into Rammstein.)
