How did One Saturday Morning hold next to Disney Afternoon?

[donalddisneyfan]

Looking at how this site has been singing the praises of the Disney Afternoon era of series (or at least the ones from 1985-92) and not being as familiar with the modern Disney cartoons from 2010s onward, I would like to see how you users view the One Saturday Morning era that was inbetween the two time periods.

Like compared to Disney Afternoon, how did this stack?


The shows this had included Disney's Doug, Jungle Cubs, Nightmare Ned, 101 Dalmatians the Series, Recess, Pepper Ann, Hercules the Animated Series, Mickey Mouse Works, The Weekenders, Clerks the Animated Series, Teacher's Pet, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, House of Mouse, Lloyd in Space, The Legend of Tarzan, Teamo Supremo, and Filmore.

[That Duckfan]

I'm not in a great position to judge the two line-ups side by side, being a kid of the post-One Saturday Morning generation, but I have seen some of the series and they were pretty enjoyable.

101 Dalmatians: The Series is probably my favorite of the Dalmatians brand, although I haven't seen it in ages. I was never much of a Dalmatians fan besides. Spot the chicken was always a lively character. Rollo would probably not pass TV standards anymore these days.

Recess I didn't see much of. It certainly featured a large cast of characters, though many were pretty one-note. In more recent years, I've come to dislike schoolyard stereotypes. But Spinelli still kicks butt.

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was a series that I watched at a very young age. It was pleasant, not much else to report.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was a good show, as far as I remember. Lightyear doesn't hold a candle to it.

Sorry... I had just barely started watching TV by the time these series went off the air! Now, the next era of the Disney Channel, that I can tell you much about.

[Mesterius]

Jul 5, 2023 18:50:41 GMT donalddisneyfan said:

Looking at how this site has been singing the praises of the Disney Afternoon era of series (or at least the ones from 1985-92)...

My own Disney Afternoon favorites (to the extent I have them) are scattered far and wide. My favorite will probably always be "Gargoyles" (1994-96); i.e. the original syndicated series of 65 episodes (forget the Saturday Morning follow-up "Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles"). Any others? "Gummi Bears" (1985-90) is likely my second favorite when it comes to consistent quality, though I haven't seen nearly all of it (still missing about the final three seasons). "Goof Troop" (1992-1993), at its best, can be a wonderful comedy cartoon, sometimes with amazing animation for television standards. It's very uneven, though.

That said, I think some of the Disney TV cartoons from the perceived "golden age" of the late 80s/early 90s get more praise than they deserve. A prime example is "Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers", where I'm just astounded by how overly kid-friendly and dull it is almost every time I try to watch an episode. I mean, the 80s DuckTales is no masterpiece, but it is WAY better than Rescue Rangers.

[Mesterius]

As for the One Saturday Morning shows, let's see...

Pepper Ann, Hercules: The Animated Series, The Weekenders, Teacher's Pet, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Lloyd in Space, Teamo Supremo, Filmore -- never watched them. We didn’t have cable at my home when I was little, so I mostly watched whatever Disney cartoons the main Norwegian channels (primarily NRK) chose to import.

(I never watched Nightmare Ned or Clerks: The Animated Series either, but those weren't One shows at all judging by what the internet tells me.)

"101 Dalmatians" was a show I watched regularly when it was first on here in Norway, since I was a huge fan of the classic animated feature and of Cruella de Vil as a character -- I simply wanted more. But I always knew the series was a poor man's version of the original. Case in point: A few weeks ago, I tried rewatching one of the episodes I remembered enjoying as a kid (a half-hour story focusing on Cruella)... but I just couldn't take it. The attempts at humor, the god-awful redesigns of some of the characters (what the hell were they even thinking with the redone Horace and Jasper, two of the funniest characters in the 1961 film?), the personalities of the characters versus their original portrayals -- it was horrendous. In the end, I turned off the half-hour and settled for just watching the first 11-minute story from episode 1, which was at least somewhat better; and took the occasion to look at the animation in high-def quality (seeing as this is one of the few older Disney TV cartoons to have been remastered in HD). That was enough.

"Disney’s Doug" - a show I also watched regularly in the late 90s and found... okay, I guess. But it never really made all that much of an impression on me, either. The only two episodes I still remember parts of are the one where Doug temporarily becomes a celebrity at his school for saying funny one-liners, and the one where the nemesis/bully character reluctantly has to sleep over at Doug's house for some reason (from the latter, I mostly remember the scene where Doug helps him sleep by talking to him through his hand puppet). Overall, a pretty bland series.

“Mickey MouseWorks” excited me when it started, because I had been wishing for years that Disney would make new cartoons in the old style featuring their classic characters. I did of course realize this TV production wasn’t as good as the old theatrical cartoons, but liked the concept enough to watch it anyways. The cartoon shorts were hit and miss, but a lot of them were fun; and I loved seeing Mickey, Donald, Goofy etc. back in action. I remember the music being somewhat obnoxious; they REALLY overused the main theme as background music. Speaking of which, they should have done something better with the intro than that lame CGI-animated factory.

I never watched the sequel series “House of Mouse” all that much… but I was a little older by the time that show came on, and a LOT older by the time my family got the Disney Channel and ToonDisney as part of their TV package, giving me access to it. It seems to have been a bigger success judging by the amont of reruns, but maybe that’s Disney’s own doing because they (as far as I understand) chose to largely retire Mickey MouseWorks from airing after House of Mouse got established. Which makes sense considering that House of Mouse reused a lof of short cartoons from MouseWorks. By the way, how often were new short cartoons actually produced for the House of Mouse episodes?

“The Legend of Tarzan” struck me as a fairly good action/adventure cartoon series. As with many of the movie spinoffs, I actually watched this show before I got around to watching the original Tarzan animated feature... and this seems to me to be one of the better spinoffs. Tarzan lends himself naturally to a series of ongoing stories.

"New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" - this wasn't a One show originally, as it first aired in 1988-91. But in terms of production values, I'd say it's one of the best things Disney TVA did. Well, at least many of the episodes fit that description. The animation is often quite wonderful for TV standards; it feels like they really worked to capture the way these characters move and act in the old theatrical shorts (imagine if something like Mickey Mouseworks, or for that matter "Donald Duck in Legend of the Three Caballeros", could have been produced with this kind of animation qualiy!). I also remember the writing as being good, and capturing quite a lof of the charm the characters had in the vintage shorts. (The episode with Rabbit befriending a bird I originally watched on a TV that was playing cartoons in a clothes’ shop, so kids could pass the time while their parents were shopping; and I still remember the impression the final scene left on me.) That said, while I've rewatched a few of the episodes in remastered HD - they look terrific, of course - this isn't a series I've yet been tempted to revisit in huge doses. It’s charming and well made, but also a little low-key, perhaps naturally enough considering that it’s Pooh.

“Jungle Cubs” - lame. Oh, I watched it when it was on, of course (I was a TV slave as a kid, and pretty much always watched when cartoons were playing)… but it wasn’t very good. I also knew the series’ portrayal of the main characters as buddies who stick together despite their differences made ZERO sense, because many of them are enemies in their adult forms in the original “Jungle Book” feature. So what on earth was the point of making a show where they’re friends as kids? Really stupid. Otherwise, I remember the animation suddenly switching a to poorer and more badly drawn style at some point into the series.

Summing up, I have better impressions of the Disney Afternoon block as a whole, though many of the cartoons there I also hesitate to call favorites. And of course, there are a lot of cartoons from both blocks that I never watched much of, or at all.

[Mesterius]

What the... I write THAT long a comment, and not a single reaction or response??

Well, okay then! See if I care! From now on, I'll only write unfinished com

[donalddisneyfan]

Jul 8, 2023 9:34:07 GMT Mesterius said:

What the... I write THAT long a comment, and not a single reaction or response??

Well, okay then! See if I care! From now on, I'll only write unfinished com

Sorry about that, nice thoughts on the shows. You forgot to include Recess in there though.

[Mesterius]

Jul 9, 2023 4:14:25 GMT donalddisneyfan said:

Jul 8, 2023 9:34:07 GMT Mesterius said:

What the... I write THAT long a comment, and not a single reaction or response??

Well, okay then! See if I care! From now on, I'll only write unfinished com

Sorry about that, nice thoughts on the shows. You forgot to include Recess in there though.

Somehow that got erased from the list. But I never watched that one either.

Occasionally in my adult years, I came across the intro sequence on Disney Channel, but the show never looked or felt appealing to me. I did however watch the last third or so of the movie on television at some point; it seemed decent enough.

[donaldistducktoons]

Although I prefer Disney Afternoon, certainly One Saturday Morning (even though it was all one era for me) had good cartoons.

Doug - I did not watch. Although I consider Doug more of a Nickeledeon cartoon.

Jungle Cubs - I watched it and it's ok, not on the level of Talespin or Jungle Book, but I enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed Colonel Hathi the most and the Kaa snake relationship with the mongoose.

101 Dalmatians the Series - Excellent series. The best were Spot the chicken, Rolly, Lucky and Cadpig (with her meditation). Of course there were some mistakes, but ok, I enjoyed it.

Recess - Ok series, but I haven't watched all the episodes, and I don't remember that much. I like how it focused on school society as well as school events. I wish there was a series featuring the Disney kids (from Mouseverse and Duckverse)

Pepper Ann - Ok series, I would like to watch it again

Hercules the Animated Series - My favorite. Being a fan of antiquity and ancient Greek mythology, and I love the Hercules Movie, I have enjoyed that series quite a few times and I know that the most. The moments between Cassandra and Icarus were always fun for me. I would also like to mention the Aladdin and Hercules crossover episode which I enjoyed.

Mickey Mouse Works - There were a lot of funny moments that I enjoyed, but what I didn't like was that they used the jerk Donald too much in bad ways and also used a copy of the Looney Tunes humor. This was especially expressed in House of Mouse.

House of Mouse - A crossover that I love, I'm glad that they introduced a lot of characters from various Disney movies, as well as fun moments (Goofy is the best as usual), as well as respecting some comic book material (using the Phantom Blot). I especially liked the Daisy Duck version. What I don't like is definitely the same for Mickey Mouse Works plus I don't like how they connected Goofy and Clarabelle and how they did about Donald's nephews (one of the worst versions).

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command - Watched something, and it was exciting to me, but I don't remember that much nor did I watch that much. But it's interesting to see Buzz in 2D animation. Emperor Zurg was the best especially his voice actor who also starred in Space Jam, Seinfield and of course The Legend of The Three Caballeros. I'm definitely talking about Wayne Knight.

The Legend of Tarzan - After Hercules my favorite. I love that series and enjoyed most of the episodes. Maybe more so than in a Tarzan movie. The villains were great. Tarzan excellent as in the movie. I have no complaints. I would watch that series again. By the way, I think it was, along with Lilo and Stitch, the last Disney animated series to use traditional 2D animation in good ways. I think that after that, the quality of Disney's animation in the animated series dropped and it's not the same, although I did enjoy certain animated Disney series after that era.

I haven't looked at the rest, but I'll add that another time. Those are my thoughts on those series.