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It’s looking like autumn here in Chicago.  The mornings are crisp and bright, and the evenings filled with the clicking of katydids.  My morning commute to work is now clogged with children walking to school, and the maple trees are showing the first blush of crimson. But let’s cut to the chase: one of the earliest signs of fall is the new television season, and it’s here. 

Something’s missing, however.

Sure, there’s the usual crop of new shows that pique my curiosity.  The Bionic Woman?  I’m all over it.  I’m a little bit nervous about how the new girl will stack up to Lindsay Wagner, but frankly, I doubt anyone could compete with Lindsay, one of the most naturally beautiful women to ever appear on the small screen.  If any gay man tells you that she’s not on his list of women he’d go straight for (right under Lynda Carter), he’s either lying, or has never had a sip of Jaegermeister (a.k.a., the magical elixir of bisexuality).  I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing the special effects in this remake.  Even as a seven-year-old, it was apparent that every time Jaime Sommers jumped over a fence, they would always film Lindsay Wagner pretending to land, immediately followed by a jaunty hair flip.  Except for that one time when she jumped too high and landed too hard, and sparks flew out of her feet when she screwed up her hydraulics.  That was awesome.

And of course there are the returning favorites.  Last spring’s Ugly Betty season finale was dense with revelations and cliffhangers, and I can’t wait to see what happens.  Will Alexis survive the car crash she instigated as a means to assassinate her billionaire father?  And what of Ignacio’s failed attempt at getting American citizenship?  Is Santos dead, just at the point where he’s learned to be a decent husband, and a caring father to Justin?  Most importantly of all, will Betty find love in the arms of geeky, gorgeous, valiant Henry?  I’m all excited just thinking about the possibilities.

Let’s not forget the predictable voids left by good shows that are no longer with us.  Veronica Mars was one of the smartest, most interesting shows in recent memory, and it was cut down way before its prime.  Neptune, California was a fantastic place to spend an hour a week, a city populated with smartass rich kids, loveable motorcycle thugs, and the loving and brilliant Mars family (what was left of it).

That’s not what’s missing, though.  What’s missing is Saturday-morning cartoons.  At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, kids today don’t know what they’re missing.  Sure, they’ve got fifty cable channels that show cartoons constantly, and can see Spongebob virtually anytime.  It seems like every new parent has an arsenal of DVD’s to distract their kids when they need a break.  Consequently, there’s nothing special about seeing cartoons for kids now.  The last time I checked, there was children’s programming on the major networks on Saturday morning, but it was all hopelessly, self-consciously, sanctimoniously educational, meticulously designed for a generation of children who never ride bicycles without wearing helmets. 

It’s just not the same.  Nothing compares to that feeling of waking up early on Saturdays, trouncing to the family room in your pajamas, sitting on the floor within five feet of the television, and ingesting cereals that had even less nutritive value than the TV shows you were watching.  It’s all we had, and damn it, we were happy.

When I was nine, I became smitten with the Spider-Woman cartoon, and it became the entree of my diet of crap Saturday-morning television.  The animation was nothing short of dire, and the plots and dialogue seem to have been written by some kind of monkey-robot hybrid.  I loved it, though. 

One day I was with my mom in the grocery store and spotted an issue of Spider-Woman on a spinner rack.  My mom agreed to buy it for me, and I read it in the car twice before I even got home.  The cover featured Jessica Drew jumping off a cliff to save Spider-Woman, clearly an imposter in Spider-Woman’s costume.  The story was about Jessica Drew’s profound loneliness, and her attempts to find companionship, which led her to fall into the arms of a vampiric monster whose face occasionally melted off, smothering and killing his dates.  It blew my mind in ways that I can’t even articulate.  You can guess what life-long obsession that led me into.

Let’s bring back crappy Saturday-morning cartoons.  Let’s make sure that the next generation has their Superfriends, their Captain Cavemans, their Thundarrs.  I urge you to email the major networks via their websites and demand poor-quality shows for children.  After all, children are the future.

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