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Relive the days of early weekend cartoons with these two neat sets.

Imagine a time when Saturday morning cartoons weren’t simply half-hour advertisements for toys or video games. Hell, try even imagining a time when Saturday morning cartoons lasted from around 6 a.m until noon. Those of us old enough certainly do, though admittedly having been born in 1976, I only managed to catch the tail end of this magical golden age of Saturday mornings before regulation adjustments allowed it to become one massive action figures commercial. Thankfully, DVD has made it possible to relive those times, and with this in mind, Warners has released the second volumes in their popular Saturday Morning Cartoons series of sets.

Comprised of two two-disc sets – one for the 1960s and one for the 1970s – Saturday Morning Cartoons does its best to recreate the feel of sitting in front of the tube at some ungodly hour with a bowl of cereal nestled in our lap as we groggily squinted at the bright glow from the television. It’s not quite 100% like it was back then; no commercials are to be found and since this is a WB release, the wide gamut of different cartoons from then are reduced to what Warners owns, meaning their Hanna-Barbara library and a few Looney Tunes shows. Still, they do their best to keep things interesting and eclectic. Throughout the two sets, we get old favorites like the Jetsons and Huckleberry Hound represented by a show each, mixed in with real obscurities like the Space Kidettes and Shazzan. Remember the Hair Bear Bunch? I don’t the even the Hair Bear Bunch remembers the Hair Bear Bunch, yet here they are.

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Both sets are definitely centered around the more comedic shows, but a few of the classic Hanna-Barbara action shows pop up, like Valley of the Dinosaurs and the pre-Adult Swim incarnation of SeaLab. And before he was checking to see if you got that thing he sent you, Peter Potamus was taking part in contests against somewhat racially-insensitive versions of Native Americans. Magilla Gorilla got drafted into the army by accidnet, El Kabong broke a few guitars and Inch High, Private Eye met his match in a case that could and should be lifted from the latest procedural dramas when he has to figure out how a master thief is commiting crimes while sitting behind bars.

It’s a fun couple of sets, though I do wish there was a slight bit more variety, at least in terms of style. Watch these enough and you’re going to notice a lot of the same voice actors popping up all over the place, for instance. The quality of the shows varies greatly, though WB at least acknowledges this before the menu appears. One Road Runner cartoon is so faded that the bird appears green instead of blue in many scenes, while other cartoons on the sets look great.

Short retrospectives on Magilla and Shazzan fill out the extras department on the 1960s and ‘70s discs, respectively and that’s all the special features we get.

I will exempt myself from my usual rant of wishing that they’d get back on track of releasing these various shows in complete seasons/series sets, many of which still have yet to hit DVD. Right now, I just feel like being a kid again while watching these and I desperately wish I’d remembered to pick up a box of Peanut Butter Crunch to go along with the hijinx.

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