50 for 50: 1976

YEAR: 1976

AGE: Turned 6 on Nov. 6

LOCATION: Chicago, McVicker Avenue

SONGS I LIKED: "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees; "The Boys Are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy

TV SHOWS I WATCHED: "Chico and the Man"; "Emergency"

BULLS' RECORD: 24-58

Something that's disappeared from the childhoods of American kids -- and a concept I tried explaining to Ben a couple weeks ago -- is Saturday morning cartoons. They probably were only a thing for about 40 years; by the 2000s, network television programming specifically geared toward kids had mostly disappeared. With Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, DVDs, and now streaming, every day can be Saturday morning cartoons.

Of course, we had cartoons all week on channels 9, 32, and 44 -- after school and in the morning -- but they were all reruns and not that new. That was OK ... and made Saturday mornings even more special (even, in retrospect, most mid-1970s cartoons weren't as good as classic Popeye and Flintstones).

Saturday morning cartoons weren't simply mindless entertainment surrounded by brash commercialism aimed at children. In 1976, I was taking away life lessons from my time in front of the TV:

  • The bicentennial was in 1976, and I learned about it from the Schoolhouse Rock short "Fireworks," created specifically for the event. For a couple minutes every hour, I consumed valuable history, grammar, and math concepts that stick with me today. Did you know that the Declaration of Independence was written by Benjamin Franklin, Phillip Livingston, Roger Sherman, and Thomas Jefferson? That info (and, alas, incorrect info, it was Robert Livingston, not Phillip) I can sing to you all these years later.
  • The CBS answer to Schoolhouse Rock was "In the News" -- short news stories geared toward kids. These segments treated kids intelligently, assuming we could understand news important to  us. I can't say if this was my first exposure to TV news and sparked an interest in journalism, but I never changed the channel or left the room when these came on -- I watched.
  • Saturday morning cartoons taught kids at a young age the value of the weekend. You went to school during the week, and on Saturday, you were rewarded with something special. Kindergarten and first grade weren't necessarily taxing, but they were distinct from the weekend. I didn't sleep late on Saturday mornings as a 5-year-old -- I took advantage of the time off by watching TV that even then I probably sensed weren't Emmy quality.

The bicentennial summer was fun. The music was great; and though I don't remember the Fourth of July specifically, I do recall the buzz around the bicentennial. The summer was followed by the first election I actually understood, even if was a limited understanding (and for some reason, I wanted Gerald Ford to win). 

I kept enjoying Saturday morning cartoons into eighth grade (though by then, I was just watching the Dungeons and Dragons series on CBS and then going back to bed). The weekend just wouldn't have been the same without them


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vacation finale

Image
As expected, the last three days of vacation were much less eventful than the first 12. This happens every year -- we get back from Wisconsin for at least one day before leaving for Utah, and it's just wind-down time. And that's OK -- going nonstop for two weeks isn't easy, especially with kids. And vacation is supposed to be a time to relax, and for the past three days, that's what we did. The past few days weren't that relaxing, however. Monday, we met my mom, who is in Chicago this week, for lunch and then to Old Orchard Mall. That night, we met some friends at the new Superdawg (my favorite Chicago hot dog restaurant) in Wheeling. Tuesday, after pondering going downtown, we ended up just seeing the Smurfs movie with my dad. Last night, we went to dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant here in Edgebrook. Wednesday was mostly devoted to getting ready for our return trip Thursday morning. The heat and thunderstorms finally subsided -- this might have been the m...
Read more

Summer, Day 8

Today was Memorial Day, and as far as Memorial Days go, this one seemed somewhat anticlimactic. The sun came out after three less-than-stellar days, perhaps preventing the weekend from being a total bust. I worked late last night but was awake earlier than I wanted to be this morning. I fell back asleep and woke up around 10:30 to a thumping sound outside. Michael, Lori and my father-in-law got the rest of the sand in the base of the new basketball hoop, and Michael and his friend from across the street were shooting around. This was Lori's parents' last day in Utah, so we treated them to The Cheesecake Factory at the new City Creek mall downtown. I had the macaroni and cheese burger and most of a piece of Oreo cheesecake (no matter how much I pushed on my sons -- they wanted to share Lori's banana cream cheesecake). The boys and I wandered City Creek a little and came home. The afternoon wasn't much more eventful. Michael and I took Popcorn to the park for about ...
Read more

The Little Red Machine

Image
After blogging about Eldest's baseball experience (as well as mine as an assistant coach), I decided to write about my five years playing organized baseball as a kid. Long ago (the mid-1990s), I wrote about two of these seasons, so I will dig those up and transcribe/edit/add/revise when I post on those two seasons. This post will be about my first season, in 1978 on the Reds. We had moved into our new house in 1977, and my new friends, especially Marc, loved baseball and collected baseball cards. Even before we had moved that spring, I was started to become interested in baseball, so my interest exploded that summer. I had played basketball for two seasons at Norwood Park, so my father signed me up for t-ball in the spring of 1978 and bought me a glove (mass-autographed by Mickey Rivers!). I was placed on the Reds. The team was coached by a couple teenagers, including the older brother of one of my teammates. I don't remember many of my other teammates, except we had a bi...
Read more