Saturday Morning Memories: 80s Edition

Laurence Fishburne and Paul Reubens in
Pee Wee's Playhouse.

With the new year soon approaching, I've been waxing nostalgic about Saturday mornings. Ever since the networks eliminated their cartoon and kiddie blocks since the cable networks provide such fare non-stop, I reminisce about sitting in front of the set from 7AM to 1PM when our Mom would kick us out of the house. Even though I was in my 20s and 30s in the 1980s, I still enjoyed watching Saturday morning programming on network TV. Several of the shows at the time had a weird adult sensibility. These were led by Pee Wee's Playhouse (1986-90), an absurdist spoof of old-time kiddie shows filled with double entendres and surrealism. Pee Wee Herman was the brainchild of Paul Ruebens, created at the LA improv troupe The Groundlings. A child in a man's body, Pee Wee lived in a cuckoo, pop-art clubhouse filled with anthropomorphic objects and animals. 

I actually met cast member Shirley Stoller and S. Epatha Merkerson on the street. Both were fun and said they enjoyed doing the show. By a weird coincidence, I met Epatha in the post office and she played Reba the Mail-Lady on the show. Future stars Laurence Fishburne, Phil Hartman, and Natasha Lyonne also appeared in regular roles as Cowboy Curtis, Captain Carl, and a member of the Playhouse Gang. Reubens' career was sidelined after the show ended when he arrested for indecent behavior in a Florida movie theater. (I rushed out and bought a doll of Playhouse character The King of Cartoons played by William Marshall thinking it would become valuable.) Reubens continued playing odd roles here and there such as the Penquin's father in a Batman movie, a reporter on The Conners, and a recurring character on Murphy Brown, He did revive the Pee Wee character including a run on Broadway in 2010 and in a Netflix film in 2015. He died in 2023 at age 70.

Martin Short also had a bizarre cartoon show during this period. The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (1988-9) featured another manic man-child, the title character created by Short and played in sketches on SCTV and SNL. The humor employed was definitely above the heads of most kids. There were numerous allusions to classic Hollywood films allowing Short and fellow cast members Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Jonathan Winters and Joe Flaherty to perform imitations of stars of the era. My favorite episode was "E.G., Go Home" in which Ed was trapped in a rocket and landed on an alien planet ruled over by a Queen who sounded exactly like Bette Davis (Short) in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. I recall references to The Misfits, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Wizard of Oz. Flaherty would reprise his Count Floyd character from SCTV in live-action sequences. The show was brilliantly satiric and a cut above the usual Saturday morning fare.

Another grown-up comedy series was CBS's Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures (1987-8), which I believe came on right after or before Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic) created this revival/satire of the Terrytoons kiddie series and the superhero genre in general. Zany villains and characters from Mighty's

past and other Terrytoons would appear in a bizarre universe. The film Fantastic Voyage was satirized as Mundane Voyage and the 1978 Superman movie was replayed with mice recreating Mighty Mouse's origin. There were also appearances by Bat-Bat and his sidekick Tick the Bug Wonder, a goof on Batman, and the Mighty Heroes, the parody superhero group Bakshi created in the 1960s. Here they were aged accountants rounding up escaped numbers. The show got into trouble when in one episode Mighty is sniffing a flower and it appears to be cocaine because he acts drugged afterwards. That resulted in the show being cancelled because of complaints from right-wings watchdogs.

Another cartoon superhero group from the 80s was Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981-3), but I will save that for a blog specifically on Superheroes so I can include Underdog, Batman, Superman and the Super-Friends.