There could be many an argument made for when the “Golden Age” of Saturday Morning television took place. So much of this is subjectively filtered through a lens of nostalgia. But, when it comes to making that argument, the decade of the 70s could definitely be a contender for the mantle of one of the “Golden Ages.”
During this decade, Saturday mornings had become a vital part of network programming, and some of the most memorable and offbeat shows debuted.
Part two of this three-part article travels back in time fifty years, when Jaws ruled the box office and our pop culture conscience that summer, and Welcome Back, Kotter was just about to debut, to remember those new animated series that premiered on networks during the fall of 1975.
ABC
The fall of ’75 saw the debut of Hong Kong Phooey, with Scatman Crothers as the voice of the title character, an anthropomorphic dog named Penry, a mild-mannered janitor whose secret identity is the title, crime-fighting character. A unique, original show, Hong Kong Phooey has become one of Hanna-Barbera’s most iconic series.
“The Great Grape Ape”
Animated versions of prime-time shows were a trend in 1975, and one of ABC’s most popular sitcoms of the time was The Odd Couple (which had just ended its run). Fifty years ago, this fall, DePatie-Freleng adapted the show as The Oddball Couple for Saturday mornings. Instead of neat-freak photographer Felix and sloppy sportswriter Oscar, the animated series featured a cat named Spiffy (Frank Nelson) and a dog named Fleabag (Paul Winchell).
Also on ABC, Filmation Studio would provide a twist to the Saturday morning “formula,” with Uncle Croc’s Block. Meta, before meta was a thing, this live-action/animated series was a sitcom-like look behind the scenes of the titular kids’ show. The host, Uncle Croc, played by Charles Nelson Reilly, who bitterly hated his job, made life miserable for his conceited director, Basil Bitterbottom (Jonathan Harris).
In addition to providing parodies of almost everything at the time, from Evil Knievel to The Six Million Dollar Man, Uncle Croc’s Block also featured new cartoon shorts: M*U*S*H, a parody of M*A*S*H, starring canines at an arctic medical outpost, Fraidy Cat, about a cat who has used up eight of his nine lives and Wacky and Packy, about a caveman and a wooly mammoth who are transported from prehistoric to contemporary times.
Uncle Croc’s Block didn’t fare well with either critics or audiences, and due to its poor performance, ABC didn’t order any additional shows from Filmation.
CBS
“Far Out Space Nuts”
There was Far Out Space Nuts from Sid and Marty Krofft, which starred Bob Denver and Chuck McCann as two NASA maintenance workers who accidentally blast off in a rocket.
Filmation gave us the live action The Shazam/Isis Hour, the adventures of the former, based on the DC Comic, played by Michael Gray as Billy Batson, and Jackson Bostwick (John Davey in later episodes) as Captain Marvel, and the latter, an ancient Egyptian superhero, played by Joanna Cameron.
The Ghost Busters
The live-action series would only last until December 1975 but gained some attention in 1984 when the blockbuster film Ghostbusters was released, and Columbia Pictures agreed to license the title from Filmation.
In 1986, when DiC Animation produced a Ghostbusters animated series based on the movie, Filmation countered with their own animated revival of the live-action Ghost Busters, and DiC retitled their show The Real Ghostbusters.
NBC
Over on NBC, two new animated series debuted.
The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty, from Filmation, took its inspiration from James Thurber’s short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Each episode would begin with live-action footage of a cat (voiced by Howard Morris) whose daydreams about superhero-like adventures would transition the show to animation.
There was also Return to the Planet of the Apes, based on the popular and iconic film series. Produced by DePatie-Freleng, the show has become a favorite of fans of the franchise, not just for its stylish, comic-book-like animation (artist Doug Wildey, who created Hanna-Barbera’s Jonny Quest, contributed to the series), but also for depicting a technologically advanced ape world that had never been seen in the films or TV series.
And so, as “Love Will Keep Us Together,” by Captain & Tennille plays on the transistor radio, we leave 1975 and travel back ten years to look at Saturday Mornings in 1965 next week!
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
“Hong Kong Phooey” actually debuted in the autumn of 1974, when I was in ninth grade. The other shows discussed here date from my sophomore year. I had youth orchestra on Saturdays and seldom had a chance to watch TV in the mornings, but I remember enjoying “Far Out Space Nuts”. Bob Denver was starting to show his age, but he was still a great comedic actor. Like most tenth-graders in 1975, I loved “Welcome Back, Kotter”; I wanted a brown-and-white striped scarf like the one Horshack wore, so my sister crocheted me one for Christmas that year — and I still have it!
Of course you’re entitled to your opinion, young man, but if you had the benefit of my advanced years and decrepitude, you would not go around calling the 1970s a “Golden Age” for Saturday morning cartoons.
Paul,
First, thank you for referring to me as a “young man.” I haven’t been called that since… Well… Since fall of 1975.
Second, in terms of the “Golden Age,” thanks for proving my point that an argument could be made. 😊
Ah, for the days when Saturday mornings rewarded kids for working hard in school all week with a variety of highly competitive programming choices!
One thing also to remember is the shows that performed best on Saturday morning were the ones that were broadcast earliest. By 11 AM, news and golf matches would frequently preempt “our regularly scheduled programs”. Also by the latter part of the morning, kids’ days would be underway with birthday parties, family outings, shopping sprees, or what-have-you. The most popular shows always seemed to fall somewhere in the 7:00 to 10:30 time slots. On those rare occasions (rainy days, sick days, or do-nothing days) when I watched into the afternoon, the fare for kids would grow sparser and sparser as the day progressed. By 12:30 at the latest, the kid-friendly part of the day was over.
It’s interesting to note that Tom & Jerry came “full circle” with Hanna-Barbera, ultimately ending up in the limited animation style that had been developed for H & B’s early television efforts. The New T & J cartoons are not bad considering all of the red tape and pressure that producers were under in the mid-70s, but they are a pale shadow compared to the Technicolor glories of the theatrical MGM shorts.
In 1975, I was in high school and Saturday morning cartoons were something of a social taboo. But that didn’t stop me and several of my friends from occasionally indulging in a guilty pleasure now and then.
News reports and golf tournaments may have interrupted Saturday morning programming in the Pacific time zone where you grew up, Frederick, but it was a different story for those of us in the Eastern time zone. The only instance I recall of Saturday morning cartoons being preempted at all was during a total solar eclipse on the East Coast in 1970, and that was only on two of the three networks. For golf, never.
To each their own and everyone’s nostalgia tastes better than anyone else’s but I don’t think the ’75 season makes for a good argument. This was the year the networks experimented with replacing cartoons with cheaper, ultra-low budget live action shows that just looked like crap. Even the tangentially interesting “Apes” was offset by the cruddy film stock it was shot on. As you note, though, it did give us the version of the modern ape world Boulle and Serling had envisioned and was actually more interesting than the awful prime time series that had flopped hard the year before.
I personally think the peak era would have been anywhere from ’66-’69 and winding down around ’73. The shows were probably no less stupid or derivative but they didn’t seem to be so desperately clutching at straws and at least looked a little more polished. Hanna-Barbera’s work in particular got really sloppy by this point.
Now I’m curious, has anyone written a book or extensive article on the history of Saturday morning cartoons? That would be a fascinating read.
I agree to an extent. In terms of the quantity of animated shows, the late 1960s to the late 80s were the Golden Age of Saturday Morning. “IN TERMS OF THE QUANITIY OF ANIMATED SHOWS” being the important term. This was around the same time when the idea of a network Saturday Morning block became fully cemented in its general term of “full of animated shows on network TV”.
But that’s only in quantity. Quality wise….yeah no. Unless you’re nostalgia blind those were the “Dark Ages” of animation.
What’s weird is that while in the 70s and 80s, while the quality of Saturday Morning cartoons themselves were going downhill, the live-action programming arguably reached one of its better points. Of course there’s the obvious example of Sid and Marty Kroft but Filmation’s live action superhero shows were also fine, Run Joe Run was an interesting attempt at The Fugitive crossed with Lassie, the immortal Bewitched was being shown in reruns in the early 70s, 30 Minutes was an fascinating kid version of 60 Minutes, the CBS Children’s Film Festival and ABC Weekend Special constantly showcased quality programing (though the latter had some animated instalments so that only somewhat counts), The Red Hand Gang was a unique attempt at reviving the serial format for TV, Curiosity Shop was an interesting experiment (though it had animated segments as well so it only kinda counts), Korg: 70,000 B.C. was a fascinating dramatic prehistoric show and Go! was a nice educational show. Oh, sure there were some duds (Going Bananas, Benji, Zax and the Alien Prince McDuff, the Talking Dog etc.) but overall compared to the animated programming released during that time? These (mostly for some) live-action shows were practically Citizen Kane!
Waldo kitty sounds kind of neat. There have been a few movies based Walter Mitty but they departed from the basic premise and had him really go on adventures.
Tom and Jerry rebooted as FRIENDS? ANY cartoon from Uncle Croc’s Block? Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker demoted from F Troop to Ghostbusters? I was only 15 in 1975 but that year I found better things to do with my Saturday mornings I (at least until Bandstand and Soul Train came on).
Only the classic holdovers from years before (Bugs Bunny, Pink Panther) held any appeal for me at this point.
Michael, every animated project you write about seems to be wonderful, classic, and iconic. Maybe you don’t want to upset fans of particular shows, but you often ignore reality. For example, almost none of these cartoon shows were memorable, other than their poor writing and shoddy animation, Doug Wildey’s APES show wasn’t great, but at least it was an interesting attempt to try something different. Information is fine, but quality is just as important. Without a POV, it’s clear that you’ve never watched most of the series you write about.
Greg also is like that too and I sometimes share that type of opinion on some stuff.
Besides, what about shows you worked on, Scott (which you may or may not like)? I actually suggested a show to Lyons you actually worked on which debut 40 years that might be highlighted soon and while it may not be perfect (as it was a toy show) and I know you didn’t like working on it, it was somewhat different (and I somehow end up liking) and still has a dedicated fanbase. Plus, I feel like it was sort of influential for a certain successful animated film that debut this year.
I’ve worked on dozens of cartoon series and produced THE COMPLETELY MENTAL MISADVENTURES ED GRIMLEY and CAMP CANDY, but I only see their flaws. The only ones I can look back with pride are JIM HENSON’S MUPPET BABIES and HEY ARNOLD. (I also am proud of most of my Pebbles Cereal commercials.) With too-tight deadlines, puny budgets, and animation overseas (therefore, we had no control of anything), It’s rare to be proud in an industry that rarely gives a damn about quality. I’m much more happy about how my work came across in print, which is what I’m concentrating at 74 years old.
Scott, once again I’m sorry that you feel that way about my work.
You provided similar criticism of my writing style on my “Brady Kids” article, (April of last year), and I wrote back then and shared my perspective.
You also shared criticism of the fact that I only use quotes from books in a comment on my “Muppet Babies” article, (June of last year) after which I reached out to you through your website to see if you’d be interested in being interviewed. You never responded back.
I will respond back to one part of your comment – I was nine years old in fall of 1975, watched these shows each week, and have continued to revisit them in the 50 years since.
Beyond that it seems a waste of both of our time to keep going back-and-forth in these comments. You can reach me through my email on my website in my bio. I’d love to set up some time for a phone or Zoom call.
“You also shared criticism of the fact that I only use quotes from books in a comment on my “Muppet Babies” article, (June of last year) after which I reached out to you through your website to see if you’d be interested in being interviewed. You never responded back.”
August of last year. Pedantic I know.
To be fair to Scott for a moment it’s possible that he expected you to look at his Facebook posts TBH.
I do think that your more “neutral” perspective isn’t nearly as enthralling at times than others on here (Martin Goodman for instance) TBH. No offense BTW.
It bothered me in the ads for ABC’s Saturday morning lineup when they used the words “New Season” to describe HONG KONG PHOOEY and THE NEW ADVENTURES OF GILLIGAN, when, in fact, they were just the same episodes from the first season with no new episodes in their 2nd year. The shows must have done well in the ratings to return in the fall, but I found it deceitful to suggest that there were all new episodes for these shows when there wasn’t. ABC kept this practice up during most of the decade because I was looking forward to seeing new episodes of these shows with the new TV season, only to be disappointed when the new episodes were not there.
Also deceiving in the ad for ABC is that SPEED BUGGY was a new show. New to ABC maybe but there were no new episodes, only the same ones that ran on CBS before from 1973 to 1974.
Yeah, it must be frustrated for fans of those shows.
Actually, ABC did order eight new episodes of GILLIGAN for the fall 1975 season after the 16 episodes of its initial fall 1974 season must have been a hit. Indeed, PHOOEY’s ‘second season’ was just reruns of its only 16 episodes. Other shows that premiered the previous season- VALLEY OF THE DINOSAURS, DEVLIN, THESE ARE THE DAYS- ran a ‘second season’ in the Sunday AM graveyard.
WACKY AND PACKY was actually “Let’s do that OTHER Sherwood Schwartz 60s sitcom? You know,besides BRADY and GILLIGAN?” IT’S ABOUT TIME, mixed with Jackie Gleason’s and Frank Fontaine’s classics JOE THE BARTENDER from Jackie’s tv sketches-as imitated by Allan Melvin, Wacky was Jackie as Joe and Packy was Frank as frequent, read, ONLY, customer, Crazy Guggenheim. ..
(I remember those..I actually thought UNCLE CROC, the show itself, was surprisingly amusing given that it’s Filmation).,
Stpehen J.C.
I always wondered who drew those ads for the Saturday morning lineup-it’s as if the artists didn’t look at any kind of reference material to see what the characters actually looked like. (In this instance I’m specifically referring to Spiffy and Fleabag from “The Oddball Couple.” Especially Spiffy-very off model…!)
I should mention that “The Oddball Couple” was the first show the late Earl Kress wrote for.
See I grew up w these, I was 9 that fall too. We Loved Space Nuts and Ghost Busters, and ditto Grape Ape etc. I think Scott Shaw’s doing a Spinjob here-okay these didn’t mean anything much to You, but you those of us at the right age, they sure did. Agreed Whacky and Packy etc were not great- but neither were the 60s junk like the Beatles toons, Sad Cat, lotsa Total Television. etc etc either.
But hey watch whatever youse wanna.
I celebrated Tom & Jerry-Grape Ape’s 50th on September 6, 2025 by watching the premiere on WHV’s Saturday Morning Cartoons DVD downing Eggo waffles. 🙂
And to all of those who criticized, condemned, berated, lam-basted, denounced, defamed, defiled, or otherwise desecrated Hanna-Barbera’s made-for-TV Tom & Jerry cartoons through the years—I’ve a big surprise for you! Turns out that, despite every modicum, syllable and prattle of vitriol animation fan and his mother today directed at the dearth of violence, Hanna-Barbera’s New Tom & Jerry Show actually did rather good! In fact, Tom and Jerry ‘75 was essentially the “anchor” that kept ABC’s Saturday morning afloat during a very turbulent transition for the network. ABC surged to the top primarily by leaning into “Brand Identity.” By reviving Tom and Jerry (even in their controversial non-violent format), they captured a massive audience.
The New Tom & Jerry/Grape Ape Show was the cornerstone of this success, premiering on September 6, 1975, and dominating its 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM slot. It was an instant ratings hit at the time because it satisfied the era’s strict “Broadcast Standards and Practices” while still offering recognizable stars. The 1975–1976 season was a historic win for ABC, which finally broke CBS’s 2-decade grip on Saturday morning viewership!
So there ya go! The made-for-TV 1975 revival of Tom & Jerry were actually as popular as the original 1940-58 theatrical shorts ever were, if not more so! 😊