ABOUT

Saturday Mornings Forever began on Facebook. I created a group designed to bring people together who had fond memories of their times as kids, sitting in front of the TV between the hours of 8 AM and 1 PM before going outside to play or whatever else. After the first year of the group, I began to realize it might be fun to turn that love into a book--an encyclopedia of all things Saturday morning. After spending the next year working on entries, researching shows from various decades and genres, I started getting jittery in wanting people to see them. At the suggestion of some of my friends, I decided to turn the book into a blog, and that's where you are now. Together, we'll revisit some beloved shows, discover some new shows, experience the commercials and cereals that made our Saturday mornings our most favorite day of the week.

You can join the Facebook groups here and here, or follow us on twitter @SatMForever.

The blog will receive regular updates on the weekends.

And now, some FAQs:

What is Saturday Mornings Forever?
Saturday Mornings Forever is a celebration of all things Saturday morning: the shows, the commercials, the cereals!

Why is Saturday Mornings Forever?
Nostalgia, mostly. I, like many others, miss the seemingly simple times of our childhood. A newer reason that arose during my research is that a lot of books dedicated to television animation do not cover everything equally. They all spend a lot of time, focus and praise on the shows they grew up with and rush through, gloss over or dismiss everything after. That's fine, everyone has a bias--even me. But, I wanted a place that would give equal focus to everything and therefore I put as much work into shows I don't like as much as ones I do. If any entry seems smaller or less-detailed than others, that's simply because there's not much information about it to share.

What shows are you covering?
I'm covering any show that ever aired an original episode on a Saturday morning between the hours of 7 AM and 1 PM. Currently I'm only covering shows that have ended their respective runs so I don't have to go back and update them every so often. Once newer shows end, they'll be up for consideration.

How do you decide when to post an entry?
I try to synch up posts with significant events that relate to an entry, be it a movie release, a DVD release, something with the stars or what have you. Otherwise, it's completely random based on whose research goes the fastest to get an entry completed. I do try to do theme months so that the shows presented within a period have something to do with each other.

Why are some episode airdates out of order?
There are two types of orders for TV episodes: production order and televised order. Production order is the order in which the makers of a program wanted it to be presented to the world. Televised order is when a network decided to first broadcast an episode for whatever reason. Depending on the information available, the episode guides on SMF will be in production order as much as possible.

You sure are link happy, aren't you? Why is that?
To provide some extra reading for anyone interested in learning more about people involved with a program, or about anything that may be referenced in an entry. Sometimes, seeing a name isn't enough and you need the visual to either be completely reminded of something you may have known once or forgotten, or to learn about something completely new. 

Okay, but then why aren't some things linked while others are?
There are two reasons why something wouldn't be linked in an entry: either the thing is so old it doesn't have an official web presence and there's a name so generic that it's hard to discern which one is the correct one, or I just referenced a show that will receive a future entry on SMF. In the latter case, those links will be filled in once the entry does go live.

Why isn't my favorite show on here yet?
Two reasons: either I hadn't gotten around to it, or the show didn't air on Saturday mornings in its original showing. A great number of shows ran during the week and were later rerun on Saturdays, or were strictly syndicated affairs. I do briefly cover reruns (found in the RERUN tab), but as there are almost a thousand original programs already gotta keep the focus somewhere. There's also secret reason #3: your favorite program may have been a repackaged program block. What that means is several shows were aired together under a blanket series title and intro. Those shows, if they meet the SMF criteria, will be covered individually and the block title will be mentioned in each one. For example: Scooby-Doo's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics is the blanket title for the programs Laff-A-Lympics, The Scooby-Doo Show, Captain Caveman and Dynomutt, and not its own program.

Did you actually watch all of these shows?
All of them? No. But a good 80% or so I have seen either when they were brand new or in one of their various rerun cycles. Any program I hadn't seen before I try to get some exposure to before I write about it to my the write-ups as accurate as possible.

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