The Ultimate 1985 Saturday Morning Cartoon Lineup

Hi, this is Dan Gilbazan, and you're listening

to the Geekcast Radio Network. Hey there, Tom

Ruger here, and you are tuned into ToonCast.

Beyond good, beyond evil, beyond your wildest

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here? I'm always here. Yes, yes. In the background.

Yes, just now I was talking. Yes, yes. This is

ToonCast. And this is going to be a clip that

plays in front of ToonCast episode 293 to 299.

Because apparently you've created a third personality

or a second personality for yourself. You're

just now another 80s geek or something like that.

There's this guy I know. He's called Just Another

80s Geek. And he's got this video thing that

he does on the YouTubes and things like that.

So, yeah, it's called Geek Showcase. It's a chance

to highlight all things geeky in a video form.

So, branching out from just audio. So, this will

be a chance for you to see all kinds of geeky

things, whether they be toys. whether it be just

graphics on the screen with top ten lists and

things of that nature, opening packs of cards,

going through geeky memorabilia, knickknacks,

paddywhacks, give a dog a bones, anything like

that. So, yes, you should check out the YouTube

channel Geek Showcase. But to give you guys kind

of a feel for what kind of stuff goes there,

minus the visual part, we're also giving it to

you in audio form right here on ToonCast and

podcast. That's right. So if you hear Kevin say

something like, you can see this on the screen,

it's because this was originally a video where

he would put up his diagram of his ultimate Saturday

morning cartoon lineup. And you are starting,

this is why we're starting in episode 293 to

299, because those are the next episodes I had

available. And you're starting with 1983 all

the way up to 1989 and going through basically,

your ultimate saturday morning cartoon lineup

yeah basically i've seen a lot of people post

stuff on social media over the years whether

it be twitter or instagram or facebook and they

always have like oh the best cartoon lineup or

this lineup versus this lineup or they do drafts

or they do different things so i thought i was

going to do my take on that basically so i've

created a list for each year from 1983 to 1989

i explain on the records here why i don't do

80 81 and 82 but just real quickly it's just

too hard there's not enough cartoons out yet

for them to do those years so it starts 1983

goes to 1989 there's a bunch of rules that i

outline in record so you'll have to listen to

that mainly in the 1983 record i won't do that

as much in the subsequent episodes if you want

the dirt on how these lists were developed you

have to listen to the 1983 episode first all

right well That's going to do it, and let the

show begin. Yay! Yay! Hello, this is Just Another

80s Geek, and you are tuned in to The Geek Showcase,

where we highlight all things geeky. Today, we

are giving you our next in the series of the

ultimate Saturday morning cartoon lineup, and

this time we're focused on 1985. So if you've

missed the previous episodes, please go back,

check out my videos for 1983 and 1984. This is

the third in that series. We'll be making our

way all the way to 1989. The 1983 episode will

give you the rules, but basically we're looking

at cartoons that aired in 1985. And they just

had to follow some simple rules. They couldn't

have aired before 1980s. They had to air new

episodes in 1985. And I cannot use them twice.

So they can't appear in two different year lists.

And, like I've been saying in the other videos,

each year, each time slot of each year has a

theme. And we will give you a time slot for 8

o 'clock all the way through the noon hour. So

we feature eight cartoons each year. So one last

thing before we get started, let's take a quick

look at the 1983 slate, which featured the Superbook

slash Flying House, Smurfs, Inspector Gadget,

Saturday Supercade, Dungeons & Dragons, Strawberry

Shortcake, G .I. Joe, and He -Man and the Masters

of the Universe. Now, in the 1884 episode, we

featured the Get Along Gang, Heathcliff and the

Cadillac Cats, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Muppet

Babies, Kid Video, Rainbow Bright, The Challenge

of the Gobots, and Transformers. So that brings

us to 1985 today. So without further ado, let's

look at what made it at the 8 o 'clock time slot.

In the 8 o 'clock time slot, we have... None

other than... The Raccoons. The Raccoons, which

is a Canadian series that aired from 1985 to

1989. There was 47 episodes that aired in the

80s. It kept going past that, so it aired 60

episodes total on into the early 90s. This Canadian

series actually aired in the U .S. on the Disney

Channel. So one of the early shows that got featured

on the Disney Channel. It wasn't a Disney Channel

cartoon, but it appeared on that channel. There

actually were four specials that aired with the

raccoon. Three of them were television specials,

and one was a direct -to -video special. These

all came out prior to the series. So that was

the raccoons and the lost star, the raccoons

on ice, the Christmas raccoons, things of that

nature. And then we got the actual raccoons series.

And it featured a bunch of raccoons, obviously.

Bert, Ralph, Melissa. and a bunch of other ones

over time. And they basically were living in

this town, and they found themselves kind of

up against a greedy industrialist millionaire

that was Cyril Sneer. And Cyril Sneer... had

a son, Cedric, who was the same age as Bert and

Melissa, etc. So it was kind of like this series

that was basically about saving nature from greedy

industrialists and things of that nature. And

it started as just a 13 -episode idea. So it

was only supposed to be 13 episodes. Obviously,

as I said before, it ended up going 60 total

because of the success. It won a Gemini Award

for Best Animated Series and was nominated for

some other awards, etc. aired in the U .S., and

it was kind of an introduction to a lot of U

.S. audiences to some Canadian voice actors that

would go on and be very popular throughout the

80s. So this show featured the likes of Len Carlson.

Len Carlson would be most known by 80s animation

fans as the voice of Big Boss from Cops. He also

did Mason Sundown from that series, but Big Boss

was kind of the big one. And he also appeared

in a variety of other... He was Ganon in Captain

N and the Swamp Thing in the early 90s. So a

very prolific Canadian voice actor that some

people would know. And it also featured Bob Dermer.

Bob Dermer is a good one for me because not only

do I... I remember Bob Dermer from his voicing

Ralph Raccoon in The Raccoons. But he also did

Cloud Keeper in one of the Care Bear movies.

But more notably in the Care Bear franchise,

he did Grumpy Bear in a variety of different

specials, movies, and TV shows. I think he appeared

as Grumpy Bear in at least six or seven different

things. The little known live action slash puppet

slash animated show Today's Special, which aired

and started airing in the early 80s. Bob Dermer

was actually the voice of Sam. So for those of

you that remember that, I give you extra geek

points because Sam Crenshaw was fantastic. I

still remember him singing his song about the

car that he was giving up, Gertrude. And it was

just such a sad song to me when I was a child.

But go back and watch today's special. Bob Dermer

does. Bob Crenshaw, or Sam Crenshaw, excuse me,

in that show. So the raccoons also featured very

early the first work. I think this is the very

debut of Tara Strong. Tara Strong did a guest

voice on the raccoons. Obviously, she would later

be known for so many things, from Twilight Sparkle

to Raven to Harley Quinn, one of the most prolific

voice actresses. of all time. Also, The Raccoons

featured Susan Roman, and Susan Roman might be

known by more people as Sailor Jupiter from the

Sailor Moon series, but Susan Roman also did

quite a few voices on The Raccoons, including

Melissa Raccoon, which is one of the main characters.

The Raccoons was just a classic 80s show. I remember

having the Christmas ornament that had The Raccoons

logo on it and everything. As it is with most

things in the 80s, there is a possibility that

there's a reboot on its way. There's rumors out

there online that there is a reboot called When

Raccoons Fly. So stay on the lookout for that

if you're a Raccoons fan. And that is what gets

our 8 o 'clock time slot. So let's take a look

at what gets 8 .30. Oh, and before we get too

far ahead of ourselves, just to give you the

time slots, 8 o 'clock in 1983 was Superbook

and Flying House. 84, it was Get Along Gang.

And now in 85, it is The Raccoons. So I don't

know if that gives you any hints on the theme

for the 8 o 'clock hour, but that is what we

had. Superbook, Flying House, Get Along Gang,

and Raccoons. So what will join Smurfs and Heathcliff

in the 8 .30 time slot? In 1985, we're going

to go to a show called The Littles. The Littles,

if you remember that one. Not as well known,

but it aired 29 episodes from 1983 into 1985.

It was developed by a guy named Woody Kling,

who also had something to do with the origination

of and the creation of Rainbow Bright, which

should be no surprise that Bettina Bush did a

voice as Rainbow Bright and as Lucy Little in

this series. Two vehicles for Bettina Bush here.

This is a Deke series, as you've seen a lot of

so far in the 80s, and it aired on ABC. It's

actually based on a children's novel by John

Peterson from 1967, and then Woody Klink kind

of took that children's novel and developed it

into a TV series. There was two movies. One was

a made -for -TV movie, and it aired kind of in

the ABC weekend special episodes. It was broken

into a bunch of parts and aired in the ABC weekend

special, so kind of a crossover there. And it

was one of Deke's first series, along with Inspector

Gadget and Heathcliff, but it was the first to

air on a network, whereas Inspector Gadget and

Heathcliff had it aired in syndication. So it's

Deke's first series to air on a regular cable

network versus syndication. So that's kind of

interesting. This featured, if you're not familiar,

I mean, it says it in the title, but The Littles,

all right? It's kind of like that whole... fairy

tale take on tiny little individuals that live

in a regular world with big, giant people, etc.

So you had Henry Big, which was the main kid

that was involved in this series, and then you

had Tom Little, Lucy Little, Dinky Little, Grandpa

Little, all these different Littles, right? Helen,

Frank, Ashley, there's a bunch of them. And then

obviously you had Henry Big, and he was not alone.

He had parents and other people that lived in

the regular world. That is kind of where you

got your, not a ton of known voices. I mean,

Frank Welker did a little bit, B .J. Ward, Greg

Berger, etc. But otherwise, most of the names

I would mention would not be known to you. But

The Littles was just kind of a similar series

to Smurfs and Snorks and things of that nature.

And I just thought it was an interesting show.

You know, you had your books, you had the movies,

you had the TV series. I think it does a good

job of kind of capturing one of the trends in

80s cartoons, and it also fits the 8 .30 time

slot, which you'll have to kind of keep an eye

out for what that is. So The Littles, a classic

1980s show, takes our 8 .30 time slot here for

1985. Let's move on to the 9 o 'clock time slot.

Similar? Yet different, we're going to go with

a show called, not The Littles, but The Wuzzles.

The Wuzzles. So The Wuzzles was an interesting

series that came out of an idea pitched by Michael

Eisner for his new, at the time new, Disney television

animation studio. So this is a very early Disney...

It aired on CBS. It was a Saturday morning cartoon.

It lasted for 13 episodes here in 1985. And the

idea here is that the characters are hybrids

of two different animals. So you had Bumble Lion,

Ellaroo, Butter Bear, Moosele, Hoppopotamus,

Rhinoky, Crocosaurus. So you had all these kind

of crazy characters that were combinations of

two animals. And it was just a fun little show.

This and The Adventures of Gummy Bears actually

premiered on the same day in the same time slot.

This one was on CBS and Gummy Bears was on NBC.

So what Disney did is basically these were their

first two series, and they aired them on the

same time slot on two different channels. to

see how they went, and I guess they really wanted

to capture that time slot. Both series were successful,

but Wuzzles ended up ending its production after

its initial run because of the death of one of

its voice actors. The voice of Moosele, Bill

Scott, actually died, and they just kind of stopped

production on the Wuzzles, so obviously Gummy

Bears is the one that more people know. A little

trivia fact here, Butterbear and Rhino Key actually

appear in an episode of DuckTales, so there's

a crossover into another Disney series. And they

also obviously had a partnership with Hasbro,

so there was toys and things of that nature.

It was originally entitled Jumble Isle, so it

was going to be called Jumble Isle instead of

Wuzzles, because of the jumbling of the two animal

characters, I suppose. But it ended up going

with Wuzzles instead. And just to kind of touch,

we mentioned that Bill Scott was one of the voice

actors that did Moosele and that he passed away.

It also has some other known... voice actors

that most people would recognize, which would

be the likes of Henry Gibson, who did Ella Rue,

Brian Cummings, who did Bumble Lion, and probably

most notable from the people that will be listening

to this, Alan Oppenheimer, the voice of Skeletor,

did Rhinoky, and he did the crocodile character,

which I believe I had mentioned the name was

Crocosaurus. So Crocosaurus and Rhinoky were

done by Alan Oppenheimer. So Wuzzles is a very

early Disney cartoon, and I think that warrants

its spot here, as Disney would become a major

player in the 80s and 90s here in the cartoon

world. So Wuzzles, one of the originals, takes

our 9 o 'clock time slot, and if you're keeping

track, that time slot was belonging to... Inspector

Gadget and Alvin and the Chipmunks in 1983 and

1984. I should throw out a note there. I didn't

throw this out here before. But Inspector Gadget

and Alvin and the Chipmunks are the only two

shows that don't fit any type of theme. So they're

not part of the 9 o 'clock theme. Inspector Gadget,

Alvin and the Chipmunks, kind of one -offs. They

didn't fit any other theme that I could come

up with. So Wuzzles starts the theme here in

1985 for the 9 o 'clock hour. Just keep that

in mind. Let's move on to our 9 .30 time slot.

We had Saturday, Supercade, and Muppet Babies

in previous years. In 1985, though, we're going

to go to the classic Hulk Hogan's Rockin' Wrestling.

Yes, Hulk Hogan's Rockin' Wrestling aired 26

episodes from 1985 to 1986. This was another

CBS Saturday morning cartoon and another cartoon

that was done by Deke. It's still owned by WWE,

and they still own the rights to this, so you

never know what they're going to do with that

down the line. The interesting thing here was

if you were a WWE fan or WWF at the time fan

and you are watching WWF programming and matches

and pay -per -views and all their TV shows, the

cartoon does not keep up with what happens in

the actual wrestling world. So in the wrestling

world, if you're familiar with wrestling at all,

people turn babyface, turn heel, they're good,

they're bad, etc. And they had some changes like

this. For example... Roddy Piper, I believe,

goes from face to heel during this time. But

in the cartoon, he's going to stay heel. So the

cartoon kind of sticks with what they are, even

if they changed in real life. quote -unquote

WWF, or it actually kept some characters even

though they left the company. So Jimmy Snuka

leaves the company, and he's still featured on

the cartoon. So that's kind of interesting. But

this is just a cartoon that features a bunch

of wrestlers in cartoon form, and there's good

guys and there's bad guys, and they kind of go

through their different stuff. Interesting, some

voice work here that I think is interesting.

Brad Garrett, I believe this is his debut as

far as that goes, and he plays the voice of Hulk

Hogan. We have Charlie Adler as Roddy. Piper,

Louis Arquette as Superfly Jimmy Snuka, James

Avery, the dad from Fresh Prince, playing the

voice of Junkyard Dog, George DeCenzo, the voice

of Hordak from She -Ra, does Captain Lou Albano,

Pat Fraley does Hillbilly Jim, Neil Ross does

Mean Gene. So it's just some fun voice casting

here with who's going to get to do the voices

of these characters since the real wrestlers

were too busy on the road and making all their

dates that they couldn't voice the characters

for their own characters. It only aired for 26

episodes, but that's enough for two seasons worth

of Saturday mornings, basically, when you go

through that. So Hulk Hogan's Rockin' Wrestling

Wrestling was a huge thing in the 80s. WWF explodes.

So I think it's good that we find a spot for

Hulk Hogan's Rockin' Wrestling here in the 9

.30 time slot. Let's see where we go with 10

o 'clock. This might throw some people off because

you would expect it maybe in a different time

slot. But our 10 o 'clock show is going to be

Jem. Jem, the classic music. centric vehicle

with the holograms and the misfits. So Gem aired

for 65 episodes in the 80, tied with a lot of

shows for 20th most because that's basically

one syndicated run of 65 episodes. It aired episodes

from 1985 all the way through 1988. This is a

Hasbro slash Sunbow slash Marvel vehicle, which

is similar to G .I. Joe and Transformers. It

was a syndicated series created by Christy Marks.

It featured Jem and the Holograms. You might

remember the names of Kimber, Aja, and Shana.

I might be saying those wrong. It's been a long

time since I watched Jem. I apologize. And they

usually faced off against the Misfits, which

featured Pizazz, Roxy, Stormer, and Jedha. And

then later on in the later episodes would feature

the Stingers, which was Riot, Rapture, and Mix.

And then there was the Starlight Girls. Those

were 12 foster children. I'm not going to get

into a lot of details. But Gem was very successful.

It was the number one Nielsen -rated syndicated

cartoon series in 1986 and 1987. It was the third

most watched children's program in syndication

with two and a half million viewers weekly. Aired

in a bunch of different countries, was nominated

for some Young Artist Awards for Samantha Newark's

performance and for Best Animated Series. And

obviously there was competition here between

Barbie and Jem as far as the toys go because

they're both... dolls that are trying to be aimed

at the female you know the young girl audience

so there was similar product lines from both

mattel and hasbro for both barbie and gem and

it ended up where both were kind of competing

against each other and it was affecting sales

hasbro actually discontinued the gem toy line

at the end of 1987 because it just didn't quite

meet expectations but the series did continue

on into 1988 and just some quick Trivia here,

the name was originally going to be M. So the

show was originally going to be called just the

letter M. I think it's a good thing that they

changed to Jem. Jem and the holograms, I think

it goes much better off the tongue. And Christy

Marks has said that she would love to do a reboot,

but this is a complicated one because the rights

with all the music and different stuff make it

very difficult to pull that off. So we'll see

if she ever, or someone else, is ever able to

pull that off. So Jem is our 10 o 'clock show.

That means it's time for our 10 .30 time slot,

and this should be no surprise if you look at

our previous years what the theme is, because

in 1983 we had Strawberry Shortcake, 1984 we

had Rainbow Bright, and now we are going to She

-Ra, Princess of Power. So She -Ra, the spinoff

from He -Man, aired 93 episodes in the 80s from

1985 to 1987. That's the ninth most episodes

of any cartoon in the decade. Obviously a filmmation

spinoff of He -Man and the Masters of the Universe.

The initial group of characters and the premise

were created by some uncredited writers you might

have heard from before, Larry Dottilio and J.

Michael Straczynski. And obviously, She -Ra,

we had the crossover movie, Secret of the Sword,

and we've had the Christmas special. And He -Man

and the Masters of the Universe, She -Ra and

the Princess of Power, they've all gone on to

have a long -lasting life in pop culture. There

was a rebooted series in 2018 on Netflix called

She -Ra and the Princesses of Power that received

a lot of positive feedback and acclaim. On September

13th, Amazon or 2021. This is just a little bit

a couple years ago here. Amazon announced that

a live action series was in development with

DreamWorks Animation serving as an executive

producer of the series and be a new standalone

story would not be connected to the animated

show. So a live -action series, not a movie,

a live -action series. And it was announced that

a person named Nicole Cassell would direct the

series. So it's interesting to see if we get

a live -action series from that. We've obviously

had the recent reboot of a couple different He

-Man animated series along with that Netflix

Heroes show in 2018. So it seems like if it's

not going to be now, I wouldn't think it would

ever happen. But I don't know how they're going

to pull off. Is this going to look like Xena

or Hercules from back in the 90s? I don't know.

So we'll have to wait and see. And just a couple

other tidbits here of She -Ra. Larry Dottilio

was responsible for most of the series' Bible

and the characters' names. The original idea

was for Adora to be called Eve because Adam was

He -Man, so you'd have Adam and Eve. But this

idea was dropped because the characters were

twins and not... And the Crystal Castle was originally

called the Palace of Power. Hordak's original

name was going to be Reaper. Glimmer was going

to be called Shimmer. So there was a bunch of

differences in the Bible than to what happened

in the actual series. Funny that I used the word

Bible there when we're talking about Adam and

Eve, I guess. So She -Ra, Princess of Power,

takes our 10 .30 time slot, which means we only

have room for two more shows. Our 11 o 'clock

time slot is going to go to the iconic... Voltron,

which aired 124 episodes in the 1980s, which

was fourth most. Only three cartoons aired more

episodes in the 80s than Voltron. It did only

last from 1984 to 1985, but it packed in a lot

of episodes in that time. World Events Production

was the main vehicle for this. And a lot of people

say this kind of helped lay the groundwork for

things that would come later on Dragon Ball and

its popularity in the U .S. and Pokemon and things

of that nature. I guess that's up for debate,

but that's what some people say. It's interesting

here because there was a team here in Los Angeles

led by Ted Koppler, and they wanted to transform

some Japanese shows, specifically Go Lion, into

Voltron. And they had all these different people

brought in, but it was just some weird... The

history of Voltron is very crazy because they

had to do all these editing of content that wouldn't

be acceptable in the U .S., such as... some of

the dialogue violence and things of that nature.

And it was also interesting because they took

from a variety of different shows, like the first

season's based off of one series from Japan,

the second season seems to be based off of a

completely different Japan series. There's people

more knowledgeable on Voltron out there than

me, but it's just a very interesting history

if you start digging into it of all the different

things that it's based off of. You do have a

classic 80s voice cast here with Neil Ross as

Keith and Pidge, Michael Bell as Lanson and Sven,

Lenny Weiner as Hunk and Prince Lotor, B .J.

Ward as Princess Allura and Hager. Hagar. Peter

Cullen as Coran and the narrator. Jack Angel

as King Zarkon. Tress McNeil as Queen Merla.

So just a lot of classic voice actors here. And

there was three different spinoffs, or there

has been three different spinoffs, main ones,

throughout the years on different cartoons here

that have made the airwaves. So Ultron has definitely

lasted for quite a while. It's got one of the

most iconic... shows to make the crossover from

Japan to the United States. I encourage anybody

to dig into that history a little bit if you

want to find some interesting stuff that happened

back in the 80s with trying to take some content

from Japan and turn it into something for the

U .S. But Voltron takes our 11 o 'clock time

slot. That means there's only time for one other

show today, and that's our 11 .30 time slot,

and it is going to Mask. Not Jim Carrey's Mask.

No, this is M .A .S .K. Mask. Mass Crusaders.

Yeah, you know the theme song. They had 75 episodes

in the 80s, which is the 17th most. Aired from

1985 to 1986. It's a Deke show, and it had toys

coming out by Kenner. Head writer in season one

was Terrence McDonald. He's a screenwriter and

producer best known for Battlestar Galactica.

They also wrote Pound Puppies and The Legend

of the Big Paw. He's also the head writer on

Kid Video and Spiral Zone. The second season

was... Kind of an auto racing weird 10 episodes

that doesn't really fit with the other 65 episodes.

So it's going to be jarring if you're watching

the complete series. When you get to go from

episode 65 to episode 66, it's going to completely

change. When originally broadcast, Mask was the

first closed caption series to air in first run

syndication. And there was a whole bunch of talk

about having a live -action adaptation. There

has been some rumors of F. Gary Gray being attached

to direct. They had some writers. The writer

from Straight Outta Compton was tied to it. And

he also did something in The Fast and the Furious.

So there's been rumors about a live -action adaptation.

We'll see if that ever comes through. There's

an interesting comic story where... All these

different series were kind of combined, and it

shows how they captured a Transformer and reverse

-engineered the technology, and it gave birth

to the Spectrum technology of Mask and Venom.

If you're interested, go check it out. I think

it's 2016 IDW that you can go see there. There's

Action Man and the Micronauts and Mask and all

these different things crossing over, so that

might be an interesting read. And I think one

thing that Mask is known for, besides its crazy

great theme song, is the toys. Like, obviously

a lot of 80s vehicles were aimed at selling toys

as far as when it comes to cartoons, and Mask

is obviously one of them. I think Mask is one

of the examples, though, where the toys were

far greater than the cartoons. Like, if you stack

up Mask toys against other toys in the 80s, they're

going to stand out because they had some cool

features and it was a lot of fun as they kind

of switch into different gears and whatnot. Cartoon

doesn't really hold up very well. I've watched

it all and reviewed it all on podcast form, and

I would probably skip the actual cartoon, watch

one episode if you want, but I wouldn't go too

much further than that. But it is iconic 80s

fare, so it definitely deserves its spot here

in the 1130 time slot. So that does it for 1985.

Let's take a quick look back at what we had.

We had The Raccoons, followed by The Littles,

The Wuzzles, Hulk Hogan's Rockin' Wrestling.

followed by a combination of Jem and She -Ra,

Princess of Power, and rounded up with Voltron

and Mask. So that is your 1985 Ultimate Cartoon

lineup. Stay tuned for 1986, which will be one

of our next videos, and as we make our way through

all of the 80s, forming our Ultimate Cartoon

Saturday Morning Lines. This has been Just Another

80s Geek. You've been watching The Geek Showcase.

Until next time.