The Ultimate Saturday Morning Cartoon Lineup for 1988

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see a new episode of ToonCast coming this week.

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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

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just now another 80s geek or something like that.

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

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

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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! Cops. Central organization of

police specialists. Fighting crime. In a future

time. Protecting Empire City from Big Boss and

his gang of crooks. Hello, this is just another

80s geek, and you are watching The Geek Showcase,

where we highlight all things geeky. And without

getting too far into it, we're going to get right

into the topic today, which is a continuation

of our ultimate Saturday morning cartoon lineup

series. If you've been paying attention to the

channel, we've done these for 1983. 84, 85, 86,

and 87. So today, we're going to continue that

series with our second -to -last episode. This

is the ultimate Saturday morning cartoon lineup

for 1988. As you know from the other episodes,

we have eight time slots going from 8 o 'clock

through 1130. We're going to highlight eight

different half -hour cartoons. Each one has a

theme across all the different years, and we

can only use each one one time, and they had

to have aired new episodes in the 1980s. If you

want more of a rundown on how this all, all the

rules and whatnot, please go back to the 1983

episode. We take some time and we outline it

all there. But we're going to get right into

it here for 1988. So in our 8 o 'clock time slot.

Following the likes of Superbook, Flying House,

The Get Along Gang, The Raccoons, The Mysterious

Cities of Gold, and Danger Mouse, for 1988, our

8 o 'clock time slot, we're going to be watching

The Adventures of the Little Koala. I know this

is going to be one of the more obscure ones that

people have no idea what I'm talking about, but

The Adventures of the Little Koala aired from

1987 to 1989. It actually kept going until 1993,

but we're only covering the 80s part. It's 52

episodes, 26 half hours. There was basically

a koala craze going on in Japan. They had just

received koalas from Australia in their zoos

and whatnot. So we got a lot of stuff like this,

Adventures of the Little Koala, Noozles, Blinky,

and all that kind of stuff. So the Adventures

of Koala was kind of following in on that craze.

This was also a version or an example of early

anime that made it to the United States. We talked

about this when we talked about the Mysterious

Cities of Gold, as well as Superbook and Flying

House. Adventures of Little Koala does that same

thing. In the Adventures of Little Koala, we

follow along with this koala group, and there's

other animals as well. But we had Rubear, Laura,

we had Mama, Papa, Betty, and then we had Horsey

Kangaroo, Walter Kangaroo, Colt Kangaroo. Floppy

Rabbit and Mimi Rabbit, Pammy Penguin, Nick Penguin,

a character called Kiwi. Their teacher was Miss

Lewis. Maki Maki was an adult lizard that was

kind of interesting. The weather was very cool.

Dingo was fun to watch. It was basically this

whole world of all of these anamorphic characters,

etc. It was just a lot of fun. It was something

that's a little bit aimed towards the younger

audiences, obviously. Not for the... 10, 11,

12 year olds or anything like this. This probably

would have been more suited for the 5, 6, 7 year

olds, etc. But I just thought it was a very fun

cartoon. The theme song is fantastic. If you

haven't heard that, I definitely... suggest that

you at least go seek out the adventures of the

little koala theme song voice cast was mostly

canadian it was dubbed from you know the the

japanese series so we have canadian actors here

there was a child actor named steven bednarski

who did the main character rubeir koala's voice

he also did the astro boy i believe the dub of

that and also had some older more seasoned canadian

actors walter massey some of you may remember

he was the doctor in the 90s version of lassie

Richard Dumont, if you guys are big -time geeks

and know Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of

the Dark, this is the guy that played Sardo,

the magician magic shop owner. So there's just

some excellent actors that were also doing voice

work that were involved in this. And I just think

it's a lot of fun. It was obviously aimed at

some values and different things that it was

trying to teach the kids. And I think it fits

in perfect with our theme, which you may be picking

up on. I'm not sure yet. And so it's going to

take our 8 o 'clock time slot, The Adventures

of the Little Koala. Let's see where we go to

next with our 8 .30 time slot. This would be

following the previous year's entries of Smurfs,

Heathcliff, The Littles, The Snorks, and The

Berenstain Bears. For 1988, the 8 .30 time slot

goes to... The animated version of Dennis the

Menace. Now, obviously, there was a live -action

version as well for the Dennis the Menace show

back in the day. This was the animated version

that aired from 1986 to 1988, aired 78 episodes,

which actually makes it the 15th most in the

decade. And this is based on a comic strip by

a guy named Hank Ketchum. The series was produced

by Deke. syndication originally, and then CBS

in season two aired it on Saturday mornings.

The show was sponsored by general mills. Each

30 minute show consisted of three different little

mini segments or stories. And the Dennis, the

menace cartoon had the voices of Phil Hartman,

Maurice LaMarche. And Robin Thicke's older brother,

Alan Thicke's one of his other sons, Brennan

Thicke, played the Dennis the Menace character

voice. So Dennis the Menace was just a cultural

staple, I think, in the 80s. We had seen the

live -action show. We have the animation. We

have the comic strip, which I think, I haven't

done this list, but I would guess for comic strips

in the 80s, this is probably in the top five.

Ten for sure, but probably top five comic strips

that kids were probably reading in the 80s. So

I think Dennis the Menace certainly needs to

be represented here for the cartoon version.

And I think it fits in well with the theme, so

we're going to go with Dennis the Menace in our

8 .30 time slot. Let's see where we go to with

our 9 o 'clock. Nine o 'clock time slot should

be a fairly obvious theme here. Like I mentioned,

Inspector Gadget and Alvin and the Chipmunks,

which were the nine o 'clock time slot in 1983

and 1984, have nothing to do with the theme.

They just didn't fit anything else, so I threw

them in there. But starting in 1985, the theme

started, and we had the Wuzzles in 1985. We had

the Adventures of the Gummy Bears in 1986, DuckTales

in 1987, and now in 1988, we get the new Adventures

of Winnie the Pooh. So that theme should be very

easy for those that are trying to do that. New

Adventures of the Winnie the Pooh aired from

1988 to 1989. It actually kept going to 1991.

50 episodes in total, 32 of them aired in the

80s. So this is kind of a crossover cartoon that

bridges the end of the 80s into the early 90s.

It's the first Disney cartoon based on a major

animated film. So the other ones, you know, Gummy

Bears was original. DuckTales was not based on

a movie or whatever. Wuzzles was original. So

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is the

first one actually based on one of their movies.

It aired on ABC on a Saturday morning. ABC wanted

a Saturday morning show because its lineup was

dead last in the ratings, so they picked up The

New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which was

very well received. It won multiple Emmys and

a bunch of other awards, and it really is responsible

in the late 80s of bringing Winnie the Pooh kind

of back into the limelight, back into the spotlight.

It kind of faded over some time, and this really

made it more relevant. And this cartoon was,

I mean, painstaking effort put into this cartoon.

There was more drawings per minute than any other

cartoon on TV. They did 20 ,000 cells per episode.

The average episode of a cartoon at that time

would do like 8 ,000 to 12 ,000 cells. This one

was doing 20 ,000, so almost double the cells.

And they actually did something rare these days.

They actually tried to get the original voice

cast and was... Able to do it for some of them.

They couldn't get Sterling Holloway. They had

him read, but he was just too old to do the part.

But they did get John Fiedler to return as Piglet.

They got Hal Smith to return as the Owl. Paul

Winchell at least started as Tigger before Jim

Cummings took over for him. Jim Cummings would

also be the voice of Winnie the Pooh. Peter Cullen

they got for the voice of Eeyore. So they tried

to get as much of the original cast as possible.

There was a ton of marketing and promotion for

this series through primetime shows. I know the

Sears store was doing a bunch of promotion for

this. This show started in 1988, guys. Reruns

were airing of this show all the way up through

2007. So this show has been on TV... a ton over

the years. And you might not know this, but this

is one of the most valuable franchises in the

world. As far as Disney goes, the one and two,

it flip -flops over time. There's been times

that Winnie the Pooh's been number one and times

where it's been number two, but it's always down

to Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse. Those are

the two staples of Disney. And then if you take

it into a broader light, Star Wars and Pokemon

are probably above it as far as in the country,

but Winnie the Pooh is one of the most valuable

franchises. in the United States. So New Adventures

of Winnie the Pooh has to be represented here.

It was something that all kids of the 80s knew.

So I think it's a perfect spot here, the 9 o

'clock time slot in 1988, to give some highlight

and give some showcase to the New Adventures

of Winnie the Pooh. Let's move on over to 930

for something completely different. Our 930 time

slot has consisted of Saturday Supercade, Muppet

Babies, Hulk Hogan's Rockin' Wrestling, The Real

Ghostbusters, and Fraggle Rock. And for 1988,

we're going to something that fits the theme.

I had a couple different choices here. I went

with this one. We'll talk more about that in

maybe a wrap -up episode. But the 930 time slot

goes to... Police Academy, the animated series

Police Academy, aired from 1988 to 1989, 65 episodes,

so it's tied with a whole bunch of cartoons for

20th most, since that was a standard syndicated

package. It was a Ruby Spears syndicated cartoon.

Obviously, it's based on the film series, and

if you're keeping track, if you're a Police Academy

nut, it falls between the fourth and the fifth

films. Some interesting notes. The theme song

was done by the Fat Boys. There was an action

figure line by Kenner based on the series. This

action figure line was pretty cool. I kind of

think of it in the same lines of kind of the

Dick Tracy toy line. Police Academy kind of did

that same thing where it was taken not just a

film but a cartoon there and doing some things

with it. It had some cool play sets and whatnot.

There was also a six -issue comic book. I think

Police Academy is a great series of movies. The

cartoon, well, it's probably not the best cartoon

ever. I think it does represent a trend that

was going on in the 80s. You could have seen

a couple different cartoons in this spot. There

was a Rambo cartoon and a couple other ones that

we might talk about later. So Police Academy,

fun little cartoon here. We're going to give

it some showcase here on the 9 .30 time slot.

That takes us to our 10 o 'clock time slot. And

this one's going to be following the footsteps

of our 10 o 'clock time slots throughout the

years here, which were Dungeons & Dragons, Kid

Video, Gem, Galaxy High, and Beverly Hills Teens.

And in our 1988 10 o 'clock time slot, we're

going with one of my all -time favorites, Denver,

The Last Dinosaur. Denver, The Last Dinosaur.

How do you not know that theme song? Denver,

the last dinosaur. He's my friend and a whole

lot more. Yeah, this was a 1988 show. It aired

for 50 episodes. It was created by the same guy

that created Voltron, Peter Keefe, from WEP.

It was a syndicated series. Obviously, it's a...

group of teens and this dinosaur that has been

kind of transported into modern day and the teens

are friends with him and kind of showing him

what the world is like. It sounds bizarre, but

the values and the educational content actually

got this series recommended by the National Education

Association. So this was at the time considered

a pretty good cartoon and it was one of my personal

favorites, probably because I just love that

theme song. It had some connection with Knott's

Berry Farm. I don't know if you're aware of that

place, but it offered a Denver the Dinosaur promotional

tie -in with its Kingdom of the Dinosaurs attraction,

which actually lasted until 2004. The original

cartoon had the voices of Pat Fraley, Cassie,

Cam Clark, Rob Paulson, so some great voice acting

there. And I didn't know this until getting ready

for this show. Denver the Last Dinosaur actually

had a reboot in the 2018 to 2020 range. Depends

on which country you're talking about because

I believe it was produced by a French company

and then it was dubbed into a lot of different

languages and produced and shown in different

countries. So I don't know if it made the United

States air. until like 2019, 2020, but I believe

2018 is when it first saw the airways in France.

So I've never seen that. I'm going to have to

check it out and see what it's like and see who

did the dub voices for the English version because

I'm interested in that. But Denver the Last Dinosaur,

just a lot of fun. Also capitalized on a dinosaur

craze that was going on. In the late 80s, we

had shows like Dino Saucers, Dino Riders, things

like that. So I think it kind of fits multiple

themes here. So Denver the Last Dinosaur is going

to take our 10 o 'clock time slot. Let's see

where we go next. All right, time for the 10

.30 time slot. This one is an obvious one to

me, following Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Bright,

She -Ra, Pound Puppies, and My Little Pony. We're

going with a show called Care Bears. But yeah,

we haven't talked about Care Bears yet, even

though it started airing in 1985. It aired from

1985 to 1988. We're featuring it here in our

1988 time slot for reasons. And it was 60 episodes.

For those of you that were keeping track, I think

the last couple episodes we've talked about were...

cartoons ranked if they made the IGN Top 100

Animated Cartoons or the Geekcast Radio Network's

Top 100 Animated Cartoons. Care Bears did make

the Geekcast Radio Network's Top 100 list at

number 80. Care Bears is a $2 billion franchise.

I think it sometimes goes under the radar how

long Care Bears has been around, how many times

it has been rebooted or featured in films and

TV series and things like that. I don't think

everybody notices because of the age demographic

that it's aired at. This one here that we're

talking about, the 1985 one, started as a Deke

show, aired in syndication, and then Nirvana

took over in 1986 and then retitled it Care Bears

Family and obviously some of the animation changes

and whatnot. But Care Bears was featured in TV

specials in 1983, 1984, 1988. It had films in

85, 86, 87, 2004, 2005. The Care Bears movie,

one of the 80s ones there, which was produced

by Nirvana. It became the highest grossing animated

film made outside of Disney when it was released.

So it was a big deal. The television series then,

we had some reboots. In 2007, we had Adventures

in Caralot. In 2012, we had Welcome to Caralot.

2015, Care Bears and Cousins. 2019, Care Bears

Unlock the Magic. So it has been around. There

was more films in 2007, 2009, 2010. So Care Bears

has never gone away, guys. It's always been in

the limelight throughout the 80s and especially

in the 2000s. Some parts of the 90s might have

been Care Bear -less, but I'm sure the toys were

still out there, the greeting cards were still

out there. There was over 40 million Care Bears

sold between 1983 and 1987. And American Greetings...

The card company printed over 70 million Care

Bear cards during the 80s. So Care Bears is a

cultural staple of anybody that grew up in the

80s. You know who the Care Bears were, and they

have just kept reinventing themselves. I have

a daughter, a two -year -old daughter, that has

seven Care Bears that she sleeps with every night,

and she loves them. So Care Bears is not going

anywhere, and that's why it takes our 10 .30

time slot, which means we only have time for

two more shows, guys, for our 1988 lineup. Starting

with our 11 o 'clock slot, this one should be

no surprise what the theme is for both our 11

and our 11 .30. We had to have two time slots

with the same theme because there were so many

cartoons in the 80s that fit this. We've already

talked about G .I. Joe, He -Man, GoBots, Transformers,

Voltron, Mass, Centurion, Silverhawks, Visionaries,

and Thundercats, which means there's only a few

more to talk about, guys. So for 1988, our 11

o 'clock time slot goes to the classic, Bravestar.

Brave Star aired from 1987 to 1988, aired 65

episodes, came in at number 64 on Geekcast Radio's

top 100 animated series list of all time. The

series came one year after the action figures

from Mattel. Now, these were large action figures

at the time. A lot of our action figures back

then were smaller. And this one, the Brave Star

figures were like 8 inches. So they were ahead

of their time as far as that bigger size. They

obtained a Bravestar and a Tex -Hex figure, and

they are huge. So there was a second series of

figures that was designed, but it was never produced

because of the show kind of going off the air.

It was a syndicated series like so many in the

late 80s. This was actually the last, trivia

they shut down in 1989. And there was going to

be a spinoff of Bravestar called Bravo, but it

died when Filmation died, basically. So we never

got to see that. The whole series came about

from a character created for the 1984 Ghostbusters.

There was a 1984 Ghostbusters series, and Lou

Scheimer liked this character so much that he

asked some of his folks to create a sci -fi western

based around the character of Tex Hex. and that

is why we got Bravestar. Bob Forward, genius,

helped create the writer's guide and co -wrote

the movie. Bravestar did have a movie. Voices

included Pat Fraley, Charlie Adler, Susan Blue,

Alan Oppenheimer, the Scheimers, Linda Gary,

so a lot of classic Filmation voices there. Tons

of merchandising, comics, video games. I think

Commodore 64 had a game for it. The theme song,

trivia note here, was sung by Lou and Erica Scheimer.

And the background effects of Bravestar's power

when he gets them is the same that you see in

He -Man's Battle Cats transformation. So if you're

a nerd and you want to check that out, go watch

Battle Cats transformation and then watch Bravestar

get his powers and you're going to see some similarities

there. Bravestar is a great series. I think it

deserves a little bit more love. It's one of

the only big -time 80s action cartoons that hasn't

gotten some type of reboot or attention. It's

like that and Silverhawks. Like, what are we

waiting for, guys? So that takes our 11 o 'clock

time slot. Let's see what comes in for our last

slot of the day. For 11 .30, we're going to another

classic that hasn't received a reboot or anything

like that, and we're going to go with Cops. That's

C .O .P .S. Not Cops, the live -action... reality

show all right this is the animated series from

1988 65 episodes it was a deke series and syndication

it was rerun on cbs saturday mornings under the

title cyber cops because they didn't want to

get confused with the reality show cops and you

know it's a classic show who doesn't remember

fighting crime in a future time or when um Bulletproof

would say, it's crime fighting time. I mean,

this show was great. There was a Hasbro toy line

called Cops and Crooks, kind of designed by the

same guy, Bart Sears, who helped with the G .I.

Joe toy line, WWF figures, and some of the early

X -Men toys. And the toys were interesting. They

had actual cap gun type deals, which you'd never

get away with that today. So it is definitely

one of the last examples of a toy like that that

occurred in the 80s. The show was directed by

Kevin Altieri, who went on to direct the Batman

the Animated Series, Spectacular Spider -Man,

G .I. Joe Renegades, Transformers Rescue Bots.

His first direction gig was with this show, Cops.

There was also a 15 -issue comic series from

DC Comics. And if you collected the toys, you'd

understand or you might remember that each toy

had a file card that came with it. And these

were written by Larry Hama, who did the G .I.

Joe ones as well. So the G .I. Joe always had

those file cards that came with the character's

profile, bio, etc. So he did something very similar

with cops. And an interesting note that there's

a connection, too, because there's a character

in G .I. Joe called Wayne R. Beachhead, and his

last name is Sneeden. Well, if you look at Checkpoint

from Cops, his name is Wayne R. Sneeden III,

and it states in his bio that his father was

a member of a top -secret military team during

the 80s and 90s. So there is a Beachhead -Checkpoint

connection, thanks to Larry Hama. This series

also contains work by Peter Chung, who is the

guy that... is responsible mainly for the style

of Aeon Flux. And this is where he had done a

couple films and series, but Cops is kind of

the first series that he worked on that showed

signs of kind of his distinct style that would

later be developed in Aeon Flux. Cops has a lot

of interesting trivia tidbits. I think it's a

great show. And like I said with Bravestar and

Silverhawks, what are we waiting for, people?

We need reboots or live -action films or animated

films or another animated series. Like, come

on. Don't leave us hanging here. So that is our

1988 time slot. Let's run it down one more time.

We had The Adventures of the Little Koala at

8, followed by Dennis the Menace, The New Adventures

of Winnie the Pooh, Police Academy, Denver the

Last Dinosaur, Care Bears, Brave Star, and Cops.

So that's our 1988 lineup, guys. We only have

one more year left, so our next episode that

does this series will feature the Ultimate Saturday

Morning Cartoon lineup for 1989, and then that

will be a wrap. We'll do one wrap -up episode

revealing the theme for each hour, and just to

kind of wrap it all up. So I hope you've been

enjoying the series. Until next time, this is

Just Another 80th Week, and you have been watching

The Week Showcase. Listen to the 33 -second clip.

Listen very carefully.