TOP 10: 1970's Saturday Cartoons

Saturday mornings use to be the only time kids had a chance to watch hours of uninterrupted cartoons. All three networks devoted about four hours each Saturday to just watch their favorite characters. From Scooby Doo to The Justice League. Hanna-Barbera was the dominate provider of series, but you also had Filmation and Rankin/Bass also producing series.

Here is my look at my TOP 10 favorite Saturday cartoons from the 1970's

10) STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES
Before the franchise went from cult hit to major movie property, Filmation produced 22 episodes over two seasons (1973-74). If you were a fan of the original series from the 60's, this was a great fix to get more stories of your favorite crew. All of the actors from the original series provided voices.

9) PINK PANTHER
There were a few different series that aired the iconic character over the decade. Sometimes the PINK PANTHER was pared with another character. Sometimes, he was on his own. But, his stories were basically the same. The PINK PANTHER would start in an average situation that when wrong. The fact that the character lasted the entire decade shows the popularity and staying power of the concept.

8) CAPTAIN CAVEMAN AND THE TEEN ANGELS
Hanna Barbera found a winning format by the mid-70's. It was called Scooby Doo. And they took the concept, gave it a new skin and poof, they had a new cartoon series. CAPTAIN CAVEMAN was one of the better series that came out of this process. CAPTAIN CAVEMAN was a fish out of water helping three teen girls solve mysteries. He was a great character with a fun tag line... CAPTAIN.. CAAAAVEMAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!

7) LAFF-A-LYMPICS
All your favorite Hanna Barbera characters, divided up into three teams, competing in different games each week. The three teams were The Scooby Doobies, The Yogi Yahooies and The Really Rottens.  Each week's winner was either The Scoobie Doobies or The Yogi Yahooies, with the Rottens in last place. Only one episode featured a win by The Really Rottens. It was always good fun and I loved all the classic and contemporary characters featured.

6) FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS
This may have been the only all African American cast cartoon, not based on a music group. It is at least the most successful.over the course of eight season, FAT ALBERT produced 110 episodes. Bill Cosby created, produced and voice most of the characters in the series. He even had a segment were he talked directly to the kids watching the show. It was funny, relate-able and had a life lesson in each episode. It is the first of our list to be an original cartoon turned live action theatrical movie (2004).

5) DYNO-MUTT, DOG WONDER
What do you get when you combine Scooby Doo and Batman? You get Dynomuut. Dynomutt was an andoid dog, a robot, if you will. He was silly and always getting into trouble. He was paired with the superhero The Blue Falcon and was always finding a way to make it harder for The Blue Falcon to solve the crime and capture the bad guy. Only 20 episodes were produced, but it will always be among my favorite cartoons of all time.

4) HONG KONG PHOOEY
"He is the #1 Super guy!" Penry pooch is a mild-manner janitor at a police station. He transforms himself into Hong Kong Phooey upon running into a magic filing cabinet despite always getting stuck - and unstuck by his cat Spot - and once transformed, gets equipped with the "Phooeymobile" vehicle that transforms itself into a boat, a plane, or a telephone booth depending on the circumstances by banging his gong or changes automatically whenever necessary.

3) THE SUPER FRIENDS
If you loved superheroes, SUPER FRIENDS was the show for you. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash and many more would go battle with the super villains like Lex Luthor, The Riddler, Bizzaro, Sinestro and more. Over the course of 13 years the different series that made up The Super Friends spaned ten seasons and 109 episodes.

2) SCOOBY-DOO
Perhaps the most recognized Saturday morning cartoon character ever, Scooby-Doo started out in the fall of 1969 and is still going strong today. It was great characters with fun mysteries each week. and we could watch the same episode 10 times and still have fun watching it. The only bad thing about Scooby-Doo was the introduction of his nephew Scrappy-Doo. Horrible character.

1) BUGS BUNNY/LOONEY TUNES
It has gone by a few names on different networks, but the classic Loony Tune cartoons packaged for Saturday mornings were the best. The whole library was shown. From the early shorts of the 1930's to the less quality toons from the 60's. We had Bugs, Daffy, Tweety & Sylvester, Speedy Gonzalez, The Road Runner, and Porky Pig. After 75+ years of these classic characters, we still look at them as some of the best cartoons ever.