Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s and 1970s Vol. 1 Review

Even though I wasn’t born until the 80s, I grew up watching plenty of Saturday Morning Cartoons from the 60s and 70s. In the age of DVD season sets, it’s easy to forget the appeal of sitting down with a bowl of cereal and watching a huge variety of cartoons back-to-back. Well, Warner Bros. has us covered with Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s Vol. 1 and Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Vol. 1, which are going to be available on May 26th.

Warner Bros. has been putting out some great DVD sets (the Superman box), and it sounds like they have a ton more coming soon. Be sure to check out the official site to find out what else is available.

They were kind enough to send me review copies, so read on for the full review.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s Vol. 1

This set includes 14 episodes of the most popular cartoons of the 60s as well as some of the more obscure cartoons, including:

• Top Cat
• The Atom Ant Show
• The Jetsons
• The Peter Potamus Show
• Marine Boy – very cool
• Space Ghost and Dino Boy
• Herculoids
• The Secret Squirrel Show
• The Flintstones
• The Porky Pig Show
• The Quckdraw McGraw Show
• Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles
• The Magilla Gorilla Show

The episodes are spread out across two discs, and they’re all great. The first appearance of Rosey the Robot from the Jetsons is there, and the guitar-bonking adventures of Quickdraw McGraw are as funny as ever.

There is a nice short bonus feature about Quickdraw with the always-awesome Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew, with Paul Dini of the 90s Batman/Superman cartoon fame, and Tom Sito.

There are a lot of shows I had never seen, but that is a big part of the fun of these sets. I’ll admit, I had never seen an original episode of Space Ghost, only the Adult Swim talk series, but it was a lot of fun. Very campy.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Vol. 1

The 1970s Vol. 1 also features popular and rare cartoons from the time. Most of these I had never heard of, but it was nice getting a glimpse of the type of cartoons my older sisters grew up watching.

I’ve always been a big Yogi Bear fan, but never knew he had another show in the 70s called Yogi’s Gang, where he flies around in an Ark with his pals Boo Boo, Huckleberry Hound, Wally Gator, Snagglepuss, and more.

Batman makes an appearance in an episode from The New Adventures of Batman, part of the Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour. It’s basically an animated version of the 60s Adam West series, and even features West and Burt Ward’s voices. Possibly the best thing about this show is that it includes Bat-Mite.

Some of the other highlights of this set are:

• The Jetsons – “The Space Car” – Really good episode
• Hong Kong Phooey
• Speed Buggy
• Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch
• The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan
• Goober and the Ghost Chasers
• Roman Holidays – Like the Flintstones, but in Ancient Rome
• Josie and the Pussycats
• The New Scooby Doo Movies
• Funky Phantom

The Verdict

These are great sets, and are a good way to have some old cartoons on DVD without buying entire season sets. I hope Warner Bros. keeps coming out with these, especially if they come out with 80s and 90s sets.

Here is a clip to give you a taste of what the set is like.