Saturday Morning Schedule for 1985-86

[JaredCap43™]

These are the schedules for ABC, CBS, and NBC's Saturday Morning Blocks during the 1985-86 season. New shows in Bold. Shows that were pulled in the next season are underlined. Keep in mind, I wasn't alive back then, so you can share your memories on this thread. Another user was doing Saturday Morning schedules, but stopped at 1984-85, so I decided to continue.

ABC (You'll Love It):
Fall and Early Winter (September - January):
8:00 A.M. The Bugs Bunny / Looney Tunes Comedy Hour (Renamed "The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show" in the next season)
9:00 A.M. Star Wars: Ewoks
9:30 A.M. Star Wars: Droids
10:00 A.M. The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians
10:30 A.M. The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo
11:00 A.M. Scooby's Mystery Funhouse (Reruns of Scooby-Doo series from 1980 - 1984)
11:30 A.M. The Littles (The only surviver (outside of the obvious 2 that come after it) from the previous season)
12:00 P.M. ABC Weekend Special
12:30 P.M. American Bandstand (In the winter, it was cut from an hour to 30 minutes)

Late Winter - Summer (February - August):
8:00 A.M. Pink Panther and Sons (Not to be confused with "Pink Panther and Pals")
8:30 A.M. The Littles
9:00 A.M. The Bugs Bunny / Looney Tunes Comedy Hour
10:00 A.M. Laff-A-Lympics
10:30 A.M. Star Wars: Ewoks
11:00 A.M. Star Wars: Droids
11:30 A.M. The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians
12:00 P.M. ABC Weekend Special
12:30 P.M. American Bandstand

Bumpers: For this season, ABC got rid of the Rick Reinert bumpers, and made a new set featuring a comedian and a dog doing funny stunts, such as blowing balloons, fishing in a kiddie pool, and building sandcastles. These bumpers lasted until sometime between September 1987 and Mid 1988

CBS (We've Got the Touch):
8:00 A.M. The Berenstain Bears Show (not to be confused with the Nelvana series, which is just simply "The Berenstain Bears")
8:30 A.M. The Wuzzles
9:00 A.M. Muppet Babies
9:30 A.M. Little Muppet Monsters (This show only ran for 3 weeks, not because of ratings, but because of production issues. It was later replaced by an additional episode of Muppet Babies)
10:00 A.M. Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling (X2)
11:00 A.M. CBS Storybreak (later replaced by Richie Rich)
11:30 A.M. Dungeons & Dragons
12:00 P.M. Land of the Lost (The 1974 series, not to be confused with the 1991 show of the same name, Reruns only)
12:30 P.M. The Charlie Brown & Snoopy Show
1:00 P.M. The Get Along Gang (slot later returned to affiliates)
1:30 P.M. Pole Position (Reruns only, same as "The Get Along Gang")

Bumpers: 4 new bumpers were made for this season, two being "We'll Return After These Messages" (Kite and Parachute Cloud), and two "We Now Return To [SHOW]" bumpers (Hat and Treasure Chest). These bumpers only lasted for this season. Strangely, Muppet Babies used the set from the previous season, as did Berenstain Bears, which was a new series. Charlie Brown and Snoopy did use the new set, despite having the "Space" set for the previous two seasons.

NBC (Let's All Be There):
8:00 A.M. The Snorks (Moved to Syndication after getting pulled from NBC's lineup)
8:30 A.M. Adventures of the Gummy Bears
9:00 A.M. The Smurfs (X3)
10:30 A.M. Punky Brewster
11:00 A.M. Alvin and the Chipmunks (It's a shame they never considered expanding this show to an hour, though I do love Smurfs too.)
11:30 A.M. Kidd Video
12:00 P.M. Mr. T
12:30 P.M. Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (Reruns only)

Bumpers: For this season, there was a set of bumpers involving a roller coaster ride, it goes on for a few seconds, and then an image of a show is seen with the text "[SHOW] will return after these messages", and it has an accompanying voiceover (done by the late Casey Kasem, the voice of Shaggy) to go with it. When a show returns, there is only the background with the image, and the voiceover says "We now return to [SHOW]".

Rankings: For this season, NBC is the winner without a doubt. CBS is right in the middle, while ABC is in last, but this season was a little better than last season.

How I'd watch (if I were alive in 1985):

8:00 A.M. Back and forth between The Berenstain Bears Show and the Bugs Bunny / Looney Tunes Comedy Hour
8:30 A.M. Adventures of the Gummy Bears
9:00 A.M. Muppet Babies
9:30 A.M. I will watch Little Muppet Monsters for 3 weeks, and then see Smurfs
10:00 A.M. The Smurfs
10:30 A.M. Punky Brewster
11:00 A.M. Alvin and the Chipmunks
11:30 A.M. Kidd Video
12:00 P.M. Mr. T
12:30 P.M. Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
1:00 P.M. The Get Along Gang (If it's on in my area)
1:30 P.M. Pole Position

 

[stephane dumas]

It was a big change to see Bugs Bunny on ABC after being 17 years on CBS in the Bugs Bunny-Road Runner show. And the Smurfs was at their zenith.

 

[superdude]

How I kinda remember five-year old me watching back in '85 (didn't get a vcr till x-mas '86)....

8:00 Snorks (sometimes Bearenstain Bears)
8:30 Disney's The Wuzzles (yes, I chose The Wuzzles in the 8:30 Disney vs. Disney battle)
9:00 The Smurfs/Muppet Babies (roughly 50/50 over the course of the year, next year my loyalty would mainly be with the more zany humor of MB with an occasional switchover to Smurfs)
10:00 Hulk Hogan (switching with Super Powers and 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and Smurfs. Hulkamania was running wild brotherrr!)
11:00 Alvin and The Chipmunks
11:30 The Littles
12:00 Mr T (Weekend Special if there was an animated episode on)
12:30 Charlie Brown and Snoopy (usually didn't air locally)

 

[JonSea31]

NBC wins it for me again that season. I really enjoyed the "Punky Brewster" cartoon spinoff, as well as "Smurfs" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks". I think the "Punky Brewster" cartoon was better in the first season, but its second season was not overly great but still watchable.

ABC's lineup was not worthy of my viewership, though I would enjoy the reruns of "Pink Panther and Sons" that kicked off ABC's Saturday mornings for roughly the last six months of the season. "The Super Powers Team: Gallactic Guardians" and "The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo" seemed to be too dark for me, plus the significant makeover of Daphne - if I recall, she was a mature adult by that point, and ditched her traditional wardrobe in favor of a jumpsuit and a hairstyle resembling April O'Neil from a future series involving certain crime-fighting reptiles.

As for CBS, at least it was great that they aired new episodes of "The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show" after airing the same first season for two seasons straight. It was only five new episodes produced, but at least it was better than nothing. I would have watched the reruns of "Richie Rich" if I had found it on the TV listings. But then again, I probably would have favored a show with certain singing rodents over Richie, since the former involved new episodes.

 

[Beast of Beef]

I loved this thread! Can you (or someone else) make more like this! I’d love to see a thread like this for other years like 1989!

 

[JonSea31]

1989? That season's Saturday morning lineup sucked. I really enjoyed tuning in to Shadoe Stevens on the radio more during that time.

 

[Beast of Beef]

1989? That season's Saturday morning lineup sucked. I really enjoyed tuning in to Shadoe Stevens on the radio more during that time.

Well, do you have any other years? Maybe 1986-87?

 

[TnAdct1]

Line-up wise, NBC was the winner, with the tried and true line-up of Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks and the debut of Gummi Bears.

To me, 1985-1986 was a big transition year in terms of Saturday morning cartoons. Among the things that happen that year:

• Disney starting to make Saturday morning shows with The Wuzzles and Gummi Bears (although the death of a key cast member hampered any chance for additional seasons of the show).
• After years of airing on CBS, the Bugs Bunny Show returns to ABC (with CBS still airing the prime time specials).
• Long time ABC mainstays Scooby-Doo and Superfriends airing the their final seasons with mixed results, as Galactic Guardians was one of the better seasons of the show (thanks to the introduction of Cyborg and a lot of Batman-related focus), while The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo was pulled mid-season and replaced with reruns of Laff-a-Lympics (which I was into thanks in no small part to my family having cable at this point and me discovering some of the characters featured on it via the USA Cartoon Express).