Shaturday Morning Cartoons

Get our your TV Guides and get ready to circle the cartoons you want to watch this fall season with our look back at network preview shows from 1985, 1991 and 1992. You'll see Snorks right alongside Rudy Huxtable, Urkel introducing Darkwing Duck, and a horny Patrick Duffy interrupted by the The Wild West Cowboy of Moo Mesa. Plus, a game about matching random celebrities with the preview specials they starred in, and a Little Caesars commercial with a singing uvula!

The Shatty Gang dives headlong into the Danger Room to watch the 1989 animated X-Men pilot "Pryde of the X-Men", a surprisingly well-made if exhausting adaptation of the legendary Marvel comic book. Is it a solemn allegory for prejudice or a character-filled extravaganza designed to make action figure manufacturers swoon? Yes! But first, the Shats get their freak(s) on with the Doom Patrol, watch bizarre clips of earlier X-Men cartoons, and receive a 1983 Yummy Award. They also watch X-Men pasta commercials, play a high-stakes game of Mutant or Not-ant, and offer no fewer than three lessons that they've learned. In the words of an inexplicably Australian Wolverine: Crikey, Bub!

The Shaturday Gang takes on their shattiest 'toon in ages: Frogger from 1983's Saturday Supercade. Watch as a video game with the barest of plots is turned into a journalistic thriller! Cheer as one brave woman fights to bring this all-time classic to arcades! Cringe as the Ruby-Spears sound effects machine approaches core meltdown! Then try your luck identifying obscure, disturbing, and erotic Atari cartridges in the world premiere of Name This Game. So if you've got terminal Pac-Man Fever, come join the gang for a delicious dose of toon-thanasia.

What if instead of lint and gum wrappers in your pocket, you found draculas and wolfmen? It's Halloween time at Shaturday HQ and we're watching the sole surviving episode of 1991's "Monster In My Pocket" with Josh Schafer (aka Josh Lunchmeat) from Lunchmeat VHS. Plus, spooky vintage commercials and a game about pocket-based products from yesteryear called "What's In My Pocket?"

The Shaturday gang invites comedian/musician, Shonali Bhowmik, to watch a big batch of rockin' theme songs from a variety of cartoons. Stretch out your toes because they're about to get tapped!

It's almost Thanksgiving and the Shaturday boys welcome Skip Elsheimer from A/V Geeks to watch the 1971 Hanna-Barbera special, The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't. Finally, we learn the real story of the first Thanksgiving, which involved singing and squirrels wearing Chippendales collars. Stick around for dessert--a new game show where you guess which cartoons had their own Thanksgiving specials. We're thankful to you, the Welkers, in this very special episode.

Join the Shaturday fellas and Sonic voice actor Jason Griffith for a look at the way-past-cool cartoon, Sonic the Hedgehog (1993), starring Jaleel White as the voice of Sonic. Will this iteration of the world's most beloved blue hedgehog want to make us hurl or will the chunkage be contained? Tune in and find out. Plus, Jason, who voiced Shadow the Hedgehog in video games and cartoons, gives his thoughts on Keanu stepping into the role in the upcoming Sonic 3 movie, and Nick hosts a really dumb game called Sonic or Chronic?

On their final episode of 2024, the Shatty Kids take you through the Cabbage Patch Chaos of 1983, from shopping mall beatdowns to the weird world of 'creator' Xavier Roberts. You'll then be properly seasoned to watch the intermittently morose but always bizarre animated special Cabbage Patch Kids: First Christmas. Next, the Shat Gang opens an Advent calendar of cacophonous Christmas commercials, before matching wits in the classic game show Xmas Marks the Plot. So stop punching your fellow shoppers, and have yourself a Shatty little Christmas with us.

Sooey! Sooey! Welcome to Piggsburg, population: us. Nick, Joe, and Caitlin watch the all but forgotten Fox Kids cartoon from 1990 starring a bunch of talking pigs and, for some reason, a swamp full of creepy monsters! Plus, Nick wallows in a bunch of pig TV commercials and we play a new game about fast food tie-in toys.

This Shaturday we're celebrating our smart brains with a compilation of the greatest post-toon games we've ever played! Cyborgs, LeSabres and Kyle Mooney's vast knowledge of the TV show "Dinosaurs" are all on display!

This week, Joe and Nick are joined by Roy Miles to watch the 1974 Evel Knievel rip-off cartoon, Devlin, starring a daredevil, his siblings, and a clown named Jester. Plus, Joe cues up some legendary hip-hop commercials for Sprite and St. Ides and the crew plays a game called Devlin Over/Under.

This week, animator and paleo artist Rebecca Dart joins us to watch a strange 1993 cartoon where dinosaurs and humans exist together in future New York City. Plus, vintage commercials featuring catchy Cadillac jingles and questionable dino foods. Then we play a game about Flintstones appliances called Is It A Living?

Skip from AV Geeks joins the Shaturday crew and he brought a cartoon he had on 16mm! This one is a deep cut and has all the things we love about Shaturday: a mustached dad, a completely implausible storyline and clown villains with Russian accents.

This week, Nick, Joe, and Caitlin conscientiously object to watching the Laverne & Shirley In The Army cartoon from 1981, featuring the real voices of Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams and a pig named Sergeant Squealy. Plus, Joe makes a shocking revelation about his military service and serves up a game about our fuzzy recollections of this series called, Did We Watch It?

Underground comic artist, Robin Bougie, joins Joe & Nick to watch his favorite cartoon as a kid, Kidd Video! This half-cartoon, half-live action show features toe-tappers galore and is sure to get us a few copyright notices!

Travel with Nick, Joe, and Caitlin McGurk to the secret world of Happy Ness, the short-lived 1995 cartoon from the producers of Sky Dancers. It's part My Little Pony, part Smurfs, and all not-very-good. Plus, Nessie in commercials, a ringtone that broke the ice for Caitlin and her Scottish relatives, and a game called "Who's the Shatness Monster?"

Author and American-living-in-England, Alex Pickett (aka Joe's brother) joins Joe and Nick to watch The Pondles (1987), a god-awful Smurfs rip-off from England. Plus boring British commercials! By the end of this episode, viewers should expect to be chuffed and full of pukka.

May the George be with you, and us, as he enters this den of scum and villainy to watch the 1985 Star Wars Droids cartoon. It's got Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, R2-D2 as himself, and no other characters anyone cares about. Plus, commercials for obscure Star Wars licensed products and a game called Star Wars Droids Character or Loose Leaf Tea. All that and dueling lessons from George and Nicky Rooney. The possibility of a successful episode is approximately three thousand seven hundred and twenty to one!

This week, all-star comedy booker, musician, and lad from Manchester, Michael Clapham joins us to watch five samples from different British cartoons. You'll see snippets from The Poddington Peas, Raggy Dolls, Postman Pat, Bananaman, and SuperTed--and almost nothing happens in any of them. Plus, the best of UK "adverts" from the 80s and a game called "Lad, Bloke, Pensioner, Geezer, Wanker, or Pram." Play along, Guv'ner.

This is it, true believers: our season five finale! The original Shaturday gang reconvenes to assess 1979’s semi-forgotten animated version of Marvel’s big orange bruiser, The Thing, just in time for the latest cinematic reboot of the Fantastic Four. Is this ‘toon more disturbing than John Carpenter’s The Thing? It’s certainly more shatty! You'll hear about the Fantastic Four's sordid backstory, hustle through five disco-laden commercials, and play an unforgettably NSFW game about Thing memorabilia. It's one Thing after another. Excelsior, my Human Torch Skillet!