ABC Weekend Specials

Back in the early-80s, on Saturday mornings, if my dad didn't drag me off to work with him (he was a plumber and electrician) -- I would stay home and watch the Weekend Specials on ABC. I had many favorites: "Land of Og" (about those little green guys who lived under ground); "Zack and the Magic Factory (the beginning was so intriguing -- the boy arriving by taxi at night at the front of this ominous-looking building, and the creepy monster and gadgetry guarding the inside of entranceway -- scared the be-Jesus out of the boy, riveted me to the sofa); and "The Haunted Mansion Mystery" (where the boy and girl are trapped under an old mansion in a secret room, which they think is haunted by the spirit of a rich old man -- who one day, miserly, hauled his money home from the bank in a wheelbarrow and died there, leaving his skeleton to entertain the boy and girl in the secret room). They just don't make programs for children of that quality anymore. I could mention many other shows, but I don't think there is space enough here.

Yeah, I remember them, I also remember the old intro showing a girl with a baseball cap blowing a big gum bubble and then all these different images would come out of the book that opened. I was just telling my children about how Saturday's were really for the kids with us having our own news show in between cartoons called "In The News" with a globe being the trade mark of the show. I even told them how they used a lot of the commercials to inform us about how to take care of ourselves. Anyone remembers "Yuk Mouth"?, I even remember all the school house rock segments that kept us on our toes as to not remember what we learned in school. I told them that I was going to write ABC and recommend that they bring a lot of those things back. of course in restored condition. I honestly do feel sorry for the young generation, we really did get a break on Saturday's.

The Weekend Specials were sometimes good, sometimes crap, and I rarely watched regularly. Generally I'd stick around long enough to see what this week's story would be, and then, washed out and headachey from four or more straight hours of watching jumpy animation on a black and white TV, I'd go off to have breakfast. So the distinctive theme music and animation were my signal that Saturday morning was over...but oh, what great music and animation it was! Like a flourishing coda to a Bach concerto, in fact. Even though it wasn't one of the shows that I stayed around to watch, it was nevertheless probably more ingrained in my memories of Saturday mornings than anything else, except for maybe the Bugs/Roadrunner Show, In The News, and ABC's various between-show thingies (Schoolhouse Rock, the "Bod Squad" segments...)

I feel obligated to comment on this. Up until the Disney takeover of ABC, every Saturday morning for many, many years, this show was on. Every week a different children's TV movie was presented, and sometimes the story was about Capt. O.G. Readmore and his friends. (The official mascot for the show for the later years.) This was a refugee from the 80's that must have firmly planted itself into everyone's minds as being a Saturday morning standard. I don't know how many times I saw "Ralph S. Mouse" on it... It's too bad that no kids will be able to watch decades old hour long cartoon sagas anymore. For many of us, I am sure it's been cemented in our minds.

This was one of the best shows from the retro-Saturdays as I like to call them. I always looked forward to seeing them. I liked them so much I even watched them as a teen. My favorite was "Adventures of a Two Minute Werewolf". I read the book in 5th grade and even taped the show from ABC. Unfortunately, I accidentally taped over it. Stupid me. They should bring this show back on. And bring Willie and Lester back. They were the bests hosts of the show.