ABC Weekend Specials

This was almost a decade before my time. When I did catch this, I would watch it rarely. In fact, the only one I vividly remember seeing well is Jirimpimbira: An African Folk Tale. I couldn't even recall the first part of that special's title, but I knew it began with a "j" and I had to look for it. I don't even remember any of the specials ever being released individually on VHS, but evidently they really were from the pictures of the VHS covers to some of them displayed on this site. How did I or could I have missed those? My now defunct, local Blockbuster probably had them at the time of their release or they might not had ever been available there. I would have loved to rent them, so I can catch up on the majority of what I missed. Earlier this month, I watched a couple of them on Youtube (The Bunjee Venture and The Bollo Caper) and neither of those seemed familiar to me.

Anyway, this series is similar to CBS Storybreak, in that it featured televised adaptations of kids' books. But the difference is while CBS Storybreak (aside from the live action openings and closings of each episode with a host) featured animated adaptations of those stories only, the ABC Weekend specials featured both live-action and animated adaptations of certain stories. From the research I've done, the latter has had a variety of hosts before eventually settling on the nautical outfit-wearing cat, O.G. Readmore, who appeared in both puppet and cartoon form. Both of these programs encouraged kids to read and develop a love for literature. Of the two aforementioned shows, CBS Storybreak has always been the more familiar one to me, as it's the one I saw more often. I always thought it could be because it aired more often whereas ABC Weekend Specials aired less frequently and were done so more sporadically, or I just wasn't able to catch that if and whenever I tried, I don't know for sure. I can't or don't even recall if any episodes were ever even repeated. They probably may not have been, I think, because otherwise I would've been able to catch and remember more. Another thing of interest about this show is that some of the characters are recurring ones and some, particular specials received sequels, and holiday specials. But I don't favor one show over the other, as I like them both equally, from the ones I viewed so far online.

The only thing left I have to say is this is high quality, television entertainment and how more shows like this should be done: Memorable story lines, characters, etc. None of the mindlessness that's unfortunately plaguing the majority of the airwaves today. Definitely one of the best. It hasn't been nominated for nor won any Emmy or Annie awards, but it should have. Very commendable.

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.

I had almost completely forgotten about the Captain and his friends and all the mornings I had actually woken up on time to watch them until my friend and I were talking on the phone one night. She says "What is this on Channel 99?" I turn on the TV and there's Cap't Readmore talking about Jack and the Beanstalk. I think I nearly went into shock. This was a little celebrated piece of the 80's and a memory of ABC before the Disney takeover (when they used to play good Saturday Cartoons).

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.