https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHcOPcM0hJU
“Gotta get up… I gotta get goin’… I’m gonna see a friend of mine!”
These were the words I heard every Saturday, and I still to this day use them to make me get out of bed and get on with my day. Granted, these may have been reruns at that point, but this is when I remember watching the The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episodes the most. It was September 13th, 1997, that Disney’s One Saturday Morning first started, and it was with us until September 7th, 2002. There were several shows that came and went during that time, so let’s take a look back at that nostalgia for the 30th Anniversary of Disney TV Animation shall we?
The shows that started out with us at the beginning in 1997 were 101 Dalmations: The Series, Doug (acquired from Nickelodeon), Pepper Ann, Recess, Jungle Cubs, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Nightmare Ned. Most of those are shows that flat out shaped my childhood, as well as my admiration for Disney’s animation. Growing up all I ever wanted to do was be an animator for Disney, and these shows definitely added to that, especially Pepper Ann. There were also Non-Disney shows such as The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, as well as Science Court that started out with them in the first year.
By 1998 they had added Hercules: The Animated Series, which was a personal favorite. 1999 saw a few more additions including Mickey Mouse Works, The Weekenders, and the Non-Disney show, Sabrina: The Animated Series. This year also saw Disney’s One Too showing up on UPN as a syndication spin-off that would be the replacement for The Disney Afternoon. The year 2000 not only brought us the Y2K scare, but also Teacher’s Pet and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. The animation segments started becoming fewer, but 2001 added House of Mouse, Lloyd in Space and The Legend of Tarzan, taking the places of several shows that had been there since the beginning.
The final year for Disney’s One Saturday Morning was 2002, which mostly saw the addition of reruns of their main channel’s shows such as Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens. Teamo Supremo was the last Disney animated show to be added, with Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action also joining the lineup as a Non-Disney show.
There were, of course, learning segments, such as How Much Stuff Could an Elephant Crush? And Great Minds Think for Themselves, which all took place in the interstitial segments between shows. Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and even the great One Saturday Morning had to as well. Starting on September 14th, 2002, it became ABC Kids, which went all the way until September 3rd, 2011. I’m definitely ready for a good new batch of Saturday morning cartoons, and I hope the current generation of children can grow up with some of the great shows we did.