10 Saturday Morning Cartoons That Were Much Better Than You Remember

Some Saturday morning cartoons were meant for kids, but can be all the more meaningful when rewatched as adults.

Saturday morning cartoons have been around for decades. The concept arguably predates television, originating in movie theater "weekend matinées," which often included cartoons. Animated television shows commissioned to herald the start of the weekend started around the 1960s. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Saturday morning cartoons had a resurgence in popularity thanks to major broadcast networks starting blocks. Over the years, some popular foreign cartoons actually made their debut in the West as Saturday morning cartoons. However, the concept has been in decline thanks to factors like syndication, streaming, and parents wanting their kids out of the house.

Despite this, many former children who grew up with these shows look back on them fondly. Rather than writing them off as childish nonsense, some fans can actually better see the thought put into these shows when looking back than when they were children.

Recess was a late 1990s animated series that served as a flagship series for Disney's One Saturday Morning block. Despite revolving around a group of elementary school friends, the series was a light-hearted love letter to wartime stories, from Hogan's Heroes to The Great Escape.

In the series, the kids virtually have their own secret government in the school, complete with their own king. However, they all must contend with local the recess monitor, Miss Finster. In some ways, the series' popularity became obvious after the show had ended. Over the years, Disney was clearly fond of the series, using the Recess cast in advertising and crossovers long after the original series ended and giving the series a theatrical movie. The creators even got a follow-up series of sorts, Lloyd in Space, which featured most of Recess' voice actors.

Pepper Ann was one of One Saturday Morning's first shows, detailing the life of the eponymous red-haired middle schooler as she lives her life in the town of Hazelnut. In addition to her friends and family, Pepper Ann can talk to her own reflection, and the series was filled with Pepper Ann's lavish dream sequences, including an entire episode with the cast stuck in a dream musical.

The series often touched on social issues, and a lot of stories can easily be relevant to modern audiences. "Single Unemployed Mother," which deals with Pepper Ann's mother on the hunt for a new job, discusses the limbo of jobseekers being seen as simultaneously underqualified for some jobs but overqualified for others. "Tundra Woman," which deals with Pepper Ann's sister's favorite heroine getting her own cartoon, takes an interesting look at gender roles in animation. Some elements, like gender roles being taken to extremes on both ends or boys finding a female heroine inspiring, can still be subversive to modern audiences.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was the series that started the Scooby-Doo franchise, and it all started as a Saturday morning cartoon. Four friends and their talking dog stumble upon mysteries involving all sorts of ghosts and monsters. Of course, the threats usually turn out to be scheming thieves wearing masks.

The original Scooby-Doo series isn't as formulaic as later versions would be, and the series could be surprisingly clever when it wanted to be. Quite often, the villain behind the mask was someone the gang never met. In "A Clue for Scooby-Doo," for example, the villain had faked their death beforehand. Another story, "Haunted House Hang-Up," had the twist that the "monster" was trying to scare off the real villain. The series could also be surprisingly dark, too. "A Night of Fright is No Delight," an homage to Agatha Christie, features the gang seemingly stumbling upon the corpses of the villain's victims in coffins. Of course, they turn out to be lifelike dummies.

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In House of Mouse, Mickey Mouse hosted a popular club where all the characters in Disney's animated canon appeared as guests. In addition to a few musical guests, the club hosted a variety of cartoon shorts, usually revolving around the misadventures of Mickey and his friends.

The shorts helped reintroduce Mickey Mouse and his friends to contemporary audiences. While mostly limited to the framing device, the series is also one of the few times when Disney's characters interact with each other. Apparently, Hades has a crush on Maleficent, Cinderella and Snow White's stepmothers are good friends, and Jafar can save the day with a rendition of "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!" Notably, Pepper Ann and her mother also make a brief cameo in one episode. The series not taking itself too seriously also helps keep everything fun to watch. Some fans also like to imagine how modern Disney characters would translate into the series.

Bratz: The Series was an animated adaptation of the doll line of the same name. The four heroines, Cloe, Jade, Sasha, and Yasmin, run a magazine, "Bratz." However, they have to contend with Burdine Maxwell, Jade's former boss, who runs the rival "Your Thing" magazine with the help of her two minions, Kirstee and Kaycee.

While many parents feared the cartoon would inspire young girls to act "bratty," the four leads are consistently shown to be hard-working and friendly in the cartoon. In fact, in the series, the "Bratz" name starts as an insult from the actual mean girls, and the four leads just decide to run with it. The series is also notable for its voice acting. During the first season, actress Wendie Malick, known for Bojack Horseman and The Owl House, voiced the scheming Burdine and Kaley Cuoco of The Big Bang Theory voiced Kirstee. Funnily enough, Kelly Sheridan, who played Barbie herself in many of her animated movies, became the voice of Kaycee in the second season.

In its original run, Animaniacs technically started as a weekday series, but switched to being a Saturday morning cartoon sometime after the first series. The series revolved around the three Warner siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, who were supposedly cartoon characters from the 1930s who were imprisoned in a water tower, but have escaped for some cartoon hijinks. Of course, the Warner siblings shared the spotlight with a whole cast of characters who had their own shorts, like the laboratory mouse duo, Pinky and the Brain.

Even in the 1990s, it was noted that the series had already won over a lot of adult viewers as well as kids. Thanks to the show's frequent use of innuendos, many viewers who enjoyed the series as kids will probably get more of the jokes as adults. Animaniacs often felt like it offered something for everyone, with everything from the Disney Renaissance to Shakespeare plays being used for jokes. The series' spin-off, Pinky and The Brain, also found itself transitioning into a Saturday morning cartoon.

Winx Club is an Italian-animated series revolving around. A young girl named Bloom discovers a magical world and soon finds herself attending a school for fairies. While there, she makes new friends with girls all across the magical dimension. They also have all sorts of powers, from the sun and moon to technology itself, with Bloom trying to discover the origin of her powers. Together, they form the "Winx Club." Unfortunately, three witches also take an interest in Bloom's power and just may know the secret of her past.

In the United States, the series initially premiered as a Saturday morning cartoon, with an English dub made by 4Kids airing on Fox Box and 4Kids TV. Winx Club's serial format actually translated quite well into the weekly airings, as viewers could tune in next week to see what happened next. The 4Kids version only lasted three seasons, but many fans, even of the show's alternate dubs, still appreciate it as an introduction to the series. Over the years, the original series would prove popular, garnering later seasons, spin-offs, movies, and even a live-action series on Netflix.

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In a more modern take on Saturday morning cartoons, the Disney Channel aired a Saturday morning block in the 2010s, which included the 2017 reboot of Ducktales. As in the original cartoon, Donald Duck's nephews move in with their wealthy uncle, Scrooge McDuck. Huey, Dewey, and Louie go on all sorts of adventures with their uncle and his household, including their new friend Webby. However, no one becomes as wealthy as Scrooge without earning a few enemies.

Just like the original cartoon, the Ducktales reboot helped popularize characters from the Disney Comics in the West. Compared to the original cartoon, Donald Duck is given a larger role, to the point where his love interest, Daisy Duck, eventually appears. Meant to be more faithful to the Disney comics, and it is also one of the few animated appearances of Donald's sister, Della Duck, the mother of his three nephews.

Star Trek: The Animated Series was an animated spin-off of the eponymous live-action series. While the animation was notably limited, the series retained much of the original cast as voice actors, as well as much of the original writing team. The switch to animation also allowed for characters that couldn't be as easily rendered in live-action, such as the leonine Lt. M'Ress. While technically aimed at children, the animated series still had its dark and serious moments.

Notably, Sulu and Uhura were given more prominent roles at times in the animated series. In "The Lorelei Signal," for example, Uhura famously takes command of the ship in order to save crew members after they fall under the spell of life-draining sirens. Generally, the series isn't considered canon for the overall Star Trek franchise, but it still has fans who like to think otherwise.

Pokémon is a popular, long-running anime based on the video game franchise of the same name. In the United States, the anime made its television debut as a Saturday morning cartoon on the Kid's WB block. The anime arguably helped popularize anime as Saturday morning fare in the West in the following years, in addition to introducing anime as a whole to young viewers.

The franchise was huge among American children at the time, sparking everything from a famous South Park parody to KFC tie-in toys. However, it has still proven enduring among audiences of all ages. For example, it got a resurgence of notoriety in pop culture with the release of the Pokémon GO game, getting nods in media and even political speeches in the West. Ultimately, Ash Ketchum and Pikachu were part of the childhoods of people across multiple generations.