Great Children's Programming from the 70's and 80's

As a kid I used to love to watch television. What kid doesn't really? My own kids love to watch television. But what I've learned over the past ten years is they sure don't make TV shows like they used to. My kids love to watch Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. On a side note both of these channels will rot your kid's minds. Don't believe me just watch 5 minutes of the Disney's The Suite Life of Zack and Cody or Nickelodeons Ned's Declassified. It got me to thinking about all the great shows I used to watch as a kid.

H.R. Pufnstuf
Sid and Marty Krofft's H.R. Pufnstuf was one of the shows I loved as a child. We must have watched it on reruns because it originally aired in 1969. This premise of the show revolves around Jimmy (played by the late Jack Wild) who stumbles upon Living Island. There he meets the mayor of Living Island, a yellow dragon by the name of H.R. Pufnstuf. Although, I never thought that Pufnstuf looked much like a dragon. Jimmy had a talking flute by the name of Freddie. Witchiepoo, Jimmy's nemesis, was always trying to get her hands on Freddie the flute. Witchiepoo flew around on a broomstick that had a steering wheel. Her broom was aptly named the Vroom Broom. One of the great things about this show was that everything was alive on Living Island, the houses, the trees, and even the mushrooms could talk. The most popular theory about H.R. Pufnstuf is that it that the entire show was a metaphor for drug use. Ahhh, the 70's what a magical time.

The Banana Split Adventure Hour
This show was similar to H.R. Pufnstuf in the sense that it was live action with lots of puppets and people in costume. Of course the fact the Sid and Marty Krofft designed the characters should be noted. The Banana Split Adventure Hour revolved around a musical group known as the Banana Splits. The group consisted of Fleegle a beagle, Drooper a lion, Bingo a purple gorilla, and Snorky an elephant who was covered in white strips of material. I never understood if that was meant to be clothes or not. Each show had a song of the week and there were several different skits. I recently watched a clip of the Banana Splits Adventure Hour on YouTube and I must say it does not stand up to time. It is strange, and well, stupid to be honest. I guess sometimes you shouldn't go back.

Great Cartoons
Some of the cartoons that are around today are great. I like Sponge Bob and can sit through The Fairly Odd parents. But most of today's cartoons are for lack of a better word crap. Here are some I used to love to watch and if you were born before 1985 I bet you did too.

The Great Grape Ape
The Great Grape Ape was about, well, a giant purple gorilla. He had a little friend that was a beagle who drove a yellow car with the great grape ape riding on top.

Wonder Twins
Who can forget the Wonder Twins catch phrase "Wonder twins powers activate." As a twin myself, my sister and I used to love to play wonder twins. The twins consisted of a boy named Zan and his twin sister Jayna. Zan could only take the form of liquid, including steam and ice. Jayna could turn into any animal. The twins has s pet monkey named Gleek. The twins went around solving crimes and were members of the Super Friends.

JabberJaw
Jabberjaw was a cartoon about a shark that played drums in a musical group the Neptunes. It was quite similar to Scooby-doo in that the Neptunes traveled around solving crimes and defeating villains.

Hong Kong Phooey
Perny, Hong Kong Phooey's alter ego, was a dog that worked in a police station as a janitor. He would jump into a file cabinet to change into Hong Kong Phooey when ever trouble was abound. He always screwed things up and needed his side kick Spot the cat to help him out of whatever predicament that he had gotten himself into.

I miss these types of cartoons. Thank God for YouTube. Thanks to them I can go back and watch these shows whenever I want.