The 1970s was the decade when Saturday-morning cartoons became a major phenomenon, with kids
tuning in to watch a plethora of syndicated animated shows every Saturday morning.
While Hanna-Barbera Productions made many of these shows, there were also some notable
70s cartoons made by other animation studios, such as Filmation.
For those looking to take a step back to their childhood, revisiting any of these classic
Saturday-morning cartoons could prove the perfect escape!
Join Facts Verse as we explore the best 70s cartoons to remind you of your childhood.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was an animated mystery comedy that was produced by Hanna-Barbera
Productions for the CBS network.
Though the series premiered on September 13, 1969, it went on to become a defining part
of both the 1970s and the early Saturday-morning cartoon phenomenon.
The original series only lasted for two seasons, ending on October 31, 1970.
After the end of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, the titular character was
used further in the spin-off shows Scooby’s All-Stars and The Scooby-Doo Show.
Later in the 1970s, these spin-off series were repackaged back under the name of Scooby-Doo,
Where Are You! when they were rerun on the ABC network.
In the days since, all episodes of Scooby’s All-Stars and The Scooby-Doo Show were released
on DVD as the third season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which helped clear things
up for the fans.
Since the 1970s, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! has snowballed into a full-blown media franchise,
with multiple theatrical motion pictures, direct-to-video features, made-for-television
features, and subsequent series iterations.
The character is arguably more popular than ever, which only makes it that much more lucrative
of a nostalgic prospect to go back and revisit the show that started it all!
The Pink Panther Show Originating in 1969, The Pink Panther Show
was a series made up of various shorts featuring the character of the Pink Panther, who had
previously been popularized in the animated opening-credit sequences featured in the series
of live-actions films of the same name, starring Peter Sellers.
As the films became more and more popular, the cartoon character started to take on a
life of his own, which is how he eventually was able to get his own television series!
After premiering in 1969, The Pink Panther Show aired new episodes until 1978.
The show was produced by the duo of David H. Depatie and Friz Freleng, who were known
for their work on some of the most classic Looney Tunes shorts.
The Looney Tunes shorts ended their original production run the same year that The Pink
Panther Show began airing, and it proved a fine use of Depatie and Freleng’s immense
talents!
Fred Flintstone and Friends The original run of The Flintstones had been
over for several years by the time the 1970s rolled around, but Hanna-Barbera wasn’t
going to let one of their most prestigious intellectual properties sit around and do
nothing during the boom of Saturday-morning cartoons.
Since new episodes weren’t exactly an option at the time, the studio decided to create
an anthology series made up of various less-successful cartoons, with Fred Flintstone as the host
tying it all together.
The end result was Fred Flintstone and Friends, which was offered up for syndication in 1978.
The series featured new wraparound segments starring Fred Flintstone.
The original voice of Fred Flintstone had died in 1977, meaning that Hanna-Barbera Productions
had to find a new voice for the character.
When choosing a new voice, they went with someone who already had a little bit of experience
with the property.
They chose Henry Corden, who had previously performed Fred’s singing voice in the 1966
feature film The Man Called Flintstone.
Henry proved perfect for Fred’s new speaking voice, and continued voicing the character
in different capacities until his death in 2005.
The Tom and Jerry Show Like Fred Flintstone and Friends, The Tom
and Jerry Show was an attempt to take advantage of a popular intellectual property that wasn’t
seeing much use during the time period.
The series began airing in 1975, and a total of 16 episodes were produced.
The series marked the first time that the characters of Tom and Jerry had been featured
in animations that were made specifically for television, in contrast to their previous
theatrical shorts.
Sadly, increased media scrutiny of the 1970s made so much of the slapstick violence that
defined the characters had to be toned down.
Because of this, the series is rarely brought up when people talk about Tom and Jerry, but
it could still prove ideal nostalgic viewing for those who watched it back in the day!
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Schoolhouse Rock!
While Schoolhouse Rock! wasn’t a traditionally animated series, it was certainly a memorable
part of Saturday-morning traditions for children during the 1970s!
Schoolhouse Rock! was a series of uniquely-animated educational shorts that aired between traditional
Saturday-morning programming on the ABC network.
The shorts not only covered such topics as grammar, science, history, and mathematics
but also covered more groundbreaking topics for the time, such as civil rights and economics.
Since the original run of Schoolhouse Rock!, the shorts have maintained popularity both
for their educational appeal and their unique nostalgic charm.
Much of the animation and educational material still holds up today, and the series was even
revived for new episodes twice, once in 1993 and another time in 2009.
Although the new shorts didn’t make as much of an impact as the classics, little else
beats the original Schoolhouse Rock! when it comes to nostalgia.
Looney Tunes As we’ve already briefly discussed, Looney
Tunes wasn’t an animated series but a series of theatrical animated shorts that began in
the year 1930 and continued to be produced until 1969.
The series has come to be associated strongly with the golden age of American animation,
alongside the early works of Walt Disney.
Although the shorts stopped being produced in 1969, they began being syndicated on television
in the 1970s.
Because of this, Saturday-morning cartoon viewers have grown to have a strong attachment
to the Looney Tunes shorts.
The shorts popularized characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam,
Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner, Tweety, and Sylvester, in addition to several other animated
icons!
Hong Kong Phooey Hong Kong Phooey was one of Hanna-Barbera
Productions’ original 1970s series, running from 1974 until 1976 on the ABC network.
The series followed the exploits of its titular pooch, who gets into all sorts of comedic
crime-fighting exploits with his much more capable sidekick, Spot.
Super Friends Super Friends is another Hanna-Barbera production
that first got its start in the 1970s, with its very first episode airing in 1973.
As compared to the original characters that featured in Hong Kong Phooey, much of the
cast of Super Friends was made up of various popular superheroes taken from DC Comics.
Of course, these popular characters included such icons as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman,
and Aquaman.
The series was subsequently revived in 1980.
Josie and the Pussycats Josie and the Pussycats was another cartoon
from Hanna-Barbera Productions that took its inspiration from an already-established intellectual
property.
Like Super Friends, Josie and the Pussycats was based on characters from a comic book
series, this time the Josie and the Pussycats series, which was published by Archie Comics.
When adapting the comic book series to animated form, Hanna-Barbera Productions opted to give
the show a mystery-solving format, similar to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Josie and the Pussycats’ original run consisted of 16 episodes, which aired from 1970 to 1971.
In 1972, the series was re-conceptualized as Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space,
which warranted 16 additional animated episodes for the classic characters.
Both iterations of the series continued to be aired in reruns over the course of the
1970s.
In 2001, the series was adapted into a live-action film of the same name, which has since attained
the status of a cult classic.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Finally, let’s take a look at Fat Albert
and the Cosby Kids!
Although it’s certainly a good deal harder to enjoy the work of Bill Cosby now than it
was back in the day, the original series still holds up as one of the most nostalgic animated
series of its time, thanks to both its incredibly dated aesthetic and it’s cheap animation.
The series was created and produced by comedian Bill Cosby, who was a much more family-friendly
figure back then than he is now.
Bill’s own early years inspired the series, which depicted his time growing up in Philadelphia
with his childhood gang of friends.
This series is one of the few on this list that wasn’t produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions,
with it instead of having been produced by Filmation.
The series made its premiere in the year of 1972, and new episodes of the series were
produced sporadically all the way up until 1985.
Despite this incredibly long production run, new episodes were produced so sporadically
that there were only a little over 100 episodes by the time that things were all said and
done.
While the primary purpose of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was to entertain, the show
also had some educational attributes that made it stand out to parents a little more
than the average Saturday-morning cartoon.
The series featured live-action segments hosted by Bill himself, with the comedian always
coming on to preach whatever lesson the episode was supposed to espouse.
At the end of each episode, all of the characters would take to the junkyard to play a song
on instruments assembled from garbage.
The Saturday-morning cartoons featured in this video certainly weren’t the only ones
that were popular during the 1970s!
Comment down below to share if we left out any of your favorite nostalgic cartoons from
the time period, or if you were thankful to be reminded of any of these classic animated
gems from back in the day!
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