Saturday Morning Cartoons

Saturday Morning Cartoons

John Paul Derryberry

The year is 1989 and I’m sitting in my house in tiny Colebrook, Ohio watching Saturday morning cartoons. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is on; breakfast is Cinnamon Toast Crunch; Raphael my favorite turtle, is taking it to Shredder and the foot clan. All is right in the world. I have very little care in the world, and while I don't know it yet, I don’t know what it means to carry responsibility around all the time. I’m free and life is good. I see it often in my social media feeds, the gifs, memes, and pictures, bemoaning the fact there was a day we stopped watching Saturday Morning Cartoons, a day we stopped going outside to play with our friends, a day that we do not remember a day lost to the fog of blurred memories and the passage of time, that we decided we were adults now. Yet, when I see those posts I do not have a tinge of sadness for my youth, or grieve for what was, but process how we are failing each other if we do not realize Saturday morning cartoons, playing outside, and countless other activities we enjoy do not fade away. 

On my first backpacking trips I was just rich enough to buy the essential gear and a tent was not on the menu of things I could afford. Yet a $20 dollar tarp was within budget and with two tarps in tow my friend and I hiked through the Badlands of South Dakota. Without a tent, it felt like a fort building all over again- you know the type of backyard forting building we did as kids. There we were, in our late 20s, playing with the best way to use two tarps, hiking poles, and rocks to create a waterproof sleeping area. We were successful, as it pourured down that night and we stayed dry all night. It was fun, scary, energizing, all those same feelings I got waking up in 1989 knowing I could do whatever I want. The question I always have is, why did we make it a thing where we stop doing those things, or do not reinvent them in a better way as we age? Many folks I work with just wish they had a way to get back to those simpler times, even though those simpler times could be right now.

I think that is what we feel we are missing in our adult world, that freedom of a Saturday with just about nothing on the agenda, not a care in the world, and just staring fun in the face. We feel more alive in those moments than we do in almost any other aspect of our life. The day is full of possibilities, even if the possibility is lying on the couch for 14 hours straight and binging junk TV.  I get it; the pressures around being a good employee, paying your bills just to exist in the world, figuring out how to be a good partner, parent, and then balancing all the roles we play, makes Saturday Morning cartoons and fort building in the backyard seem pretty appealing, but not really an option.

Yet I woke up today in Mason City, Iowa to Saturday Morning Cartoons, cereal for breakfast, and about as free of an agenda as possible. I plan on playing outside later, it’s just my play for long runs. I do not get to shed every responsibility I have but I get to shake free from most of them. Most importantly, everything is alright in my world. Now the cartoon is Doc McStuffins, and I do not have control of the remote. My four-year-old does, but she is happy and talking about all she wants to do today. The cereal wasn’t Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but it was a lovely honey nut Cheerios, and I plan on playing today, a lot. We can still do all the things we did when we were younger. We just have to be willing to reinvent ourselves, become something tethered and connected to what makes us happy, and gives us joy, but also have enough rope to grow, to evolve, to not allow life to just pass by, but to live in the mix of it as it does. Saturday morning cartoons are still a part of my life, I’m still carefree. I just have to be brave enough to embrace it.