S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Morning

Saturday mornings in the 70’s were just ripe with music. Kiddie show programmers had finally gotten into their brain that flower power kids of that time wanted music. We cared not who sang the music- animated bands that also solved mysteries, boy band wanna-bes or even costumed creatures who defied description. We wanted music!

I mentioned in an earlier post all about the Monkees, a pseudo manufactured boy band, supposed to answer American girls’ yearnings for the Beatles. Fronted by the ubiquitous Brit, Davey Jones, the Monkees were also comprised of Peter Tork, Mickey Dolenz and Michael Nesmith. Mickey had done some TV work, mainly in a show called “Circus Boy” which ran from 1956-1959. (His screen credit at the time was as Mickey Braddock.) Davey was the darling of British musicals, (and still has a large following- http://luvdavy.tripod.com/), Michael Nesmith would go on to bigger and better things (like Television Parts) and Peter Tork would produce a weekly love feeling down to the tips of my little white Keds tennies. I can remember sitting in front of the TV, swooning over these boys’ hilarious exploits, but feeling a little guilty because, somehow, even then, I knew they weren’t the “real deal”. Rumors abounded that the Monkees music was actually played by, dare I say, studio musicians.
From there we travel to animated groups like the Archie’s and Josey and the Pussycats. No need to pretend there, because you knew, sort of, that the cartoon people didn’t REALLY play music. O.K., it was willful suspension of disbelief for me at the time, but come on, folks, I was only a mere tot! I didn’t even know about lip synching yet. Still, I bought the Archie products, albums, comic books, paper dolls and even those plastic cling on toys, where you could change characters costumes. Merchandising was what the music was all about on Saturday morning, and I wasn’t yet savvy enough to know that I ought to enjoy the music for the sake of the music. At least, the Archie’s’ studio musicians had some sort of faux talent. This leads me to….
Ah, the Bugaloos, Lidsville, H.R.Puffenstuff, Sigmund and the Sea Monster…the whole Sid and Marty Kroftt bag of puppets, costumes and parlor tricks. We got hooked, didn’t we, kiddies? I suspect that the Kroftt Brothers took more recreational pharmaceuticals in one evening’s script writing than I did in my entire life. So intoxicating were the colors, the sounds, the smells….ok, so none of their shows was in glorious smell-o-vision, but …you get the idea. Each 30 minute show seemed like some precursor to the music videos we were to get hooked on when MTV reared it’s proverbial head in the 80’s (I promise, I will get to that in another post!) I saw firsthand how much these Kroftterama shows meant to people when I attended DragonCon, the premiere Science Fiction/Media convention in the southeast, back in 2006. The lines to meet members of the casts of Sigmund and the Sea Monster were some of the largest lines in the place, and boy howdy, I was right there with them! (I have the pictures to prove it, btw. To be posted later.)
Of course, the next progression from faux rockers is to real poppers, namely, er….here goes…Captain Kool and the Kongs and the Hudson Brothers. This was supposed wacky comedy, interspersed with music in the form of “bands”. Something you might not know is that these were actual musicians….ok, maybe not ALL of them, but.. Bert Sommer, who, played at Woodstock, for pity’s sake, was in Captain Kool, as was Mickey McMeel, formerly of Three Dog Night! (Captain Kool et all were also Krofft Creations!)The Hudson Brothers were all musicians, but the only thing I know that any of them have done since is that Bill Hudson was first married to Goldie Hawn, and fathered Kate and Oliver Hudson and then he married Cindy Williams from Laverne and Shirley. See, it really is all in who you know!
What my long winded ramble has been trying to get at today is that we are musically influenced by so many factors. I admit to being a devotee of all things Saturday morning musical and when I watch the cartoon fare of today, I am nostalgic for the razzle dazzle schlock of my teeny bopper days. Still, I have moved above and beyond all of that mess, right? But….if you should happen to hear about a Bugaloos reunion in the future, you will let me know…right?