Either my memory is going or there is a Mandela Effect in play because I could have sworn that He-Man, Robotech, and others were Saturday morning cartoons.

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ryaaan89@reddit

Dunno about the others, He-Man was 1000% part of the USA Express block in the 90s.

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BuckFuchs@reddit

Secret third option: regional programming

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Aggravating-Alarm-16@reddit

That's most likely the case.

In the 90s there was a Mario Brothers TV show , that aired in my grandparents region but not mine

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RogowskiCoil@reddit

The Super Mario Bros Super Show had the best cartoon Mario by far.. no idea why they picked Chris Pratt to voice the current iteration. The Brooklyn-accented plumber will always be my image of Mario.

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MetaVulture@reddit

Captain Lou will always be the voice of Mario in my head. I also unironically loved the Super Mario Bros. Movie.

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RelevantFilm2110@reddit

That was the Super Show which usually aired daily. There was a Mario 3 show that was Saturday Mornings.

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NOFX_4_ever@reddit

🎶 …swing your arms, from side to side… 🎶

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AldusPrime@reddit

I LOVED the Legend of Zelda shows on Fridays, but was lukewarm on the Super Mario shows Monday through Thursday.

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bony-tony@reddit

I doubt He Man was Saturday morning programming anywhere. Each of the two seasons has 65 episodes.

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Yeah where i grew up we had an independent TV station in the 80s that showed cartoons every weekday morning and afternoon, and a lot on the weekends too. They also showed a lot of syndicated stuff and reruns.

Then in the 90s, they became a fox station.

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Impossible_Memory_85@reddit

He-Man and Robotech were 100% not a Saturday AM it was after school. If I recall specifically with Robotech it was syndicated from the start so sold to the local stations not to the entire network.

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IslandGrover@reddit

Can confirm. In 1982-83 western MD, He-Man was on in the afternoon. Vivid memories of watching it after school.

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goat_penis_souffle@reddit

I remember having cable in NJ in the 80s but watching He-Man on TV38 which is a Boston station.

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Weak_Radish966@reddit

I grew up in MA and remember watching He Man on tv 38. It was on weekday mornings, right? I think I remember watching it before going to school. After school was 100% Transfformers and GI Joe.

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Neat_Shallot_606@reddit

We had He-Man for a time.

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Sisselpud@reddit

My kids barely know what day of the week it is so this tracks.

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Sea-Day9742@reddit

I’ve found days of the week to be yet another thing that the school system doesn’t teach anymore and I have to take care of myself.

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ItsADarkRide@reddit

...Anymore? You mean this was something that you guys had to be taught in the school system? Your classmates just rocked up to kindergarten not knowing the days of the week yet? You hadn't already learned them from your parents, maybe with a bit of help from children's educational television or a few hours a week at preschool?

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Miami_Mice2087@reddit

my first grade teacher had a kid read out today's date and mark it on the calendar on the bulletin board every day. And then we wrote it at the top of our composition papers, which we copied out from the chalkboard every day to practice our handwriting. It was like, one or two sentences, but it took the whole green composition page.

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Sea-Day9742@reddit

Well in my defence my parents were rarely sober enough to teach me my own name, let alone basic life skills. I watch The A Team and He-Man a lot but I don’t recall them going over the days of the week in between violent fight scenes.

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ItsADarkRide@reddit

Heh, I was originally going to (jokingly) specify that I didn't mean He-Man when I said "children's educational television." I see now that it might have been appreciated if I had!

My mother probably taught me the days of the week. Her doctors told her that she was too disabled to both work and have children, so she'd have to choose one or the other. So I'm a Xennial who wasn't a latchkey kid. My father worked (actually still works), and my mother chose Being A Martyr as her vocation. She is the kind of person who does not actually want to be happy; she prefers being miserable and getting to complain about how hard everything is for her. She doesn't want anything to get easier; she wants to complain.

She is actually the complete opposite when it comes to her health conditions: she is very brave and stoic, minimizes everything, and doesn't want any attention for them whatsoever. She handles them with much less complaining than almost anybody else would. She just acts like a martyr about everything else.

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Miami_Mice2087@reddit

He-Man was, along with Sheera (the superior alternative). Also Thundercats!

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FigureFourWoo@reddit

I watched He-Man after school.

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-LeoKnowz-@reddit

He-man, She-ra & Thundercats were my after school jam!

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zerombr@reddit

Robotech was, thats how I learned about death!

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solemn_penguin@reddit

He-Man was an after school cartoon for me. I didn't have cable so I only knew of Robotech from the toys and occasional video rental.

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TP_Crisis_2020@reddit

He-man was definitely in our local saturday morning rotation in the late 80's.

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supergooduser@reddit

The weird era of Saturday Morning cartoons is niche interest of mine.

This is a bit of a fever dream we have as xennials where we have childhood memories of an analog era.

So prior to cable, you watched TV through your local affiliates whatever your antenna could pick up. They had to broadcast stuff from networks (prime-time, etc.) but had certain windows where they could show whatever they wanted. Usually super early morning, a little in the mid morning (after the news) a little in the afternoon, and then late night before sign off. Often they'd show re-runs of older popular shows (Honeymooners was notoriously a staple, but star trek, twilight zone, Addams Family, I Love Lucy, etc.)

There was deregulation in this era for advertising at kids and He-Man created the template. If you go back and watch an episode it's unabashedly a commercial for the toys, shit is straight up a 30 minute infomercial. He-Man was pretty much constructed as a vehicle to sell merchandise and just "look" cool.

They went and produced an initial package of 65 episodes (enough to air one episode each week day twice a year)... then approached affiliate stations directly and said "hey, here's free content, we'll split advertising with you" it was a super easy sell, everyone wins. Free popular kids programming, and toy company is airing it's commercial to sell toys.

As xennials we lived under this firehose of pop culture until about 1991 when the first tentative steps of legislation began... it's kinda wild and I think contributes to our perpetual happiness where so many "forever" franchises (batman, Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, Transformers, etc.) appeared in this window.

To answer your specific question... there were specific saturday morning schedules the networks aired... but they didn't start until 8am... obviously kids woke up sooner, I remember one of my local affiliates started showing cartoons at 5:30am on saturdays... so from 6am to 8am there were approximately 12 different cartoons that the affiliate would've picked. That's likely where you saw these.

Additionally... growing up I had an independent station... that eventually became a Fox affiliate, but Fox didn't appear until 1987... prior to that is was just independent... think the movie UHF... they ran a lot of syndicated and reruns... however on saturday mornings, they didn't have the network programming block, so for 8-12 they just ran whatever cartoons they wanted... so you could've had a station like that.

I have a lot of fun "solving" these weird fever dream memories as a kid and having them make sense as an adult.

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Adrasteia-One@reddit

Not sure if it was a regional thing where you were, but I remember those two in particular being weekday afternoon cartoons. I can remember Robotech airing when I was home from school.

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AldusPrime@reddit

Robotech was after school where I lived, also.

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dequiallo@reddit

I used to watch Robotech in the morning before school on the east coast US.

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MartyFreeze@reddit

I never was able to watch robotech because it was on too early for my lazy ass

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dequiallo@reddit

My bus showed up @ 7am, so I had to get up early. Didn't get home till after 4, so missed some good cartoons in the afternoon times.

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CrowWarrior@reddit

I had to wake up at 6am in Colorado to watch before school. I love that show!

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sarithe@reddit

I have very vivid memories of watching Robotech and Voltron back to at my grandmother's house while eating cereal before school. This would have been around 1991/92 when I was 7 or 8.

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KitchenNazi@reddit

Got home just in time for a Robotech after school.

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unlovelyladybartleby@reddit

He-Man was on Saturday mornings in Canada. Maybe you were watching a Canadian channel?

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-bobsnotmyuncle-@reddit

I can remember it being on in the morning as well but not if was Saturday or mon-fri. I was only like 4 when the show was on, so I don't remember much of it honestly. Just that cool cyclone dude toy I had and the green tiger.

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unlovelyladybartleby@reddit

I was only allowed to watch CBC on weekdays, and He Man was definitely not a guest on Mr Dress-Up

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lsp2005@reddit

He man was on Saturdays. Robotech was weekdays.

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The_Pandalorian@reddit

They were always after-school for me.

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Sea-Day9742@reddit

He-man was definitely a cartoon, but I remember watching it after school around 1984/5.

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ItComeAFlood@reddit

4:30pm Central. I go to my friend's house next door, and every day I'd ask his mom to send me home at 4:30 because I had to watch He-Man.

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OskeyBug@reddit

Those were after school although they also showed Robotech on Toonami which was saturday nights in the late 90s.

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Material-Imagination@reddit

I feel like this was a daily show in the after-school before-5:00 block

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OllieFromCairo@reddit

They were both distributed through syndication, so the network and timeslot varied by television market. Certainly in the Detroit market, He-Man was part of the after-school block.

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Ltimbo@reddit

Can confirm He-man was on weekdays in the Chicago area.

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FETTACH@reddit

Those were before school cartoons for me I think

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BloodyPaleMoonlight@reddit

What likely happened was that during their first run on the air, these cartoons were shown on Saturday mornings, but afterwards their reruns were shown on weekday mornings.

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LazerShark1313@reddit

I remember watching He-Man and Robotech on weekday mornings before school

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Sodamyte@reddit

Robotech and Voltron were before school, He-Man GI Joe and Transformers were after for me

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yinchanvo@reddit

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was 100% 4PM EST weekdays; my entire life revolved around it.

Interesting enough I recall a time when Thundercats was on after it (but also She-Ra) but Thundercats eventually was on Sat or Sun morning.

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gerardkimblefarthing@reddit

They were.

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OllieFromCairo@reddit

They were usually weekday afternoon shows, but because they were syndicated, the details varied by market. There were some markets that used it for Saturday mornings.

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bony-tony@reddit

Which ones?

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OllieFromCairo@reddit

Ones where the syndication was picked up by independent stations.

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bony-tony@reddit

That was everywhere.

There were 65 episodes in each of the first run seasons. I doubt anyone was putting that on Saturdays.

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gerardkimblefarthing@reddit

Ahh, likely. I think of Silverhawks, M.A.S.K., and Dinosaucers as afternoon shows, and He-Man as a Saturday morning thing.

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necronomitodd@reddit

He-Man and G.I. Joe were after school for me.

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bjgrem01@reddit

Where I grew up it was He-Man followed by Thundercats every day. G.I. Joe was just going off when I got off the bus so all I ever got to see was that "knowing is half the battle" segment.

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necronomitodd@reddit

They did She-Ra after He-Man where I was. I think Go Bots was in the mix somewhere, too

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Colonial13@reddit

I watched He-Man on Saturday mornings in the mid-80’s in Michigan.

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Money_Magnet24@reddit

Mandela Effect

I have this physical book in my possession

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bony-tony@reddit

Not a Mandela effect, just different versions.

The Grimm Bros fairytale in the original German used the repetition ("spieglein, spieglein an der wand").

The Disney movie for whatever reason went with "magic mirror". The Disney read-along book a couple decades later went with "mirror mirror", like the source fairytale.

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Money_Magnet24@reddit

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bony-tony@reddit

Definitely your memory, He Man at least was always an after school watch.

I mean, there were only two seasons, and each was 65 episodes. There only 52 Saturdays in the year.

And of course they went hard on repeats.

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GalaxyRedRanger@reddit

They were Syndicated shows which means they could be placed anywhere the local network wanted. They were designed to run Mon through Fri after school by an independent television station. But.. if your local area didn’t have an independent station then the cartoon might be picked up by your ABC/CBS/NBC affiliate. Since their schedules were already packed, they’d typically cram these cartoons into the off hours where infomercials ran, like 6am on a Saturday morning.

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seminarysmooth@reddit

He-Man, Thundercats, GIJoe, and Robotech were all on the air in 1985. Silverhawks and Centurions aired in 1986.

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BritOnTheRocks@reddit

You just sent me down a rabbit hole looking up the broadcast history of He-Man and She-Ra in the UK. We just got them once per week, on Mondays; then Tuesdays and finally Sunday mornings.

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cranberries87@reddit

He man was a syndicated after school cartoon in my neck of the woods. Never heard of Robotech.

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moronomer@reddit

We had Robotech on Saturday mornings (either right after of right before M.A.S.K.), but it was syndicated. The station also played them out of order so the plot made absolutely no sense, but I still loved it.

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eternallysantanasass@reddit

I remember those being afternoon cartoons when I came home from school. I guess it is a regional thing

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kalsainz@reddit

Those feel like after school cartoons,

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andronicus_14@reddit

One of my earliest memories is waking up well before everybody else and watching He-Man on television. I could have sworn it was a Saturday morning like 4am or 5am.

I hardly ever watched cartoons (except for Doug later on), but I distinctly remember watching He-Man that one time.

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YoureABoneMachine@reddit

He-Man and Thundercats came on really early in the morning on Saturday mornings for me in the late 80s. Maybe 5 or 6 am. I would get up and suffer through them waiting for Smurfs and Snorks.

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The_Lawn_Ninja@reddit

Syndicated cartoons like that were licensed by local networks to show in whatever time slot they wanted.

Whether you remember watching them after school or on the weekends, there's no Mandela Effect required.

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IchibanChef@reddit

He-man and Robotech were both afternoon cartoons where I grew up; both in Dallas area and St. Louis area.

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graveybrains@reddit

We had cartoons before school, after school and Saturday mornings and aside from Duck Tales and Kidd Video I have no idea which one happened when.

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LineImpossible3958@reddit

I remember watching He Man early on weekdays before school, like 6:30am or something.

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rojoshow13@reddit

I see that He-Man was first run syndication so different networks in different markets probably ran it at different times. It also originally aired from 1983-1984 and I would have only been 4 years old, but me and my cousins were definitely watching it all the time into the late 80s.

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Iittletart@reddit

Robotech was a Sunday morning show on channel 20 in Detroit. He-Man was a M-F show after school.

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--Citation-Needed--@reddit

In my area (west Texas) He-man came on after school. Robotech was Saturday morning, but it was early. Most started at 7am but robotech started at 6:30. I had to set my alarm to watch it.

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Jcolebrand@reddit

Depends on how and where you watched it. I definitely saw them on Sat mornings but we had a satellite dish (the massive back yard kind, we were pretty rural, there wasn't an option for cable)

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pojospages@reddit

I would come home from school in 85/86 and watch he-man and then She-ra while eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

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CMarlowe@reddit

I always recall watching them after school.

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realauthormattjanak@reddit

Some markets showed them on Saturday morning, but for me in Houston it was an afternoon show.

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rjcpl@reddit

I remember having to get up early enough on Saturdays to catch Robotech.

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Spartan04@reddit

A lot of cartoons were first run syndication, so their air time was different in different markets.

I looked it up and for He-Man at least it was bought by USA in 1988, which took it out of syndication. I remember watching it on USA and I think then it was on in the afternoon.

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