It’s the first Saturday after Labor Day, the traditional start of the new Saturday morning cartoon season — when there was such a thing! — UPDATED 9/7/24: It’s the first Saturday after Labor Day! Perfect time to reprint this groovy piece from September 2023! Dig it — and dig Walt Grogan’s 13 THINGS TO LOVE ABOUT THE 1970s SHAZAM! TV SHOW — RANKED! (Click here!) — Dan — By CHRIS FRANKLIN For kids of the ’60s through the ’80s, Saturday morning was the greatest time of the week. There was no school, and all three networks (yes, sonny, there were really only three options back then, pre-cable) had decided sometime in the 1960s that Saturday mornings were blocked off for kiddie-fare only. We didn’t have 24-hour, kid-centric channels and streaming services to distract us whenever we felt like it. We had to cram a week’s worth of entertainment into a four-hour block every weekend! OK, we had the afternoons too, especially on the locally owned, independent syndicated channels. But up until the advent of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and the Reagan administration’s deregulation of children’s programming (which allowed afternoons to be filled with half-hour long toy commercials like He-Man) most afternoon shows were reruns of old Saturday morning shows, anyhow! Every Autumn, the networks would announce their new line-ups. You would often see ads detailing the new roster in your parents’ TV Guide digest. And if you happened to be at home the Friday night before that first new Saturday of shows, you might even catch a special sneak peek, hosted by some network star, contractually roped into showing some clips of the new season of Scooby and Scrappy-Doo, etc. But the real litmus test for determining which shows a kid was going to pledge eternal allegiance to was the Saturday Morning comic book ads! These ads, placed in the pages of mostly Marvel and DC Comics, were sometimes double-page spreads, other times just a single page, but they were packed with exciting (if sometimes off-model) art and descriptions for every new and returning show! Plus, they often offered you a chance to see the Distinguished Competition in their rivals’ books! Since this is 13th Dimension, we’re more concerned with long underwear types than Smurfs and Shirt Tales, so let’s take a look at some fun ads...