Friday, June 4, 2021

Saturtainment: Saturday Morning Videos (1991)

 1991 was a transitional year for NBC's Saturday morning lineup. By the end of the season, their freshman animated series (i.e. Yo, Yogi!, Pro-Stars, Wishkid) would all be cancelled, and the network would go all-in on a live-action lineup, built around Saved by The Bell.

This was also the year for an experimental spin-off from the early morning Friday Night Videos, which the network was tinkering with. Saturday Morning Videos had the cushy slot behind Bell, but few remember the show because it was a ratings bomb. It lost viewers from Bell.

There are no complete episodes. Just selected segments mixed with commercials. NBC primetime personalities served as VJ's for the series. In this sample, Raven-Symone, then on The Cosby Show, serves as co-host. Raven just stares into the camera to read her cue cards, it's clear.


Raven would return to Saturday mornings when ABC repurposed reruns of her Disney Channel series, That's so Raven, a few years later.

No rating.

4 comments:

Goldstar said...

I had no idea that this show existed, but I do remember that 1989-1990, the season of Wishkid, Super Mario World The Series and the terrible beyond belief Yo, Yogi! was NBC's last season of airing Saturday morning cartoons. After that (as you already mentioned), NBC re-built it's entire SatAM lineup around live action shows aimed at teenagers, with Saved By the Bell being the anchor. The block was called TNBC. Some Saved By the Bell wannabe shows such as California Dreams, Hang Time and City Guys aired on this block as well.

I didn't see much of TNBC, but then, I was 22 in 1991 and by that time I chose to sleep in Saturday mornings.

hobbyfan said...

Actually, Wishkid & Yo, Yogi! were also class of '91. By then, I was doing other things on Saturday mornings, like hanging out with a couple of buddies for breakfast and shmoozing.

Red Hawk said...

There was a show hosted by a duo of Canadian foster brothers who hosted the 1991 NBC cartoon line up. It was called Chip and Pepper's Cartoon Madness. They also did interviews and comedy sketches.

hobbyfan said...

Chip & Pepper's show was a stand-alone half-hour. They did not host the entire block, other than some interstital bumpers.