Passing down the Family Heirloom: Saturday Morning Cartoons #Streamteam

It’s Saturday morning in the 80’s. I would wake up at the crack of dawn. Tip toe downstairs, grab a huge bowl of  cereal and make my way to the family room floor where I would sit cross legged in front of our television screen. For the next several hours, my eyes would be glued the screen and I munched happily on Shreddies and indulged in cartoon after cartoon. Saturday mornings were the best!

Sadly those days are long gone. No longer are we able to lounge around the house and enjoy cartoons all day. With two working parents, Saturdays are reserved for extracurricular activities, chores and grocery shopping. However, everyone once in awhile, I see a character, hear a note or live a situation that reminds me of one of those cartoons I loved to watch. Instead of letting that memory pass me by, I embrace it and share it with my children. Watching them watch shows I used to watch, makes them more enjoyable the second time around!

Since it was just Father’s Day, I thought I share some stats on Father’s sharing their childhood cartoons with their kids:

• 65% of Dads watch cartoons when streaming TV shows and movies with their children
• 76% of Dads “feel like a kid again” when watching retro TV shows or movies with their kids
• 25% of Dads watch cartoons and other TV shows or movies ith their kids to relive their childhood, laugh at the hilarious scenes from old favorites and pass these memories down to their kids
• 79% of Dads who watch TV shows or movies with their kids are re-watching their favorite shows and movies that they grew up watching
• 48% of Dads say their kids enjoy watching shows and movies with them because that is their bonding time
• 38% of Dads say they let their kids pick what they watch together, while nearly as many (35%) admit that they enjoy the same kinds of shows

Here are my top 5 pics for Family Heirloom Cartoons:

Alvin and The Chipmunks – Fuzzy animals, pop songs and mischief! What’s not to like!! Wearing glasses as a kid, I would always knock mine off at the end of the theme song like Simon did!

Scooby Doo – Ghosts, Monsters and a box of Scooby Snacks! Scooby Doo was a classic mystery that everyone enjoyed!

Spider-Man – Spider- Man wasn’t one of my top pics for a family of all girls, but my sons and DH would kill me if I left it off the list!

The Smurfs – My all time favourite! I have seen every episode, went crazy when they made a movie a few years back and owned several blue stuffies as child! To this day, I still can’t tell you what a Smurf actually is or why thye choose to live in a mushroom, but their stories of problem solving, kindness and the occasional song, made them one of my favourites for sure!

Transformers – AUTOBOTS ROLL OUT! I may be a girl, but this girl loved Transformers. Twice the fun, twice the action and twice the planet saving power!

This Saturday morning, instead of running out to complete your grocery shopping or rushing around to finish your chores, grab a big bowl of cereal, your kids and the Netflix remote and plop yourself down for a Saturday morning cartoon marathon!