It’s Saturday morning. You’re eight years old. You wake up, wipe the crusties out of your eyes, and shuffle down the hall toward the kitchen and then off to the living room. Armed with a big bowl of sugary cereal and the remote control, you turn on the television and cycle through the major networks looking for your choice of cartoon. Smurfs, Snorks, Disney’s Adventures of the Gummy Bears, Get Along Gang, Muppet Babies? So many choices and none are wrong. This is peak childhood living. Sure the cereal is tasty and the cartoons entertaining, but subconsciously something else is imprinting on your long term memory, priming future nostalgia: the theme songs. Each episode replaying the earworm of the week that you’ll sing along with until next Saturday. Now fast forward ten years to 1995. You’re eighteen and a senior in high school. Alt rock is king now. The soundtrack of your days is filled with crunchy guitar riffs, heavy distortion, phatty bass lines, and pounding drums. The influx of new bands combined with evolving mainstays constantly adding material to your countless mixtapes. Then, one day an album is released marrying the two in perfect harmony, Saturday Morning: Cartoon’s Greatest Hits. Hosted by an unlikely dream team of flannel-era heroes, it’s a tribute album that’s equal parts reverent and ridiculous.
Produced by Ralph Sall, Saturday Morning: Cartoon’s Greatest Hits takes that childhood glow and filters it through the distortion pedals and eyeliner of the 90s alt-rock scene. Toadies, Matthew Sweet, Liz Phair, and Sublime all show up to re-animate your favorite theme songs with fuzz, feedback, and a healthy dose of Gen-X irony. From the crunchy bars of “Gigantor” by Helmet to the punchy, punk rock “I’m Popeye The Sailor Man” by face to face, you know this isn’t a joke record. It’s a love letter wrapped in distortion. Liz Phair & Material Issue breathe seductive melancholy into “The Tra La La Song,” while Juliana Hatfield’s wistful “Josie and the Pussycats” turns bubblegum pop into indie introspection. Its charm (and its risk) lies in the collision between nostalgic children’s media and more “adult” alternative rock musical sensibilities. Some interpretations stay fairly close to the originals; others radically reinterpret or inject their own style. It’s messy, loud, nostalgic, and perfect.
Best enjoyed at 10 AM on a lazy Saturday, couch fort built, vinyl crackling, and cereal milk swirling. Saturday Morning: Cartoon’s Greatest Hits isn’t just nostalgia bait, it’s a reminder that rebellion and innocence share the same frequency. When you mix sugary cereal and ironic sincerity, you get something weirdly profound: the sound of youth remastered.
Highlights
Matthew Sweet – Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?: true to the original, melodic rock sensibilities
Ramones – Spider-Man: fast, punchy punk energy, fun, straight forward, high energy crowd-pleaser, a celebration of the original
Violent Femmes – Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah (Means I Love You): zany, over the top Jetsons song given the Violent Femmes treatment, energetic and exaggerated
Sublime – Hong Kong Phooey: ska-punk / reggae, relaxes the tempo a bit, adding groove and bounce, Pawnshop groove thrown in for that Sublime feel
Wax – Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy: high energy closer, given the rock treatment, descends in to Ren and Stimpy-esque chaos
“But for many people across the world, they will never forget the joy that Saturday Morning Cartoons brought to them, and how important it was to their childhood: a simple time when all you needed was a bowl of cereal and your favorite cartoon.”
-Saberspark, YouTube (2017)
Wake up slow, flip on the cartoons, and pour yourself a little grown-up nostalgia. The Cereal Milk White Russian turns your favorite childhood breakfast into a creamy Saturday indulgence: sweet, boozy, and just a little mischievous. Saturday morning meets Saturday night. Cheers!
Cereal Milk White Russian
2 oz vodka
1 oz Kahlúa
1 oz cereal milk (Cocoa Puffs, Count Chocula, etc.)
Crushed cereal
To make the cereal milk, pour a bowl of your favorite cereal with milk. Let sit for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain milk into container and set aside.
Cover a small plate with crushed cereal. Dip rim of old-fashioned glass in cereal milk and press into plate of crushed cereal.
Fill glass with ice.
Pour vodka and Kahlúa over the ice.
Slowly pour the cereal milk over the back of a spoon to float it on top, or stir gently to combine.
Groove Rituals 