In keeping with the theme from a few days ago, we start today with a cartoon show that I used to watch back in the day that starred MC Hammer called, creatively enough, ‘Hammer Man’. It was basically about a dancer who got magical shoes and in turn used them to fight crime, as is so eloquently put but the MC himself in the intro song you can watch below. I miss the days of every hip pop culture figure getting their own cartoon. Oh well. Hammer was the shit back in the day, and this cartoon was testament to that. Maybe more of you watched this than watched my awesome PBS shows from last week…but WHATEVER. Anyhoo, I’ll be posting another treat soon, but for now, enjoy the HAMMERMAN!
Today, we hop in the Delorian and travel back to the late 80s/early 90s PBS and hit on a show that, while not really a Saturday morning staple, was a daily after school event for me for a long, long time.
Square One TV was an educational show meant to teach us kiddies about math in a handful of ways. At it’s core, it was basically a variety style show (right down to it’s SNL-like opening song), and had all kinds of interesting math stuff and math songs and skit sorta things parodying popular tv shows. ‘MathCourt’ and ‘General Mathpital’ are a few of the times I can remember off the top of my head, as was as the exciting PacMan spoof ‘MathMan” and a few little game shows and whatnot. BUTBUT! The one thing that I loved most about this tv show was the mini-show they had at the end of each episode called ‘MathNet’. A takeoff on Dragnet and various other cop/detective shows, MathNet was produced like a real tv show and I remember the scripts being rather witty and the show just being awesome. It was usually a 5 part show, with each day of the week having an episode, so they really kept me on the edge of my seat after school all week long. Sigh, good memories.
PBS used to really bring the goods back in the day for kids. Before the fairly recent complete dumbing down of kids and America, shows like this were the norm as opposed to the exception. If you asked a middle school kid to sit down and watch educational shows like this all afternoon now, most of them would probably look at you like you were nuts and go back to playing Halo online with their friends. BUT theeere was a time learning stuff was cool, and this show takes me there.
Ohohoh and while there will be a few more PBS-centered BEP Retro features in the coming weeks, I feel I must post this too, because the show was baDONGGG and this theme song is the bomb.
If you’re anything like me, and I know you are, you spent hours upon hours in front of the tv on Saturday mornings back in the day when Saturday morning tv actually meant something. There was just something awesome about watching cartoons all morning.and good cartoons, not the mindless stuff that comes on today.
This was one of my favorite shows, but aside from my brother and Just Matt, who Netflixed this shit and let me watch it a while back, I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone who watched it. Ah well, their loss.
This shit was anime before anime was ‘cool’. They don’t make cartoons like this anymore.
FIGHTING CRIME IN A FUTURE TIME!
