Wayback Machine

I remember the age of Saturday morning cartoons. There was no streaming, no cable, no recorded shows. It was before we had heard of digital discs or even the Video Cassette Recorder (VCR). It was an age of three primary television channels received over the airwaves using a device called an "antenna" (pictured, people actually bolted them to their roof, chimney, or a tower in the yard). 

Our televisions were tuned (changed channels) with dials. Only the very well-to-do had "remote control." The rest of us had to walk to the TV and turn the knobs to tune it. The three primary channels in most communities were Very High Frequency (VHF) and there were only 12 or so VHF potentials on the television dial. 

There were additional channels on a second dial, called Ultra-high Frequency (UHF). These could be more difficult to tune, and if you were lucky you might have two more channel choices there in any community. I recall those UHF channels broadcasting mostly old shows, in black and white.  

It was an era in which television was largely for the adults. There was generally no television after school, that was homework or chore time. The evening news came on each night and people actually believed what those newscasters said, see Layers and Layers of What? (January 2025). 

Some reminisce that those newscasters stuck to the facts and only told the truth. They say that "in the good old days," the news was not innuendo or opinion, but "just the facts." It is possible those newscasters were both more reliable and credible than today. I recall every household had a favorite of the three competing networks and their respective news celebrity for the evening news.

The three primary channels were the American Broadcast Company (ABC), The Continental Broadcasting System (CBS), and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). They were persistently in a competition to attract viewers, but having blasted their signal into the air, they could no more tell who was or was not tuning in than you can today.

Back then, there were certain households who agreed to be surveyed regarding their television use. From those surveys and samples, rating agencies discerned or extrapolated how many people watched this or that show. The advertising revenue or pricing of a station and any particular show might depend on its viewership rating, the same way today's Internet "clicks" or "views" might be evaluated.

After the news each evening, there was a narrow window for viewing family-oriented programming. immediately after the news, a gameshow or two was common. These were predictable promotions for various products, destinations, and avocations. There was intellect, humor, and engagement. 

I remember one trivia show, Split Second, that involved the successful contestant picking from among multiple new automobiles in the studio (only one of which had not been disabled) and there was a penultimate moment when she or he tried to start that car. Whether one won or lost, those various gleaming autos were displayed and described night after night. The idea of winning a car was somehow very compelling. 

There was a brief period, perhaps two hours, after any such gaming, for "prime time." This is the origin of the phrase "ready for prime time." When the original Saturday Night Live program began to draw viewers the cast was called the "not ready for Prime Time players," a reference capable of multiple interpretations. But prime time was an amalgamation of situation comedies, mysteries, and dramas. I recall much discussion of varieties, but the parents did the deciding in prime time. 

There were also shows after prime time. Many adults tuned in to the Tonight Show, when it was a mix of stand-up comedy, jazzy music, and interesting guests. Those who watch late-night television today would likely find that fare archaic and boring, but we often tried to sneak a peek at this "adult" programming in the years of my youth. 

But Saturday morning was for kids. The adults had various challenges and chores on Saturdays or chose to sleep in. In truth, I think that the Saturday programming was designed to keep us young folks quiet so that the parental population could enjoy some peace and quiet on their weekend. Possibly, those Saturday mornings were the only tranquility they found.

The Saturday programming tended to animation, cowboy shows, and some live-action. Some networks strove in the live-action to provide some degree of instruction in order to claim their show was "educational." But most of the fare was singularly base and frankly drivel. It was often violent (think of the anvil on the Coyote's head) and slapstick (I Love Lucy).

The programs were punctuated periodically with advertisements. We called these "commercials." The manufacturers tried to predict who would watch what and run promotions for their particular demographic. We lament how the internet spies on us today, but perhaps all that has changed is merely the advertisement delivery method. Sellers have been studying us buyers ever since Grog opened his first club and pelt store in early Mesopotamia.

The ads on Saturday morning were clearly targeted at us kids. I recall a great many for cereal (not Muslix, Grape Nuts, or even cornflakes); sugary, tantalizing, cereal with bright colors and catchy slogans. The kind mom used to deny us with each trip to the grocery. Despite the fine ads, we would more likely find nutritious cereals like Wheaties, Cheerios (not the honey kind), and oatmeal in the larder. Mom didn't watch those ads. Not to be deterred, we would ladle refined sugar onto those innocent products and render them far more harmful than their "sugar-laden" counterparts.

Despite my best efforts to avoid anything "educational," there was an amazing amount I absorbed in those days merely by repetition. The persistent onslaught of facts and history was either too much to resist or simply too appealing to ignore.

I particularly remember the "shorts" that came on periodically with the commercials. There was Schoolhouse Rock that delivered upbeat edification on how bills became law, grammar, and more. There were Fractured Facts that delivered short historical references.

Often these punctuated such animated offerings as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Superfriends, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Scooby Doo, The Roadrunner, and more.

This all filled the Saturday mornings on the primary channels while the UHF was often competing with re-runs of old black-and-white fare. I recall many iterations there of I Love Lucy, Gilligan's Island, The Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, and more. Those shows were old even then, and they avoided any semblance of education or instruction (except perhaps workplace safety by negative reinforcement). 

But one show was blatantly educational. Somehow Mr. Peabody was nonetheless appealing. It was a cartoon that became part of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. And it centered on educating me, without my comprehension or even permission. In the midst of my Saturday reverie, a boy named Sherman and his talking dog (Mr. Peabody) would walk me through a variety of facts and occurrences, an involuntary historical education.

The literary tool of Mr. Peabody was time travel - using the "Wayback Machine." Episodes would begin with some curiosity, misapprehension, or confusion of Sherman, which Mr. Peabody would seek to correct or re-direct with a trip in the Wayback Machine. This would allow Sherman to witness history firsthand (and me also). Somehow, coming from a really smart and patient dog, the education was more palatable. 

Without my comprehension or consent, these producers were teaching me. Oh, the horror! Amidst my advertisements for various toys, cereal, and other distractions, I was learning about history, human interaction, and more.

When did Saturday morning cartoons meet their end? I suspect that the VCR in the late 1970s was the beginning of the end. In the 1980s those machines became ubiquitous and with them came a parent's ability to provide programming favorites without the cereal and toy ads. Many a mom sighed in relief at the end of incessant pleas for the latest sugar bombs.

Certainly, that was true by the 1990s when cable television became increasingly pervasive. With cable's ascent in the 1980s and 1990s, there came entire channels devoted to cartoons for kids and others for offspring of various ages and inclinations. The Saturday morning cartoons faded from the world. Evolution and change persisted in the reality of a commercial marketplace.

Merely a generation before the children of the baby boom, there were no such cartoons, commercials, VCRs, or even televisions. It was a different world in which my parents grew up. Some of their parents were born into a world without automobiles, and more. Time really flies. It has been said "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Ferris Beuler's Day Off (Paramount 1986).

In the end, each of these technologies breaking on the shores of human experience brought advantage to existence. They brought us entertainment and information in new ways. Today, we view the dawn of the information age in computers, cell phones, and AI. But the dawn was more likely the radio or television. There were those who leveraged each of these and others who did not. Some grew into those new ages and others faded away. Note that the sugary cereal did not disappear when the Saturday cartoons did. 

None of that history is different than today's evolution to artificial intelligence (AI). It is a threatening and cryptic change evading our understanding and our comprehension, challenging us. Some will become engrossed in it, grow with it, and thrive on it. Others will cling to the comforts of yesteryear and fight the coming change. They may choose to just re-watch the black-and-white Lucy episodes and avoid the pain perhaps. 

There is no Wayback Machine, Sherman. Sorry. In fact, more succinctly, there is no way back, Sherman. Sorry again. Thrive, adapt, and grow. Those are the keys. Some will do so and succeed. Others will fossilize. They "will diminish, and go into the West, and remain" what they are. (Lord of the Rings, Warner Brothers 2001). 

That is not an invalid choice, but it is a choice. Which will you be, adventurer, fossil, or ludite? "But choose wisely." (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Paramount 1989). Change is imminent. You cannot stop it. You can only change you.

Prior posts on AI and Robotics

Will the Postal Service be our Model for Reform? (August 2014)
Attorneys Obsolete (December 2014)
How Will Attorneys (or any of us Adapt? (April 2015)
Salim Ismail and a Life-Changing Seminar (May 2015)
The Running Man from Pensacola, Florida (July 2015)
Will Revolution be Violent (October 2015)
Ross, AI, and the new Paradigm Coming (March 2016)
Chatbot Wins (June 2016)
Robotics and Innovation Back in the News (September 2016)
Universal Income - A Reality Coming? (November 2016)
Artificial Intelligence in Our World (January 2017)
Another AI Invasion, Meritocracy? (January 2017)
Strong Back Days are History (February 2017)
Nero May be Fiddling (April 2017)
The Coming Automation (November 2017)
Tech is Changing Work (November 2018)
Hallucinating Technology (January 2019)
Inadvertently Creating Delay and Making Work (May 2019)
Artificial Intelligence Surveillance (August 2020)
Robot in the News (October 2021)
Safety is Coming (March 2022)

Metadata and Makeup (May 2022)
Long Term Solutions (June 2022)
Intelligence (November 2022)
You're Only Human (May 2023).
AI and the Latest (June 2023)
Mamma Always Said (June 2023)
AI and the Coming Regulation (September 2023)
AI Incognito (December 2023)
The Grinch (January 2024)
AI in Your Hand (April 2024)
AI and DAN (July 2024)
AI is a Tool (October 2024)

Rights for the Toaster (October 2024)
Everybody Wake Up! (October 2024)
First What is it? (November 2024)
X-Files or Poltergeist? (November 2024)

Is Gartner Helpful on AI? (December 2024)

The Eeeeyew AI Says What? (December 2024)

Is AI bad or just Scary? (December 2024)

Layers and Layers of What? (January 2025)

Wayback Machine (January 2025)