Retro Cartoons Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

The New Casper Cartoon Show: The Ending We Remember

If you watched The New Casper Cartoon Show on Saturday mornings, the ending probably brings back just as many memories as the opening.

These are the Casper episodes I’m most familiar with, so seeing the closing again feels like finding an old piece of childhood TV you forgot was still tucked away somewhere. Casper was never the scary kind of ghost. He was gentle, lonely, and always just trying to make a friend.

The show first aired on ABC Saturday mornings in 1963, with new cartoons made for TV along with older Casper shorts. It gave Casper a regular place in the Saturday morning lineup, alongside characters like Wendy the Good Little Witch, The Ghostly Trio, Spooky, and Nightmare the ghost horse.

The ending has that simple old-TV charm. No big production, no loud cliffhanger, just a friendly goodbye from a cartoon that was never trying to be too wild or too scary.

For many of us, this version of Casper is the one that stuck: cereal bowl nearby, TV glowing, and a friendly ghost reminding us that sometimes the nicest character on television was the one everyone else was supposed to be afraid of.

The New Casper Cartoon Show

These are the Casper episodes I’m most familiar with, and it’s good to see them all once again.

The New Casper Cartoon Show first aired on ABC Saturday mornings in 1963, with its original run continuing into early 1964. It included 26 new Casper cartoons made for TV, along with older theatrical cartoons that helped keep Casper on television for years afterward.

Casper had already been around before this show, appearing in theatrical cartoons and Harvey Comics, but this version gave him a regular Saturday morning home. Unlike most ghosts, Casper didn’t want to scare anyone. He just wanted friends, which made him one of the gentler cartoon characters of the era.

The show also featured familiar Harvey characters like Wendy the Good Little Witch, The Ghostly Trio, Spooky, and Nightmare the ghost horse.

Casper would return in later forms too, including Casper and the Angels in the late 1970s and other Harvey cartoon packages that kept him alive for new generations of kids. But for many of us, The New Casper Cartoon Show is the version that feels like Saturday morning: cereal, pajamas, and a friendly ghost who was never too scary.

The Jetsons: The Future We Were Promised

The Jetsons first aired on ABC on Sunday nights at 7:30 p.m., beginning September 23, 1962. The original run was only 24 episodes, but it left a much bigger footprint than its short first season would suggest.

For kids, The Jetsons made the future look amazing. Flying cars, moving sidewalks, video calls, robot maids, push-button meals, and a workday so short George still complained about it. It was basically The Flintstones flipped into outer space, with the Stone Age family replaced by a space-age family.

The show followed George Jetson, his wife Jane, daughter Judy, son Elroy, dog Astro, and of course Rosie the Robot, who somehow became one of the most memorable characters even though she was not in every episode.

What is funny now is how many “future” ideas from The Jetsons don’t seem so crazy anymore. Video calls, flat screens, smart watches, robotic helpers, and push-button convenience all feel a lot closer to real life than they did in 1962.

The original series also has a neat TV trivia note: it was ABC’s first regularly scheduled program broadcast in color, even though many viewers still watched it in black and white.

Looking back, The Jetsons was not just a cartoon. It was the future as the early 1960s imagined it: shiny, funny, automated, and full of gadgets that were supposed to make life easier.

And somehow, George still had a hard day at work.

Stop the Pigeon!

Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines was one of those cartoons built around one simple idea that somehow worked every time: stop the pigeon.

The show came from Hanna-Barbera in 1969 and brought back Dick Dastardly and Muttley from Wacky Races. This time, they were part of the Vulture Squadron, flying ridiculous contraptions and trying every week to catch Yankee Doodle Pigeon.

Of course, they never did.

The real star was Muttley. That wheezy little laugh was funnier than half the script, and his constant demand for medals made him even better. Dastardly would scheme, Muttley would snicker, the plane would fall apart, and the pigeon would fly away.

Looking back, most of us probably weren’t rooting for the pigeon. We were watching for Dastardly to lose his temper, Muttley to laugh, and that theme song to get stuck in our heads all over again.

Stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon!

Speed Racer: Our First Taste of Anime Before We Knew the Word

Speed Racer was one of those cartoons that felt different the second it came on. The theme song hit, the Mach 5 took off, and suddenly we were watching cliffs, crashes, secret buttons, masked racers, gangsters, and more danger than most Saturday morning cartoons dared to show.

The show began in Japan as Mach GoGoGo in 1967 before becoming Speed Racer for American audiences. Most of us didn’t know we were watching anime back then. We just knew it didn’t feel like Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, or the usual superhero cartoons.

Compared to American cartoons of the time, Speed Racer was faster, stranger, and more dramatic. There were revenge plots, family secrets, real danger, and Racer X lurking around like something out of a spy movie. The animation could be limited, but the style made up for it with speed lines, dramatic close-ups, wild crashes, and that nonstop rapid-fire dialogue.

And of course, there was the Mach 5. What kid didn’t want a car with buttons that could jump, saw through trees, go underwater, and somehow survive every impossible race?

Looking back, Speed Racer was a lot of kids’ first introduction to anime, even if we didn’t have that word yet. It was loud, weird, exciting, and unforgettable.

Did You Watch Super Chicken?

Super Chicken was one of those cartoons that felt like it was made for kids, but the jokes were flying right over our little heads and landing with the grown-ups. It was part of George of the Jungle, which aired on ABC starting in 1967, along with the other segments Tom Slick and Super Chicken. It came from Jay Ward Productions, the same folks behind Rocky and Bullwinkle, so you knew it was going to be loaded with silly names, smart-aleck humor, and jokes that moved faster than most of us realized at the time.

Super Chicken’s real name was Henry Cabot Henhouse III, because of course it was. He was a wealthy chicken superhero who would head off to fight crime with his lion sidekick Fred. And poor Fred always seemed to take the worst of it, which led to that famous line: “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!” That was the kind of cartoon writing I appreciate more now than I probably did back then.

The whole thing only had 17 original episodes as part of George of the Jungle, but like so many Saturday morning cartoons, it lived a lot longer in reruns and in our memories. Between the theme song, the goofy superhero setup, and that classic Jay Ward humor, Super Chicken was one of those quick little cartoons that didn’t need much time to leave a mark.

Who remembers Super Chicken? And did you watch it for him, George of the Jungle, or Tom Slick?

There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here!

I’ll never forget when my mom pointed out during an episode of Hollywood Squares that Wally Cox was the voice of Underdog. Oh, the world was so complicated back then, so many thanks to our moms who had the patience and love to guide us through the important stuff, like cartoon trivia.

Underdog debuted in 1964 and gave us Shoeshine Boy, the mild-mannered little dog who became a rhyming superhero whenever trouble showed up. With Sweet Polly Purebred usually in danger and villains like Simon Bar Sinister causing trouble, Underdog would come flying in with that famous line that still sticks in our heads all these years later.

There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here!

Dodo The Kid From Outer Space

This is another viewer request, but I don’t have any memory of this cartoon so I hope our viewers can help in that department!

We’re talking about Dodo, the Kid from Outer Space, and from what I’ve been digging into, this one’s a real deep cut from the early 1960s.

Dodo is a kid—well, kind of a kid—who comes from another planet and ends up on Earth. He’s got these strange abilities and gadgets, and the whole show revolves around him getting into odd situations while trying to blend in with humans… which, as you can imagine, doesn’t go smoothly.

The episodes were short, almost like little quick-hit adventures, and the animation style? Very simple… very “of its time.” This wasn’t Disney-level stuff. More like something you’d catch early in the morning before school while eating cereal.

The show actually started in Belgium, not the U.S., which might explain why a lot of us here don’t remember it.

It first aired around 1965, right in that era when space-themed everything was taking off.

Dodo didn’t really talk much—he communicated more through sounds and reactions, almost like a cartoon version of a silent comedian.

Are you humming the theme now?