Kid Vid: Children and Science Fiction TV Fandom

Abstract

This little ditty, sung to an upbeat tune, was a constant refrain of Saturday mornings in my childhood home. It was a “bumper,” a short segment between the program and the commercials, on the American Broadcasting Company’s Saturday morning cartoon lineup, which I eagerly tuned into on cable television in Canada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Each bumper was a cartoon in itself, a fun five-second Claymation sight gag based on a comic reversal. I still remember laughing at the singing fire hydrant that turns the tables on a nosy dog by spraying it with water, or the cowboy who whistles for his horse only to have it fall on his head at the end of the song. With the ABC logo appearing on a red-brick wall in the background of every cartoon, these bumpers acted as station identifiers, not-so-subtle advertisements for the network. They also advertised—that is, drew attention to and made known—the fact that a commercial break was coming up.KeywordsScience FictionSaturday MorningTelevision AnimationCommercial BreakTelevision AnimeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.