I used to watch that, along with Shazam/Captain Marvel, and The Mighty Isis. Also the Kroft Super Show. The Kroft puppet shows were pretty subversive. HR Puff'n Stuff basically had Puff the Magic Dragon as a main character, basically a walking marijuana reference. Electra Woman and Dyna Girl were a superhero duo with their own storyline on the Kroft Super Show, IIRC. Basically Batman and Robin in a flying car, where the men were support characters and the action duo was female.
Where I grew up, binge watching all of the Saturday Morning cartoons and shows in a row (not all episodes in a show, but all shows with an episode that day) was viewed as something kinda bad. People talked about it as if it was going to be a part of the destruction of the culture. I always felt guilty, and mom would kick us out of the house after lunch. Then we'd spend the whole day outside unless it was raining.
Now, watching a whole bunch of television in a multi-hour block is just kind of a normal thing, so long as you don't overdo it.
The parents of the day might not have been wrong about the destruction of the culture part, though.
I remember watching all of the shows you mentioned. I completely forgot about Ark II so I'm really thankful someone posted this. A few other shows I fondly remember are Jason of Star Command, Land of the Lost, and Wonderbug.
A film from the 70s that I watched and that I feel has a few similarities to Ark II is Phase IV. I'm wondering if anyone remembers this film. It was incredibly trippy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_IV
I don't remember binge watching being viewed as something so bad, but it definitely wasn't encouraged. Unfortunately, I binge watched quite a bit when I was a kid.
It's interesting to see a kids TV show around an environmentalism message 40 years ago.
And the multiethnic mix (which I suppose they could've gotten from Star Trek, in the genre, rather than contemporary culture).
Seems there might be an unfortunate gender-roles message, to the super-impressionable kids watching. In the naration, scientists are called "men". And in the first episode, I thought the woman was going to be the main scientist (albeit taking orders from the male captain), but the male boy is arguably leading the science-ing scene, with the adult woman scientist functioning as his assistant. Later, in the car, at least they let the woman drive (boy is too young), but the boy is still being smart and giving orders to the adult woman. (Though the woman later has a moment of assertion, when untying the captain, and the boy can't get a word in. And she does get to speak again in the final scene, albeit standing behind the man, and after the man and boy do the combat-ish work while she follows along.) And, since she doesn't seem to have the main scientist role, it seems the uniforms are probably actually color-coded by gender. It could be much worse, but kids pick up on a tremendous amount of stuff.
One of my Saturday-morning favorites; looking back, it certainly helped inspire me to go into the sciences. I think its environmental messages resonate even more strongly now than they did then.
This was aired in Israel when I was growing up there in the 80s. We saw it and loved it. Not that we had a choice. One channel was all we had. I loved that car and that future vibe of the show. Funny thing is I was just talking about this show last month and spent some time trying to remember it's name.
Chimps are one of the most wild apes and they are predators that hunt for sport, apes aren’t domesticated so a chimp will rip your face off just for the heck of it. A Gorilla or an Orangutang can do the same but as they don’t exhibit predatory behavior they would only do it when threatened.
So I would actually say that Chimps are the closest on the mean scale to humans because we are quite dickish and often just for the sake of being a dick since long term planning can make it beneficial in many cases.
Where I grew up, binge watching all of the Saturday Morning cartoons and shows in a row (not all episodes in a show, but all shows with an episode that day) was viewed as something kinda bad. People talked about it as if it was going to be a part of the destruction of the culture. I always felt guilty, and mom would kick us out of the house after lunch. Then we'd spend the whole day outside unless it was raining.
Now, watching a whole bunch of television in a multi-hour block is just kind of a normal thing, so long as you don't overdo it.
The parents of the day might not have been wrong about the destruction of the culture part, though.