Sweet dancin’ Moses, it’s flashback to my formative years for this week’s S.M.C.s! It’s time to tight roll your denim jeans, get your Member’s Only jacket out of storage, and grab your Ray-Bans! Prepare yourself for ridiculous theme music, Public Service Announcements, and product placement, product placement, product placement! Come with us as we travel back to a time before the sight of anthropomorphized animals didn’t make you shudder with thoughts of creepy, stuffed-animal-humping shut-ins! Return with us to THE 80s! Exclamation mark!

• Thundercats:: “Exodus” and “An Unholy Alliance”. A group of nobles, including Lion-O the young heir to the throne, escape from the dying planet of Thundera. During their escape they are attacked by Mutants from the planet Plun-darr and both land on Third Earth. The Mutants encounter an ancient evil inhabiting the planet, the accursed Mumm-Ra. Together they hope to obtain the powerful Eye of Thundera, which Lion-O possesses. Thundercats holds up much better, animation-wise, than most cartoons from this generation and is one of the few 80s cartoons not based on a toy line.

• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: “The Cosmic Comet” and “Diamond Ray of Disappearance”. Did you know that, while “The Cosmic Comet” was the first episode of He-Man aired, “Diamond Ray of Disappearance” was meant to be the first episode in terms of story? I did not. Watching these now I wonder what kind of drugs my parents slipped into my Lucky Charms when I was a child.

• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: “Cold Slither”. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the first episode of G.I. Joe (or Gobots for that matter) but “Cold Slither” is a worthy stand-in. To be honest I could never get into this cartoon, however, I did have a literal fuck-ton of the toys. The plot of this episode may explain why: facing bankruptcy Cobra Commander is forced to borrow money from mobsters. Meanwhile a ploy is concocted by Destro and The Baroness to embed subliminal messages into a record album in order to hypnotize and hold the masses hostage. Zartan and the Dreadnoks are hired to pose as a heavy metal band called “Cold Slither.” Wow.

• Gobots: “Time Wars”. Alas, poor Gobots. Even though you beat Tranformers to the market, you never received the same respect. Why? Perhaps it’s because you were so, so bad and your toys had transformations that mostly consisted of turning the figure over. Yes, that could be why.

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: “Turtle Tracks”. Formerly dark, violent comic book heroes turned pizza loving, tag line spewing kid’s cartoon. Oh, how I loved TMNT. This show is one of the few from my childhood where, having watched it again, it is exactly as I remember it. Even then, I knew it was campy, but I loved it anyway.

Saturday Morning Cartoons XXXVI: Red Hot 80s Action [YouTube]

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), literacy rates rose at a faster rate in the 1970s than in any other decade. Meanwhile, in the new millennium, the American Library Association fights for funding with grim desperation. We here at Ectomo would like to suggest a correlation between those two data points with the help of the above advertisement for a 42nd Street Library, circa 1976. Seems like the solution to both problems in one deft stroke, doesn’t it? Or more, I guess, depending on the collaborative skill of the seven librarians and whether or not they are working simultaneously, or in shifts.

In 1970s Times Square, even the libraries were sleazy. [Copy Ranter]