Saturday Morning Cartoons in the Movie Theatre

I had to check this out!

This morning I went to Vancouver's Park Theatre, an independent movie theatre on Cambie Street to watch -- Saturday morning cartoons with cereal!

Really! It reminds me of when I was a kid, waking up early and rushing downstairs to turn on the television to watch cartoons with a bowl of cereal. Apparently many others in my generation did too.

Today the theatre held its first "Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat Cartoon Party!" and I just had to check it out.

There were many cereals to choose

For this event tickets were a bit more expensive at $23 for adults, $15 for children, but it included as much cereal as you could eat with either milk or plant-based milk. We were encouraged to bring our own non-breakable bowl, otherwise they had compostable bowls and wooden spoons.

And there was an extensive selection of cereals: all the sugary ones were near the front of the table, like Lucky Charms, Fruit Loops, Oreo Puffs, Golden Grahams, Captain Crunch, Strawberry Toast Crunch, and Rice Krispies, while towards the end were the relatively healthier options like Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Honey Nut Cheerios, and Chex.

Like most people, I poured a combination of these cereals into my bowl, added milk and sat down in the theatre and ate.

The programmer for the theatre introduced herself and explained this Saturday morning cartoon show was previously shown at the sister Rio Theatre several times, but this is the first time at the Park since being under new management (same as the Rio Theatre).

She explained that this was a "low stakes event" in that the lights would not be dimmed further so that people could see what they were eating, easily get up and get more cereal, take a break, and so on. She stressed it was a marathon, not a sprint.

The cartoons themselves are compiled by David Bertrand in Toronto, including the retro TV commercials, and then are distributed across the country to independent theatres. 

My combination of cereals with milk

We watched cartoons from Inspector Gadget, Charlie Brown, ThunderCats, Daffy Duck, Smurfs, Green Street Frogs, and a stop-motion animation about the California Raisins.

The storylines of some of these cartoons were so funny because bad guys would be caught so quickly and easily, or the bad guy would reveal their motivations as soon as they were arrested. 

Meanwhile the TV commercials were hilarious to watch so many decades later; it made you realise how naive or gullible they thought audiences were at the time. There was one ad about Crest toothpaste where a mother says she can't protect her child all the time because she has to go to work, but Crest can be with her daughter all day!

I didn't think I would sit through all three hours, but I pretty much sat through 2.5 hours easily! Some of the cartoons were almost 30 minutes long. I had forgotten how some could be long, like Inspector Gadget and Charlie Brown, while others, like Daffy Duck were short, and clips of Felix the Cat were only seconds long.

The theatre was barely one-quarter full, many aduilts and some families, but we were quite an enthusiastic crowd. Hopefully word of mouth will get more people to come next time. And yes I did get a sugar high from the cereal!