Saturday Morning Cartoons by Charlie Girard – White Mountain – 1000 pieces
I made sure to take my time with this puzzle – because frankly – I’ve been puzzling so much that I have way too many puzzles in the queue at the moment. By the time you’re reading this post it will most likely be a month or more since it was actually completed! It could have been finished two days earlier than it was, but I made myself stop working on it.
It’s also meant that I’ve been having to type up the post immediately when I finish a puzzle. Otherwise, my old lady brain doesn’t remember much when it comes up in the rotation. A month and 30 puzzles ago is too long ago for me to recall specifics about the assembly. That’s why I’m trying to slow down a bit and stop adding a new puzzle to the queue every day or every other day.
On to this specific puzzle!
My husband picked this out for me the first time I went puzzle shopping after my year-long absence. He seemed very excited about the image and thought I should buy it, he’s so sweet. Many of these cartoons we both watched as kids, and since he was so excited about finding it for me, of course we had to get it.
The quality of this one was only fair. The most important reason was a very loose fit – very odd for a White Mountain puzzle in my opinion. I’ve done many of their puzzles, and the fit is usually either quite tight or just about right. This one though was extremely loose – even picking up two connected pieces could be a problem. The image reproduction was slightly fuzzy in some places. Which is not uncommon for a WM collage in my experience, but I normally expect issues like that from this brand so it wasn’t much of a problem for me.
So many memories! Up at the top on the left is Atom Ant, and I remember the character but don’t have any memories of watching the actual show. At first I thought the name was Adam Ant, but then said to myself that I was getting him confused with the 80s rocker. Hubby and I had to look him up to be sure of the name – getting old ain’t for sissies, memories really do start to go.
Next to Mr. Ant is Quick Draw McGraw, and I actually do remember watching his show. I remember that his voice sounded very much like Yogi Bear to me, and came to learn later that both characters were voiced by the same man – no wonder they sounded alike. I enjoyed Quick Draw because he was always so polite, and for some reason that made an impression on me.
Like Atom Ant, I remember the character on the right – Magilla Gorilla – but don’t have any specific memories of the show. He was fun to assemble though, that’s why he’s here. A big orange rectangle doesn’t seem as though it would be very entertaining, but it actually was. 😉
Scooby Doo was definitely a favorite for me as a child, and I remember many episodes of the shows. My kids liked it too, and used to watch the reruns. Those meddlin’ kids and the grumpy old man that was usually the “ghost” trying to scare people – I remember them very clearly.
And the name Fractured Fairy Tales is something my brain remembers, but unfortunately I have no specifics. I know that most likely I watched the show, but it’s the name I remember – the character isn’t familiar nor is the image shown above. It was easy to pick out the pieces though, and easy to assemble too.
Quality problems aside, this was a fun puzzle to assemble, and even though it took longer than normal I had a great time. It brought back many memories – even if some of them were as fuzzy as the image reproduction.
My Jigsaw Journal 
To this day Fractured Fairy Tales still crack me up!
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I can’t remember them at all! Just the name. I know I’ve watched it, but my brain has been fractured apparently.
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Of the shows you mentioned, I only know Scooby Doo, although there are some other familiar shows in the puzzle. I don’t think we had Saturday morning cartoons when I was a child, but we did later, and I used to watch them while nursing hangovers in my 20s 😀
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Doesn’t seem conducive to getting rid of those hangover headaches. Too bright and sometimes loud. LOL
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I guess my hangovers weren’t so bad back then…
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We just purchased this puzzle — hubby saw it at the store and really liked the image. You know how I feel about White Mountain Puzzles and hubby does too 😉 but, admittedly, the image is quite festive and nostalgic. Still, this is definitely not a brand of puzzle I go out of my way to purchase at full price at a bookstore. Target sells WMP at a much lower price in a smaller box with a smaller finished size for the 1000 piece puzzles.
One thing I’ve noticed with WMP is that they are not consistent with the chip board (cardboard? puzzle board?) they use for their puzzles. The chip board they use varies in thickness and color (blue or gray). The pieces in our cartoon puzzle are a bit on the thin side and are on blue chipboard. Ugh for all that blue fuzzy puzzle dust. We’ve only assembled the border so far but I’ll let you know how the fit and image quality is. One thing I did notice is that many pieces (maybe around 10% or so) have some blue bits of paper still attached — I think you refer to them on your blog as (dangling) chads — but all the pieces were fully separated.
I’ll let you know how our fit and image reproduction is one we start clicking more pieces together.
You said:“The quality of this one was only fair. The most important reason was a very loose fit – very odd for a White Mountain puzzle in my opinion. I’ve done many of their puzzles, and the fit is usually either quite tight or just about right. This one though was extremely loose – even picking up two connected pieces could be a problem. The image reproduction was slightly fuzzy in some places. Which is not uncommon for a WM collage in my experience, but I normally expect issues like that from this brand so it wasn’t much of a problem for me.”
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*I call it chipboard
*My term is “hanging chads” for those bits of paper still attached.
I have noticed that White Mountain puzzles can have different chipboard depending on where they’re manufactured.
I know you’re not a big fan of the brand, but I hope you enjoy the puzzle anyway. 😊
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You said:“I have noticed that White Mountain puzzles can have different chipboard depending on where they’re manufactured. “
What?! I thought that WMP had their very own puzzle manufacturing facility. What secrets do you know that I don’t?!
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To my knowledge they don’t use just one manufacturing facility, and I have done more than a few of their puzzles that don’t use the blue chipboard.
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Yes, of the WMP puzzles we have, half probably have blue chipboard, the other half gray. I do not care for the blue chipboard as it seems those puzzle bags are extra dusty.
Hopefully I’ll find some time to click some pieces together later today. It *is* a great image despite my feelings about the brand.
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It was great fun for me, and I really hope you and your husband have a great time with it as well. Happy puzzling!
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This was an additive puzzle to put together — it was hard to stop — and I spent more time than usual (each day) working on it. It took a little over a week to put together.
For a WMP the quality was pretty good, no where near excellent, but pretty good. There are other brands that cost less (like Buffalo) that consistently have excellent quality standards. I’m in no rush to buy another WMP anytime soon but am glad this puzzle was of a good quality.
I was pleased that we had an entire even thickness of red border all around the puzzle — for a few puzzles we’ve had wonky colored borders — like one or more colored bordered edges would be missing from the image (something must have happened when the image was cut) or the colored bordered edges have been of varying thickness (again must be something when the image was cut). For some reason, wonky borders really bother me. It seems an obvious quality control to notice.
The image as you mentioned was a bit fuzzy in spots — but I expect that with WMP collage-style puzzles so not a huge deal. But what I find really strange is that doesn’t the artist Charlie Girard actual paint the image/collage? I can’t imagine that he deliberately paints things fuzzy or blurry so something must be happening when his artwork is turned/converted to a digital format for puzzle making????? Do you have any thoughts on this???
Our pieces, while a little bit thinner than usual, did join up well and could be moved around without falling apart. When the puzzle was done I even lifted up the edge a bit and all held together.
Anyhoo, enough rambling from me. I think I’ll do some more of those fun cereal box puzzles before putting out a larger piece count puzzle for the hubs and I to work on.
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I don’t really know how he (Girard) puts his collages together. Some seem as if they use actual products, I can’t always tell.
Enjoy your cereal!
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