Watch classic kids' TV with Pilot Light

Do you ever yearn for those simpler days when Saturday mornings didn’t mean brunch dates, gym sessions or Ikea trips? Those days when you could just curl up on the couch in your Power Rangers pyjamas and watch, er, Power Rangers, followed by what ever else the programmer at Live & Kicking or SMTV Live had shipped in to bulk out its runtime.

Pilot Light, Manchester’s TV festival, are providing the time machine to do just that with a selection of retro kids' TV shows screening a week on Saturday (28 Jan) at Manchester Central Library, with their Saturday Morning Kids TV Special: Vol.1.

This first ‘volume’ will focus on much-loved favourites of 90s US shows from networks like Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network. The lineup mixes animation with live action shows, which will be linked with, according to the release, “some awesome retro adverts and surprises sandwiched between them!”

So what retro treats are on offer? There’s recently back in vogue Pokemon; soon to be a Hollywood feature film Power Rangers; infant adventures with Rugrats; teen angst sorcery with Sabrina the Teenage Witch; playtime fun in animation Recess; surreal science in Dexter’s Lab; and the hilarious Kenan & Kel. Pilot Light say to “set your alarms, get your PJ’s on, dig into some cereal and join us for a whole morning of retro kids TV at Manchester Central Library!”

A grump might point out that, given we have a political establishment hell bent on making life hard on the younger generation, said young people might have better things to do on a Saturday morning than indulge in an infantilising celebration of nostalgic TV – like organise and agitate against said political establishment – but who can blame anyone who wants to curl up and be reminded of a time when their generation didn't get the fag end of every government policy?

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Saturday Morning Kids TV Special Vol.1, Manchester Central Library, 28 Jan