This Is the First Weekend in America With No Saturday Morning Cartoons

[DamianTV]

Yes, its Political because cartoons, you see, were required by LAW for broadcasters to carry at least 3 hours of Childrens Programming per week. I always thought that was as dumb as requiring overnite programming to be nothing but Paid Programs.

http://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-first...2441646/+Fahey

Saturday morning American broadcast TV was once animation's home field. Filling a cereal bowl with artificially colored sugar pebbles and staring at the tube was every kid's weekend plan. Not any more: For the first time in 50-plus years, you won't find a block of animation on broadcast this morning. It's the end of an era.

Yes, The CW, the final holdout in Saturday morning animation, ran its last batch of Vortexx cartoons last weekend. This week, where you once saw shows like Cubix, Sonic X, Dragon Ball Z and Kai, Digimon Fusion, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, you'll instead find "One Magnificent Morning," a block of live-action educational programming.

It's the end of an era, but it's been a long time coming: NBC ditched Saturday morning cartoons in 1992, CBS followed suit not long after, and ABC lost its animated weekend mornings in 2004. The CW, a lower-tier broadcast network, was the last holdout in a game that the Big 3 left long ago.

What killed Saturday morning cartoons? Cable, streaming, and the FCC. In the 1990s, the FCC began more strictly enforcing its rule requiring broadcast networks to provide a minimum of three hours of "educational" programming every week. Networks afraid of messing with their prime-time slots found it easiest to cram this required programming in the weekend morning slot. The actual educational content of this live-action programming is sometimes debatable, but it meets the letter of the law.

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(Continues on Link)

[specsaregood]

What killed Saturday morning cartoons? Cable, streaming, and the FCC. In the 1990s, the FCC began more strictly enforcing its rule requiring broadcast networks to provide a minimum of three hours of "educational" programming every week.

just wait until our overlords set their sites on the likes of Netflix. "Sorry, you can't stream this kids show until you spend 3 hours watching our choice of educational programs Similar to what Canada's govt is trying to do to Netflix right now in regards to local content.

[DamianTV]

Govts step in and "order" people to do "the right thing" for ALL the "wrong reasons". Problem is Right and Wrong are subjective terms, and their idea of "the right thing", which forces people to consume content they are ordered to consume can result in nothing but the exact opposite of the intended effect. Its no different than forcing pot to be illegal. And what this will evolve into will be nothing short of 3 hours of mandatory "listen and obey your overlords". Of course, unless Fedbook is recognized as being far more powerful of a tool of control than TV ever could be... Now go eat your Wheaties, not because it is required by law and the law itself helps to prop up the business, but becaue "we will tell you what is good for you".

[mad cow]

What killed Saturday morning cartoons?

Sorry-assed cartoons.

[phill4paul]

[pessimist]

What killed Saturday morning cartoons?

teh internets

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

teh internets

TV killed the internet. My time watching t.v has gone down 95%
If you asked me what causes crime, it's from people becoming insane watching hours of drug and erection commercials

[sparebulb]

All of the networks still have at least a half-hour of cartoons each day. It is called the evening news.

[FindLiberty]

Is there a solution here involving an animated Ron Paul superhero on a daily educational cartoon series?

[Todd]

Education.

Meaning Government approved propaganda.

It's ED......U......CA.......TION.....AL!

[fisharmor]

Sorry-assed cartoons.

I think it was more likely the collective realization that we didn't have to put up with sorry-assed cartoons anymore.


If there is one thing which has affected my parenting, it was a time in spring of 1996. I had spent about three years making fun of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and how stupid childrens' programming was at that time.

Then one afternoon I heard Voltron was going to be on in the afternoons on Cartoon Network. Voltron! Hell yeah!

Then I watched it. And I realized I had no business making fun of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.

How did it affect my parenting? Well, I spent a LOT of time sitting in front of the tube watching absolute dreck. Things like the Pac Man animated show.

I got my kids to learn what Guiness and Erben Merlot-Spätburgunder taste like, so that as an adult they'll know to pass on Budweiser and Franzia.
I see no reason not to do that with cartoons, and that means shielding them from significant portions of my own childhood.

[specsaregood]

I see no reason not to do that with cartoons, and that means shielding them from significant portions of my own childhood.

my kid seems to really like the cartoons I grew up on. And with absolutely no direction from me he much prefers the originals to the newer remakes.
2 such examples: he likes the original transformers tv show and movie; he doesn't much care for the newer transformer cartoons. Lately he has been on a real Scooby doo kick; but he doesn't like the newer ones he will only watch the originals.

[Brian4Liberty]

It wasn't just cartoons...there were the Sid and Marty Krofft shows too.

[acptulsa]

Sorry-assed cartoons.

It has been twenty years or more since an animated show was produced for entertainment purposes. Since then all of them have been half hour commercials for toys and games. Period.

Pitiful.

Just another thing strangled by the psychotic behavior of corporations who don't care if they destroy their whole industry, so long as they make their millions and get out first.

[fisharmor]

Oh don't get me wrong, we all still watch a TON of cartoons. And stuff from my childhood. They particularly like the Smurfs, and I'm ok with that, despite the fact that the Smurfs kind of straddle the line.

Both of my kids really liked Robotech Macross Saga. Which is good, because there's some crazy high-brow stuff going on there. That's a cartoon I grew up with... and it covers the difference between infatuation and love, selfishness vs. duty, militarism vs. pacifism, survival in the face of hopeless odds, death of loved ones, death of someone you're responsible for, rebuilding after you've lost everything... it's a really, really heavy show. And it's definitely on the must-watch list for liberty lovers, IMO.

[Mani]

It wasn't just cartoons...there were the Sid and Marty Krofft shows too.

Sleestaks were scary.



I do miss Thundarr the Barbarian. Oklaa! Ariel! Ride!!!

[AngryCanadian]

just wait until our overlords set their sites on the likes of Netflix. "Sorry, you can't stream this kids show until you spend 3 hours watching our choice of educational programs Similar to what Canada's govt is trying to do to Netflix right now in regards to local content.

Pretty much you nailed it and also believe i have seen what some of educational programs are and they are not even close to being educational and unwatchable.

[Constitutional Paulicy]

The real issue here is the government shouldn't be mandating these programs.

There are plenty of educational cartoons nowadays. So much better than the pure entertainment variety we watched when we were kids. They were just for laughs (slapstick) Looney Tunes and sensationalism (war and aggression) transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Now you have Super Why, Wild Kratts, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That, and many others.

[Spikender]

Yes, The CW, the final holdout in Saturday morning animation, ran its last batch of Vortexx cartoons last weekend. This week, where you once saw shows like Cubix, Sonic X, Dragon Ball Z and Kai, Digimon Fusion, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, you'll instead find "One Magnificent Morning," a block of live-action educational programming.

That show was garbage.

[fisharmor]

Now you have Super Why

Super Why is thinly veiled communist propaganda.

[RJB]

It has been twenty years or more since an animated show was produced for entertainment purposes. Since then all of them have been half hour commercials for toys and games.

Exactly. I realized that as a kid in the 80s. There had been action figures in the past and it was a bit annoying, but GI Joe really went overboard.

Just about every episode, they'd introduce a cool new character who would do all kinds of cool things during the show, then on the real commercial breaks they'd show the action figure doing all kinds of cool things.

The next week they'd introduce another a new cool character, and the new one from last week would disappear and a new action figure was introduced.

That was when I lost interest in cartoons. Even at that age I felt like I was being manipulated-- It's probably the personality type that leads many of us on this forum.

[AngryCanadian]

That show was garbage.

Sonic X wasn't total garbage.

[Spikender]

Sonic X wasn't total garbage.

Come on, man, it's all about "Gotta Speed, Keed!"

[Constitutional Paulicy]

Super Why is thinly veiled communist propaganda.

[Uriel999]

Exactly. I realized that as a kid in the 80s. There had been action figures in the past and it was a bit annoying, but GI Joe really went overboard.

Just about every episode, they'd introduce a cool new character who would do all kinds of cool things during the show, then on the real commercial breaks they'd show the action figure doing all kinds of cool things.

The next week they'd introduce another a new cool character, and the new one from last week would disappear and a new action figure was introduced.

That was when I lost interest in cartoons. Even at that age I felt like I was being manipulated-- It's probably the personality type that leads many of us on this forum.

you don't talk like that about GI Joe! I bet you work for Cobra.