The Real Reason Why Saturday Morning Cartoons Disappeared

[yuiyoshida]

[DetlefK]

1. Ha! Evil capitalism did it!!!

[BumRushDaShow]

2. The main reason was what was described at the end of the video

that should have been at the beginning - the networks could not (nor were they designed to) compete with the 24/7 cable-based "cartoon" channels - Nickelodeon, The Cartoon Network, and eventually Disney, Sprout, and all their spinoffs. Of course now the streaming services have original animated programming as well.

(Free) "network" television is multi-purpose vs niche and carries the full gamut of entertainment programming, including sports.

The first time I saw a 24 hour cable cartoon channel was in 1972 at my cousins' house in NH. They were too far from Boston to get any good TV signal (even with an outdoor antenna) so they ended up with one of the earliest cable hook-ups. It was certainly jaw-dropping for me and my siblings to see that back then and it would be >15 years later when we finally had cable available to us here in Philly in our neighborhood and could get 24/7 cartoons! Of course it was pretty much too late as we were grown adults by then. Still watch it on occasion though - e.g., Sponge Bob, thanks to nieces/nephews.

[dalton99a]

4. +1

[OnDoutside]

5. Kids should be out playing on a Saturday morning anyway. If you are still into the "occasional" view

check out Adventure Time and Gravity Falls.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. The cartoons that we used to watch in the '60s/early '70s

were pretty much over by 10 am and then we were outside playing (unless it was raining and then the board games or card games or other assorted toys advertised during those cartoons, came out).

One of my younger nieces watches Adventure Time. The dog is wacky. lol I have pretty much aborted much of my television watching over the past couple years except for critical breaking news events and some forcing myself to watch movies on my "should watch" list.

[OnDoutside]

9. It's hard to find time to watch stuff myself, even though I have the likes of

free apps like Showbox loaded up on my tablet, phone and firestick. Rarely get the chance to watch a movie on it.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. That same niece is now into anime too

so that is mostly what she has been watching of late on her tablet since much of that is available on Youtube (whole series worth)! I keep telling her that I used to watch the early "anime" available in the U.S. - "Speed Racer" (original), "Marine Boy", and "Astro Boy" (original) - and she just laughs at it!

[JHB]

17. I swear I will go to my grave still thinking that electric boomerang was one of the most...

...badass superhero weapons.

[BumRushDaShow]

34. I always wanted oxy-gum!

[Stargleamer]

18. Don't forget Kimba!

One of my all-time favorites:

[BumRushDaShow]

29. Forgot about Kimba

Loved that too although you can imagine that as an adult, there was a realization of the sad side of the premise of the cartoon, which included the unfortunate hegemonic imagery of what/who was "in charge" of "deepest darkest Africa".

From what I understand, there was also controversy regarding whether the concept/story of The Lion King was taken from Kimba.

I really wouldn't be surprised given that I recall an episode of "Speed Racer" and a "Mammoth Car" was similar to an episode of "Knight Rider" and a huge truck "Goliath". Both shows had the main character associated with a "prodigal" brother (Racer X & Garthe Knight, although Garthe was technically not Michael's brother but was a Knight)

[mwooldri]

24. Early anime huh?

Here's an "early anime" she might not laugh at... my buys actually enjoyed watching the show, and I enjoyed it, though I get teary-eyed every time (trying to remember stuff from when I was a lot younger, but can't because it's locked away).

End credits when on BBC (and Nickelodeon) were... in French, basically because it was a NHK (Japan), Antene 2 (France) and RTL (Luxembourg) co-production... and the BBC took the French print, not the Japanese one. Note the music credits. (Hint: Power Rangers).

This show aired in the 80's on the Children's BBC slot on BBC 1 in the afternoons. The presenters (notably these were guys who were initially supposed to read an intro e.g. "And now on BBC One... " off screen) came on-screen in "the broom cupboard" and sometimes did wacky things between programmes.

Andy Crane doing Air Guitar at the start...

Phillip Schofield singing along to the end credits...

An era that won't come back. Phillip Schofield is now doing daytime TV. Andy Crane either reads the news on ITV Granada or is on overnight radio on BBC Five Live. The Mysterious Cities of Gold was on Netflix, but I don't know outside of buying the whole series whether it is available for streaming as part of a subscription.

[BumRushDaShow]

27. To her, "early" is the '90s

She was into Yugioh for awhile (she wanted the various card decks so she could play with her friends who all thought that Pokemon, which I was also clueless about too, was "lame&quot . Now she has discovered "Attack of Titan". I blame her 20-some year old cousin (who she is close to) on all of this.

I am completely lost since there is so much out there now. Just give me some good old Speed Racer!

[47of74]

13. When I was growing up the more interesting cartoons were on during afternoons

Not so much on Saturday mornings. By the 6th grade the only cartoon I really cared about was Transformers, and we used the VCR timer to tape that so we could watch later in the day.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. We used to have early morning and after school hosted children's shows

where they showed cartoons during the weekdays. This was way before the VCR. They would run stuff like "The Banana Splits" etc., that featured cartoons in between their own segments -

like one of my faves - "Atom Ant"!

The local stations eventually phased all of that out in favor of either the syndicated entertainment talk shows like Merv Griffin, Mike Douglass, or Dinah Shore (and later Oprah) and more recently those slots have stuff like "Dr. Phil" and "Judge Judy", etc.

[Freddie]

26. After school kids shows

With a local host. Us boomers remember. In Philly we had Sally Starr's Popeye Theatre. Sally was a local legend appearing at parades, carnivals etc long after her show was cancelled.

[BumRushDaShow]

30. And Wee Willie Webber

(Philly person here)

I remember Sally Starr used to run Touche Turtle!

(whenever we had some turtle as a pet, it was always named "Touche" )

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

21. in those days it was also

a reason to get cable if you could because the price you paid meant NO commercials. That died real fast..............

[BumRushDaShow]

31. We didn't have any cable in Philadelphia except for one small section of South Philly

until the mid-'80s and after years of franchise negotiation and build-out, my neighborhood finally had it available in 1989. At that time, there were 4 different companies. Now the city is down to 2 - Charter (formerly Time Warner) and Comcast (where Comcast is HQed here).

And yeah "pay TV" was supposed to mean no commercials but alas. The only ones that don't have them (outside of their own promos) are the premiums that run from $10 - $20 extra a month.

[mwooldri]

25. The digital transition has killed off the total public service TV channel.

BBC went from 2 to 6-8 channels. All BBC kids programming in the UK is either on CBeebies (small kids) or CBBC (bigger kids). Same thing with ITV - all its kids programmes are on CITV (figured out what the C means?). UK TV broadcasting over the antenna is more like "cable lite". America kinda/sorta has it but digital broadcast TV never organized itself into a "cable lite" system properly... you have bits and pieces, but not like Freeview.

With nearly everything going "on demand" what will happen to linear TV? News will continue, as will sports and special events. But there is not a lot of need for "destination TV" like the soap operas and dramas of today, what with DVR and on-demand.

[BumRushDaShow]

32. What just started happening here

is that some of our public television stations have opted to sell their frequencies in FCC auctions to give that spectrum back (and in some cases, to cell providers). We just lost a public channel here in Philadelphia a couple weeks ago in an auction (channel 35 WYBE) that hosted shows like Democracy Now! and other public service/indie programming.

Agree that as much as we wished for it over the years, i.e., real time-shifting (the ultimate being "on-demand&quot - it really is here now... and my brain can't handle it. A whole generation is now "binge watching" series in a weekend where us older folks watched over the course of a year.

[mac56]

3. I always believed the Saturday morning cartoon bloc

was put in place to distract the young'uns for a few hours, and allow Dad and Mom some "alone time."

[BumRushDaShow]

8. LOL

[PatSeg]

16. They let me sleep late

on Saturdays, after getting up at 5:00 am every weekday morning. When I was a kid, they probably did the same for my parents.

[SCVDem]

7. I thought it was marketing time

for cereal and toys.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. !!

(I just now realized that Mouse Trap was building a Rube Goldberg device )

[SecularMotion]

11. "You might say they invented Saturday morning"

Every Saturday morning at least one out of every three commercial minutes available on the three television networks is used to extol the virtues of ready-to-eat cereals.

Breakfast-food companies spend about 90 percent of their total advertising budgets on TV and, says one network executive, “You might say they invented Saturday morning.”

The demand for time is now so heavy that more and more sponsored programming is spilling over into Sunday morning, once almost exclusively devoted to religious programs, documentaries on soil conservation, and other such profitless affairs.

The needs of advertisers, for better or worse, have shaped not only the commercial messages but the program content as well. The influence of the cereal companies, however, actually seems to have raised the level of programming on occasion; a case can be made to support the view that the Bullwinkle Show, on which General Mills has relied heavily and successfully for the past eight years to sell Cheerios, has been one of the funniest and most creative series in the history of the medium. (Bullwinkle is that moose at the right.)

http://clickamericana.com/topics/food-drink/saturday-morning-cartoons-cereal-ads-1967

[mwooldri]

23. try doing that on a channel where adverts are banned.

The wonders of growing up on a diet of BBC. It wasn't entirely commercial free though... there was the other side - the ITV network - though the summer of 1979 was commercial free TV (as ITV went on strike!).

[Volstagg]

14. Good news is the new generation

can catch them all with the internet.

[mwooldri]

19. British kids were half-deprived of all the commercials...

.... thanks to the British Broadcasting Corporation's policy of forcing every household to pay a tax to watch TV on exchange for zero commercials. Of course there was the independent television network... but this was heavily regulated too. So Saturday mornings became home for things like:

Tiswas (ATV, clip from London Weekend Television):

Swap Shop (BBC):

Saturday Banana (Southern):

Number 73 (TVS, with HTV West continuity):

Going Live (BBC):

Live & Kicking (BBC):

SM:TV (ITV):

British kids in the 70's and the 80's were really deprived. The most frequent thing on the TV on weekdays was this:

It was extremely common on BBC 2.

Weekday mornings on the ITV network... schools programming.

Want to change the channel? Ha! Tough luck, schools programming on the other side too!

But when schools were out, the Children's Film Foundation had some stuff...

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOpvhua-osw3HCqV3-JQiDphwIFtT59Nw

Cable wasn't (and isn't) as widespread as it is in America. It took satellite to deliver multichannel TV to most people, and the digital transition for everyone else. Now, children's programming is all on the kids channels, leaving BBC One to be a wasteland of antiques and househunting shows, soaps and the occasional news break in daytime.

Yup, technology is the real reason Saturday morning cartoons disappeared.

[yuiyoshida]

20. Yes, but Then, You got to see cool shows like....

[mwooldri]

22. You listed only BBC programs.

I had three, later four channels when I was young. Two BBC, one of the regional ITV stations (London or Southern, and London was split into weekday Thames and weekend London Weekend TV) and then later Channel 4. ITV stations had to get popularity by airing better programming than the BBC so it can attract advertisers. The BBC had to have popularity to justify the TV licence fee. Here's just a few ITV programmes over the past several years, most regarded as the best of all time.

Coronation Street - started in 1960 on Granada. Probably still *the* iconic program of ITV.

Still on air on itv to this day. Presently the world's longest running soap still in production.

Incidentally Doctor Who's 1st demise was hastened by scheduling it against Coronation Street. One third of the country would be watching Corrie on any given night in the 1960s-1980s... programmes scheduled against Corrie usually didn't last long. Incidentally, ITV programming against the BBC's EastEnders didn't fare well either.

Brideshead Revisited - on the Telegraph's Top 50 British TV of All Time list, and British Film Institutes' #10 of their Top 100.

More from Granada: World in Action was their documentary series. "Seven Up" followed 20 seven year-old kids, and they followed these kids every seven years.

ATV brought us.... The Prisoner... He is Number 6, captured in The Village. Iconic opening titles - long at 3 minutes but worth it for "I am not a number, I'm a free man!" on the beach.

And.... The Muppet Show? Jim Henson couldn't get the US networks to pay attention. Step forward Lew Grade...

Kids these days hear 'The Avengers' they think Marvel Comics. Not me. I think ABC's TV series (ABC: Associated British Corporation) - here's a promo film aimed at America.

Thames brought us "The World at War" - possibly the most iconic documentary series on World War 2.

Thames was known for game shows, fluffier sitcoms, but also some decent investigative journalism. The "This Week" series featured "Death on The Rock" - investigating IRA soldiers ready to surrender, but were still killed by the SAS. This documentary really got Margeret Thatcher's government angry, and is considered one reason why Thames lost its franchise to broadcast a few years later.

Channel Four came in the 80s. Father Ted was a comedy classic...

And The Snowman has become an annual treat:

UK TV doesn't always begin with the letters B, B and C. Kinda makes up for nothing on in the day I suppose.

[MyOwnPeace]

28. THIS is

what I think of when I hear "Saturday morning cartoons!"

[BumRushDaShow]

33. Gotta show the cartoon

Andy Kaufman's karaoke gag was hilarious though - sortof like how Jim Nabors would bust out with an operatic voice.