Are Saturday morning cartoons becoming a thing of the past?

I get where this question comes from but, frankly, it just doesn't matter.

I get it because I come from a pre-cable time when Saturday morning cartoons on network TV (as well as a few hours on weekday afternoons on the independent channels, including the one that eventually became a Fox affiliate) was ALL THERE WAS.

We had the three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC), one VHF independent station, one UHF independent and a PBS channel on UHF. That's it.

But now, "Saturday morning cartoons" have become "all week cartoons." You have to include outlets like Nicktoons and Disney XD in that mix now, especially since cable companies are starting to discontinue analog service so that they can add even more (mainly pay-per-view) channels.
 
That's not an implication that less cartoons are airing, just that right now there are less cartoons that you're personally interested in. There are still plenty of cartoons airing, and many viewers, kids and adults alike, enjoy the cartoons on Cartoon Network and Nick.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, CyberCubed, but it's starting to sound less like you're worried about the state of Saturday morning TV and more like you're just complaining about how the cartoons which air outside of the CW4Kids block just aren't to your personal liking. You personally not being into a lot of today's cartoons doesn't equate a crisis situation.
 
Um, how exactly does that last part prove your theory that are less cartoons airing?

Just for the record, Nickelodeon does have action cartoons (Wolverine and the X-Men, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes), it's just that most of them are airing on Nicktoons, rather than on Nick proper. Granted, Nicktoons is not a large number of homes presently, but it's not really a fair assessment to put Nickelodeon in the animation race, because Nick has always been about children's entertainment 1st and animation 2nd. There is only 1 channel the Nick family that's devoted solely to animation, the aforementioned Nicktoons.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that cartoons on TV are not diminishing. The animated shows on Qubo, Cookie Jar TV, etc, whether you like them or not, still qualify as cartoons, and they also count as Saturday morning cartoons because they air on Saturday mornings. The types of animated shows that 1 network airs (comedy, action, etc.) is irrelevant. Sorry, CyberCubed, but it sounds to me like you're just complaining for the sake of complaining now.
 
I agree, and at the same time, not everyone has cable, but I seriously think the FCC needs to change its E/I mandate- prohibition is wrecking the Saturday morning entertainment industry.
 
This is a common misconception--that the FCC's E/I mandate is what killed Saturday morning TV on the broadcast networks. It isn't.

The truth of the matter is that the alphabet networks bowed out of the Saturday morning ratings race by their own choice. They were getting blown out of the water by Fox Kids and later, Kids' WB!'s Saturday morning programming and eventually decided to give up on programming their own Saturday schedules. Fox Kids and Kids' WB!, in turn, started to have an increasingly difficult time competing with 24-hour cable networks like Nick, Toon and Disney, so they too took themselves out of the running. The E/I mandate had nothing to do with that. It was about stagnating ratings numbers and losing viewers.

And while it is indeed true that not every one has cable, there's still the internet, DVDs and streaming video. Odds are most households has at least one of these media. People need to stop using "everyone doesn't have cable" as an excuse for why the alphabet networks need to start making Saturday morning shows again. They're not going to unless they see that substantial profits and ratings can be made off of Saturday morning again. And as long as the broadcast networks aren't the only game in town, and as long as Saturday morning isn't the only time of the week when people can see original cartoons, that's going to prove difficult to say the least.
 
It's true that there are less outlets for cartoons on non-cable stations than there were before the early 90s but the main reason Saturday mornings used to be so special was that that was usually the ONLY time you could see certain shows. If networks that air cartoons resolved to air certain shows only on Saturday mornings and continued to do so for a number of years, there might be a chance that Saturday mornings could be special again.
 
Why does Nick put those superhero shows on Nicktoons instead of Nickelodeon? Doesn't it make more sense to put them on a popular channel where they'll get higher ratings?

As far as I know they said TMNT would be airing on Nickelodeon and not Nicktoons, and isn't Wolverine going to move to Disney XD soon?
 
If the Powers That be at Nick put those shows on Nick proper, there'd be far less subscribers to Nicktoons. Nicktoons needs those shows now that it's a commercial network that relies on ratings to survive. By contrast, Nick proper is basic cable and is already the #1 kids' network, plus it already has its' share of ratings grabbing hits. Sure, Nick could run the superhero shows on their main network, but they don't have to because they're already Top Dog without them.

That's what I read in the press release. It makes sense since a) Nick clearly has a lot invested in Ninja Turtles, and b) IIRC, Nick also said that their new TMNT series would be considerably lighter in tone and more akin to the 80's series than the previous 4Kids version was.


Despite Disney's acquisition of Marvel, all of Marvel's current TV show deals will remain intact until their contracts with their respective networks expire, which for many of them is around late 2010 or 2011.
 
I just don't understand why people would want a lack of access to certain cartoons. For me, people saying i'm better off with cartoons airing on a Saturday morning block instead of what's happening now is like saying i'm disadvantaged because I have DVD player instead of a Betamax.

You said it yourself and I agree. It was special because nobody had a choice. If you were to ask any red-blooded child of that era if they wanted to see their favorite cartoon on more days than just Saturday, I guarantee the answer would be a resounding yes.

Now i'm all for Saturday Morning Schedules, but let's not go back to 1978 or 1987 for no reason in the process.
 
While it's true that Kids' WB and 4KidsTV are gone, there's still the CW4Kids and I believe that they signed a five-year contract with the CW when they originally got the block. I know that 4Kids isn't in the best financial shape at the moment, but I wanted to point out the contract.

I don't really see how Cartoon Network having a mid-life crisis, as you put it, proves your point about less cartoons airing. Outside of the live-action movies and like one or two airings of some CN Real shows throughout the week, Cartoon Network still has plenty of cartoons on their lineup. As others have mentioned, the Nick comment also doesn't seem to prove your point since whether or not a channel doesn't have a lot of action cartoons doesn't necessarily mean that they're airing less animated series. Nick has a fairly good balance of airing live-action series and cartoons.
 
I do long for the days when ABC, CBS and NBC aired cartoons on Saturday mornings that were worth watching and on in the early AM, those were the days and someone should really write a book based on these glorious days of Saturday morning cartoons, I bet it would be a fun read.

Hell, I would even love to rewind the clock back to Fox Kids and Kid's WB, it seemed like more and more people watched cartoons on Saturday mornings back then.
 
The death of Saturday morning cartoons only affects the lower class. Kids who live in a low-income household that can't afford cable are stuck with silly educational programs and endless reruns of Disney Channel shows on ABC Kids.

Yes, there's the Internet but if you can't afford cable then your Internet connection is most likely one of the cheap ones where watching videos online is a pain. And let's not get started on renting/buying DVD's.

See, most of us here, myself included, are either middle class or higher class. So, we have cable and can continue to enjoy animation. But let's not forget the lower class whose getting a bad deal.



As a 22-year-old I can tell you that there was a time when it had significance for A LOT of people. Yes, we had FOX Kids (and later Kids WB) airing cartoons every weekday morning AND afternoon. Yes, we had cable channels like Nick, Disney, and even CN. But that only mattered if you rushed home from school everday. Kids involved in after school activities relied on Saturday morning. There was a two-year period during my childhood when I was one of those kids. I wouldn't get home till 6pm. Sometimes even later. When I got home all I wanted to do was eat, take a shower, and go to bed. Although, of course, that wasn't an option since I had homework to do. So, Saturday morning was the only day when I could sit back, relax, and enjoy some cartoons.
 
Intresting stories. I'm 20 now and when I was young i had tons of after school activites as well and I seldom got to watch afternoon cartoons. On Saturday I would always wake up at 6AM to catch all the toons I could. Plus I didn't get cable until early 1999. I would've killed for the choices we have now when I was little.
 
While I see where you are coming from, keep in mind that i'm one of those people who were supposedly missing out, even though we weren't financially strapped. Network TV and video tapes were the only thing we had. I had to go all the way to my grandma's house, who ironically was low income, just to see basic cable.

Either we caught Saturday morning cartoons and sometimes enjoyed them, or we didn't. But it certainly wasn't the end of the world for me or the low income kids that I hung out with like some people are painting it.

I think the thing we forget is that, while they like them and have a favorite or two, a lot of kids don't have the same enthusiasm for cartoons as you guys do.
 
Back
Top