Article about Q5's meddling in ABC' Saturday morning shows

Two things about this thread: one, it's interesting that people bring up Peggy Charen because there was an episode of 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, a well known one as a matter of fact(Scoobra Kadoobra) where a caricature of her appears and objects to a scene with a fire-breathing dragon; of course Scrappy in a reporter's outfit has to set her straight, but it's a funny episode nonetheless.

And two, it's amazing how times have changed; as has been previously discussed the 80's were definitely a different time in cartoons on television; which pretty much led to(except for ABC, CBS, FOX and later Kids WB) a lot of kids programming on Saturdays being dumped or majorly retooled because of E/I concerns.

Just goes to show you how things have changed in twenty five or so years since that article was published.

By the way, unrelated to this post, but Steve are you really in Whittier, California? I ask because I have an aunt and uncle who live there.
 
I guess that era will show people to try to get away with it without those meddling kids...

The Weed Of Cri said:
It wasn't commercialism per se that Peggy Charren fought. That was just one of her excuses. At heart, she had this homogenized, conflict-free, plastic-bubble vision of what kind of entertainment was appropriate for children, and she was a spiritual disciple of Frederick Wertham. QUOTE]

Well, the REAL irony, of course, and I agree it's an excuse of Charren's [I REFUSE to dignify that uh.. umentionably without my account revoked here-=-with a title] for the "commercialization" to be an excuse when in fact the homogenized Smurf shows were the kinds she both railed against but typically you'd think she would have liked. Even more ironic is the fact that "Q5" didn't even start that [before 1987] and only on ABC!
Click to expand...
 
Here it is....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987-88_United_States_network_television_schedule_(Saturday_morning)

Q5 really did screw things up. Every ABC show that season except for The Real Ghostbusters and Bugs Bunny and Tweety got cancelled (I don't count Animal Crack Ups because it was a game show and wouldn't be affected by Q5) and as you mentioned they made Slimer the lead the next season. If Ghostbusters would have gotten rid of Ray, it probably would have suffered the same fate. I'm glad they didn't do that.
 
Not a problem man, like I said I have relatives who live in the same city as you, so it's nice to talk to someone who lives somewhere where I have relatives.
 
Yeah, Q5 did screw up big time here. Among other reasons why the 1987-1988 schedule bombed (outside of the "toning down" of kids shows):

-Having two of the new shows be completely original titles (as well as putting all the new titles against dominate hits like Muppet Babies, Pee-Wee, and Smurfs).

-ABC pulling Care Bears off the schedule mid-season (Goodbye, ABC. Hello, CBS).

Thankfully, ABC learned from their mistakes from that season, as the following season had shows with characters that people knew about (and weren't awful original crap).
 
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