Kids Desert Saturday-Morning TV Shows

The Internet Movie Database ^

[Drew68]

Kids Desert Saturday-Morning TV Shows

Over the past twenty years, the audience of kids for Saturday-morning network cartoon shows has plummeted from more than 20 million to fewer than two million, even while the children's population of the country has increased by 10 percent, according to the Animation World website.

Reasons include several factors ranging from the rising divorce rate, with parents deciding to spend more "quality time" with their kids on weekends, to the rising popularity of cable TV.

As a result, Animation World observed, "network cartoons are left struggling to make money, while advertisers remain befuddled without a mainstream channel to promote new toys and products to children."

[buccaneer81]

Anyone remember the Battle of the Planets circa 1976?

I remember it in syndication as a college freshman in 1981. The robot was named 7 Zot 7 or some such.

[TheBigB]

Anyone remember the Battle of the Planets circa 1976?

Mark, Jason, Princess, Tiny, & Cheop battling the evil forces from Planet Spectra. :)

[Paul Atreides]

SuperFriends was good until they added those freaking twins. One of the best was Fat Albert. I remember Plastic Man. I remember many of the ones that you mentioned.

[TheBigB]

The first version of SF was great, with Wendy, Marvin, & Wonderdog. :) The CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS series with the Legion of Doom was good, too.

Hey, Hey, Hey, it's FaaAAAAAAtttt Albert!

[coydog]

Originally Japanese - Called "Gatchaman" there. You should see what Sandy Frank cut out of it.

[Drew68]

SpongeBob's worth seeing. But he's on cable and DVD.

Never seen it but it seems to be popular. I can enjoy children's programming when the producers toss in a few bones to the adults --the ones that fly right over the kids' heads yet leave the adults laughing.

[TC Rider]

Man do I feel old. When I was a kid, Saturday morning was mostly Westerns. Roy Rogers, Lone Ranger, Sky King and Rin Tin Tin ruled the day. About the only animation I recall was Mighty Mouse.

[netmilsmom]

Saturday morning on ABC is nothing but a giant commercial for McDonalds and Disney. We turn it off ASAP and go for Noggin.
Little Bear is a sweet show and Duck is the funniest charater on TV. She is a ditz. One episode all the friends were going to paint Hen's house. Little Bear ended up with a gallon of white paint dumped over him. He felt he turned into a Polar Bear. Duck asked him, "Are you all....white?" and laughed at her own joke. Over the course of the next ten minutes of the show, Duck continually asked him if he was "all white" and laughed hysterically. It had my kids in stitches and I was tearing up.
There is no equal on network tv.

[grimalkin]

Today's cartoons are generally boring and dumb. I remember how excited I was about cartoons when I was a kid. After school it was Woody Woodpecker, Pink Panther, Superfriends, Bugs Bunny, etc.. Saturday mornings were always Bugs Bunny & Friends, The Smurfs (lol), and some others. All very entertaining without any of the PC crud mixed in. My dad used to watch Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner with me. It was his favorite.

[PJ-Comix]

The reason for the decline in viewing of Saturday morning cartoons on the tube is that they suck bigtime. Even kids get numb watching that pablum.

[ffusco]

Yeah...the characters were kinda lame, but the Hardware! Also I think it was 3rd gen after Speed Racer.

[virgil]

We never missed Johnny Quest, The Lone Ranger cartoon, Superman, Fantastic 4, Fantastic Voyage, Space Ghost. Then when it was over we had to watch American Bandstand because of my older sister...boring. There was lots of adventure cartoons with different story lines and they seemed to have real stories back then.

[RayChuang88]

As opposed to having to wait until Saturday morning for cartoons, the kids can get 'em 24/7, thanks to Nickelodean, Disney Channel, Toon Disney, Nick Toons, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, ABC Family and whoever else decides to show cartoons (and that's not even counting anime)...

That is absolutely correct. Before the 1990's, the only place you could see cartoons were on Saturday mornings or on syndicated blocs of cartoon programming from around 0600 to 0900 hours in the mornings and 1400 to 1700 hours in the afternoon in weekdays. Now, with the fact most cable systems carrying at least Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, you can get cartoons effectively 24 hours per day. (Toon Disney and Boomerang are not yet common on cable systems but you can get them on even basic DirecTV and Dish Network satellite packages.)

Because of that rapid proliferation, the whole idea of Saturday morning cartoons has just become obselete. The future of Saturday morning programming for younger viewers will be more emphasis on live programming like the Discovery Kids bloc on NBC.

[ffusco]

DING!

[netmilsmom]

Do you have "Boomerang"?
All Hanna Barbera, all the time.
Their slogan is "Boomerang, it's all coming back to you"!

[coydog]

Did you say... Superfriends? };-)

[ffusco]

I can only guess. . .(Akira?)..seems like they dubbed new voices for the villain who wore lipstick......

[666beast]

i made my folks cringe watching Transformers, Robotech, and Voltron.

Robotech was great because it was SOOOOOOOOOO melodramatic!

[mollynme]

My favorites were the Hanna-Barbera offerings, eh Boo-Boo?

[CyberCowboy777]

Speaking of the Discovery Kids bloc on NBC, OPJY seemed interesting.