So what happened to Saturday day morning cartoons? what happened to them?

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they're on a secret channel only children can access. because they're cartoons.
 
hannah montana, the suite life and other live disney shows have replaced a lot of cartoons. out of the cartoons that remain a lot are anime so they arent worth watching to start with.

the good old days of saturday morning cartoons are sadly long gone.
 
Probably too expensive to make. I'm sure tween Hannah Montana crap has a bigger audience anyway. USA doesn't like cartoons
 
Because cartoons are on pretty much 24/7 on multiple cable channels, PVRs, kids have tons of DVDs and streaming internet services, and then there's video games. What's the point of getting up that early?

Back in the day Saturday Morning was special because it was a magical, animated oasis in the vast desert of television.
 
big_z said:
hannah montana, the suite life and other live disney shows have replaced a lot of cartoons. out of the cartoons that remain a lot are anime so they arent worth watching to start with.

the good old days of saturday morning cartoons are sadly long gone.
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Sorry, what?

You have Sym Bionic Titan, Clone Wars and Generator Rex back to back on Saturday morning.

Then you have Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 and Scooby Doo Mystery Inc.

These are awesome shows, and 10 times better than the crap we had in the 80's. I would even dare to say that it's better than some of the 90's shows.
 
Was the second question really necessary in the thread title?

Saturday mornings have sucked for years. I can't even attribute it to me growing "too old" for them; the content is mindblowingly bad. I think there is Dragonball Z on the CW, but that's the edited version of Dragonball Z Kai with blue Mr. Popo.
 
When I was young I just remember Transformers and GI Joe and Mask the tv show. Then later Garfield and Friends. There were probably more but those stood out. Anyone know where you can watch the old mask tv carton tv show?
 
Kids are too busy playing video games and manchilds are either working or hangover so there is no market for this shows anymore.
 
lunarworks said:
Because cartoons are on pretty much 24/7 on multiple cable channels, PVRs, kids have tons of DVDs and streaming internet services, and then there's video games. What's the point of getting up that early?

Back in the day Saturday Morning was special because it was a magical, animated oasis in the vast desert of television.
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ding ding ding
 
Where are you, OP?

Right now...in New York, these local channels are showing cartoons on Sat. morning:

CBS(2)
NBC(4)
ABC(7)
CW (11)

Of those, CBS/NBC are educational. ABC is Disney shows, and CW is a mix of various anime and other shows (right now, Dragonball Z Kai is showing, for example.)

And if you are just talking about cable, you can just watch one of the many 24/7 cartoon channels (the latest one being Hub). There is no lack of content to actually watch on Saturday mornings, actually.
 
spindashing said:
Was the second question really necessary in the thread title?

Saturday mornings have sucked for years. I can't even attribute it to me growing "too old" for them; the content is mindblowingly bad. I think there is Dragonball Z on the CW, but that's the edited version of Dragonball Z Kai with blue Mr. Popo.
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Hold on, they made Mr.Popo blue? :lol
 
My roommate was lamenting this an hour ago. He couldnt find any on, we were fairly surprised. I remember I used to switch between Fox and some other channel with good cartoons, we couldnt even find one.
 
lunarworks said:
Because cartoons are on pretty much 24/7 on multiple cable channels, PVRs, kids have tons of DVDs and streaming internet services, and then there's video games. What's the point of getting up that early?

Back in the day Saturday Morning was special because it was a magical, animated oasis in the vast desert of television.
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Exactly.
 
Kids these days are too busy sleeping in, curing their hang-overs, and having enough trouble finding an aspirin, some gatorade and a pack of cigs.
 
You really want to watch what they call cartoons these days anyway? Not a single swamp monster or plot to enslave humanity to be found.
 
I'm on mobile so this won't be as detailed as I would like. First, congress changed the criteria for educational standards in broadcast television. A lot of syndicated and Saturday morning cartoons were just thinly veiled ways to meet this. (remember how he man and GI Joe had morality lessons at the end of every episode? There's a reason they were there). When those standards were changed, a lot of kids programming got the boot in favor of talk shows or infomercials.

Second, competition from cable channels (and the internet and games as well) meant a shrinking audience for it.

Third, its flat out cheaper to just put together a live action show with F list actors these days than it is to invest in animation. Most of your "good" shows back in the day were heavily subsidized by toy sales.
 
I've given up on it years ago. Its weird to say I feel sorry for kids today because they have a nearly limitless supply of cartoons on the internet if they know where to look, and we had 5 hours on a Saturday. But I do kinda feel sorry for kids today.

Veidt said:
Found video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KIk47527MA

:lol:lol
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Its hilarious. I'm sympathetic to their reasoning behind it, but man did they botch the job.
 
Saturday morning cartoons exist on DVD. It's great to know that everything I grew up with like, Looney Tunes, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, TMNT, Slimer and The Real Ghostbusters and Muppet Babies are available and I can watch anytime and don't have to rely on the networks to somehow resurrect these programs.
 
I remember waking up at like 4 in the morning to see the "start" of the cartoons, as I'd never done it before. I had to sit through a couple hours of fishing shows, but I eventually saw the beginning... It really wasn't anything special, but it was totally worth it. Then at the end of the block, it would lead into Jack Hannah's Animal Adventures.

It's not just Saturday morning though. I remember coming home after school to catch Eek the Cat, Bobby's World, and Power Rangers.
 
I remember about a year or two ago there was that new ninja turtles and other cartoons on basic cable, but not one cartoon on those channels. That's why i'm kinda confused. I'm in Georgia by way.
 
I am from London and children's TV has been fucking dire. It's bad, so bad. As a child i had terrestrial tv and thus only 5 channels. On holidays i could watch TV from morning to afternoons alternating between saturday morning NBC, Marvel action hour and SMTV live. However kid's TV today is not something i can see kids getting nostalgic over. The last good kids' TV shows were Jackie Chan adventures and the TMNT reboot. Damn shame a damn shane.
 
They stopped making Saturday Morning cartoons after they realized nothing could top this...

34dq7p1.jpg

... awww yeah... Come on Netflix, stream this shit already, I can't wait for the Discs. :lol

Seriously though, I seem to recall in the early 90s that the major networks decided that Saturday Morning cartoons weren't worth the effort. NBC started running the Today show and CBS ran the Early Show. For the longest time it was only Fox that stuck with cartoons. ABC started up after being acquired by Disney, if I recall.
 
lunarworks said:
Because cartoons are on pretty much 24/7 on multiple cable channels, PVRs, kids have tons of DVDs and streaming internet services, and then there's video games. What's the point of getting up that early?
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This.

Good question, though. Such a pivotal tradition for my childhood; kinda sad it's gone.
 
Cartoons are shitty now anyway.

Cartoon Network started showing lazy animation e.g Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack, Powerpuff Girls etc... and then studios realised they could make cartoons with no effort put into them and get away with it.
 
PumpkinPie said:
Cartoons are shitty now anyway.

Cartoon Network started showing lazy animation e.g Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack, Powerpuff Girls etc... and then studios realised they could make cartoons with no effort put into them and get away with it.
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Some of those Cartoon Network shows that have "lazy animation" are in reality far more entertaining than most of those '80s cartoons we look back on with a golden, nostalgic glow.

I think our fondness of '80s cartoons (for those of us who were kids in the '80s) has more to do with the memories that surround them, rather than the actual quality of the shows themselves.
 
Peggy Charren's Group Action for Children's Television got the Children's Television Act passed in 1990, and it began to be more strictly enforced in 1996. Good cartoons got replaced with shit-tacular E/I cartoons and live action shows.


American Animation is just not hitting it anymore. Smoke weed and watch anime errry day.
 
I don't know about over the air, but there's tons of awesome shit on now on cable.

On any given day my kids can watch SpongeBob, Phineas and Ferb, Penguins of Madagascar, Johnny Test, Scooby Doo, Dexter's Lab, Courage the Cowardly Dog....the list goes on and on. In addition, there's a channel devoted to showing all of the cartoons I grew up with.

Compared to the 4 hours a week of cartoons I got as a kid, my kids have it made in the shade. And the cartoons tend to be as good or better - I personally think Spongebob, Phineas and Ferb, and Penguins are all freaking hilarious.
 
I've pretty much outgrown Saturday morning cartoons, but Spectacular Spider-Man on the CW was pretty awesome. The first few volumes are on Netflix WI.
 
lunarworks said:
Because cartoons are on pretty much 24/7 on multiple cable channels, PVRs, kids have tons of DVDs and streaming internet services, and then there's video games. What's the point of getting up that early?

Back in the day Saturday Morning was special because it was a magical, animated oasis in the vast desert of television.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this. The age of Saturday morning cartoons is long past.

Anybody remember back when they had those TV specials during the fall when they would debut clips from the upcoming season of Saturday morning cartoons? Those were good times.
 
I think a lot of it has shifted to more afternoon and evening programming, especially for "new" episodes of animated shows. Down where I live a lot of the Saturday programming has an educational emphasis on it. I don't see the classic blocks of programming we used to get with Nick, ABC, NBC, and other channels.
 
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