Saturday Morning Cartoons Cease To Exist; Childhood Lost

And that sound you hear, is the sound of children playing outside. Because children can no longer stay inside to watch their Saturday Morning. Cartoons. Okay , it is not that drastic. With 24-hour specialty cable networks and a litany of streaming video-on-demand services like Netflix, you might have missed it – an end to an era, of sorts.

Saturday, Oct. 4 was the first time in 50 years that no over-the-air television network broadcast a cartoon, according to National Public Radio. The CW became the final network to cut cartoons from their Saturday morning lineup last Saturday, replacing their programming block called “The Vortexx” with five hours of family-oriented, non-animated TV called “One Magnificent Morning.”

Really CW? Live, educational television? GI Joe had “the more you know” ads.

Shows that have cone and gone like Ghostbusters, The Jetsons, Pepper Ann, Ducktale, Scooby Doo and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have all been relegated to our collective memory.

According to the Washington Post , the demise of Saturday morning cartoons began in 1992 when shows like “Saved By the Bell” began entering the mainstay into morning programming. Then the FCC began demanding three hours of educational programming a week for networks, but not cable.

Over the next decade networks like ABC began shedding cartoons for live action and education morning line ups mixed with news programming on Saturdays. In 2008 Fox dropped children’s Saturday morning programming completely, opting instead for infomercials.

At the same time places like the Disney XD and Cartoon Network launched on cable and satellite, followed by streaming services that made Saturday morning cartoons less profitable, or necessary.

By 2003, cartoons were bringing in just 2 million viewers, a huge drop from 20 years before. So what did in Saturday morning cartoons? Cable, technology like streaming and DVDs, and the FCC.

But besides just that, access to hundreds of channels, plus DVDs, Hulu, and Netflix made getting a cartoon fix less imminent for kids.

They now have access to cartoons whenever they want them, whether that’s on the living room floor on a Saturday morning or under their covers at 11 p.m.

“It’s sad, though, that an entire generation of kids is missing out on lazy Saturdays filled with excellent cartoons,” Jessica Rawden wrote on Cinema Blend. “Replacing them with cheaper, educational content was bound to happen, but a little magic has been lost in the process.”

So what was your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?

Saturday Morning Cartoons Cease To Exist; Childhood Lost